Husband hates weekends

[Waffle19]

Not sure whether this is the right board for this but just after some advice or words of wisdom. My husband currently hates weekends and his attitude is just bringing down the mood of the whole house.

We have two kids, 1 and 4, so we’re in the thick of parenting young children. So yes our weekends are fairly dull. We have housework to do (mainly laundry, hoovering, bedding etc as we are fortunate enough to have a weekly cleaner). We have two dogs to walk. The youngest needs a longish middle of the day nap though we don’t run our lives around this. My eldest has a weekly swimming lesson. And obviously the kids want down time to play with us and their toys after a week in school / nursery.

I get that it’s not exciting and often I’m bored too but I also think it’s part and parcel of life with young contents and I’m fairly content.

We regularly do a morning out or a day out at a farm, country park etc and to be honest we go out as a family a lot more than other families we know so it’s not as if we’re stuck in all weekend.

But recently every weekend DH is moaning that he hates and we don’t do anything.

I just don’t know how to fix this. I’ve tried asking him what he would like to do, what plans he’d like us to make. I’ve encouraged him to start playing a sport he used to do pre covid and kids. I booked us a weekend away child free as a Christmas present. I get my parents to help as much as they can. I actively encourage him to meet his friends.

But ultimately we can’t change the complete nature of our weekends unless I’m missing something. I just feel like this is how weekends with kids are.

Anyone got any advice? I wonder if he’s depressed but I don’t know how to tackle that. At the end of the day I can’t force him to make his own plans but then it’s also driving me mad listening to his moaning.

At the moment I’m constantly just tempted to say to him let’s split up then he’d get the child free weekends he’s hankering for while I’d get weekends with the kids that at least wouldn’t be ruined by his moaning. That’s not really a serious option but I feel like he doesn’t just get that if he wants regular child free weekends that’s the only option!

Yeah it’s not really up to you then to sort his fun! He can organise something if he wants

my Husband had a Saturday off recently while I took the kids out - he spent it asleep then he was annoyed that evening saying he wasted the day 🤣🤣 that’s his own choice and his own fault

same as how your husband has choices to make his life more fun

Your problem isn’t that your dh doesn’t enjoy weekends. It’s that he doesn’t enjoy being a dad.

This. Did he want children OP? In my experience most men aren't as enthusiastic as women and those that say they are have little concept of the reality.

Tell him to grow up?

This is not your problem to fix.
They are his children.
He needs to start engaging more with parenting. I find the less parenting some people do the more checked out they become. It’s a very slippery slope. How involved is he? It sounds like he is replicating the same distant relationship he had as a child. He needs to have therapy op, before he ruins his marriage and relationship with his children.

When ours were this young we worked out what we both saw as a treat - me a bath (uninterrupted), him was time on his hobby. We both made a routine of this and then got into the habit of giving our weekends structure
E.g. out for breakfast, walk and park, back home, play, both get time to relax, us takeaway or nice meal with a film.

We'd try and get some jobs done in the week so we could relax more and had swimming in the week so less to do at the weekend.

I think when you've got two kids these ages are a bit worst of both worlds and it's hard going. It's understandable to find it hard but he needs to be making the best of it and being realistic about weekends.

I like @Fupoffyagrasshole way of dealing with things.
It would also force him to realise how hard it is to look after two dcs on his own and he actually has it easy. Having the dcs EOW might not be that attractive afterall.

Having said that, I’d be very careful of not doing everything to try agd solve the problem for him. Telling him to go agd do something for himself is all good. But if he takes you to it, you’ll end up in the same situation that your SIL.
It really has to be ‘go out, enjoy yourself. Have a hobby’ AND ‘remember, I deserve the same time off when you look after the dcs’ AND ‘the dcs deserve time with both their parents as a family’.
And I’d be grey rocking him when he starts moaning about his dull life tbh.

You need to tell him to get a grip and grow up, he wanted children and this is parenting. He is welcome to make arrangements and go out, he gets one lay in he isn't hard done by.

@LilacRaven

why? Going down the pub to catch up with mates is a great thing to do

Did your husband actually state at any point that he wanted children?

Not to me if it involves drinking as you're not a responsible sober parent to clock back in when you get home. I'm all for seeing mates and socialising but doing that via a sport or hobby is better for mental health in my opinion.

That's not to say I don't think parents should never let off steam and meet friends for a day of drinking but I think it's healthy as an ad hoc event not a weekly thing (when there are two very young DCs at home!)

Could he be "bringing down the mood of the house" so you will step up and do everything he doesn't want to do including parenting?

His dad and brother seem to have the setup he wants. What dappledgreyandwhite said about the less parenting someone does the more checked out they become seems to be happening here.

Maybe it's time for a blunt discussion. If he's bringing the mood down and having an attitude, it's affecting the whole household. Your 4 year old is at an age where he's forming those lifelong memories of what family life was like and he's picking up on what you and your husband are modeling for him.

Tell him he either does something about it or shuts up as you're sick of his whining?

I think you’ve probably hit the nail on the head here, or at least this is how it feels at the moment and how I probably need to explain that it comes across!

I should caveat that with of course he loves his kids, is great with them when he does spend time with them, and they were both very much wanted. But I think he actively dislikes everything that comes with parenting at the moment, or like I say that’s how it seems

He sounds like a petulant brat.
He chose to get married and have kids .
Its up to him to find ways of making weekends more fun

How's your relationship with your husband?

I ask because we have same aged children and we enjoy that dull stuff because it's time together, we laugh and have in jokes about our ridiculous children etc.

Anything can be dull or brilliant with the right company. Could you try to have time together to work on your relationship?