How do you manage the split of work and parental duties?

[Chelsea032016]

This is just a general question about managing and splitting of tasks. Be warned it’s quite long!!
Before lockdown I worked full time, having gone back to work when DS2 was 7 months old and DS1 was 23 months old. My partner works night shifts Monday - Friday nights and plays football semi professionally, training 2 nights a week and playing every Saturday. I’m currently on furlough so with kids every day, all day in a small 2 bed flat with no garden. My family live 2 hours away and OH’s family live locally but aren’t the sort of family to help out much. My question is does anyone else have this situation and how do you deal with feelings of resentment or frustration that everything falls into your lap by default. My kids (now almost 3 and 18 months), wake for the day anytime from 5am, OH generally up at 12/1pm ish and then goes to the gym in the afternoons once up as this is when the boys nap (DS1 old naps for an hour max and literally only so I can clean up from lunch and prepare dinner). On weekends, OH stays in night shift pattern as too hard to adjust so I am up every Saturday and Sunday from 5/6am. Alone with kids all day on Saturdays as OH goes football and not home until 6/7pm and Sunday until late morning / midday. This means Sunday afternoons are our only precious time all together. I do 90% of the cooking and all the housework bar OH occasionally loading or hanging washing and cleaning up in kitchen the two evenings he isn’t training while I do bath and bed. His night shifts are max 5/6 hours long but usually he’s out of house from midnight until 3.30am. When I was working my hours were longer than his work and football combined and my annual take home higher. I didn’t grow up around here so don’t really have many / any friends locally where he still sees all his childhood friends. The last straw was yesterday when he stayed after football for a drink with a friend, not getting home until 8pm then declaring “my mates Sunday league team have asked me to play 45minutes tomorrow, that’s ok isn’t it? Cos at least I’m not going out on an all day bender like most blokes”. The problem is most of his friends had kids late teens / early twenties with girls they were never or are no longer with and when they have their kids, go to their mums house. So compared to them, he’s Dad of the Year. At this point I must say he’s incredibly loving and caring and aware that times can be lonely and tough for me but also isn’t really able to change that. I just wish sometimes he’d get up on a Sunday and have a plan of what we can do that afternoon, spring out of bed eager to spend time with us and really drive the day. Instead he’s happy to see us but he’d then be happy sat in front of the tv watching football all afternoon. It’s always me who’s made plans and I’m constantly saying “you know what time we’re leaving yeah?” “Are you going to be ready?”. It feels like I have 3 kids!
I guess at this end of this whole rant how do I deal with the feelings of feelings of resentment when I’ve had 5 hours sleep punctuated by 3 wake up calls through the night, and OH is still asleep 10 uninterrupted hours after getting into bed. How do I deal with the resentment of him being able to see his friends at football, gym, work and I’m constantly chained to my children, collapsing exhausted on the sofa come 8pm. I guess I just want to know I’m not alone and things do get easier!!? It just feels relentless at the moment.

Not the answer you want but after trying to explain myself for the millionth time and get an equal division of what he was taking for himself I threw him out. Now I watch shit tons of netflix on the weekends he sees them and am very slowly recovering. My house is organised, calm and happy because I'm not constantly coping with him taking the piss and trearing me like shit.

Was he like this while you were working too?Communication is key - try talking to him and tell him you're exhausted. Frame it in a way that will help him come up with the idea to help more rather than sounding accusing. The attitude he has in this conversation will tell you what you need to know. You don't want to stick it out all lockdown and then have him be the same when you go back to work.

Oh and it won't do any harm to have a look at meetup.com and see if there's any groups doing anything you're interested in and simply informing him, you've got the kids at X date and time because I'm going out. If he can do it so can you. You sound like you need a bit of you time.

I wouldn't consider 'playing football' or going to the gym to be necessary activities that rank up there with parenting and work. In that situation with two small children, a nightshift pattern wouldn't work for me and I would expect dh to find a job that is more conducive to family life in the long run. In the short term though, I'd expect equal time parenting so that would include all the free time he currently gets for gym and football. So you get two nights a week to yourself and one full day at the weekend when he does everything and you get a break to re-charge. If he's up anyway on Saturday and Sunday night, I'd expect him to do all the night wakings and the early mornings so you get a lie in those days. And then 50/50 the rest of the time during the week when he's not working (that may include some of his gym time, which will have to give so you can also have similar time in the afternoons to yourself.

As the football is semi-pro I'm assuming he makes decent ish hourly money for it, so I'd be fine with that. Same with going for a beer now and then - you just need to make sure you're also getting time to go out occasionally.

To be honest, it sounds like the real issue is that he works nights. He's simply not around when you need him. Working nights also completely fucks you up, so it's no wonder he's not a huge amount of help in the day. I would have a serious discussion with him about changing jobs/shifts. Night work simply isnt compatible with having a family.