My husband's comments made me angry

[Pucci]

So I work full time and get home at around 6 pm. Then I have my 2 1/2 year old son to look after all the while I have to clean up dishes left from this morning, start cooking dinner, eat, pack leftovers for mine and my husband's lunch, clean up the dishes. Then I have other things to do like the laundry, give my son his bath and put him in his jammies, read to him, put him to bed, set the coffee machine for the next morning, and clear the dishes from the dish rack. Then I can start to unwind and get ready for bed.
I also do all of the cleaning of the house on weekends.

My husband works late and gets home at around 8:30 pm. He will just put his lunch containers on the counter, fix himself a drink, go on the balcony and have a cigarette and watch tv.

I noticed that this unbalance has really started irritating me, so I have been asking him to do little things like take out the garbage, make the coffee, bath our son once in awhile, do some ironing.

Today he said to me that he notices that I have been getting aggitated and irritated easily. He said that I get all wound up over the littlest things and then start asking him to do things that only takes 2 minutes to do. He says he doesn't know why I make such a big deal out of these small things. Then he said it must be that I lowered my dose of Paxil ( I am currently weaning from this drug and it makes a person irritated, aggitated and frustrated to say the least) and that explains my behaviour.

Well that may be so but I still feel I am in the right. Why do men always think that the wife has it easy? That makes me furious. Maybe the Paxil made me like a zombie so I just went on quietly doing these things without making a big deal.

[BelovedChild]

Could you perhaps hire a cleaning lady to come him and give a hand one/two days a week. Is your mother/MIL around so that they could provide some help. You badly need some help.

Could you do some of the work early in the morning like putting on a load of washing.

do you have a dish washer? anything that reduces even some of your workload would help.

[Theresa]

Reduce your hours or quit your job and stay home with your little one. No woman needs to work two full-time jobs + with no help from their husbands. Husbands not doing their fair share of household chores is a touchy subject with me (yes, I know it can happen in reverse, and that is wrong, also).

[lisaann]

I would be tempted to make a side-by-side list of everything that he does around the house as well as a list of everything that you do. Show it to him and then ask him to help you make the list more even so that the work is evenly distributed.

Make sure though that you don't micro-manage the jobs that he does. It will discourage him from wanting to help at all. And don't give in and do it for him if he slacks off. :nono Show him the list as a gentle reminder of who's job it is. If he knows that eventually you will give in and do it for him then he knows all he has to do is wait you out and he can get off chore free. :tsk

Above all else you need to do this with a loving, but firm, attitude. Don't make this a place where Satan can get a foothold into your home.

[Deepcallstodeep]

Ok I don't know if this is helpful... but I was reading Ephesians 5:33 awhile ago... “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

Women need love. Men need respect (they need our love too, but they really need our respect). It made me think about how I bicker with my husband and nag sometimes.

I used to do things like actually call him at work to complain if he forgot to take out the trash on trash day, one of his few "household chores." :)

After thinking and praying on this, I decided to experiment... the next time it happened, I waited til he got home (why bug the guy at work?) and I said something like, "Man I missed those big strong muscles carrying out the trash today, babe."

Guess who hasn't forgotten the trash since? :nod

I agree it gets frustrating. Moms work 24/7 with no sick days and no vacation time. But I just wanted to share a story with you about how God convicted me when I was nagging. He showed me that I needed to change my approach, not my request for help.

BTW... this is not to downplay how hurtful his words to you must have felt, about being irritable... so I hope you don't see this as me being preachy. Just saying that God needed to teach me a lesson... and I'm saying I was a nag, not saying you are...

[BlessedAssurance]

:hug Major sympathy. Totally get what your saying. Have been in your shoes for years. I have a couple suggestions:


1. BITE your tongue. Accusing will start a fight, which you don't want.

2. I like the suggestion of all the jobs written out, but I don't like the compare effort idea. I think you should approach it like this:

Calm, after a drink, etc. Turn off the TV. Do NOT do this in bed unless that's where he relaxes. And make sure the baby is asleep so you aren't interrupted.

"Honey, I've been thinking about what you said, and you're right. I've been snappy lately. What you said really hurt my feelings, and I've been thinking about why. Well, it's not just the withdrawal. I miss you. We never seem to have any time together.

And I'm exhausted. I can't go on this way. I thought maybe I was exaggerating how much needs to be done to keep the house running, but look at this stack of cards! I wrote down each task on one index card and look at it! It's huge. I need help! Could we please go through these and divvy them up? If you and I both do the tasks we'll get through them and have more time together. And I promise I won't criticize how you do the work on the jobs you do if you promise not to criticize how I do them."

Now, I know this may sound hokey, but you've managed to show him visually how much has to be done every day to keep the house ticking over. And on your cards you need to write all the little things down:
Wipe counters
Put wet laundry in dryer
Remove laundry from dryer and fold
Put clothes away
Set up coffee
Bathe baby
Clean tub

Have a daily pile and a couple times a week pile. This may help. It may not too. If he doesn't start to help, you've now made the case for needing outside help. The worst thing you can do is let this fester and make you upset.

Trust me. I married a man who'd been a bachelor for YEARS. I spend most of my time flat on my back. Thank God in my better years I trained my kids to do house work unsupervised so they do a lot for me.

[Deepcallstodeep]

Thank God in my better years I trained my kids to do house work unsupervised so they do a lot for me.

Ooooh oooh BlessedAssurance can you please tell me how you managed that one??? Your advice is GOOD...

And Pucci... :hug

[lovinlife4]

All I can do is give yo this :hug and let you know you are not alone. We have 3 kids, and I babysit 2 full time and 2 part time kids. Mon-Friday I am here and I feel like I never just get away from the house and have just a few moments of peace. I cook, clean, work, help with homework, bathe the kids, feed the dog, etc...but I sometimes feel it's not enough. I think God made a woman strong because she has to be. Just lt him now (calmly) that you need some help and you are in this together. Hopefully he'll come around :bighug

[BlessedAssurance]

Ooooh oooh BlessedAssurance can you please tell me how you managed that one??? Your advice is GOOD...

And Pucci... :hug

I am a mean mama... and I have a cane!!!


Seriously though, my kids are 7 and 11. They help with supper (veg prep, table set, microwave, simple cooking, clear, load dishwasher, empty dishwasher). They both can vacuum, change their beds, help fold laundry, put their own clothes away, help put things away if I tell them where things go, dust, scrub the windows and woodwork with supervision, clean the bathrooms, de-cobweb, scrub the porches, pick up dog poop. My daughter bathes the dogs and can make them lunch and simple suppers if DH is not home and I can't get up.

I trained them when we went to Disney World two years in a row. For three years everything they did earned Disney Dollars. Before that we had the 'If you're mean, you clean' rule. If you said something or did something mean (or were rude, disrespectful, etc) you scrubbed the tub for twenty minutes. Do it again the same day, it's the sink for 20 minutes. Again? the toilet. Again? the floor, hands and knees. Again? Start on my bathroom, please. My son has only ever hit the sink on one day. DD has moved from her bathroom to mine and back to hers in a day. She's got impulse control issues!

Now they just do as they're told, for the most part. Their rooms are mostly a wreck, but I can live with that as they're down a hall I don't have to see. Yes, they get mad, but life goes on. We're a team and the team comes before individual fun.

But again, I'm really mean.

[Deepcallstodeep]

I am a mean mama... and I have a cane!!!

:lol2