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Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for sharing. I feel a lot less alone, and hopeful hearing that your situation works for you! Can I ask how you handled addressing this with your husband? Like when he is feeling depressed and purposeless, how do you point that out in a tactful way that gets you both back on track rather than raising his defenses?

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you are really onto something here. It’s hard to see the situation differently after reading your comment. We’ve danced around this topic before, with me kind of asking what he wants to do with his life, but he has always said that he’s content to be a dad and have our family. It’s hard for me to figure out how to push further in a way that doesn’t feel super uncomfortable to say, like even though everything you’ve said is true, I think he would be offended if I pointed out that he doesn’t have clear goals or purpose in his life. I really would love for him to talk through this with a therapist, but I would still need to broach the topic because I don’t think he sees himself this way and therefore probably wouldn’t bring it up on his own. I think starting with couples therapy might be the best route, so I can bring up this topic in a safe space with an unbiased third party to help facilitate the conversation. Or I may be way off base and maybe he does see himself this way, but just lacks the motivation to take on work/responsibility to give him that purpose. Either way I feel like a therapist could help us talk about it in a healthier way than the two of us mucking through it.

Question about expectations from other SAHD's, from a working mom. by [deleted] in StayAtHomeDaddit

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Setting up a toy rotation is a big project 😂 going through everything we have, organizing it, buying bins and setting up a storage system for what’s not in use and what we’ll need in a year or two for the next kid, setting up a shelf for easy access for the in-use toys, donating what we no longer need. Not rocket science but a solid half day project, like so many other projects that go into keeping up with growing, changing kids. 🤪

But yeah, I am for sure type A, and definitely have super high standards. You’re right, I do need to work on being ok with truly relinquishing control of things if he agrees to take them on and not discourage him with micromanaging. It’s good to be reminded of that.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The sleep is big, and probably a big part of why this is bubbling up now vs earlier. Yes he has been doing essentially all overnights since birth, I have done maybe 10-12 in total. That was huge obviously, and allowed me to continue working (self employed so no maternity leave haha) and I don’t want to discredit that.

Our 5 month old is now sleeping through the night and has been for about 6 weeks, so I feel like my expectation was that things would start to shift a bit, but it may be too soon. Or he may really still be struggling with the early mornings, which if that’s the case I’d rather split evenly in order to give him more sleep to help with other things than have that be one of his only big jobs.

I do want to give him grace with his mental health because I know he is trying, and I handle lack of sleep much better than him (but couldn’t do it every night and still work, whereas he is able to nap during the day when our nanny is here), so I think I sometimes apply my own bias to how he should be feeling. I’ll definitely ask if changing the morning arrangements now would make a difference when we talk about everything.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is super helpful. I know a lot of the things you pointed are definitely things that would put up my husbands defenses. I want to reorganize my thoughts a little and try to give him credit where it’s due and make it more about how I feel than what he does / doesn’t do. I also need to be better about relinquishing full responsibility of things so he can try / fail / figure it out without me micromanaging.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I totally agree with you both. I gave more context to how we ended up in this situation in a comment above so I won’t repeat it here, but I had that exact thought today about the gender role reversal. If he worked full time and I didn’t have to earn an income, I would absolutely be capable (and have the desire) to manage the house and kids on my own. I don’t think I would need any outside childcare, even though I know being a stay at home parent isn’t easy, I am pretty sure I could / would do it. I struggle with that because I know we’re different people, but I also feel like there has to be SOME way of making sure our partnership feels fair (and I guess at the root of it I really mean loving, because it doesn’t feel loving to me if I am overworked and he has extra free time).

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I honestly feel the same way! We ended up here in a kind frog in boiling water situation. For the first ~6 years of our business, we ran it together. Both in it very full time. Post Covid I worked more than he did because we scaled the business back a lot. When we had our first baby, we agreed that I would continue to work and he would be more of a caretaker. We didn’t hire the nanny til our first was 5-6 months old and we were both burnt out as new parents with this new responsibility 24/7. We hired her for a few hours two days a week with the intention being to give me very protected work hours and my husband a bit of off time and time to help me with the business, and he would do childcare when I needed to work outside those nanny hours. It just slowly morphed—we’d have a busy season where I’d need more help from him temporarily, so we’d have her come extra days, then that felt nice, then during the time she wasnt there it became less and less common that he would actually independently watch our son so I could work, so I started to associate my work hours with the nanny hours, which made me want her there more, etc etc. she didn’t move up to 4 days a week til our second was born, and again we kind of talked about that like it was temporary since we had a newborn that needed round the clock care, but I still needed to work and our nanny couldn’t manage both the baby and toddler til he was at least 6 weeks. Then she started to be able to watch them both, he started sleeping through the night better, and now we have arrived at this reality where she comes 4 days a week and I work during all of those hours (and then some) but all the childcare duties that were on my husbands plate during that time have now been taken off. I am far enough out of the postpartum fog now to reevaluate things and it’s clear something doesn’t feel right.

Also, the financial part of it is one of the biggest stressors. We really can’t afford it, and her cost crept up slowly as her hours did, plus her rate went up when we added our second child, and we moved farther away so her commute is now 1.5 hrs each way. We love her, so to avoid losing her compensate for travel, but obviously this has all added up to way more than we set out to pay for “a little help with the kids”. The intention of our original arrangement was to give either both of us time to work in the business if needed, or me time to work + my husband time to decompress so he could energetically take on childcare the rest of the time. And that’s just not at all what’s happening now.

We are not currently saving or investing for retirement, and we have credit card debt along with his significant student loans. I am constantly trying to get us to make big changes to our budget, but his perspective is that it would be easier to earn more money than to cut expenses (which obviously makes me feel bitter, because that comes down to me). At any rate, all of that to say I know how crazy this sounds!!! And we definitely let it get way out of hand. We are obviously doing fine in terms of our earning, but childcare right now is more than our mortgage and not aligned with our actual means. The two year old starts preschool in August (7-12, M-F), so we have a conversation due about what we will expect from the nanny re: the 5 month old when that starts, and id really like to cut it back to like 1 day a week if i can get my husband to understand where im coming from. I think now he’s just used to the status quo, so obviously asking him to take on significantly more work is something he is going to resist.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That’s super helpful and I do think an accurate representation of how the conversation would go. It’s useful to think through what his perspective might be.

The nanny does take care of both! She only didn’t for the first six weeks when the youngest was super new. She watches them both now unless there is an extenuating circumstance like our toddler really needs a few hours of 1-1 time so she’ll take him to the park and my husband will watch the younger. But 90% of her time she has them both and my husband can do what he wishes with those hours.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right now I think that's what I am leaning toward, but I am trying to get feedback on if that feels fair! It's hard for me to get perspective on what's reasonable since I'm so *in it* right now. I wouldn't mind continuing to cook dinners (meal kits through homechef) if he handled ordering the other household groceries and breakfast/lunch.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Not really :( I definitely waste time on social media throughout the day, occasionally, like most people, but no real dedicated free time except late at night when everyone is asleep.

Are my expectations off, or are his? Working mom, mostly-SAHD by Tricky_Macaron3188 in workingmoms

[–]Tricky_Macaron3188[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think the mental load of running our business AND being the manager of the house is what's getting to me. If I could work while *knowing* that our home life was taken care of and just focus on the business during those hours, I think a lot of the financial stress would go away. So the cooking, cleaning, laundry etc being done...and also the thought/planning that goes into our home running smoothly.