Different parenting styles and expectations

[Asnowangel]

We have 3 children. Myn and my husband’s parenting styles and expectations have always been far apart.
I have rules for screen time, bed times, homework etc. He said he’s fed up with all the rules and basically goes against everything I put in place and I’m often the villain because my kids know I put in the rules.

It took a while to convince my husband to wake up our DD earlier on school mornings, as she was always late for school, (I wake our DS up half an hour earlier, as he has a school bus to catch).
I have set screen time for them, he was reluctant about me putting this in place.
We agreed not to play active games with our DD before bed, as she takes a long time to get to sleep as it is, but he has started doing this again.
I am always the one telling our children to do their homework, helping them with upcoming exams etc.

I feel like he’s not willing to work as a team and support me in this. It’s frustrating carrying that mental load all the time.

I wish I had a solution to this but all I can do is send solidarity. It's really common amongst the mums I know that they fall into the role of being the rule enforcer with the father as almost an extra child. Obviously he'll give you all sorts of reasons but the real one is it's an easier life not bothering with rules and boundaries.

If I had a solution I'd have done it myself by now.

I've thought about just laying off entirely for a while to prove my point but that would be basically using the kids as pawns as they would suffer being late for school, not getting enough sleep etc.

One thing I have been successful at is just making the rules part of the routine, ie: no screens at all in the week, we all get up at the same time. And if that's what you do every single day there's less opportunity for partner to be whinging.

Thank you for your comment. It drives me mad, I feel like being responsible for 4 kids. In fact, I’ve had enough so much, we’re probably heading for divorce soon.