Has anyone successfully lived with and raised kids with P when relationship effectively over?

[lostconfusedwhatnext]

Not sure ours is. If we didn?t have children I would be fantasising about running for the hills. We have 2 dcs, 3 and 1.
I am the breadwinner, DP looks after them. Money is tight (not that tight, but no luxuries), time is tight, everything feels very very tight.
The house is a mess but the dcs are very well looked after.

DP and I seem to have nothing to say to each other and sleep separately (he snores, I am always shattered and need sleep).
He cooks for the dcs before I get back and they eat without me and don?t leave anything for me. I did a mixed wash at the weekend and left the clothes drying on the clothes horse, he put away everything that belonged to the dcs and left mine there. I say these things not because I think he should be my domestic servant, but to show how completely separate he sees me. I don?t mind washing and cooking for myself but I would like to feel a little more included, regarded.
Last night we had a classic row where I got annoyed that things I keep trying to keep tidy by not putting in cupboards that the dcs pull things out of, had been put there, been pulled out, and lost. I spend my life tracking down bits of things and everything is still always lost and broken. We don?t have money to replace everything the dcs feel like playing with and losing / breaking bits of. I asked DP about it and he said I was over reacting and I over reacted to him interrupting me (closing me down, I felt) and went a bit mental and he lost it and shouted at me, cried, and flounced off to bed. I feel like I am not allowed to express things I know to be the truth, like I KNOW he put them in the low cupboard, but the convention is that I am supposed to say ?it was probably me and I hesitate to even mention it, but...? and then apologise for saying it. When I do this he just ignores what I have said. When I say (admittedly with some asperity) ?Please could you not put them in that cupboard, because they?ll get lost? he goes MENTAL.

Right now I don?t care if I never see him again. I need free childcare or I can?t support us. But this relationship is another job that I have to do, it tires me out, and I am still bad at it. Is it possible for us to just agree to differ and get on with our lives, in the same house?
If we break up I can?t afford to support the family. Also, it breaks my heart to think I might have to work like this and not even live with my girls. Destroys me. Tears are running down my face thinking about it.

I had to travel for work recently and I felt so guilty about leaving him for 3 nights with the kids alone. He said it was fine. Now I feel like telling him I have to go away for a night and just finding somewhere else to sleep just to get away from the pressure. I have started lying and that?s not like me. I didn?t tell him my work has offered us summer Friday afternoons off, because to get them you have to work 4 extra hours in the week and if I have to leave at 6.30 am rather than 7.30, in exchange for coming back to the house on Friday afternoons and having to hit the ground running with dinner, laundry, etc, then I think I will just break. I really will. I am so tired. I can?t believe I am saying this, but I am choosing to stay at work on Friday afternoons because I am too tired to get up an hour earlier.
I miss my dcs terribly and I am failing them.

Personally I don't think it can work. But I think there's a lot more that needs resolving before you get to the point.
I'm sure someone with more experience will come along with advice soon. In the meantime can I just say I wouldn't want to start work earlier either!! So don't feel guilty about that. It sounds like your DCs are safe and happy with DP so there is no need for you to stretch yourself to breaking point in order to get an afternoon 'off'.

Bump

Thanks, MushroomSoup.
I appreciate you saying that about work!

It's not going to work the way you describe. When things get to the point that you don't want to go home and he's losing it and crying over trivialities then something has to change, even if it's going to be difficult to start with.

Choices are things like.... you can sit down and talk - possibly with a facilitator - about your relationship and how it can be improved, made more equal, less taking for granted, more pulling of weight. Or you agree to go your separate ways but co-parent the children.

I think my OP is too long for anyone to read it

Cogito, he would not say it was a triviality, he would say that it is not a triviality the way I was speaking to him
I think the way I was speaking to him was just a bit narky late-night-tired-stressy, not shouty sweary unreasonable behavior

Sometimes I think I just hate being an adult. When you have kids your feelings don't matter, "smile, nobody cares how you feel". It's just the reality that no matter how shit I feel, no matter how much I want a day off or to do something just a little bit less boring some of the time, so fucking what, life's not like that. Everybody with kids has this but I'm a big fat wimp.

I mean nobody used to care how I feel before I had kids, but there were ways round this, because I had time to care how I felt, and do something about it.

First things first, you are not failing your DCs.

I really do sympathise with your plight and you are certainly not alone, if you search the relationship threads there are loads of people staying in unhappy relationships because they can't bear to leave their DCs.

It sounds as if you don't feel welcome in your own home and that your P is rather territorial about it, seeing it as his space and you not part of it. This would suggest that it is largely over for him as well.

In answer to your main question, plenty of people manage to live together for the kids, even though they no longer wish to be together as a couple (whether they'll openly admit that to eachother or not), which may be a unilateral or bi-partite thing.

I can however tell you that it is a pretty miserable existence. It is only sustainable so long as you are content to sacrifice your own happiness and feelings to keep the peace. And there are always times when you won't be able to take it and that triggers rows and wanting to run for the hills and feeling really torn. Can you really maintain that until your kids leave home?
But I suspect the thing that stops it working for most people is that sooner or later, one party will get close to someone else that makes them feel understood and wanted, and all that leads to.

There really is no easy solution to this but there are lots of us who understand how you feel.

And to emphasise again, you are not failing.

Neither of you sound happy and it sounds like it's reached a desperate point for the both of you- your desperation and his tears signify that. The stress sounds extremely intense and the predicament over money and not being able to live with your daughters would drive anyone to breaking point. It does sound like he's shut you out and the not leaving you any food and not putting away your clothes are examples of that.

However, could it not be that he is resentful? I am NOT saying you've done anything wrong, but being a SAHP can cause resentment against the partner that appears to have the better deal- the career, the time away from the relentless drudgery of childcare and housekeeping, the ability to be around adults all day.

On the other hand, you have the responsibility of providing financially and working away from your children, and coming home and doing more there after work. So both of you are working hard- however the slow build up of anger and frustration from two people who view the other with anger because they feel the other has a better deal or doesn't understand what they do can kill a relationship. The silence fuels this- you might not be talking to each other, but you are certainly both thinking about each other, and without talking all you can do is judge each other by actions. He doesn't put away your clothes and you think he is shutting you out. You comment on the untidiness and things not being in a certain place and he may be thinking you take him for granted. There is SO much room for misinterpretation.

I think you both need to talk to someone and see what can be salvaged. And I think you might need to see your GP about how you are feeling and see if there's anything they can do for you. Even if you feel that your relationship is beyond saving, counselling is a worthwhile exercise if you can find the right counselor, as it can help make separations a little less fraught and give you tools to communicate while you do so.

Talking is essential.

I know, we totally need counselling and we know it. I need proper therapy and have done for years, but have been trying harder to get it since pregnant with dd2, now over 1. It never leads anywhere, essentially in a nutshell because we have no time, no money and no childcare. I keep thinking we have found a way and then it turns out we can't because I will be at work or something. I have given up really, I don't expect ever to be happy or enjoy anything again, I just want to hang on and survive (literally) and do as little damage to the girls as possible.

I know what it is like to be a sahp, I was on mat leave for a year till recently. He was always making stupid suggestions about completely impractical things we could do that implied he thought we had the free and easy end of the stick. Now he knows what it is like, he still thinks the grass is greener, maybe.
I don't expect him to do things for me, but I did for him when I was on mat leave (but I am more efficient - not being bitchy, I just am - so I accept that)

Actually to be frank this does piss me off. the year I did with two under 3 was like the bloody Somme half the time - clingy unputdownable baby, 2 year old with new sibling issues, breastfeeding all night, puked on clothes going in the wash left right and centre, blah blah blah. the house was tidy, we ate home cooked food, the laundry was done, it was all alright, I managed, I hated it often, but I managed. A year on I present him with a secure, articulate, potty-trained 3 year old and a cheerful, happily pottering 3 meals-a-day, sleeping-through-the-night 1 year old, and he feels hard done by? And my (paid) job is a thousand times harder than his was when I was on mat leave (he admits this). So why do I have to feel so guilty and grateful all the time?

Ohhhhh lostconfused I am in the same(ish) boat. The only thing is I am the SAHP and OH goes out to work his ass off to support our family. We have 2 DS age 4 and 8 months. I feel taken for granted as he comes in from work, opens a beer, complains about his day then sits down and plays the Wii with DS1 (who is 4). Doesn't even ask "How was your day?" or if he asks "How are you?" I know the answer must be "GREAT Darling! How was YOUR day?" as if I dare to say "Oh I am tired" or anything I will get the eye roll resentment face of "Well you try doing a full days work with no lunch like I just have" when I usually have and I am still "working" when he comes home AND right up until the DS's are asleep. Even then it is me who is up during the night.

Anyway, don't wanna hijack the thread but I know if OH comes in and complains about the place being a tip (I spend a lot of time picking up after LO's but they pull everything out again) or anything I am touchy about (eg sink full of dishes cos DS2 wants carried all day as he is under the weather/teething/clingy phase) then I get really resentful. It's awful. I sometimes just want to walk away and the thought of breaking up the family kills me along with all the things you mention about unaffordable childcare, never getting to see the kids, having to share them with your OH.

I just noticed you have been SAHP too so you know what it is like. I feel that it takes a while to get used to it but you really lose your sense of self and it really hits your self esteem if you don't have other SAHP's to talk to and support you. Low self esteem and maybe even being a bit depressed makes me even more touchy about being SAHM and sometimes I feel so worthless I wonder why OH is with me and instead of talking to him about it I think I take out my frustrations on him. He is still a valuable member of society but I am "just a SAHM".

On the other hand I do understand what a massive stress it is for the working parent to be the sole breadwinner and how it must be a massive burden supporting the whole family and having them depend on you. I know I often have to remind myself of this when I am feeling resentful towards OH when he comes home from work and falls asleep on the couch while I am still dealing with the kids.

I think Oogaballoo has given some amazing words of advice here and I am going to take them so thanks for posting your issues as it has really helped me too today.

Sorry my post hasn't really said anything about making it work but I don't really think it is possible. I just wish people/society was more honest and open about how difficult it is to be a parent and we could help each other understand how to cope. It's such a "Oh, we have no problems... It must be you" mentality but then you come on here and see what people are really going through and find you are not alone. Not that it helps you make any decisions but it is amazing to get some help here.

Thanks for that bit of perspective Tamashii. You're right, we do find it hard to admit in real life how hard things are and I guess everyone has times when they're just hanging on.
Good luck with the clingy 8 mo btw!

Could you possibly work less hours/he work more hours? I just want to raise the possibility that he's the primary carer right now, so if you did split, he may have grounds for primary residency. I'm not sure you can factor that in, and I certainly had a period where I was working full-time and my husband doing 3 days a week with the children, but I deliberately counted up the hours and we did 50/50 in actual childcare time (me evenings/weekends when he was working). In the end, we weathered the storm, and it may be rather irrelevant to your situation, but you may also want to take account of that.

It's hard to know whether what you are describing is just the relentlessness of having two small children, the out of home person feeling exhausted and slightly excluded and the stay at home person feeling frustrated as all day in with two littlies, or the beginning of the end of you as a partnership. It is a very difficult time and it's easy to feel resentful of each other when sleep-deprived and a bit fed up. I think talking, either to a counsellor or perhaps a good friend might help you clarify what's going on.

mumsyblouse, yes I am terrified of that scenario.
we work this way because I earn more and his salary doesn't cover childcare + transport. I don't feel I have a choice. It is eating me up that I could lose them because I have to work. It's killing me.
I just want to stop it all, I just can't go on like this, it's killing me that I am working so hard effectively to do myself out of my children. what was I thinking?
I hate my job btw, it is very stressful and I get arseholes on the phone all day

everything is making me tearful, I can't bear it
Do I really HAVE to work even though this means the house is a mess, I am shattered and miserable, and he could take my kids? How did this happen?

I mean I can't go home and say "I am resigning, we are moving to a cheaper house (having just moved in December) and you are going back to work at a level that can support us JUST so that WHEN we break up, I don't have to hand over the children whom I gave birth to, breastfed day and night, hung over their cots all night making them sleep, still feel like part of my body"?

Right, in your position if it came to a split and he even thought he was going to have the children, then I'd stop work too. There is no way I would lose my kids and have to work in a job I hated when he is behaving like that.

You need to sit him down and say, "When I was looking after the children I cooked your meal and tidied away your things. You are being unkind not cooking for me when you know I have a job I hate that exhausts me. When I was on maternity leave you didn't have to do housework and cooking in the evening. Why do you make me do it now?" Don't let him get away without answering.

It is wrong that you should be so exhausted. He should be worried about that, not behaving in this way.

You do need counselling. I don't know how you can manage it financially but I do think you need to prioritise it. Why not start with your GP? I know you want therapy yourself but I think this needs to come first. Your husband needs to face another adult and explain why he behaves as he does.

I need free childcare or I can?t support us

It isnt working though. He isnt happy, you are not happy. It sounds to me like he should be out at work too, not a SAHP.

You hate your job, so it is time to look for a new one. I know they are not all that easy to come by these days, but there might just be something out there.

He should also look for a job too even if the majority of it goes on childcare, (although it shouldnt work that way as the money you both earn would be joint income, and then the childcare costs come out of that).

Sounds like you are both at breaking point.
He needs to either step up to being a sahd or go back to work and take the financial hit. He is drowning and it is dragging you all under. You need the support he can't give you and he is being very passive aggressive.

It is not worth this. Down size if you have to or split up but don't be frozen out of your own family. He is segregating you

Thanks for all the replies, it really helps to talk to people. I feel so alone.
I feel better now I am at home and have given my dcs lovely lovely cuddles and stories. I think some of the misery - I couldn't stop crying at my desk today - is just physically missing them. I have only been working for less than 2 months and baby-head is so so addictive. I just want to snuggle them so much.

DP is in "his" room with the door closed.

I think he has no idea what it feels like to work all day and come back to find dinner is over and nobody thought of you, if you come from a culture like mine where food is the be-all and end-all. it is like a slap in the face to me, but to him it is a simple matter of practicality - I can't be home for when the girls need their dinner, so he just gets on with it without me. If I hadn't cooked for him he wouldn't have felt it like this I don't think. I mean it would not occur to me in a million years not to think of his dinner if I were cooking, but if I had...

The childcare thing: it is not that we don't have household money. It's that if he works, the childcare + commuting costs = net loss, which we can't afford. We are only in the black if I NEVER get coffee or get the bus anywhere, which I have been as I am so tired, and that is another thing I worry about. I walk 5 miles a day (in theory - unless I get the bus for any of it - but 2 at least where there are no buses) and till 4 weeks before I came back to work I could barely walk half a mile, chasing my physio for spd, so it's a lot to get used to.

He is stepping up to being a sahd, he is very good at it - the girls love it and are very happy, do lots of activities, eat pretty well etc. He just isn't the housekeeper / bottle washer that I was and I think that's an impossible thing to explain.

dc2 still breastfeeds. Maybe I can feed her till she is 4 and goes to school, then childcare will be cheaper, then we can work on a different working pattern and take it from there ;)

I'm not going to do anything now. I have chased up yet more elusive counselling today and something is supposedly in the post. I am going to watch some crap on iplayer, sleep well if possible and think again tomorrow.

thank you all thank you thank you thank you
it is much better being at home in my pjs and not having to worry about crying and feeling nearer to my babies in the next room

You poor thing, that is an awful scenario :( I can't really help except to say could you not express to him some of the things you've said above? He shouldn't stand by while you live like this, he really shouldn't. I feel also that he's trying to segregate you.

Try and explain how you feel and find out how he feels....

Hi OP

Obviously it's hard to be sure, but my feeling is that this need not be the end for you two. You are going through a really hard time - 2 very young children, too many things to do, no money to spare. You went back to work 2 months ago so still getting used to the new routine. I think that everything you describe is actually very normal for couples in your situation!

I don't think it's very helpful to feel that, when you were being a SAHP, it was harder for you than it is now for DP ("Actually to be frank this does piss me off. the year I did with two under 3 was like the bloody Somme half the time - clingy unputdownable baby, 2 year old with new sibling issues, breastfeeding all night, puked on clothes going in the wash left right and centre, blah blah blah. the house was tidy, we ate home cooked food, the laundry was done, it was all alright, I managed, I hated it often, but I managed. A year on I present him with a secure, articulate, potty-trained 3 year old and a cheerful, happily pottering 3 meals-a-day, sleeping-through-the-night 1 year old, and he feels hard done by?"). Put these thoughts out of your head. Kids are difficult at different ages for different reasons. It's not fair on your DP for you to feel that he has it so much easier than you did. Maybe some of the reason you hated it was that you set yourself too high expectations? Isn't it better if he is NOT hating it, even if that means he is doing less than you did? Would it be possible for you to accept that a messy house isn't the end of the world?

The thing is, being a SAHP with 2 young kids is HARD. One of the reasons it's hard is that no one realises beforehand how hard it's going to be, so you tend to under value yourself (why am I finding this so hard? It's not rocket science) and feel that everyone around you is under valuing you too. This is why it's so awful for your DP when you come home and moan about messy cupboards. I am a SAHM and, seriously, I would find it hard to hold it together if my DH came home from work and did this! However I do appreciate it's hard for you too, to be working hard all day and coming home to a messy house and no meal ready for you. The only way to make it easier for both of you is to work together as a partnership, which isn't happening at the moment.

The sleeping separately thing is sad though. Could you get ear plugs?? Or could he go to the GP about his snoring?

Rather than fantasise about going away for a night by yourself, is there any chance of getting a babysitter so you and DP can have a night away together?

As counselling has not yet worked out, maybe you could go on a marriage course? Much cheaper than counselling! My DH and I went on one a couple of years ago and found it very helpful. You could discuss the food thing - it's clear you have different expectations of this, probably based on your backgrounds. Does he understand how you feel about it? How about if, a couple of times a week, he feeds the girls but doesn't eat with them, and the two of you cook a nice meal together and eat it together when you get home? Then you are presenting it as 'I'd love to eat with you sometimes' rather than 'you are selfish not to have cooked for me'.

Agree with another poster - don't feel guilty about the early morning thing! Many of us might make the same decision!

How funny mrspepperpotty, I came here to say some of these things myself! It's much clearer today that the thing to do is make it work, not how to manage an end. I'm going in late so we could have breakfast together and it was lovely. I know that's what I want: for us all to be together. There is some tension there. Dp feels very got at and I feel under valued. But there must be some way through. Everything you said about sahp-ing is true. I'm worrying about work now, being so late, but it was worth it.

God is hard being a working mum! Dp is a sahd and i really can sympathise. What helps us is remembering, and remembering often, that neither of us is doing what we want to do. I would genuinely love to be at home with the kids, and he would like to work. But financially it has to be this way. Like you we would be worse off ifbhe worked and we can't absorb the drop.

I know it is hard for him at home but it is hard aswell to work all day and then hit the ground running when you get home. I find it really hard, relentless.

I don't have any advice really, i think if the love is still there somewhere we just have to push through these early years and keep talking!!

Good luck

Thanks ohdarcy, good perspective. Mrspepperpotty, what is a marriage course?

This is the one we did. There is a religious element to it, but if that doesn't feel right for you I'm sure you can google 'marriage course' and find a non-religious one.