I want out

[MrFriendZone]

I just don't want to be a parent or husband anymore. I know we're "not meant to say this" but it's how I feel, but the usual convenience traps of money, options and of course offspring (!) are making me miserable as I have no options with my own life.

Let me explain my situation - I'd love to hear opinions on whether I'm right/wrong in my thoughts.

I'm the husband in this relationship (married, 10 years). I have a very busy and demanding job Mon-Fri whilst my wife is a stay at home mum, managing the kids and the mental load. We're both mid-30s.

We have two children, 6 and 8. The 8 year old is a chronic whinger, the 6 year old is an endless ball of energy.

As always in your 30s with two kids, money is consumed by them and the house/cars/growing bills/after school clubs/clothes etc. We do alright, but I'm always having to watch it (to be brutally honest, it makes me resent having kids a bit).

In terms of the relationship with my wife, due to the kids, day-to-day stress/BS and zero local family support, our relationship has dwindled down to "good friends" aka we get along but there's zero romance, and no physical element. This is a huge problem for me, whereas my wife doesn't seem that bothered.

Midweek I have to be pretty dedicated to work, so I'm mostly in an adult/professional environment for 5 days straight....then BAM I'm hit with kids and family stuff every Saturday morning each week. It's really not easy to adjust to the whinging, demands, noise and other negatives that the kids present immediately - so I have a very short fuse with bad behaviour, which then makes the kids worse plus my wife starts having a go at me. She doesn't understand that I'm not used to this as much. I'm also a stricter parent which I believe is the right way (standard clash of parenting styles).

There's also the issue where she thinks having a job is easy and that she has more of the 'load'. I think this is a fairly common argument. I think it's pretty equal - I get to escape the family stuff BUT I have long commutes and need to answer to someone/produce results. I'm not just going to the pub with my feet up! Equally I always make an effort to be really show my appreciation for what my wife does - she keeps the house and kids running (and she does get her own break in terms of post school run I know she chills for a bit, no problem with that). It feels equal to me.

So combine my dead relationship + arguments about parenting + whinging kids + no support + financial irritations......well, I'm just wondering why anyone would do this to their life?!

Am I wrong to want out? Am I being an idiot?

You want out? Aww diddums, that's a shame. It doesn't work like that.

You didn’t need to. You’re displaying it quite fully, and when combined with the (minimised) description of your home behaviour in your post, it’s demonstrated.

Youve used “show, don’t tell” very effectively in your writing.

Unfortunately it does for men

On second thoughts maybe you should leave, sounds as though your wife and kids would probably be better off. She doesn't seem to find you attractive (shocker - don't worry I'm sure women will be queueing up to sleep with you 😆) and kids aren't idiots, they'll know you don't really like being around them.

A wall of text in reply, all about you.

OP, I’m sorry you don’t have it in you to understand that your selfishness is the cause of your misery.

You seem okay with the notion of not being a good father and husband, because your children and wife aren’t good either.

I feel so sorry for your children - not seeing them during the week, then trying to avoid them in the weekend, hiding in hobbies.

Go on, you have our permission to talk to the exciting young thing in the office. 🙄

@MrFriendZone the thing is you have outsourced nearly 100% of the parenting to yourself wife so it's a pretty crap position to suddenly appear on a Saturday morning and decide you want to do it differently. You should be aligned on this stuff and tbh since she does the majority of the parenting her rules and approach should trump yours if there is any conflict on how best to do it. Imagine it in a work context if you had a colleague who was more junior to you in experience and only worked part time and suddenly turned up and started telling all the juniors how to act. The juniors would be confused and you would likely find it difficult to deal with. You would probably still take the colleagues opinions into account but your view would be the one that should take precedence.

Your wife is probably exhausted with carrying the mental load and her life revolving around the children by the sound of it. If you perhaps take on some of that mental load I suspect she will have more headspace, energy and inclination to go out on dates and rekindle things. You admit you get frustrated at the relentless of the children at weekends; now imagine that all week. Yes work is also stressful, tiring and hard, but it is also a break from constantly having to consider the children.

I actually disagree that you should stay together for the good of the children, if you are just centering yourself in this and not thinking about how you can perhaps work together to make your relationship and the balance of family life then you should consider letting her go. I'm sure you have zero plans to go 50/50 so yes you can slink off and live your own life.

" support your wife without expecting anything in return "

It means we know when you are doing something in the hopes of getting sex, it doesn't work because you are modifying your behaviour short term to gain something from us rather than actually growing as a person and doing something because it's the right thing. "

Women willingly have sex with people who treat them and their children well, women find nurturing husbands and fathers attractive, these go hand in hand, if you aren't having sex the issue could be you aren't inspiring her to want it with you.

I've tried to get more into my sport and other things to give me stuff to escape with

😆😆

I agree, I don't want to shout - it's the last thing I want to do on my first day off when I would like it to be a great day with the family. It's everyone's rest day(s) and all I want for them is to be happy, chill days with whatever stuff we feel like doing.

I try asking nicely to stop arguing about this or that etc, I ask nicely again....and after a few times I think FFS I'm being ignored here, why do my kids think this is ok? This is when I start getting annoyed - turns out I'm human after all...

I get the feeling many members here think they're the perfect parent and have all the answers, but I don't. It's my second time at this (2 kids)...when is anyone every good at anything the 2nd time round?

Backing you up here. There are some vile comments from people on here invalidating your feelings. This isn’t why you posted, we are all different and minimising feelings just creates deeper problems.
Congratulations on recognising you are not happy but don’t fret. The grass always looks greener. For instance there are many people without kids who can’t have them, or who can’t find a job who would envy your position.
My advice in a nutshell from observation.

Masterbate less
Stop watching Tv
Get off tech devices
Make quality time for you, wife and as a couple.
Do experience days or try new things together as a family.
Make the kids go to bed much earlier.
Seak affordable counselling for yourself and maybe for your relationship, there are many options.

anyone else think OP's username is pretty telling?

This makes a lot of sense, thanks. I think aligning with how things are done Mon to Fri is a really good way forward I should look at.

I don't know how you're assuming people think they're amazing parents, people haven't commented on their own children. Let me guess, the weekends are your time off but not your wife's eh? You're getting annoyed about children being children, I suspect if you helped your wife more you'd be better at handling it.

if you find Saturdays and Sundays hard, your wife gets no break from that, it’s ridiculous to imply she’s fine with it because she’s used to it.
so she has that for 7 days, only on two of the days you come in and start getting angry with everyone as well. You aren’t helpful in the evenings or on the weekend, actually you make it worse, and then you aren’t loving or affectionate to her either, talk unkindly about your children, and wonder why she doesn’t want to have sex with you.
for your children they hardly see their dad, then he starts shouting, changing the rules and taking over, and has labelled their personalities in an unkind way

I think you need to stop wallowing in how bad this is for you, and making it worse for everyone else because you’re annoyed and resentful

its ok to find it hard, but instead of just leaving, can you try to fix it?
can you take small steps, try to build a more positive relationship with your children. Follow your wife’s rules for a bit, just to stop one argument for now, and once you actually do more childcare maybe you can change the rules, but for now, since you’re hardly around she’s the one who has to enforce them so it’s not fair. Do some housework or childcare in the evenings. Work on your anger. Take your wife on a date. Make an effort with your marriage and familybefore you run away.

And would you like to swap places with your wife? If not, perhaps stop thinking she has it easier than you.

Where did I say nasty temper? I'm just not great around kids after a week at work, I'm not nasty...just kind of stricter in discipline and they get a lot less chances with me. Wow the assumptions

Stricter in discipline. Try being kinder. Bet your kids are scared of you.

All 6 and 8 year olds can be difficult. But mainly they are a joy. You will never have them at that age again. Even my ‘difficult’ dd was a joy and is even more so at 16.

But l miss my little children. Stop wasting time moaning about them.

To be completely honest, at 6 and 8 I don't understand why your wife can't get a part time job now. This would take some of the financial worries off of you and give you more disposable income. You could then use that money to pay a babysitter and have a night out together to unwind and nurture your relationship or even have a hobby for either of you.

We are 37/38 and have an 18, 13 and 10 year old now and it was difficult at those ages but it does get easier, honestly. You do need to have some fun stuff in your life to do away from the kids. You really need to make time for yourselves as well and nurture your relationship and have fun together, otherwise what is the point.

Am I missing something - people saying the wife has no break from it - she's a sahm with two kids in school 9-3 ? That's a break in my book (I work 40 hours, commute and look after my kids outside of school and the house and mental load and I think that is quite normal)

Presumably he means after the morning school run not the afternoon one!

I agree with a pp that trying to align to the way your wife parents is a start seeing as she does the lions share of the parenting. It will be confusing for your boys if you rock up and do it differently on a weekend.

I'd also try to fit yourself into family life more during the week.
My DH works Mon-Friday but still participated in family life - we share older DS's hobbies, younger DS's bedtimes and cooking etc.

I also think a bit of 1/1 time with your kids would help to build more positive relationships with them.

I think more frank discussions around your life with your wife are necessary too. A relationship needs to work for both people in it and I certainly wouldn't be happy with no intimacy in my marriage so I'd need to look at rectifying that, one way or another, even if separation was on the cards as the solution.

I don't think staying in an unhealthy relationship is good for the children - I left my exH because I didn't want DS1 growing up with my previous marriage as his example of a healthy relationship and taking that into his adult life!!

It depends I suppose, I'm going to take a wild guess that she does the vast majority of the housework, every time a child is ill, school holidays and whatever else add up as well. I agree its unusual perhaps not to work but this seems to be the set up OP has been content with whilst the savage early years and the relentless were going on- if thats the issue then she should get a job and he should help more with the mental load and everything else.

I thought this tbh. I don't think it's that unreasonable for her to be doing the housework and mental load.

That said, the stuff about finding it hard to switch gears at the weekend and not being as used to looking after the kids as his wife is smacks of weaponised incompetence.

I think you are very brave to put this out there op, and I admire your honesty. I also think an awful lot of dads, and quite a few mums, will feel the same but don’t dare say so. So I do have some sympathy - but not a huge amount - you chose to have kids, and you chose to have two - they didn’t choose anything, certainly not a grumpy dad and mum, who clearly aren’t happy.
Theres some good advice on here - reread the thread and have a think about it. Life’s awfully short to be so miserable, and frankly you owe it to your kids to work on sorting your feelings out.

You’re over the hardest bit though!
in a couple of years your eldest will be more independent and soon off doing stuff with his/ her friends and then a couple of years after that you’ll be wondering where the years went and have weekends back to yourself.
don’t give up on family life as it will start to repay you in huge dividends sooner than you think!
it would be life giving up mountain climbing just as you start the descent.
kids do continue to cost money though and the uni years worst of all so get saving!
your wife by the way may be feeling exactly the same.

How much effort do you put in to being a farther and a husband? Take your children out individually and build a bond with them. Take your wife out or if there really is no way then cook her a meal, get her favourite wine in. Get the kids to watch a film upstairs or go to bed. You get out what you put in.