To be feeling constantly overwhelmed?

[Rainbowstarssunlight]

I have a 4 and 7 year old. I got made redundant at the end of my second maternity leave and ended up being self-employed for nearly 3 years. It worked out well and I made plenty of money and it allow me a lot of flexibility with family life.

Fast forward to this year, and a really good job opportunity came up on a 12 month fixed term contract, full-time. I felt like I should take it because it would look very good on my CV and be a good step back into an employed role. It would also help the family financially as it is highly paid. In this employment market felt like a no brainer.My DH works shifts but has recently gone part time (we decided this before my job offer came up because he was working almost all weekends and we never got a family life). He works 5 on, 7 off and for the 5 on he doesn’t always have a shift. It really varies from no shifts to one everyday. This means sometimes he might have as much as 19 straight days off.

On paper, this sounds great, but somehow we can’t make it work and I just feel overwhelmed the entire time. My job is fine, people are nice and I can do the work but it’s reasonably full on and I often dash home from the office to put the kids to bed or see them briefly and then open my laptop again in the evening. The youngest in particular finds it all a bit upsetting and it’s constantly crying for me wanting me to take her to nursery put her to bed etc.

I have outsourced as much as I can - I now have a cleaner, gardener and send ironing out. But I still feel like I never get a chance to make a home-cooked meal, do any reading book or spellings with the eldest and by the weekend I’m exhausted with juggling it all. DH isn’t a massive home person so he’ll do some DIY and put a wash on but most other stuff falls to me.

When I try to get him involved things always go wrong. For example, we went away for the weekend and he was off for the whole week prior so I asked him to pack for the kids. For one kid he brought loads and then the other he brought only 2 t shirts (but oddly 9 pairs of shorts) for 5 days. I try not to criticise so just find myself making a mental note that I’ll do the packing next time. I have loads of examples of this sort of thing. The result of this means that I’m picking up more and more.

He does a very responsible job that I have respect for and complete faith in him. He is very highly regarded. But he seems to really struggle with simple day-to-day tasks, he’s always forgetting things or getting things wrong. I have an any time pass on our supermarket online shopping so we can order any time but he just forgets to do it. I was away a couple of nights this week with work and came home to the fridge being completely empty and there’s nothing to feed the kids. It wasn’t the end of the world because he just gave them a cream cheese sandwich but I just find it weird when all he needs to do is a few taps on his phone.

Are some people just wired differently? I’m very methodical and organised and I find it difficult to relate to the challenge he has with simple everyday tasks. I know people will say he’s lazy and should be more thoughtful and believe me I feel like this sometimes too. But to be honest, it does seem quite genuine. He tries but just keeps messing up!

Because he thinks you should and will do it.

He gets to be a father and have a nice home, at your expense - your time and health/wellbeing.

This may well be true to some extent - it's certainly possible that his standards for tidiness are lower than yours. But it doesn't apply to washing or packing, does it? He still wants clean pants and packs himself a sensible number of T shirts. I think you're making excuses for him.

So why would he do such a shit job for kids? Seriously, have a long hard think about that.
Some options

He thought you’d do it anyway
He doesn’t care about their warmth or comfort
He resents having to do it so deliberately did it badly to force the exact scenario you say - that you’ll do it next time
He’s lost the ability to know going away for X days means a human needs roughly Y sets of clothes.

If your husband is capable of holding a job that requires a certain degree of organisation and decision making, he is choosing to not use those skills at home.
If your husband is capable of feeeding himself a healthy diet, he's choosing to care less about his children's diet.
If your husband is capable of packing a functional and sensible selection of clothes for himself when going on a trip, he's choosing to care less about what he packs for his children.

In your mind, you're already thinking about taking more and more tasks on, as he's so frustrating and incompetent.
This will leave you overwhelmed and will likely create resentment towards your husband.

Your husband could be using weaponided incompetence or just being too blasé. The reason is not really relevant, the main thing is that he knows you'll step in and even take the responsability away from you. Your burden will only increase, and so will your sense of being constantly overwhelmed.

You need to stop this now. But be careful as men get defensive in these scenarios: "I packed their cases, didn't I?" "They did not go hungry, did they?". The fact that they could do basic research on what to pack or quickly order food with an app seems irrelevant when they get into their defensive mode.

You need to have a very rational, fact based talk with your husband. Look at the Fair Play method. Educate yourself on mental load. And then propose to have a family calendar, or a shared app for reminders. A "family meeting" once a week to look at the week ahead is very useful and allows to write things down in a family calendar so there is evidence of what needs to be done and the tasks are assigned to a family member. You could even agree on what needs to be packed for a trip there: "Tuesday, Peter to pack as per the list". And make the list together, you can even push him (a bit like with a child, sadly) using the Socratic method: "how many t-shirts do you think Millie needs?" "Only 2? We're going away for a week and she's messy, do you think more would be a good idea?". Again, you might see an attitude of "well, you do this, as you clearly know better than me". This is again a very defensive comeback, which men know it works because the woman will get things sorted, as they normally do.

I've been where you are, and to an extent, still am. I wish I had nipped it in the bud and set more robust systems to balance the load.

I'm no longer with my husband and carried a lot of resentment for a long time (there were other reasons that contributed to our split though).

I have full time childcare/wrap around for kids already because his days off change every week.

I have tried versions of this overtime both collaborative and calm and then at times I have lost my shit and got angry. Usually when I’m completely broken and overwhelmed by everything.

However I approach it he gets defensive. His family are the same, they don’t take any sort of criticism and react awfully when you challenge their way of thinking. I can really see these traits in him.

I blame generational parenting and the fact he has probably been brought up to assume a 'wife' will run the home. I'm no career woman and loved being a SAHM, but have instilled in my own son that now two people have to work to pay the bills, they both have to take on household chores equally.

Maybe it would be worth looking into a few counselling sessions OP? Improving your communication as a couple (eg not getting defensive) is bread and butter for any good counsellor.

As everyone has said you’re overwhelmed because you’re doing the job of 2 adults while working FT and you’re carrying the resentment of him not taking on tasks too. My friend is a solo mum by choice and although she’s overwhelmed I do see that the lack of emotional baggage frees up a lot of focus/headspace too.

im not judging as i‘m Ina similar situation with a shift working DH (on FT hours) and I’m self employed wit a 5 and 8 year old. I’m totally overwhelmed - so much so I’ve abandoned plans to transition back into a proper job as I just can’t see how we can do it. My career and income is suffering but I’m already drowning as thing are now. I’m also in perimenopause and suffering a lot of physical issues too.

Hoping other posters in this thread who say youngest in y3 is a turning point are right

Your husband appears to hold down a responsible job without causing chaos or forgetting to do things.
I bet he has no problem sorting out things for himself.
I'm afraid he is doing this on purpose as he know his mummy (you) will come home and make it better for him.
Nothing will change until you stop enabling him.