If you'd like to use this space to vent or rant or tell the stories/secrets/confessions of your dangerous maternal (or paternal!) mind, send me an e-mail and you too can enjoy the refuge of the Basement...
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Apparently, this is what motherhood is: my life does a 180 and everyone else just does whatever they've always done with no consequences, restrictions, or additional responsibilities. Back the fuck up, bitches. Step off. If I want to go somewhere (movies? book club?) I have to ask permission, plan for days, and hurry my ass up and get home. But if somebody ELSE wants to go somewhere, they get their tickets, find their train and toodle-fucking-oo. See ya when I see ya.
And do I have a right to be as resentful as I am? Here's a news bulletin for you. I DON'T FUCKING CARE. Right or no right. I am bitter as hell. You get to go out and have a grand old fucking time while I'm stuck here with a vacuum, a barking dog, a colicky baby and your dirty, filthy dishes in the sink. Thanks!!! Oh, and by the way, don't even bother to call and offer to bring me something to eat from the shi-shi restaurant you go to. Nope. I'm good with the hot dogs and macaroni that are quickly going stale in the fridge. Seriously. Oh and don't forget you have a soccer game on Thursday. And next Sunday. Wouldn't want you to miss those. Because you're the one that needs the exercise. I'm the one that still has 30 pounds of baby fat to lose but you, you're the one that needs the exercise. Yup. Have fun! Don't worry about me. Again with the hot dogs and macaroni.
Why can't I be married to a woman? Oh, right. A) I'm not gay, unfortunately, and 2) George W.
Thanks for listening.
21 comments:
Testify, sistah! I'm with you. My husband still sleeps late (even on workdays), gets up late, takes leisurely breakfasts and showers, goes to work late, and comes home late. He gets home about a half hour before Baby goes to sleep. This leaves me alone with her about 200 hours a day (or so). Plus, I'm the only one who gets up at night.
I am so there with you. I hate how he acts like it is such a huge favor to me when he does watch the kids.
Hell yeah sistah!!
You need to go out on a Saturday morning, check into a local hotel or a friend's house, don't leave a number where you can be reached, and return on Sunday at dinnertime. Tell him you expect the house to be in a reasonable condition and a family dinner to be waiting for the three of you.
I'd be really surprised if he didn't reevaluate his contribution and attitude after 2 days of childcare on his own. And, frankly, if he didn't, I suggest counseling for the both of you and go from there.
I'm with you! My baby is done breast feeding, but there were days when my husband slept in late, expected me to wake him (with coffee brewing) and send him on his merry way. So I would pound on the wall with my fist to wake him up because I was not losing the latch that took me 5 hours to get.
Ahhhhhhh.
There was no resolution to that. I am still bitter and annoyed. At least I don't nurse anymore - I can just walk in and turn on the lights.
I am having a hard time reading this. Because he sounds like he was separated at birth from my husband. I put up with it and set in motion a precedent and a dynamic of how things would continue to be for many, many, more years. Now I don't even know how to get out of it except to consider leaving all together which I know sounds extreme. It is none of my business but if you don't make him hear you know it will only get harder too later and you will feel even worse.
Been there! Some Dads take maternity leave as a sort of Ward Cleaver theme park experience. Ooooh... loookiiie I got me a housewife! Think again buster! Took me 5 months to get it together and renegotiate the deal.
good luck to you. what a very healthy resentment.
Fatherhood is just SO SO different from motherhood. Before our son, we were so equal - both worked, both cleaned, both drank, both socialized, both bought clothes. Now? Nope. And I get it that I need to be the one to get up every night to feed the baby - I've got the boobs. I GET that. Nobody's fault. But could HE get that I'm not really full of interest or enthusiastic to hear about how his working dinner was 'the best meal ever'. Or that I don't really feel like patting him on the back for surviving a week away from home when he was in the south of France dancing on tables apparently. (Never does this at home - he must have been so so depressed.) Um, he never hears me saying "Dude, I made it through a full day of a demanding gimme-gimme baby-minding on 4 hours sleep AND I managed to get dressed, AND do a load of laundry! Pat me on the back please" No, I never ask, even though I SO deserve it. Argh.
I could have written this. "Sure, hon. You sub for your friend's softball game on Wednesday, and for your sister's volleyball game on Thursday, leaving me to pack and load the car for our 9 day vacation, all while watching a 2 year old. Absolutely, you go to your softball game on Monday while I paint our rather large living room BY MYSELF while trying to keep said 2 year old entertained and out of the paint. Oh, and the painting? Needs two coats. Sure, you sleep in while I miss my Writer's Guild meeting AGAIN and eventually give that membership up because I can't make their 1 Saturday morning meeting a month since you have so much for us to do all the damn time. I'll give up all my dreams for your constantly moving and busy lifestyle. They're disposable anyway, right?"
My husband is MUCH better than most about pitching in around the house and with our son so I can have some time to myself-- these days, often voluntarily!
As long as, of course, I tell him exactly what to do, when, and how, as marriage and fatherhood have apparently rendered him incapable of figuring out how to do housework or routine childcare tasks on his own, despite the fact that he took care of a home on his own for quite some time before he met me, and has experience caring for much younger siblings. *Sigh* But at least he is willing to help.
However, it's taken a lot of time, tears and effort on my part for him to get to this point, where he finally has begun to understand just exactly what I go through to take care of our family. In the early days of parenthood, he made me feel exactly like you do now, fairly often . . . like I needed a wife to help me do the work of two women.
Motherhood has definitely made me understand the ancient popularity of polygamy.
I think you do need to talk to your husband. Cry in front of him, if you have to, about how lonely, tired, and frustrated you are. It's hard to bring these things up, but you may be surprised at the results when you bring your problems out into the open. I know I was!
Short, sweet, and to the point.
I agree with urban mommy...fatherhood is way different. Prior to our baby my husband and I did equal parts of housework and now...don't even ask.
my husband has been gone early early and comes home late. working on a project (an architect). I know he isn't having an affair with a woman, only architecture. so instead of coming home early, he is off to the world cup soccer game this afternoon (at a bar) I would just like him to come home early one day and take the kids and me out with out me crying and complaining for him to do it.
Oh, preach it! I HATE when my husband acts like he is doing me a favor by staying with his own daughter, or says that he'll "give me a nap" at some undeterminate time, which is ALWAYS in the future and NEVER comes.
Meh.
This was great to read. Wonderful to know I am not alone.
Not that I'm defending any lackadaisical husbands out there, but how are things supposed to change if you don't let him know you're unhappy with the arrangement? If you're not saying anything, he's assuming that you're hunky-dory with the way things are. And if you were doing something that he didn't like, how are you to know unless he tells you?
Granted, co-parenting should be a given. It *should* be. But for some, it isn't, until it's all spelled out.
I hope you rip him a new one the next time he goes out to have fun while you're stuck at home with the baby! He deserves it!
I love this, sorry but it's true. I have been feeling this way for the longest time and no one gets it. You do and I want to thank you!!
I feel obligated to speak up for the side not represented here. No, not the husbands/fathers that do the slack stuff listed here. I speak for those of us that have a conscience, for those of us that clean the kitchen, for those of us that move the clothes in the washer to the dryer and start a new load, for those of us that get up in the middle of the night to check/change the diapers without complaint. We are not perfect and do not claim to be, but we do try to keep things on an even keel and do our part.
There's always Massachusets, Vermont, and Hawaii if you want to marry a woman. She will borrow your favorite jeans without asking and try to sneak them back in your drawer without asking. Be warned!
Oh, and the Defense of Marriage act was signed into law by Bill Clinton. He sucks too.
Totally get where you're coming from. I work (and make as much money as my husband) but have to leave work early (whether I'm done or not) to pick up our son from day care. Husband goes out and socializes after work with buddies, asking me whether it's OK at the total last minute. The one time I asked him to pick up DS so I could do something social, he totally bailed because of some work obligation. And now he's about to go on a work trip for 2 weeks plus. Aargh.
that's FUCKED UP. he's an asshole.
i feel like giving you a standing ovation. speak it, sister!
Men are MEN. Your mothers, grand mothers and endless generations of women before you had the exact same complaints. The diffrence? You should have known better. Women are far better informed, and enjoy much more freedom (including effective birth control) than ever before - but they still cry foul when Men act like men. You wanted kids (or failed to prevent it) deal with it. Men will not change - bitch all you want. Don't want the hardship of being a mother don't become one...
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