Hi,
I have a 10 year old son abandonned by his father and a 2 year old with DH. DH has other children that he visits.
My problem is that he's always working. He's a freelancer, so he works from home and there's no time limit. Morning, day, evening, weekends.
We bought an old house 4 years ago which required a lot of renovations. And he works hard on the house. So he's either working, doing renovations or visiting his children. Sometimes we do activities together, but he's always attached to his phone. We went on vacations several times and he brought his computer and took time to work.
When he does renovations, I do everything else in the house, as well as the clean up and help with painting or whatever else I can do. I make sure there's food (very important for him), I take care of kids (which is taken for granted) and I work. He gets tired and stressed, so if I ever complain about something, he says that I'm lucky that we don't have to pay anybody, so thanks to him, I'll make money when we sell the house (it was his idea to buy it, I don't care about living in the suburbs far from my mom and getting no help with kids).
So I feel that I take care of everybody, but nobody takes care of me.
Right now, we are taking a break after a 6 month renovation. He did a great job completely transforming our bathroom and kitchen. So now, he's always on the computer, while watching tv. So I'm still left with all the chores. I tried to talk to him, but he's always very defensive. He tells me that if I need help to just ask. So when I ask, he helps with the toddler, he brings my oldest to school (10 min of his time in the morning) and when I really ask, he might help with something in the kitchen. His ex was a SAHM....
If I don't cook for him (because we both work from home, I need to make sure there's lunch too), he says that I don't care about him. After some explaining, he started making himself sandwiches, thanks god. But after all these years, I still feel this pressure to make sure he has food.
So I feel extremely irritated by him. I feel bored. I used to be the one who would always solve our relationship problems, but I lost motivation. He noticed a difference in my attitude towards him, but he doesn't make efforts to talk it out. He's not that type.
So there's an issue and there's no talking, because I lost motivation and he doesn't talk about issues.
Obviously, we do have good moments and when things go well, he's more helping and making efforts. But with a toddler, renovations, work, no couple time, things deteriorate quickly.
Is it the end of it? We've been together almost 8 years and there used to be passion....