at home mums...how do you avoid resenting your partner?

[queenballerina]

I am a new mum. Have decided to stay at home for various reasons, but find it very difficult not to resent my husband.

he works extremely long hours and in this economy is not making good money. So we are struggling but I find it hardest that it seems like I do everything. He barely sees our baby, and does almost nothing with her except for a few cuddles sunday afternoon.

I have to do all the housework and everything for the baby and I am exhausted, yet he says he is exhausted because he works so hard!

how do you resolve this? how do I feel better about being at home?

You sound a wee bit ungrateful tbh OP.

Ungrateful ??? Why should she be grateful ?
She is unhappy and probably stressed and tired !
OP is a new Mum,.. and however much you want a baby- or what plans you have made, the reality can come as a huge shock.

Of course her husband is working hard and may feel stressed too - but he should be giving her AND his baby more support than a few cuddles on a Sunday.

My son works long hours and travels sometimes a couple of hundred miles a day for work, but when he comes home he often has to get the dinner ready for the children when his wife is working that evening - He gets up early at weekends so he can get the kids ready while his wife has a lie in - and then he takes the kids out to play football or to the park. He helps with the housework and even does ironing ! Perhaps OP should expect MORE from her husband !

I work full time and am the main wage earner, DH is part time. IMO full time work is hard, but a hell of a lot easier than being at home full time. I wish that I could stay at home with my DD and i miss her, but am under no illusions that I would find it easy. I'm not really getting those who think the OP should be 'grateful' that her husband works full time. My DH is not grateful (although he does appreciate what I do and vice versa), and he certainly expects me to pull my weight at home, which I do. No way would I be working all week and then just having a few cuddles with DD on a Sunday afternoon!

I agree that Competitive Tiredness is not the way to go - it's a competition that doesn't end for years and years and you'll hate each other before there's a winner.

The key point is that you work 7 days a week, and he needs to give you a break/help out at weekends. You are both equally entitled to time off. And it is a huge adjustment because pre baby you do actually get proper weekends and proper breaks - lots of people find it hard to accept the change.

Wow, I thank you all for the responses and different views.

I guess I am just finding the whole thing very hard. It just seems sometimes that his life continued exactly how it was before baby and mine has been turned upside down.

Husband does work very hard and is under financial pressure so I sympathise with him there. But he gets to travel and have posh lunches, and he does work weekends too. When he comes home he is exhausted and does not help with anything at all. No nappy change, no bath, no cooking, nothing when it comes to baby or home. And I would actually feel bad forcing him to do chores.

And I find it isolating. None of my friends have children. So I try to meet other mums, but so far have not connected with any. I am not from the UK and we have no family on either side to help and give us a break...

I guess I am just being contrary. Some days I wish I worked and husband stayed home and some days I enjoy being with my baby, like the other day when she took her first step :)

I used to feel like that, jealous that dh got to read the paper on the train, have a lunch hour, go to the shops unencumbered etc etc.

I turned my thinking around: I get to go the park on sunny days with the kids and go on the swings, spend time in the garden in the summer, go on day trips, sit in cafes etc. Get out as much as you can and get help with the house stuff. Think about what he can do in evenings, weekends that will support you most and ask for help.

I ma a SAHM too (well I now work 1 day a week) and my DD is 3. My DH did nothing at all when she was tiny apart from an odd cuddle and doing a bath and i struggled like mad...my DD had bad reflux, needed to be upright to even have a chance of sleeping and woke about 15 to 20 times a night and i dealt with it..as well as housework etc.

I was all confused to be fair, On the one hand I knew i was lucky that i could spend time with DD (althought when she cried from 1-6 each day i did not think so) and I was very grateful that he worked to get us money etc. On the other hand i resented the fact that he got to have lunch in peace, could go to the loo in peace, expected clean shirts..(ironing I found difficult even with her strapped to my front) he had money whereas i felt I had to ask for money and felt like a small child... At weekends he was always the one to stay in bed for a lie in etc..

We did finally have a good long chat and now she is bigger some things are better. He still does not help in the hosue even at the weekend, but he does take her out on a Sunday for 1.5 hours so i have a bath in peace. he also looks after her after she is in bed on a Monday so i can play with he local brass band.

I don't know how small your lo is but things do get better...it is such a huge shock to the system to go from working and having control to not.....

When resentment gets into a relationship it eats away like a cancer and it's hard to resolve.

Easy answer is try your hardest to not let it get in.

There's is nothing your DH can do about the situation. There's no fault lying with anyone here.

You have to get out as much as possible, meet other mums and keep busy out of the house as much as possible in the early days.

Things will get easier and easier for you as your LO grows and you will reap the benefits later when your DH is still working long hours and you've spent a sunny day going for a picnic with your 2/3 yr old and friends .

It does feel tough in the early months and nobody pats you on the back or congratulates you on a job well done. You wonder if anyone notices somedays and it can be lonely but it can also be brilliant. Your DH is missing some brilliant times ahead .

I know because i've been a SAHM for 3.8 years (DS'S age) and a 14 month old DD.

There were loads of sunny days where I was sitting on the beach with DS running around with friends and Id come home all relaxed, sun kissed and telling my pale DH about all the hilarious stuff he had done.

Swings and roundabouts as they say!

BTW it took a while for me to A)find mums I could meet regularly B) connect with them.

I met a group of 5 girls who were all in an ante natel class together, at a swimming class.

The girls who I least connected with in the beginning are now my good friends so give it time.

Everyone is finding their feet and it's hard to find any common ground other than the babies at first and that can be dull!

have a chat and decide what hubby can do to ease it for you without loading him down too much.

My husband has a dinner and reasonably tidy home( not always) to come home to but i expect him to do a wash up most nights and be hands on at the weekend.

But it is inevitable you will feel this if he does nothing.

I adore my husband but he literally drops his clothes on the floor/towel.He does not even know where baby clothes or anything else really is. He would do nothing unless i prompted him and i think he should do something to contribute to the never ending grounhogday cycle of chores.

Don't even get me started about how he can find time for play station every weekend.....

But I do remind myself that it is also hard work working and I need to pull my weight and not be too demanding in my expectations of how much he can contribute.

queenballerina - Hecate is absolutley right with; "Make your 'working hours' the same as his working hours."

The other thing is to make work at a home a 'proper job' like a business process. Focus on making it efficient. Sit down and plan everything that needs doing. Dont waste time doing things twice.

For example, if you are going outside to do something, take the bin with you. If you are going upstairs, take any washing with you that needs putting away. When you get up put a washer load on while your having breakfast.

Do all your shopping online. Carting a baby round shops is one of the hardest things about being a new parent with a baby.

Finally, make weekends precious. Your DH needs to focus on getting home and being with you at the weekend. Many men carry on doing exactly what they did before baby including late nights, lunches, dinners, weekend events etc. Believe it or not, quite a lot of it is dicretionary.

agree with several others competitive tiredness work will eat away at your relationship, as has to work weekends as well it can be very difficult

try and see if you get lie in on sunday morning and he does on saturday

also if he comes home totally exhausted, let him take 30 mins to change collect thoughts but its reasonable for him to wash dishes after dinner then say if DC cries i'll see to him/her while you have nice soak in bath or whatever

the other thing i found helped was to try and do my housework etc, like running office its loads more efficient ok it goes wrong sometimes when baby is out of routine,

my baby was always quite happy playing with toes on mat in morning but not afternoon /evening so got on with some the more challenging stuff in mornings

lower standards do not wash everything that has been used just once, unless baby very sick 1 bib can last all day etc, very little needs ironing, move anything only once stright in laundry basket/ cupboard etc not in piles then sorted then more piles,

on the subject of posh lunches if you have them all the time its no fun sometimes I longed for a cheese sandwich and 30 minutes with newspaper rather than posh caesar salad and having to carry on smoozing without break. I remeber when was working even when single being too stressed and exhausted when got home to do anything other than switch microwave and TV on sometimes took 1-2 hours to feel myself again,

find the nearest mother and toddler group

dont resent your DH as he may be jealous of you spending all the time with baby, he may want to be with baby but is too tired and unfortunately babies ae not at their best between 6-8pm at night they are grumpy and overtired sometimes

my DD is 14 months old now the time you have when little is good, try and enjoy it ( incedently loads of men find small babies difficult my Dh is so much better with her now and much keener to look after her while I go out for evenings wthan when she was tiny, he was so unsure of what to do with her then

hang in there good luck and find some cheap treats for yourself as " payment " for a job well done

try thanking your Dh for something and a compliemt everyday and the habit will become contagious but oops that sounds way to much like self help book

I am not proud of it but I did feel resentful at that stage. Resentful that his life had gone on the same (obviously it hadn't but that was how I saw it) whereas my life/body/career bore no resemblance to what it was pre-dc.

4 years on (and another dd later) and I seem to have adjusted. I wouldn't swap with him in a million years.

I think the adjustment sort of creeps up on you and some people are just better or enjoy different stages of dcs. And of course when they are 3 or so they start doing pre-school if you are happy to leave them and are generally much less physically dependent on you.

Not everyone is a play-group kind of a person and somthing clicked for the better in me when I realised I should just do the stuff I have always enjoyed rather than try to reinvent myself so I didn't really do play group but instead took dd to the cinema, on walks in the countryside (get a sling- stiles are impossible with a pushchair), went swimming with dd, went to art galleries and saw friends including my old childless friends.

Resting when the baby sleeps and just clawing back ANYTHING of yourself really helps, whether that is painting your nails, reading a book, going to the cinema and ANY excuse you get to leave the baby with dh, just do it. Its good for all of you.