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Can I have a turn venting? LONG
About DH and his participation around the house too???
His little quirks used to be cute. I even posted a couple on here. Like the time I asked him to wash the sheets and he washed only the bottom sheet, no pillow cases and no top sheet. Or the time I was on bed rest, he volunteered to help out with what I couldn't do. I asked him to do the laundry and vacuum the one rug in our house. He put the laundry in and didn't vacuum. I asked why...he said "I can't vacuum now, I'm doing laundry"...as in waiting the 1/2 hour while it's in the machine before putting it in the dryer.
Okay, so it's not cute anymore. He used to help out cooking. Has cooked 1x since we've had the baby. And talked about it for AGES afterwards. He used to help out with feeding/watering the pets. He used to help out with stacking wood in the wood box. Even unloading the dishwasher. Not anymore. We have a family car and one that we take to work. He has not put gas in either of them in the 3 weeks I've been back to work. I've gotten into a car and it says EMPTY, 5 times this has happened in 3 weeks. I'm constantly walking around behind him picking things up. Why can't he put his own dishes in the dishwasher? Nope, he leaves them in the sink for me.
One thing I gave up was packing his dinner for work. I told him he could do it. I go to the work and leave him with the baby. An easy baby that you can put down and naps. His only 'job' of the day was packing up a dinner for work (which involves scooping food I've already made into tupperware). Well, I get home and he hasn't done it. And I was gone 6 hours. Adrian had slept two 1/2 hours in that time. I asked him why he hadn't made his lunch then. He said "1/2 hour isn't enough time to get anything done". Umm...you know how much I can do in a 1/2 hour?
I ask him if he can stop and pick something up that we need at Walmart, since it's open 24 hours now (he's done at midnight, drives by walmart, but doesn't go to bed until much later). He's not sure. He'll think about it. Fine, the baby and I will just go get it. I was doing Christmas cards the other night as we were watching Rudolph. Adrian was sleeping. I asked him to help stuff the envelopes. "Tonight?" he says. "I need to relax tonight. Let's save projects for another day". Didn't think popping a picture in an envelope was a big deal, but hey...what do I know? He talks about how he doesn't have a chance without the baby to exercise the 2 days a week we both work. Don't complain to me, since I've been back to work, I exercise at 10pm in the basement and stay with the baby every other day of the week so you can exercise. What really gets me is he's SOOOO tired sometimes. "Having a baby is rough, I'm so tired". Umm....he gets 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Mommy on the otherhand...
It's sooo easy for me to focus on all the things he doesn't do. But the last couple of days I've been trying to focus on what he does do. He loves our little guy and takes great care of him solo the 30 hours I've been gone a week for work. And I'd rather have a well cared for baby instead of a clean house. And he said the other day "You really do a lot around here". Although I'd re-phrase it as I do everything around here, I'll take the compliment. He always puts his laundry in the basket (for me to do), but at least it's not on the floor. He keeps track of when we need oil changes. He calls his mother back so I don't have to. I know there's not a mean bone in his body and he's not intentionally trying to drive me mad. But I'll never understand the way his brain works and he'll never be able to be a crazy organized multitasker like me. I can't even imagine if I was married to someone like myself.I guess that's why we're a perfect fit. We balance each other out.
Re: Can I have a turn venting? LONG
I can sympathize with the "I'm so tired" husband. My DH was like that and lived on stupid energy drinks for the first six months after DD was born. WTF? I did all of the nighttime feedings. Yeah, I could take a nap during the day. A hour of sleep during the daytime totally makes up for getting up three times during the night.
Edit: I fixed the second sentence to read "stupid energy drinks" instead of "stupid energy." D'oh!
This may not be the case at all, my my thoughts while reading this were that he might have some Male PPD symptoms, whatever it might be called.
When I am in a depression funk, I really feel like I can only do one thing a day, and I have to have been planning to do it for a couple days. Things that are easy, and don't take long at all, seem like huge obstacles.
I'm sorry that this is happening and I hope that YH can get his act together soon and start helping more around the house again.
Interesting perspective. I never thought about a guy having PPD symptoms, but it makes sense. But that is definitely without doubt not him. He's as happy as can be! It doesn't bother him in the least that things aren't done. He says we need to learn to just relax and let things go. I agree to some extent, but I refuse to live in a house that is trashed for the next 18 years. We'll find our happy medium eventually.
I don't have a baby. However, this is pretty much what me and dh and have been going through since we started living together 8 years ago. He doesn't notice stuff. He doesn't have "time" for things (yet has waaaay more leisure time than me). He just doesn't care if the house is trashed. He lived like a slob when he was single and in college. His mother never made him do anything and he has told me that he is somewhat sexist and doesn't feel he should be expected to clean when he has a wife (he said he was joking, but his actions say otherwise)
I have tried TONS of different ways of dividing up our chores over the years. RIght now we each have a set list of chores that we do and he has gotten pretty good about doing his daily/weekly stuff (although he still needs reminding sometimes). My weekly list is much larger than his because I do all the big cleaning stuff (vacuum, dust, clean bathroom, organize closets, etc). In exchange for me being in charge of the big cleaning type stuff and spending more time daily/weekly on chores, our agreement was that he would take care of big chores (repairs, projects, etc that are not as frequent). Well, we have used this system for about a year and I have found that his projects/repairs don't really get done at all. We have had a tree that fell in our yard last Spring that is still there. Our kitchen sink has been leaking for MONTHS. We have a bowl under there that I need to empty every few days. He's barely looked at it to fix it. I asked him in September to talk to our neighbor BEFORE WINTER about snow plowing. It's almost Jan and he's still not talked to him. Sooooo. We had a huge "conversation" last night. The original Nest post got me thinking how I need to work on this more with him because I was getting very resentful of him. Especially since I was spending 2-3 hours a week on household stuff and he was spending like 30 min and not holding his end of the bargain of taking care of the big projects.
My new thing is that I made a list of all of our responsibilites for each of us that need to be done each day/week. He hates being nagged, so I told him if he does his daily/ weekly chores on his own, (which he's actually been pretty good it for the past few months anyways)...the nagging magically goes away!! What a freakin concept, right?! In addition I got him to agree to sit down with me at the beginning of each month and go over what big projects need to be done, since those are his responsibilities. DH needs help breaking down tasks. I have learned that he builds things up in his head to be a bigger task than they need to be. Ex. Tree falls down and he doens't have a chainsaw so he gets overwhelmed trying to figure out how to solve that problem and that's the end of it. The tree sits there for eternity or until it rots into the ground. LOL So apparently I need to sit with him and figure out who we can borrow a chainsaw from or if we can afford to buy/rent one and when a good time to go and cut it down would be, etc. He just can't or doesn't want to problem solve this stuff on his own. So I figure if we can meet once a month to discuss this stuff maybe that will help him with accomplishing his big projects. Keeping my fingers crossed.
So anyways...sorry this is so long. I like to vent about dh too. LOL My point of all that is to just keep communicating with dh. Keep telling him how much it means to you to keep things in order and have him help. Let him know what's expected of him and what he expects of you. Keep trying new systems(chore chart, lists, meetings, etc) until you find something that works for you both. I feel that after 8 years (sorry, I don't mean that to sound daunting) we are **almost** to the point where I feel good about our division of household chores. I have also learned to overlook some stuff. Hair from his shaving left in the sink used to drive me crazy. I've learned to let it go now (and many other things) because it's just not worth the fights. Dividing chores It's definitely a process (and I know with a baby there is even more stuff involved) but hopefully you and your dh will get to where you both can feel good about everything.
Great suggestions, Andrea.
I think the hardest part of the whole thing is I've spent 6 years working on getting him to step up. And before the baby, he was doing much better and I didn't feel like I was taking care of a grown up son. And when he made silly little slip ups, it was funny. I never expected that he'd drop all his responsibilities once the baby came and we'd have to start from scratch. Especially since I'm the one who takes care of everything for the baby (I even leave out everything he'll need for the day with the baby when I'm gone. All he has to do is enjoy him. And he does...they have a blast together.)
Yesterday I came home to him smiling at the door saying "Adrian pretty much slept all day so I vacuumed!" Yes, he vacuumed the one rug in the house. The rest of the house contained remnants of what he had done all day long. But he vacuumed. And I chose to celebrate and compliment the fact that he vacuumed all night. And I overlooked everything else. Every time I thanked him, he got this big doofy grin, so proud that he helped out. Only took just over 3 months for him to finally do something around the house without me nagging him. I figured, if I praise and encourage the good behavior, it will multiply. Maybe I should make him a tin foil trophy. I guess every couple goes through changes when big life events happen- moving in together, having a baby, etc. I just never suspected it would be so drastic.
ooo! ooo! New psychological theory!
First children tend to regress developmentally when the second is born.
This is your problem.
Keep praising the small steps just like you did 6 years ago and I am sure he will return to normal functioning soon!
LOL!