to need some attention?

[Chloe55]

Feel like I am going to eplode but do also feel like a selfish, childish wife who needs to get a grip and support her husband.

Basically, dh has been doing his accountancy exams for many years now - he has finals at the end of this month (for the 3rd time) and has been studying very regularly either side of his full time job since Christmas. The only times he hasn't studied on an evening or weekend is when a footie game has been on or he/we have been out with friends.

He has also been setting off to work at or before 7am in the morning and not getting home till 7pm at night so we are a bit like ships passing in the night at the moment. I am a childminder and we have a 4 year old, my hours have increased to 40+ a week these past couple of months and I do 2 ironing jobs a week as we are in a fair amount of debt and my job does not pay too good at the moment because although I work long hours I am not 'full' if you understand what I mean.

Now, we always agreed that when my job got busier we would equally share the housework, garden, childcare etc. Obviously, this is not the case at the moment as dh is studying so I am doing the lot on my own more or less. The only time he will help is when I ask him to put out the bins, I get frustrated that I often feel he uses his studying as an excuse to not do anything half the time, I mean, seriously, how long does it actually take to load the washing machine or throw the hoover round?

Because of my job the house gets very untidy very quickly and always needs to be in a good state of cleanliness the following morning, it can't be left til the weekend or anything. Then, on the weekend it seems to just be me and our son, he misses his dad and I miss my husband. My gripe isn't with him studying, I know he needs to do that to pass his exams and make a better life for us as a family - my moan is with the fact that he will put down his books if it suits him - I am aware that he needs time away from his books, it just makes me sad that he doesn't spend it with us.

We are also TTC, after 3 years of trying I finally been diagnosed with PCOS. I have been finding that I go through periods of feeling very low and cry...a lot. I am going through one of these now and I just want my husband to drop what he is doing for one minute, ask me how I'm feeling, tell me it's all alright and throw his arms around me

Ok, stone me for being an unsupportive bitch.

Nope no stoning from me, I have just spoken on another thread about how I feel about being left all the time on my own with 4DC.

I have no words of advice as I am trying to sort out my own head and marriage, but wanted to offer you a [hug] and let you know someone had read your post and understood.

xxx

I couldn't read and run. You are not unsupportive, you are doing an incredible job, and you need your husband to support you as much as you support him.

Have you been able to talk to him about this calmly?

very unMN [hug] for you x

If calmly involves throwing an empty wine bottle at the bottle bin and smashing it to smitherines because it was the one thing I asked him to do last night then yeah his reply to that was that I need to get a grip and after telling me he does f**cking loads in the house he then told me he couldn't be arsed and got in his car and drove off

I for you.

HappyWoman wrote on my thread and what she said was look at it from his point of view, coming come to in my case silent treatment, anger, resentment, etc. No-one would want to come home to that - I don't know if this is happening in your case, but it was in mine, only yesterday I asked him to talk, and we did properly after the DC were in bed.

He has listened to me at long last and has promised to see what he could do with working hours, and also to switch off when he is home, so he is going to from tonight switch off his phone when he walks through the door, no doing anything for work on his laptop, nothing but us and the DC.

Whether these things may work for you, I don't know, but I would say try to talk again with him seriously, no shouting. I tried another tack when talking last night, in saying how his actions were making me feel rather than you do this and stop doing that....

I hope you can resolve this and hope I can too

xx

Sorry that you're having a crap time of it, OP.

I know that you say that cash is tight but could you possibly afford to get some help in for a few hours per week? I had a lovely lady help me when I had SPD when I was pregnant and she did 5 hours a week for £30. She was a God-send. Or do you have a mum/MiL/friend who'd help you with chores?

Try and focus on the fact that it's not forever and things will improve after DH's finals...

DH too studied for 5 years while our DC's were younger and I worked part time but with baby so this sounded quite familiar although you say he has his exams this month? - can you last til then just to take pressure off him? I know it sounds soft but if you can then he will appreciate your support and things will be a lot easier and he will thank you. I thought mine hadn't noticed until he thanked me at his graduation!

Could any family/friends help you for a few hours just til exams finish?

You say in one part that he is always studying, then you say in another he puts books down when it suits him.

Can you elaborate?
He sounds pretty bloody selfish to me actually. I'd leave off trying for a baby until you sort it as that will add so much more stress and work-to you presumably.

Thanks very much for your replies. I have woken up in a much better frame of mind this morning. He was late home from work again last night (just in case you were wondering, I know eh is at work when he says he is through phonecalls etc, I trust him completely) but he walked in with some poor traffic excuseso I kissed my boy, walked out and went for a run, came home and went straight to bed.

I woke this morning to a fair amount of ironing done and breakfast and a coffee so I think he is aware that something needed doing. We spoke a little about it this morning before he went to work (at a reasonable hour) and agreed we need to find 'us' again, that we both work hard and both just need a break from time to time.

Oh I would LOVE a cleaner. The sad thing is that when I was 19 I could afford one and she was fab, now at 29 there is no way in the world - thought we were supposed to go up the ladder as we get older