Came across a post I wrote before our baby was born

[Raininginautumn]

I’m not necessarily looking for advice, I just need somewhere safe to share this.

Two years ago,I was eight months pregnant and excited for my new arrival. I came across a post I wrote in a little Facebook group I was part of, and obviously were all quite naive before we have our children.

I was going to return to work and would share the load with my partner, he was going to drop the baby off so I could get into work early and I would do the pick ups, as I finished a bit earlier. I really thought things would be equal.

Nearly two years down the line and that hasn’t happened. Somehow I’ve become almost the sole carer for our ds. I get up when ds wakes, I take him to nursery, if he wakes in the night (which to be fair isn’t a lot but I did have a good twelve months of utterly hellish sleep, or lack of it) it’s me who goes to him, I bath him and put him to bed.

It isn’t all bad. If you ask him to do something directly, he generally will, but I don’t like asking. It makes me feel like I’m not coping, or something, it’s just so much nicer when someone does something for you without prompting or asking. And sometimes you get the promise that he will but just doesn’t.

I am expecting another baby, all going well. Part of me thinks DH is going to HAVE to do more, if only because I can’t physically be in more than one place at a time, but then I thought he’d have to do more when I went back to work, and that didn’t happen.

I do feel a bit taken for granted, and if I’m honest I often feel a bit lonely too.

I’m not at breaking point, @category12 . I just feel a sense of sadness, mostly.

I think the new baby is an excellent opportunity for a "reset". We can all agree that you should not have to "teach" him how to look after your DS, but that ship has sailed.

So now it's a chance to say, "right, obviously, I absolutely cannot be doing it all alone now with a new baby on the way. At the very least, as we had originally agreed, you're going to have to do the nursery runs. Here's what's needed every day - we need to get this right before the new baby because I'll be BF and/or settling baby and/or shattered from being up in the night and won't be able to help you get DS ready."

But the whole thing sounds a bit sad. You don't eat together ever or do things for each other. You should like housemates at best.

But you might get to breaking point once a new baby is added in too. Don’t live like this. He needs to take equal responsibility for the children and the house. It’s a partnership. I can understand how it’s happened (not blaming you at all) and it might take a bit of ill feeling to address it. That isn’t your fault either. He’s the one in the wrong,

We don’t sit around the dinner table, true, but I’m not sure how you’ve extrapolated that we don’t do anything for one another!

Did you not discuss any of this before getting pregnant again?

Defintely don't phrase it as 'helping' but as asking when he's going to step up & parent your DS? and about nursery runs when number 2 arrives, night wakings general 'stuff' and that he needs to DO stuff, not be asked to do stuff.

Telling me I am the problem and I need to change isn’t helpful, though - sorry, but it isn’t. All it does is make me feel even more low

If you were referring to my comment, I didn't say that you were the problem. I did say that you need to change, and whether you like it or not, that really is the case. He's the problem, and the problem is that he won't change unless forced. Nobody else is going to force him but you. So you are the one who has to start this thing off, because you are responsible for you, and it's nobody else's job to fix your problems, even if your problem is another person. You are in charge of you and your happiness. Your whole attitude is passive; you do things because he doesn't. You try to talk to him and 'it doesn't work'. Nothing will change unless you start to drive the situation. You have to make it work. You have to refuse to do things.

I'm sorry if you have a hard time with this, and I'm sympathetic to you; you have a husband who doesn't do anything, and you need to train him to do things, which is more work for you, i.e. the last thing you want. But carrying on as you are and becoming resigned to nothing changing is signing your life away to this tedium and resentment.

I'd be considering one final chat, in your shoes, and making sure he knew, very clearly, that if things were going to be staying the same, I wouldn't be sticking around, and I certainly wouldn't be doing stuff for him any more.

You are enabling him to take a back seat far too much. You're doing everything because it's easier that explaining to him how it's done. Who taught you how to do things or where everything is? Exactly. No one. You just know these thing because you do it all. You need to simply stop doing everything. He will figure it out only when he has to so you have to put him in that situation. Tell him you aren't doing nursery drop off and let him deal with the rest.

Don't cook every meal, wash his clothes etc. Let things slide so he realises what you actually do. With another baby on the way you can't go on like this. Imagine what your life will be like going back to work after may leave.

well, I, let’s be honest - I am wholly responsible for everything DH does NOT do, apparently

You are making the very common mistake of mixing up responsibility and fault. They're not the same thing.

I don't see how giving up is a sustainable choice, you're just going to resent him.

We have a rota and it works, we know exactly who is doing drop off / pick up and if there's any change that needs to be made to that (such as because of work commitments) we discuss it. We also play to our strengths - I'm far far better in the morning than DP, so I do the early wake ups. DP is far far better in the evening than I am, so they do bath time if they're around.

DP is worse than me when it comes to the less visible admin of childcare - booking in parents evening, remembering what day is PE day. Shared calendar on the phone is great for that, so I'll tend to be the one that reads the emails about whatever faff is happening at school, and take on the responsibility of putting it in the calendar, but once it's in then it's the responsibility of whoever takes them in that day to remember it's comic relief day and whatever clothing that means.

And none of this happened organically, we had to hash it out at each different stage! If you hate asking because it puts the admin on you (and god I hate asking because it puts the admin on me) then the solution is to work out for the both of you a system that works that isn't that.

@SkylightSkylight - it is only when I look back and consider things as a whole I identify there is a ‘problem.’ I’ve put that in inverted commas because my feeling is that things will improve. I really am not married to a bad man, or a cruel one or an abusive one, and those things are really the only things that would have me leave where children are involved.

Lockdown caused some tension and pressure, and we have also moved house in the last six months which has solved some problems and caused some more. On the whole though, it isn’t about what DH does. It’s about feelings. I’d like to feel a bit more cared for, I suppose, and barking orders at someone re a nursery bag isn’t going to help in that respect.

I'd say that you are not willing to have another dc when he isn't pulling his weight with the first one.

Let him prove himself or stick to one child/ leave him.

Bit late when she’s already pregnant…

Your opening post is ridiculed with clues to the issue- you say you’re asking for help, you want to seem like you can do it. No dad is helping with his child- he’s being a dad. Don’t even ask just stop doing so much. Walk out the house and I’m sure he’ll work out bag/ child/ nursery by himself.

As has been said, now is the time for a reset.

You just feel sad and like nothing will change. For your own mental health (and to make sure you're in the best shape for your children's sake), you need to tackle it again and change it. Otherwise you may slide into depression.

It’s really horrible to feel not cared for. No wonder you’re feeling sad about it all. It sounds like your dh is a kind man - if you see that in him is it worth trying to connect on that level? So not a tasking, nagging managerial conversation, as you’ve been really clear you don’t want to keep trying that. Can you tap back into the connection you had that made you fall in love with each other? Speak to him about you feeling uncared for, your worries about taking on the shift to two kids? Ask him how he’s feeling about it, how he imagined building a family together? Make it more about emotions and your connection than about practicalities. If he understands better where your coming from it might shift the discussion from a work style tasking / task avoidance, to a ‘what life and family are we building together, what are our needs and hopes’ type discussion.

Walking out of the house is really poor communication, though. I can quite see why that would not solve any problems, it would instead turn caring for DS into a tit for tat, I’ve done this you do that, sort of scenario.

Plus one of my bugbears is getting up with DS when he wakes, which is often pretty early. I’m not getting up and walking out of the house at 5am!

Thanks @Bridgetjonesreturns

One huge issue here is that he does think he does far more than he does. Whether he genuinely believes this or he is taking the piss a bit, I don’t know.

You sound so sad. And separate from him. YOu're running around doing all the parenting so no time to do anything else, and he's sitting around doing nothing, not even preparing a meal for you. So sure, it doesn't sound like you do much for each other. I mean maybe I've read that wrong completely and actually he's spending all weekend doing DIY and you go out on date nights twice a week and he is in the process of transforming your garden because the two of you love sitting outside int he evenings by candlelight. But it certainly doesn't sound that way.

I truly believe that even good men slip into this. DH is amazing and he really does try. But if I documented the times we've argued about him slipping on the day to day stuff and leaving it all to me and then him being frustrated because he feels like I'm stressed and not "present" you'd wonder why we're even together. But I can look at it over the whole and say to myself, "okay, over the last month, DH started being a bit shit, again. And I got resentful. Again. But we've dealt with it and he will be better. And in a year, when it happens again, it will be LESS bad than this time because less will have slipped."

Well then leave a note explaining why you've walked out, what needs doing, and that you'd like to have a conversation about it with him otherwise you'll have to keep going out to get him to do his share, and you'd rather sit on the sofa like he does. And that if things carry on the way they are, you'll walk out permanently, because you're not happy.

You need to really make your point, and show him that things won't just stay the same if he ignores the problem, because that's what he's relying on: you maintaining his cush little life by doing all the work.

This is common.

I once spent a week tracking what he did vs what I did because I was just so bloody angry and resentful. And, to give DH credit, over time, he has realised and accepted that.

Also, research shows that men consistently over estimate how much housework and child care time they do compared to their (female) partners. It's an actual thing.

@GerbilsForever24 we don’t have a lot of time for one another as a couple, that is true. However, I do cook for him and him for me sometimes. It just isn’t regular. I do his laundry - if washing pants and socks counts as doing something! - he does do things like help with the car, and so on. And I’m getting up with DS every day and taking him to nursery and picking him up and putting him to bed. That surely counts?

Your world is about to change massively with another kid. So how much he thinks he’s doing now is just a historical record - not worth fighting over. Your family workload is about to double, so the conversation is a forward looking one now. How are we gonna split things with two kids, not what have we done till now. Gives you a clean slate to start the discussion from and means he can’t be defensive about what he’s already doing.

Reassuring it isn’t just me @MsMarch , he said something a few weeks ago along the lines of ‘we’ would have to get used to sleepless nights again and I did think wtf! 😂

He's not going to change, he thinks it's your job to look after the kids. And if you don't force the issue nothing will change and you'll probably be back here in 12 months complaining about how things are so unequal.

That's fine but knowing him as you do , you need to realise you'll now be looking after two kids on your own. No judgment, I've been there (only cone though).