The Mostly Good-Enough Husband

C

cristy

New member
(New throwaway for this post, but long-time member on my main account.)

We see a lot of posts about husbands who really suck at being partners and parents, and we see a few about awesome, Bandit-style husbands (we don’t watch Bluey in this house yet, but iunderstoodthatreference.gif).

I find myself having a sort of middle-of-the-road husband: He cooks most dinners, he’ll do the dishes, he’ll sometimes do laundry, he cuts the grass, he does the fixing and assembling and handy stuff, and yet – I feel like I’m still managing almost everything else.

I have to ask.
I have to tell.
I have to remind.
I have to argue.
I have to parent. A grown-ass man.

I’m a working mom who WFH (with a babysitter during the workday – I’m not that nuts). I provide the health insurance. I’m the breadwinner. I bought our house. I pay for half the utilities and most of the groceries and other bills, like our credit card. He owns a business that hasn’t started bringing in money yet. We both work about 50 hours a week, on average. I do the vast majority of all things kid-related, such as buying clothes, researching shit, making appointments, etc.

I really, truly don’t keep score all the time, but I’m getting overwhelmed. I’d say I manage about 85% of everything.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what specifically happened tonight to set me off. It was our toddler practicing being a toddler (read: getting into e v e r y t h i n g), and my husband got so frustrated. He didn’t yell, but huffed and went, “Come ON, REALLY?!” at our kid. “Why would you do that?!” “Look at this mess.” “Great. Cool.”

I immediately shut him down, telling him he can get away with this now while our toddler doesn’t understand, but God help me if he teaches her to feel afraid to make mistakes around him. I told him he needs to be the adult, find a way to cope with frustration (count to 10? Take deep breaths?), and offer guidance to our daughter instead of mouthing off. And then I realized I was parenting him, yet again. Like, I shouldn’t have to do this. I want him to work through this himself and come up with a solution. To be like, “Yeah, that wasn’t cool of me. I’m going to practice x, y, z next time.” To be proactive instead of passive.

I struggle with his lack of empathy. He’s never been one to ask me how my day was, dote on me when I was sick or upset, or help me talk me through tough stuff. Honestly, he doesn’t ask me about myself at all. It’s like verbally showing he cares is too vulnerable. So he’s an acts-of-service guy. I’ve never questioned whether he loves me or not because he does take care of me in many ways (makes sure the coffee’s made, doesn’t pressure me for intimacy, never gets mad if he’s on last-minute parenting duty, consults me about his business because he values my opinion, sends me funny memes he knows I’ll like, etc.). We spend all our free time together (big homebodies, ya’ll), and we truly enjoy each other. But I’ve got a creeping concern the empathy thing will become really hard as our toddler grows up.

It just keeps coming back to communication and initiative. I’ve explained the mental load. I’ve gotten the ball rolling on organizing our lives (chore chart, anyone?). Nothing sticks – except ask, tell, remind, argue, parent, repeat.

I’m not totally sure what I’m looking for here. Yes, I’m venting, but I love this man and want to feel like we’re partners in this together.

What have you done to improve your own relationships? What are your tips, tricks and secrets? How have you encouraged your emotionally reserved husbands to open up and step up – especially once you began modeling marriage and partnership for your kids?

Thanks in advance. I know I wrote a novel. And maybe this isn’t even the most appropriate sub for this. I just really don’t have anyone to talk to about it. Lay it on me, mamas.
 
@cristy I really liked the book “how not to hate your husband after kids.” I’ve also heard “fair play” repeatedly recommended in topics like this.

“How not to…” really helps with both your own mindset on some things, the different communication styles that you might have, and how to get things across in a more effective way.
 
@rosslufc Absolutely do Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play cards. He doesn’t get a cookie for scoring 51% on the test just because you know of people that got an even worse score.
 
@kingdomkings Im awful at this, like most posters I get stuck in the 'but he is at 51%' and want to give all the mediocre achievers undue credit. Ifbonly more men could learn how to be mediocre as a start....
 
@rosslufc +++ for both these books! Going to add “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy. Technically a parenting book but my husband and I agree it touches on marriage and partnerships quite a lot.
 
@cristy Ah, this sounds so much like us. I usually say "I'm not the manager!" but your expression of parenting him is about the same. Initiative, damn. Where the hell is it? We recently started couples therapy. Our first homework was to hold a family meeting. I said that sounded great, except it would be just another thing I would have to do. Therapist said no, husband needs to be the one to start it, because it's his bio son, my stepson, and he'd take it better from dad. It didn't happen. "She could've said something." Therapist called that out. Ok, try again. Still hasn't happened.

The only thing I've seen him take more initiative over is dinner, and that was after months and months of me being sick and feeling nauseated at any and everything and begging him to just handle it. Begging. For months.

And yet I feel guilty being mad about it, because he really does so much around here, and loves me, and tries. But I'm kinda tired of settling for trying, you know?
 
@kdr95 I lurk on r/predaddit and saw a new poster ask how much they can trust the scientific accuracy of different pregnancy milestones apps.

A BUNCH of other dads-to-be recommended this guy stops trying to research NOW because he would just keep running into conflicting information, and if it was important enough for him to know, either the doctor or his wife would tell him.

OMG it was hard to stay a lurker… seeing the absolute pile-on of men telling each other to have zero initiative from the very start of their childrens’ lives made me want to tear my hair out.
 
@cristy I have a “good enough” husband. He’s gotten that way bc I fought the fights and called out the inequities. He’s truly way better than most… but the bar is on the floor so even that isn’t a ringing endorsement
 
@cristy Drop the balls. I discovered when pregnant that I was doing 97% of the mental and physical load to maintain our household when I suddenly just couldn’t anymore. After a week of not thinking ahead about dinner, my husband started cooking. With cooking came him making a shared grocery list we can both update as we notice things (funny that didn’t work when I tried it). Grocery runs made him realize that “oh, I need to check the household supplies too” and took over that. Laundry followed in a similar fashion when I started using my own laundry basket and he needed his Rec league shirt and it was STANKY.

Are the household tasks up to “my standards”? Nope. Do we now have similar free time? Yep. Is our marriage stronger? Hell yeah. This method only works if your husband isn’t actively choosing to supplement his free time with yours through your labor, but if he is truly a good partner like you say then it shouldn’t be an issue.
 
@cristy I can relate to the bit regarding parenting him on how to parent. Like he’d get frustrated with the kids for doing something dumb like is that really a big deal and/or if it’s that bad you should’ve been monitoring a bit closer rather than getting annoyed after the fact.

It’s still a work in progress but it took us having a real heart to heart (during a time of not arguing) on what we didn’t want to be for our kids. We constantly check each other and will say like “ok tagging you in” if we just CAN’T. We also try to wait until kids are in bed to discuss if we disagree how the other handled something with our kids. I think what helped is that my husband realized he wasn’t really handling certain situations really well and he was/is willing to do the work. I hope others have good advice because like I said, it’s a WIP but things are much better.
 
@cristy Are we married to the same man?
Especially the lack of empathy, lack of interest in my day, disinterest in taking care of me when I am sick, really hits home.
Even when my good enough husband takes care of kid stuff, he makes it all about himself and his feelings.
No advice, just solidarity.
 
@idontknow My husband also doesn’t come naturally to the caring role with me - probably because he himself doesn’t like to be fussed over and sees that as a parental role. He’s fine with our kid, but if I need it for me, I usually have to ask for it.

Example: I had surgery earlier this year, and all things considered I recovered really well and quickly. But I still felt sore and run down for a week after. I felt like husband was just expecting me to be normal and taking advantage of my good recovery. We were walking home from the park and he and toddler just took off running, leaving me in the dust to hobble home. I wanted to cry.

So I stewed about it for a little while and collected my thoughts, and then I texted him the next morning to explain my feelings. I often am better saying that stuff over text, it’s my most millennial trait! And he receives it better if he can think about his answer. He apologized and acknowledged he hadn’t been checking in on me, and it got better.

He needed the explicit nudge, but then it did get better.
 
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