@robster1981 Yeah as someone having a rough pregnancy i am on my phone like 500% more than I ever was before. If this is something new I would let this go if you can OP. Zoning out is one of the few things that makes my life bareable right now.
@josephjurg Me too! I fucking hate being on my phone but my body and brain are too fried for anything but mindless redditing rn. This is not a permanent state though!
@kremlina This is why I don't open my mouth about it. My wife is due in a couple of weeks, and very often loses herself in the phone for huge stretches of time. Which would be fine, except quite often it's a procrastination technique to avoid having to start anything that would be difficult, like work or baby-related to-dos that need to get done. This frustrates me, since I'm the one working, and doing side hustles to make extra money, and have been doing nearly all the domestic work to keep her stress and physical workload down. So I'm in productivity mode all the time, and i feel myself starting to get annoyed that she can't put the phone down and start something that matters. But then I remind myself that she's creating a whole person! And I take a deep breath and move on.
@petergntm Just reminds me of a story my dad would tell me of coming home to find everything a mess, the kids bouncing of the wall, and my pregnant mom practically collapsed on the couch. My dad asked something like what was going on and my mom's response was, "I made brains today." My dad stopped and realized that's fair and proceeded to do the dishes and try to get things sorted out.
Definitely sounds like op's wife is probably having a more consistent problem than a one-off thing. I of course don't know the whole situation. It just seems like finding outside help for your wife at home with the kids might be one of the best fixes. Maybe it's just having a friend there, so she has someone to talk to which can also be a great distraction as opposed to using the phone. But hopefully the other person and wife can still keep an eye on kids. Another possibility would be just getting out of the house to get a different change of pace can get someone out of a rut while also helping her to be distracted from the pain (like maybe a library).
@djunehor Yes, it's just become more exacerbated since her first trimester of this pregnancy. She's often been glued to her phone, but the dissociation is deeper now.
@kremlina What a terrible excuse for a bad habit. OP has stated they agreed on a low-screentime household (which is amazing) she should be keeping up with that.
There are other ways to zone out without being on our phone all the time. Just because your wife is pregnant doesn't give your partner a blank check to poor habits. You see it as trivial but OP obviously does not.
@phillipincalifornia Nobody gets to pick her coping mechanism. You really taking the stance that if she came to him a different way, “honey, I’m really really struggling with this pregnancy. I’m in so much pain constantly, my emotions and energy levels are fucked, hormones doing the stanky leg, can’t sleep because I’m so uncomfortable, I’ve got an alien growing inside me and I’m terrified about giving birth in a couple months, would you be ok with me using my phone more than we initially said when I wasn’t so sick? It really helps me cope and handle all of this” that he would be like “nah bitch get that phone out yo hand”?
Of course he wouldn’t. He would of course want to ease her suffering however he could and if that involved him just having to keep his big dumb mouth shut for a couple weeks I’m sure he would see the wisdom and benefit in that and would be happy to if he realized I’d wager.
Unless he’s a complete and total asshole that I wouldn’t want any women I know be with in which case yea, you’re totally right.
@tobyharba The best solution is to hire a cleaner to come once or twice a month. From my understanding, your wife is pregnant, teaching a five-year-old, and managing a toddler. She is probably checked out because she is exhausted.
Working is hard and doing those chores/cooking that you do is tough too. But the combination of pregnancy, teaching, and caretaking for a toddler is a lot for one person. Give her a break.
On a separate note, if you don't want to have any more kids, you should make that boundary and not let anyone pressure you into having more.
@runeman2215 We have four boys. I can not tell you the amount of stress that gets relieved once they start going to school. 2 are in 2 are not old enough yet. But being able to get stuff done around the house while they’re gone and then being able to play and hang with friends is huge
@allissa2014 I love my kids to death. I have a 3-year-old and a 9-month old. My wife and I are engaged with them, but man, when they go to daycare and my wife and I are working from home, it is the best. They get social interaction, they get to push their development better than we could do while working, and we just get a mental break and usually do our general chores during this time as well. Those breaks are very necessary.
@entzie95 I was just thinking. I love my 5 year old but good god he is exhausting.. I can't wait until bed time and I am only with him from 7-8 and 16:30-20:30 during the week days.
@runeman2215 Yeah, this is a big step towards a solution in my eyes. We found it hard to send our little one off to nursery. but we put in the effort to find one we really liked, and after a month or so we really saw the benefits of both being able to have normal lives outside of being parents.
I'm sure my wife would have loved being a SAHM eventually, but after 6-7 months she was missing the social interaction of just adults. I really don't think I could cope with being a SAHD. So we have the best solution for us, and that's nursery 3 days, Mother-in-law one day and then 1 day where my mum comes over for a bit.
@runeman2215 100% why are you home schooling a 5 year old? They should be playing, running around and being a kid. School can wait.
It sounds like she is having to school the 5 year old while the 2 year old is running rampant hence why op finds messes that the 2 year old makes.
So op because he makes 3-5 times as much as his wife should hire a cleaner, throw the 5 year old in preschool and let his wife handle the 2 year old and be pregnant for at least 8 hours a day.
I know my mood, depression as well as my wife's got way better when I hired a cleaning service
