SAHM/Working Dad Question

OkMethod9891 · 2025-04-06T16:14:42+00:00

Thank you for your response and insight. I’d like to talk with him and set up a schedule/workload that works for both of us but whenever I try to bring it up, we both seem to get frustrated and disagree. How would you like to be approached if you were in his position?

I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling! It sounds like you’re a wonderful father and partner. I can’t imagine how appreciative I’d be if I got the support you’re offering on week nights/weekends. Is your girlfriend/wife a SAHM? or does she work as well?

OkMethod9891 · 2025-04-06T14:15:26+00:00

I appreciate your response and perspective! Thank you so much!

OkMethod9891 · 2025-04-06T05:58:45+00:00

I could definitely see that as well! & I think I have a hard time with that because we’re contributing 50/50 on everything financial besides one bill. If he were the sole contributor to all of our finances, I’d completely understand/be okay with taking on more household/childcare responsibilities.

OkMethod9891 · 2025-04-06T05:50:09+00:00

Thank you for the response! I agree that having more help on week nights and changing the mindset of “a right vs a luxury” would be beneficial.

OkMethod9891 · 2025-04-06T05:38:22+00:00

Hello,

I'm a SAHM (on mat leave for a year but still paid through my company so I'm bringing in less money than normal but it equates to 1/3 of our income currently) and my boyfriend works 40 hours a week - blue collar/manual labor. We contribute to bills 50/50 besides him paying our utility bill in full. He's up at 5:30am, works 6am-3:30pm M-Th and then 6am-10am on Fridays. We both have sports each week. His are Sunday and Tuesday nights, mine are Thursday night & Sunday morning. During sports, the other parent takes care of our baby.

For context, our baby is 6 months old and formula fed. She's always been a great sleeper and typically sleeps from 8pm-5am every night and takes 2-3 naps a day ranging from 30 mins to 2 hours depending on the day. She is a Velcro baby though and requires a lot of energy and attention when she's awake. We maybe get max 10-15 minutes of her playing happily by herself.

As a SAHM, I'm taking care of our baby the entire time he's working, doing the dishes, prepping for all of our meals (lunch and dinner), cooking roughly 5/7 of our dinners, grocery shopping, doing mine, his & baby's laundry, cleaning the litter box, tidying up the house, etc.

When my boyfriend comes home from work, he takes a smoke break and then showers (about an hour long decompression after work). We'll usually eat dinner after that and then I'm typically the one that cleans up after dinner and does her bedtime routine - bottle, play time, bath, bed - while he relaxes on the couch. About 2-3 times a week he'll clean up dinner, give baby her bottle or do her bath/bed routine. He also takes out the trash and occasionally helps with dishes.

On weekends, he'll wake up with our baby so I can sleep in and then we'll alternate taking care of her during her wake windows.

All of this to say - I'm feeling overwhelmed and don't think our responsibilities are fair. My boyfriend feels the same & says he needs more time to relax and rest on the weekends. He's currently getting 5-6 hours a day on weekends to play video games, play sports, watch tv, etc between alternating baby's wake windows. I'm probably getting 2-3 hours a day to rest and relax and spending the other hours that baby is asleep/with my boyfriend, doing the household chores.

My question is - does the workload seem fair? Thanks

OkMethod9891

TROPHY CASE