My wife is so defensive.

[edensparkles]

Been with my wife for 14 years married for 5. Ever since I've known her she's been defensive, but now we have kids it's become really difficult. There's always excuses/reasons etc. We've both been through a lot and I find I have to be the bigger person and park my emotional and physical needs. I never ever get a yes I accept your opinion.

Even things which seem simple like saying it makes me really stressed when I come downstairs from WFH and the downstairs is really messy are we able to agree that we will tidy away stuff before the other person comes downstairs etc is met with huge backlash.

Another example she will sleep in till really late. She had a rough night dealing with our 2u2 on Xmas day she didn't appear out of bed on boxing day until 3pm. I didn't get much of a mental break and ended up only getting 5 or 6 hours sleep myself. She says I lack compassion and empathy but she makes excuses for example she had a rough night, but then doesn't end up going to bed till 2/3am. And she's always been a night person from before we had kids so her reasoning doesn't have as much impact and I find it hard to take them seriously.

Any ideas/tips/suggestions I want to help and be a supportive husband but it's so difficult.

Mess can be tidied up when the kids are in bed.

I can't believe your wife is looking after 2 babies all day and you stroll in after work, criticise her lack of tidying and then wonder why she's defensive.

I wonder if it will help if you wrote your feelings down and gave it to her and she can choose to respond through writing it with her voice.

It sounds like any suggestion you make she feels like you are attacking her.

Obviously couples therapy would be ideal as you both get to each have your say and listen to the other persons POV but that’s expensive and not easy to do when you have young kids and little free time.

Do you both wfh?

I can see the appeal of wfh but I think it’s important that you both get a break from each other and the DCs and home.

So does your wife wfh or does she get 5 days a week of you wfh? The translation of “are we able to agree” to tidy up, is “you wife must tidy up before I come down”.

As she was up all night with little ones she needed undisturbed sleep during the day otherwise she’d burn out. As you had got sleep on that particular night, then you taking over while she sleeps is good partnership.

Given you saying you have to park your physical needs I suspect you may need to reflect on your attitude towards your wife and your role as a partner and Dad as you may have given her the ick.

What household chores do you do when you are looking after the children?

Any suggestions?

I would say try doing your share rather than expect your wife to look after your 2 kids, including after having no sleep at night, and tidy up before you grace everyone with your presence...

“I can't believe your wife is looking after 2 babies all day and you stroll in after work, criticise her lack of tidying and then wonder why she's defensive.”

This. That behaviour of yours is profoundly obnoxious.

I do all the food shopping and the cooking, I generally look after all the bills. And until recently I would get up with the kids at 6/6.30am. I also do every bedtime i.e book/bath/story etc.

Where have I said I don't do my share? My issue is I don't feel like things are equal between us and when I bring it up with her she gets incredibly defensive

I'm not sure why people are having a go at you tbh

Can you confirm, are you doing alternate nights dealing with the kids when they wake? So Monday you, Tuesday her etc?

Then every morning you get up at 6.30am with the kids and she sleeps til 9?

I'm not sure what the goal is for tidying toys away at 5pm - presumably the kids are still up til about 7, so do they then get the toys back out again?

When you say you pay the bills, can you clarify - is this administratively or financially? If admin, get everything on dd. If financially, presumably you and dw recognised the benefit of her doing the weekday childcare, so her doing that saves the cost of astronomical childcare? In which case aren't you both providing towards the household income? (You with a salary and her saving rhe household around 1800pcm in 2x full time childcare?) So payment of the bills is from family income?

What does your dw do while you are doing two lots of bath story bedtimes?

How old is the youngest child and is she breastfeeding? Unless they’re twins chances are that the younger one is very very young. In which case she’s just had two close pregnancies and a very young baby and you should be cutting her as much slack as possible.

Do you do any cleaning up at all after you've cooked?

If your wife is responsible for all the cleaning/tidying and you do shopping and cooking you are getting the nicer jobs imo

Also what money does she have access to?

No because the in-laws do a day each. So she will have them 3x days and I generally will have them most of the time on a weekend.

What does she do on the weekend?

Does she work or is she a SAHM? Can’t seem to see it in your posts.

Can you break down a bit how many hours you both work and the childcare arrangements with grandparents?

How old are we talking when you say two under two? That seems like two pregnancies pretty close together.

Some of the responses on this thread are super lols and have cheered me up immensely. Would also like to find out if @Bard6817 can be cloned, or at very least offer classes to the hard of understanding.

Apart from what @Fladdermus said it doesn’t seem to me that you are offering much thought and empathy to the fact that your wife has spent the past three years either pregnant / looking after a baby / looking after a baby while pregnant / looking after two babies. I know women are supposed to be bionic, but the physical and hormonal/emotional toll of that is absolutely massive and is bound to take some recovering from (am talking years not weeks).

Your attitude to her natural sleep rhythms (night owl) is that it means her broken sleep counts less than yours. Let me assure you that broken sleep is torture for anyone.

It’s great that you do the early morning, and bedtime routine. It’s great that you are an engaged father. But it doesn’t sound as though you’re offering your wife a whole heap of emotional support/care, and this focus on ensuring things are 50/50 cannot always be realistic given how young the children are, the fact that you’re working etc etc.

Step up, stop whinging, tidy up (to be helpful, not to make a passive aggressive point), prioritise your wife’s physical needs (eg. sleep) whenever possible, and then you might, maybe, find yours weren’t at the very bottom of her to do list.

Honestly 2u2 is rough.
We have 14 months between ours and it feels like we are constantly bickering and getting rubbed up the wrong way.

I’d consider that whilst you feel entitled to express your opinion's and thoughts ‘it’s too messy down here’ they might come across like you’re having a go at your wife and therefore she feels justified to defend herself or actions.
Its not the case that you have an unquestionable right to voice your opinions with no pushback.

We do things the flip to you, my hubby does the nights and is a night person whilst I do the mornings, he sleeps in. I don’t think it’s very fair. Mostly because through the night it’s not constant childcare and it’s very very rarely both of them at the same time whereas mornings/daytime it’s both of them all the time. I understand why you’re annoyed tbh what I found helped was making a simple spreadsheet with each child and the time on an average day each parent is ‘on duty’ I did mine in 3 colours

• me parenting alone
• hubby parenting alone
• co parenting

it quite clearly showed a disparity where hubby basically never parents both kids alone but I do it for 3/4 hours every day. He also gets on average 1.5 hours more sleep and 1.5 hours more downtime. He couldn’t argue with the facts in black and white and he’s improved since

ExH used to swan in after work and say “we must keep things tidier” meaning “you must keep things tidier”, which pissed me off so much.
If she’s been with the dc all day and the house is messier than you’d like just tidy up.

I get defensive when I feel attacked. How are you broaching these subjects OP?

Erm, do you have any better examples because from those, it feels like you might need to reassess a little bit.

We had a huge row after she brought the car back with no fuel and I asked her nicely I would add.if she could make sure it isn't on zero because it makes me.really anxious.

I hope you went out and refuelled immediately that would solve the anxiety

I generally will have them most of the time on a weekend

The point is, what chores are you doing at the same time as looking after the kids? Anyone can do or one or the other, it's doing both at the same time that is tricky.

I do all the food shopping and the cooking

Do you do this whilst supervising two children under 2 or is someone else looking after them for you?