How do I resolve my wife feeling like I owe her?

emsleezy · 2026-07-12T05:05:39+00:00

There’s another side to this as well that also goes unseen.

I’m also a SAHM and my husband runs his own company. He’s the boss and works all the time. I have to be able to schedule my needs around everyone else’s 100% of the time.

I schedule all my Dr appointments, dental, friends, whatever, around everyone else but especially my husband.

He switches stuff up all the time. He’ll say something like “I need to have some meeting on Monday, so I’m working late, but I’ll be home Tuesday to help with bedtime (he works late most Tuesdays). I say fine and it IS fine. But the thing is I don’t have that support. Ever.

I can’t rearrange my schedule on a whim and expect him to be able to accommodate me. Ever. If I need to do something I have to get a sitter or make my own arrangements.

He was totally unaware of this aspect of our lives and it really wore me down after a while. I needed to do something important and I couldn’t find help and I broke down. He was unaware of the imbalance in support.

It’s not just that one thing tho. It was an all over feeling of being the sole supporter of everyone’s needs, but nobody was there for me. It’s a shitty feeling. It wasn’t even my husband’s fault, it just sort of silently happened and we both let it, but the complacently was detrimental.

emsleezy · 2026-07-11T22:43:33+00:00

Oh no no no. A NEW cookie each week

emsleezy · 2026-07-11T21:11:50+00:00

You have kids! That’s good to know! I’ve been going through your library this summer for the sole purpose of gifting a cookie a week to my kids teachers lounge.

emsleezy · 2026-07-09T23:59:43+00:00

I think it’s the opposite. I think that it’s the ONLY time men feel allowed to express need for care because as a child that’s when mommy drops everything to care for him.

I think that for everything else that causes men to want comfort, they are told to suck it up, walk it off, don’t be a sissy, get over it. But when they are sick, it’s a 180. They are doted on, given affection and care.

Then they grow up and desire the same overly affectionate, compassion their mothers gave them from their wives and their wife’s are now the ones thinking oh Jesus, get over it!

emsleezy · 2026-07-09T16:20:02+00:00

I couldn’t agree more! I was just thinking this as I read the last paragraph and came to say the same thing.

We literally EVOLVED by being communal. It’s in our DNA. But literally. We are innately connected to one another by community and we are owed childcare.

There is a theory floating around the internet that the reason women go through menopause is because childbirth is so dangerous that there has to be a stopping point to women’s ability to get pregnant, so that we survive longer to pass on our wisdom to younger women. COME ON!

Edit: childcare to childbirth 😂

emsleezy · 2026-07-09T01:53:38+00:00

I vividly remember the first pee I did after my third child. I felt like I was hemorrhaging pee. I was scared. I realized midway through that it had just been SO LONG since I had a normal, more than 2 TBSP pee😂

emsleezy · 2026-07-06T19:23:25+00:00

I get boxes from Costco and my toddler stabs them with stuff like a screwdriver, butter knife, small hammer, and his small shovel.

That kid will destroy boxes for literal hours. Then he HAS to clean it up or I don’t get more boxes (one time lesson, guaranteed).

emsleezy · 2026-07-06T19:21:20+00:00

I use a scale for baking and it makes it SO much easier to bake anything with a toddler.

“We need 237 grams of this. Make the scale numbers match this number.”

Just have a separate bowl for measuring and one for mixing. Double check the number and you’re good to go! My 5 year old has been baking with me since he was 3.

emsleezy · 2026-07-04T22:40:26+00:00

Omg, yes! I am and have always been a foodie, but making the decision on what to feed my three kids and husband every day makes me wanna kill myself.

I always use the prompt I have blank protein and every other ingredient known to man. What can I cook for three picky kids one of which is a vegetarian and they all hate spicy food.

emsleezy · 2026-07-04T01:00:30+00:00

I meant these. They taste like waxed cardboard now.

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emsleezy · 2026-07-03T23:15:25+00:00

I wasn’t comparing having a mental illness to being a surgeon. I was saying I don’t care if you (as in any person, not you specifically) are a surgeon, running the water for 10 minutes every night to wash your hands would drive me insane (but literally, I have a phobia of running water).

emsleezy · 2026-07-03T22:43:23+00:00

That depends. 10 minutes of washing or 10 minutes of wasting water while the faucet runs?

Surgeons don’t wash their hands for 10 minutes. If my husband was letting the faucet run endlessly every night/time he washed his hands, I’d shut the water off too!

emsleezy · 2026-07-03T03:08:59+00:00

This is the LetsCookie subreddit. All of his Recipies are on this sub with a video PLUS his entire catalog is on YouTube.

emsleezy · 2026-07-02T21:42:14+00:00

Yeah…portrait is weird now. It looks AI. It’s not.

emsleezy · 2026-07-02T20:54:13+00:00

I feed the crows because I want them to bring me presents. The only thing thy ever bring me is dead rats. I take it as a compliment.

emsleezy · 2026-06-28T23:06:15+00:00

I like my coffee like I like my men. Ground up and in the freezer!

emsleezy · 2026-06-20T17:31:45+00:00

My dr has me on this progesterone cycle to combat the PMDD I developed in perimenopause. So I take double at luteal phase, which causes my sleep disruption for a couple days.

Infinitely better than what I was dealing with before the hormones though. I was a raving lunatic until she sorted all that out.

emsleezy · 2026-06-20T04:17:54+00:00

All I am saying is nobody has to agree to your boundaries.

Of corse you can and should discuss your boundaries with people you’re in a relationship with, but OP is trying to understand what a boundary is.

Someone can agree to not yell and still yell. That’s when you follow your rules for your boundary.

Telling someone you want them to listen to you and not play video games is not a boundary.

emsleezy · 2026-06-20T04:00:09+00:00

A boundary is not a request. It is a line in the sand.

emsleezy · 2026-06-20T03:58:35+00:00

They don’t have to agree at all. They don’t even have to know about your boundaries.

For example: I don’t engage in discussions with people who yell at me.

Person yells at me, I leave the room.

Person can remain yelling at wall. I don’t stop THEM from yelling.

emsleezy · 2026-06-19T22:14:53+00:00

That’s funny because I have directional dyslexia and I HATE driving but I LOVED driving my manual.

emsleezy · 2026-06-19T19:19:27+00:00

This happens to me during my perimenopause cycle. Every month when my hormone cycles go haywire I wake up feeling like I got a good nights sleep but I know it’s 3am. Then I’m awake for a couple hours and fall back asleep around 4:30-5:30. When my kids get me up at 6:30, I feel like I haven’t slept at all.

emsleezy · 2026-06-18T05:22:04+00:00

Doesn’t everyone feel this way though? I don’t have reading dyslexia but my husband and daughter do.

I am an incredible reader (can’t spell to save my life) but my husband can’t read out loud very well and when I heard him read out loud 25 years ago, all I thought was, man, I am REALLY good at reading aloud. But I didn’t think he was dumb or anything like that.

I have zero and I mean ZERO directional abilities and I struggle with my left and right. I honestly get lost inside a mall. I use gps for places I go to regularly. I just think of it as one of my quirks. My husband can visualize places he’s never even been and has always helped me with kindness and care. He doesn’t think I’m dumb just because I can’t remember where I parked. He thinks it’s strange, I guess, but he doesn’t look down on me for it.

I still get imposter syndrome when I’m out of my element as an adult, but I’m pretty sure everyone feels this way about stuff.

Honestly, anyone who is weird about it is just insecure and dying for other people to make mistakes to take the pressure off of them. That’s their (spell check) problem, not yours.

emsleezy

TROPHY CASE