How do I tell my husband to have a little more empathy for me as a sahm?

[josie129]

@cliffco See now this is when I would get petty. A time audit would be in order. At the end of your EXTREMELY FULL DAY, which does not end because you’re on call 24/7, I would put a big black mark, maybe around the 3rd time you’re up nursing the baby at 3am. Label it as time you have to both listen to or tolerate his absolute BULLSHIT. That man could be a millionaire and he could STILL get the fuck away from me with his laundry. You have two tiny toddlers and your job is to take care of THEM, not him.

 

[wren84]

@cliffco Tell him he’s a slob and he needs to wash his own damn clothes cause you aren’t his mommy.

If he protests ask him if he needs help wiping his ass.

 

[david_ab]

@cliffco My ex husband was a lot like yours. I wanted the marriage to work so badly that I would continuously light myself in fire to keep everyone else warm. Some weird part of my brain kept telling me the lie "if you do everything right then he will finally appreciate me but that never works either. No matter how much you are doing, how much you sacrifice your "me" time or how much sleep you are losing... It will never be enough and he will never change, imo.

You deserve a better person than what you have right now. And you can easily find someone who loves and respects you because that is literally the bare minimum for a healthy long term relationship. Don't settle for less.

Lastly, if you want to do some work on your relationship and see if you can work your way through, I highly recommend the book "fair play" because it is a powerful tool that helps lay down all the things it takes to run a home and it divides and distributes the chores according to the emotional labor they cost and all of that. You're a Stay at home parent, not his mommy or maid - you can take care of yourself and the kids but why can't he iron his own damn shirts? Is his hand broken? Does he say he doesn't know how? Because there are YouTube videos on everything these days and if he wanted to learn it, he would. But at the moment he can use weaponized incompetence, knowing he can just get mad at you later for doing something that he could easily do himself.

 

[katrina2017]

@cliffco That's the LAST time I'd ever touch his workclothes.

 

[bblack4jc]

@cliffco He has some growing up to do girlfriend

 

[amer73]

@cliffco This is the hardest time in our lives. This is when most divorced happen. It's because we're struggling to empathize with our partners. He doesn't understand what you do and you don't understand what he does. Sounds like (from you doing his laundry and preparing his meal) that you try to make him feel appreciated. Sounds like he isn't doing the same. Unless he's a total narcissist, I bet he would care. He probably just doesn't know and sees these idolized images of women from media and this absolutely ridiculous nostalgic rose colored view of what women were like in the past. Men and women have alway had these troubles. The only difference is today our lives are much much easier and we try to burden ourselves with perfection.

You need to talk to him. He needs to hear you and understand you. Have someone take the kids one Friday or Saturday night. Cry. I know it's cliche and maybe even demeaning to suggest it, but he doesn't understand how hard you're working. He has unrealistic expectations. If he doesn't respond or responds negatively, talk to his mom. Let her know you need help talking to him.

-- a man who has been in his shoes

 

[ej99]

@amer73 Except don’t talk to his mom if she believes the same as him, and raised him that way. Because she will only reinforce that idea and they will team up against you about it… ask me how I know…

 

[amer73]

Suggestions from people saying to have him do his own clothes are very much going to make all your problems worse. Like I said, he doesn't empathize. If you do less, you're validating his unjustified belief. He'll do less. He'll become bitter. You'll likely go into a passive-aggressive death spiral. Talk.

 

[solomon97]

@amer73 i think this is the best advice on the thread. don’t just assume the guy is a jerk. ignorant people do the dumbest things. it doesn’t necessarily make them inherently bad. educate them so that they can grow. if they don’t, well, then you have a problem.

 

[amer73]

Another thing I suggest is prioritizing what matters most to the other person. After the kids are fed, clothed, and cleaned, what other things are the two of you doing? Ask each other what you prioritize most after that.

I can tell you from his perspective that it's probably his job. He cares about being employed and probably being successful at that. So, if you take the stress of that away from him, what stress can he take away from you? Are the dishes something you stress about? The laundry? Prioritize one thing at a time.

What I learned is that I didn't care about a lot of what she was doing, and she was doing it because she wanted to keep up that stepford wife appearance. To be very honest, if the house was trashed when I got home, I cared a lot less about that than if I had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed a baby. We compromised. When the kids were younger the house was often a mess. As they got older she had more time to clean, the kids did more cleaning up after themselves, and our expectations changed.

My job is about setting priorities. We were both much happier when we prioritized the things the other person cared about. She cared about a clean house. I would come home and clean up in a fury while she would make dinner or do homework with one of the kids.

It didn't happen overnight. I had to teach her that I cared a lot more about accomplishing something than how much work went into it. If she got the kids ready for school in 15 minutes and took 30 minutes to drink coffee I'd commend her for the efficiency instead of taking 1 hour to get them ready.

She used to complain about how much work she did. Then we talked about how I'd rather her prioritize what matters and let slip what doesn't than for her to be terribly unhappy which lead to passive aggressive behaviors that you hear men bitch about in every group. I didn't understand and that made everything worse. From my perspective, I was busting my ass at my job while she did the bare minimum to keep the kids alive and she was progressively getting worse.

The conversation about expectations doesn't stop. Expectations change. They need to be reinforced. A couple years ago she had an expectation that I'd do some Honey-Do stuff that I never got around to. I got in a funk and didn't want to do much of anything. She then got passive aggressive with chores. I retaliated. I realized we were back in that old shitty situation. I did all the laundry, dishes, yard work, swept and mopped, and fixed one of the things she asked me to. Did not change her attitude.

I realized it wasn't just the actions. It was that we stopped talking. We stopped verbalizing our expectations and priorities. I said, "hey, I'm busting my ass to do all of this because I realized I've been in a funk." We had a very brief conversation about how she's tired and in a funk as well. We reset our expectations, and we haven't had a fight or passive-aggressive fight since (well, maybe about sex but that's a whole other can of worms).

 

[cutebunny]

@cliffco He needs to understand that you’re not his mother, but his kids’ mother. That you’re his wife. You’re doing so much work, and you’re working hard. Everyone here supports you, and I hope he can see that he’s being extremely unfair to you

 

[dirtfisher]

@cliffco Leave him with the kids for a weekend. He needs a reality check.