Husband's evening hobby making things hard

[IGB9723]

This is a long one.
Husband has a hobby that he used to, pre parenthood, attend 4/5 evenings a week. He would be out of the house from 17:30-20:30.
Once we had our child, this reduced to 2 times a week, with the occasional extra night in where he could.

I found that I was doing ALL the household chores etc and found it extremely overwhelming, trying to ensure dinner, bath and bed was sorted as well as everything else.
I am back at work 4 days a week. Currently, my daughter goes to my mums on a Tuesday for the night. On a Tuesday, we agreed my husband can do his hobby, as well as a Friday. As long as dinner was prepped for us. Daughter is at nursery Friday and an absolutely exhausted terror afterwards.
I collect my daughter on Wednesdays and as my mum is an hour away, this takes a large part of my evening as I finish work at 5.

Husband has been having issues and is now having therapy on Tuesdays. So hadn’t been doing his hobby on Tuesdays. My husband approached me and said his therapist has informed him it would appear he isn’t getting enough time to get his rush of adrenaline etc etc.

Come September, my mum can no longer have my daughter on Tuesday nights.

My husband has asked if he can continue going two nights a week come September. The issue is, it’s during dinner, bath and bedtime. And our daughter isn’t a great sleeper. Often taking an hour to get to sleep, and then waking numerous times before we go to bed ourselves.

my husband struggles with our daughter and doesn’t like to be left alone with her. I therefore find it very difficult to leave him with her as I feel guilty for both of them.

I find it very overwhelming trying to do everything and I think it’s unfair when my husband could try find a hobby for after bed time, or on a weekend!

i also have therapy on Thursdays for my anxiety issues and so don’t have those free.

am I being unfair?

He sounds like a self indulgent, rude liar. I think you'd both be better off without him, he causes way more hassle than he's worth.

This was my life 6 years ago.
Now single mum
Kids so much happier

Life is so much easier.....

I just wish I had left sooner.

He sounds like a complete selfish twat and he is taking the piss out of you. His therapist has not told him that at all, he’s lied to you to force his own way I’m afraid.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t find parenthood fulfilling, he has a responsibility to his child and they have to be cared for. Everyone has hobbies and some are more time consuming than others, but 2 nights a week, every week plus another playing with his toys? That’s a lot when he seemingly isn’t pulling his weight around the house.

You are putting so much stress on yourselves.
Stick with frozen food when you need to or batch cook.
How dirty is your house that you have so many chores? What can you outsource? Can you afford to outsource?
most people from the forces are difficult to live with.
he sounds useless you should have stayed gone why did you return?

Op did this man actively want a child? How old are you both, was he ready to have a child?

He sounds awful.

But you also sound like you are being a bit of a martyr to Bedtime being a massive hard part of the day that requires two people or its a nightmare?

I live near london & most people commute in for work and most people's partners round here aren't home from work til 7.30, usually people are alternating doing wfh days etc. So you just put the kids to bed by yourself.

Can you sit him down and suggest ways you can both prep for the week ahead to make that period easier for you the couple of evenings he wants to be out. Tell him he needs to batch cook on a weekend so that there's dinner that just needs heating. Don't be a wet blanket about it. And start taking an evening out for yourself. Yes he'll find it hard with DD at first amd guess what, he'll get used to it.

He sounds pretty selfish and I think it is a mistake to shelve your career as you might need to support yourself financially if you split. I would be studying on the evenings he is responsible for bed/bath etc or the weekend when he is around. I also think you need to consider rehoming the dogs as you have both obviously taken on too much there.

For goodness sake don’t have another baby with him. He isn’t cut out to be a parent. He is only concerned with his needs.

I agree with this.

hobby 2 nights a week I think is fine, marines no.

In my own opinion, it’s important for both parents to maintain their own identities post-kids and have some down time. That means you should have some as well. Can you not leave him to it with the kids two nights a week and do something you enjoy? You should be getting out as a family too. We have an 8 year old and a 6 week old. OH likes to tinker with cars, I like to have a long undisturbed bath with a book. We prioritise this time for each other as well as doing stuff together, even if it means an evening walk to the park with the kids to clear some cobwebs and fuck to routines. It makes the parenting grind easier to bear when it feels less relentless, but you both need time to yourselves otherwise you’ll start to feel resentful and resentment breeds contempt.

Kids are hard work, we all know it, especially babies/toddlers/smaller kids but I find it much easier to manage when I have time to wind down and time to just be me rather than ‘mum’, but it’s important for you both to be on equal footing with it.

It’s too easy to get sucked onto the hamster wheel of work, tea, bath, bed, work, tea, bath, bed; with nothing in between to decompress. We started off like this with our first, then came the competitive tiredness, the resentment when one of us wanted to do something for ourselves and it was awful. So we agreed that we both get set time aside for ourselves as well as family time and both our mental health is much better for it.

Please do not put yourself last. Your partner is banking on it to get his own way.

I speak from personal experience when I say, are you depressed or are you just with a shit man? Where is the counselling going to take you if you can’t / won’t make any changes?

You can only change your own behaviour. Yes to spending time with your Mum, easy tea and less baths (my middle went to a dermatologist who said bath town twice a week as even with oil dries the skin)

If you get roped into helping out, the only thing that will work is physically leaving. Otherwise he will continue to take the piss. Tell don’t ask. Eg. Saturday morning I am heading to the gym.

Life is not to suppose to be this hard. I think your partner is sucking the enjoyment out of your life and if you split you’d be a happier,
less anxious person . I also think you’d enjoy your Dd more. There’s something very freeing on having to do the chores because you are the only adult versus having to cos the other adult is lazy / shit / absent!

@Springtime97 👏👏👏

As a single parent who left her useless OH I can confirm it.
3 hours max and whole house is done.
No manchild whining about his neeeeeds and mental health while being absent from being a parent,partner and husband.

Less stress,no crippling anxiety,kids more relaxed and clean house (untidy sometimes but lived in).

I can’t see @IGB9723 one positive thing your “D”H brings to your table/relationship.

You have one life. Take care of yourself as nobody else will. Burn out is just round the corner when the day comes that literally you can’t take more physically or mentally.

lol I think you've got some wires crossed. I answered this:

How the fuck does anyone get adrenaline from childcare?

your reply seems to be responding to something I didn't say, perhaps you meant someone else.

Give him his marching orders. A man that disengaged with family life is not worth having. What does he bring to the table? He's taking advantage of your good nature. You and your daughter will be better off without him.
I'm sorry to be so harsh.
Probably because my daughter is in a very similar position with their 4 year old daughter. She has a high pressure job 4 days a week and she usually works on the fifth anyway. Her partner works very hard but has three children (now teenagers) from his previous relationship who stay fortnightly. They are not easy and pretty toxic, we worry about our granddaughter exposed to their many dramas. Guess who looks after all their needs? No surprise it's my daughter as her chap bolts elsewhere for most of the time when they come on their alternate weekends!!

Why is there not time for you but there is time for him!? Take your 2 nights and let him do everything you do on his 2 nights.
If he cant/won't look after his own child and do his fair share around the house you may as well be a single parent.

It is coming across that you are not ready to leave him yet. You want him to change, but he doesn't want to. He gets everything he wants, manages to avoid what he doesn't want to do.

So make him step up or get out.
Tell him you no longer have the capacity to run around after him. You are not his mother.
He can do his own washing/drying/ironing. If he chucks it in the machine & leaves it, do not hang it out. If you need to do a load then put his in a bin bag & leave it by the machine. If he argues with "but it would only take you 5 minutes" you reply so it will only take YOU 5 minutes.

If he is not eating the same as you & the dc then he can do his own. And clean up after himself.

Any day to day stuff you do which is solely for his benefit you stop. He is an adult. He can manage his own stuff.

He can walk HIS dogs daily. If he doesn't then he can rehome them. His behaviour is not fair on them.

If possible spend more time at your mum's. Do not shop for him to cover this time.

Tell him you are doing all of this to prevent your own burn out. You are doing this for your own mental health - according to him he knows how important this is.
He won't take much notice but he can't say you didn't tell him.

He may start to step up & be less selfish, realise what he is losing. But from your own posts, I doubt it.

As you start to assert yourself and feel less wiped out & put upon, you may decide you are better off without him.

Wishing you the best of luck @IGB9723.

@IGB9723

No offence but why the hell are you still with this man??

You're going to sacrifice your career & by the sounds of it, mental health, for a sulky, useless twat who treats you like a doormat & loses his temper all the time?? Why??

Leave him!! You're a single parent anyway. Build some support around you & your daughter, get your qualifications/career back on track & find a partner who treats you with the respect you deserve. Life is way too short to stay with this waste of space.

Yup. This sums it up.

quite. I think the appropriate answer to ‘fatherhood isn’t for me’ is you shouldn’t get a choice since you are a father, but I’d rather do just about anything than have our children exposed to that opinion from their father so fuck off now please. NOW. No, you don’t have time to pack a bag. Get out.

Guess who looks after all their needs? No surprise it's my daughter as her chap bolts elsewhere for most of the time when they come on their alternate weekends!!

@ByNattyAnt can’t your DD bolt to you with DGD for the weekend?

What a lazy fucker🤬 why she puts up with it?

Did you discuss all this before you had the baby? If you knew he had a hobby which took so many evenings, why was it not discussed before you planned to have the baby?

If you had discussed the problem before you were pregnant and he had agreed to spend a lot more time helping raise the baby and help with the extra work, you would be in a much better place to tell him to help share the marriage together in all ways.

If you did not, and he assumed he could carry on as he was and that you would take over the extra work, it will be more difficult to discuss.

I hope your post helps others plan for after the children come.

Did you not discuss his role before you became pregnant? If you did, then I sympathise when you say you did not 'sign up' for it.

So many women want children that they think they can cope and don't mind if the father won't help, until after the birth. Then it is too late.

He's not the man for you op. Relationships can need work but shouldn't cause these issues.

I would suggest that you will in time be happier without this excuse of a husband and father

Sounds like you are a bit disjointed when it comes to being a team.

There is nothing wrong with him having a hobby and 2 evenings week isn’t that bad. But I think you also need a hobby. One that takes you out of the house and out of mum mode. He will cope. He’s a parent. Sometimes you just have to leave them to it to figure it out.

I honestly think you won’t resent him as much if you are getting time to escape too.

I have read far too many threads on MN from women who have had children with men who were quite ambivalent about having them in the first place then who have abdicated all responsibility of being a parent.

I also know several women in RL who wanted children more than their husbands did, and guess what - they all ended up being single mothers.

Why do women do this? Why can't they let their heads rule their hearts?

Having children should be a joint decision with both partners wanting them equally.

IMO, women shouldn't coerce men into (unwanted) parenthood.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying the OP did this, but having children with a man who is obsessive about spending a lot of time on his "hobbies" should have been a huge red flag.

Husband: "Can I just be a single man? But also live here and reap the rewards and comfort of being looked after?!?"

No. No. He can't. Time for dad to learn he's not the babysitter but the coparent

perhaps if you’d read the op’s posts you’d understand that she actually would like to spend some ‘free’ time at home, and also study to further her career. Your unhelpful post offers no solution to her clearly stated problems.

Is he really going to see a therapist?

Pigs might fly

He is using you as a mug snd a door mat.

Get Rid.