my husband often goes out all friday night and sleeps most of saturday

[cappy1]

Hi Mums

My dh works a 60-70 hour week and come Friday night he usually returns home but over the last 6 months he has taken to meeting friends (who do not have children) at a local bar then going back to one of their houses and doesn't return home until saturday morning upon which he then goes to sleep for most of the day. When writing this down it looks like he is having an affair - but I think that I can trust him although at times I do wonder especially as sex between us os practically non-existent.

Since having our ds 16 months ago things have been difficult between us and we have been trying to respect eachother and make our marriage work. However, I do not know how much more I can take. I admit that I have become quite controlling because we cannot seem to agree on how a family should spend the weekend.

I work two days a week and have to do the morning droff off to nursery and pick up and do dinner and bed on my own every day of the week including weekends when he is home. I am also studying.

I have to ask and negotiate for him to do childcare tasks such as dinner, bath and bedtime and I can count on one hand the number of times he has got up woth ds in the early morning.

When we try to talk about what we need from eachother this it usually ends up in a slanging match and he says he feels like I am trying to control him. I want him to be present on the weekends which means being in the house not asleep and not on the sofa but up with the baby for at least one morning sat or sun and able and willing to help with the household and childcare tasks - I do not think this is a big ask and he cleary does. We have reached a point where communication has totally broken down and the behaviour is bad!

Advice needed for hotheaded new mum !

Sorry to be presumptious- I have only scanned thread but is there any underlying resentment to your family? Or any sense of inferiority/superiority/insecurity? Or dissatisfaction with sex life? Is your DH possibily on a massive sulk about something?

If you are not allowed to control him, you should ask him if he could possibly control himself.

He is a father and husband, who has duties and responsibilities - the same as you do.

But whilst you dispense with your duties etc, he's playing 'single guy'. This is very very dangerous. Most especially because it is often how affairs start (sorry, don't mean to frighten you).

He's a man who is very used to getting his own way, in my opinion, and it's time someone told him he is being unreasonable.

PS you should have gone hairless the first time he stayed out for the night. That is seriously taking the pee - even I would go mad about that, and I'm a pushover!

Do not let him brainwash you into thinking that him going to family functions or out for meals with you as a family is him making a compromise. He should want to do those things with you at the weekend as he does not see you and your DS in the week. If he doesn't want to spend any time with you of his own accord without trading it off as if he is doing you a favour then I would be asking him why he is still married to you at all....?

God, he sounds like a complete knob.

Having been in the opposite situation myself (I worked long hours, whilst hubby studied and looked after our DD), I think you need to remember that he is working the equivalent to two full time jobs. It is bloody knackering trying to do that, so I can understand his reluctance to do much housework / childcare. That said, I don't think he should be seeing spending time with his family as a chore, and I think he does need to rein in some of his drinking time. Could you perhaps try to increase your hours a bit so he could decrease his? Or are you financially in the position to get some home help (cleaner or something) so that that might give you more time to look after your children? HTH

Thanks Tough Daddy and Elkat I have found your contributions really helpful. Yes I think dh is on a massive sulk. Sex life is not good - arguments+being knackered = poor sex life and as the communication has broken down and the behaviour is so bad it seems impossible to do anything to change the situation. So that could be one of the reasons he is acting like a twat.

We did have a long talk yesterday and he feels resentful that I have not been putting more effort into completing my degree (I have had some childcare to help with this) which would pave the way for me to earn more money thus taking some of the pressure off him financially. So we got to the bottom of where he is coming from I guess. Still not sure what I make of it all. I had planned to complete my degree before having my ds but it did not turn out that way. He sais he would love to be a stay at home Dad if I were able to earn enough to support us on my own. Well one thing is for sure - he would get to see how much work it is looking after a young child on your own all day and night! But I guess I would also find it tough to work full time and feel the pressure of paying all the bills myself. We don't really have the option to both work part-time because of the sectors we work in. So it is all or nothing for one of us and at the moment because he earns the money it seems as though he he is feeling the pressure so much and the stress of long hours that he goes out and acts like someone without any responsibilities when he is not working i.e. Friday and Saturday. Come Sunday he is a different person - helps out and suggests that we go out for a meal etc.

Having kids is a huge responsibility and I think that he is finding it hard to cope with it. Add to that no sex and it is not a great situation to be in. But I also take my responsibility as a wife and mother seriously and I want to try and work this out and keep my family together...

I think he needs to wake up and smell the coffee. He needs to realise that life is different now - you have a child together and he can't expect you to care for your child, run a house, complete a degree and look after him with absolutely no input from him at all. He is an adult and a parent too and needs to stop moaning about what sort of life he would like and get on with living the one he has got.

I appreciate he would like you to contribute to the family finances but he needs to realise that he can't have it all ways. For you to finish your degree and improve your earning prospects will take a lot more commitment to his family from HIM.

I get the feeling you really resent him at the moment which I can understand - and I wouldn't want to have sex with someone I resented. Does he see the link there?

Yeah I think he sees the link - but not sure he sees it the way I do. But I am sure he has his own 'links' about how he feels about having sex with me!

Can you spend half of the cash he is spending on booze/drugs on a Friday night on a babysitter and regularly do something together?

I am familiar with the working arse off to support the family pressure, and have some sympathy, but have always felt very guilty come the weekends at missing out on the kids the rest of the week, and only ever stayed away from home if on conference, whereas have taken holiday from work to let dh go to Ibiza for a week with the lads....maybe it is a girl thing, the guilt.....

cappy1- great that you are making progress. I am always slighty suspicious when H says he would be happy to reverse roles at a time when that is not possible.

If the two of you can agree to make an attempt to reciprocate addressing, say the two most issues from each others point of view then you might both feel better about things.

It might sound silly, but perhaps many of us should schedule monthly communication meetings with our DPs where we review things....sounds so much like work . I think that it might have been the writer India Knight who said that one of friends has an AGM with her H to review their "operations" and balance sheet, tangibles and intangibles .

Well yes trying to work on communication. I have heard that that is very imporant in a marriage...

Just hard to do that when I feel so resentful

Post children, it is easy for things to descend into a silent tit for tat. You have to get things on to a positive track where you are each demonstrating that you are trying to restore some normality/happiness for the other. Sounds as though you could turn things round but you should say to him that next time you expect the two of you to talk about things like grown ups.

Alfreda

Yes I often think that if I worked full time I would do everything in my power to be home for bedtime and OFCOURSE not go out on Friday night and not come home until Saturday!!! - I agree that mothers feel the guilt of not being there

I think it is a good idea to try and do something together I maybe I will feel like shagging him then

recoomend playing sport, gogging, walking, gyming together. Will help with the quality of sleep if nothing else.

DH's bf was like this (his kids are grown up now). When I was pregnant with dd (now 8) he was going through a vicious divorce and gave us a talk about how he'd worked his arse off all the time his kids were growing up and was knackered at w/ends so was usually asleep/non compos mentis, and so he completely missed their lives. He'd been made redundant a couple of years before this time, and said that suddenly he realised he didn't know his kids at all - not at all, he didn't know anything about them. His advice to us was not to, under any circumstances, work so hard that either of us was too tired to spend time with the family, because whatever you have isn't worth missing those years with your kids. It was the most appalling revelation to him, that he had missed everything - even though he was there at weekends, he was too tired to bother much and of course, once he'd been made redundant they were well into their teens and it was pretty much too late.

I don't know if this will help tip the balance to your dh and encourage him to re-evaluate his priorities.

Good point Jux.

Cappy1- we men are fairly predictable. You can get him to communicate by doing the following:

-Remind him of the reasons you married him (stroke gently at the same time), and that he is wonderful when he isn't sulking etc. Step back whilst he beats his chest and wave his arms for a few minutes.
-He is then ready to communicate and you can then make your points about him acting as a selfish immature bastard in recent time and that you will kick his ass if he doesn't shape up.
-Then for general maintenance and operation feed man weekly with meat, drink and sex if you can. BUT make him do the housework, cooking and gardening FIRST for best results. Simple really; someone should write the universal handbook for operating men.

And take him out for frequent exercise to keep him in reasonable shape especially in his 40s +

Excellent point Jux. 'No other success can compensate for failure in the home', as the Mormons put it.

ToughDaddy, where were you with this advice when I was struggling with XH's?

Cappy, just be careful not to take on the responsibility for his happiness. Of course you can see it from his point of view that his life is hard, he needs to relax, etc. But I found myself almost trying to erase myself and the DC's for XH. Making sure he got life easy because life was so hard for him with a job and supporting me and the 6 children. It's almost like I was apologising for existing, 'the DC's and I shall try not to bother you too much, DH. Sorry for farking your life up'.

Life was also bloody bloody hard for me too, and I tried to shoulder extra duties and responsibilities just so he would not be too miserable and would therefore stay with us. But the more I shouldered, the more detached he became anyway.

A husband needs to pitch in and be a real team with you and the DC's. (Hope not too preachy!)

He'a a selfish bastard IMO. Getting married and having children is a partnership. Fair enough, if he is working very long hours during the week that you do the chores during the week and look after your child (could you get a cleaner though). However, I do not understand why he does not want to spend any time with his child at the weekend. As for going out all night and sleeping all day every week.. If my DH had done that pre baby, I would have been furious.
How on earth does he expect you to complete yuor degree whilst looking after your child full time with zero help from him. I am sorry, but he makes my blood boil.
As for the sex thing, well, I don't know any of my friends who are at it like rabbits now after having children but that is part and parcel of having children. I am sure that if he bothered to stay around at the weekend, then your se life would improve. You actually need to see each other to have sex!

Adjusting to having children is hard and tiring but it is both parent's responsibility.
I hope that you manage to sort things out but he sounds like a complete piece of shit.

CW- you are right. That is why I say that Cappy needs to ask DH what he wants and ALSO tell DH what she wants. It will not be perfect but they need to get the partnership working again. It is almost like they need to clear the air and replace it with a feeling of mutual support.

Agree, TD.

When a couple are saying to each other 'I need to get out more often because life's sht for me', and the other one is saying 'well, it's sht for me too, you know' - that's just going to make both partners feel like a failure, isn't it?

What's needed is mutual support, both at home, both trying to make each other happy. It is very, very dangerous to put his needs before yours, because he will learn to believe that he does actually count more than you, Cappy. He is being quite selfish at the moment, and you have probably let him get away with it because you understand his need for a bit of relaxation.

But like ToughDaddy says, he needs to learn where you are coming from and that your views are important too. This is not a power struggle between employer and employee, it is a partnership - and both partners must be seen to count.

If I was in that situation I would get a babysitter and go down to the bar myself and have a lie in myself...you need to work it out together and have equal time off and he needs time alone with your child to give you a break. Short sharp shock...he'll learn.

let him have his friday - you have the saturday and let him do on sunday what you do on saturday.

if he works all those hours - thats a lot of hours, then i can understand why bathing a baby might not be top of his list - esp as your home all day ( awaits sahms pouncing i do it 24 hours yadda yadda i don't give a shit)

he works long hours.

he shouldnt waste saturday

either have a conversation and a word in his shell like or say - fine have it your way - youhave your saturday hangover - cos sunday is my hangover - and sunday dinner and the kid are all yours baby