Today I hate being a SAHP

[ajewelinhiscrown]

My wife is impossible. I’m sick. I do all the stay at home tasks with the kids and the household. My wife creates giant problems. She wanted to drive to this nature center and make s’mores this afternoon. Only she books a play date for our 5 y/o after 3:00 pm. I have to get our 7 y/o from school with our other two kids in tow. Fine. Normal. But then I’m supposed to bring 5 home and then double back to the parking garage (we live in NYC) and then get the car and then pick up wife and 5 with my 7 and 2 y/o. 7 has pink eye as of today. 5 has an ear infection that is being treated. I’m sick and also exhausted and don’t feel like driving literally 1 hr 45 mins in bad traffic for stupid s’mores.

My wife doesn’t drive and has no clue how stressful driving is in conditions like this. Wife was a jerk to me all day. She couldn’t care less I got sick. And I never get sick; maybe like sick enough to be super exhausted and out of it once a year. She begrudgingly watched all the kids at home for like an hour while I went to bed and tried to sleep at like 6:00 pm.

We ordered pizza. She said she’d walk and pick it up and bring it home and we’d watch super Mario bros movie and she and I would eat the pizza (kids had different dinner). She was gone awhile getting the pizza and when she returned home she handed me the box and said: “Here’s your pizza.”

She ate her half. My half was cold. She said she eats before 8:30 PM. I called the pizza place at 7:35 PM and they said 15 mins and it’s a 10 min walk away. We could have eaten the pizza together right around 8:00 pm.

So I turned on the movie and she sat with the kids on the sofa and I sat by myself at the table and ate my cold pizza.

My wife is impossible. I hate my life so much.

 

[talisra]

@ajewelinhiscrown I’m sorry your wife is a raging asshole! Stand up for yourself. Say NO. If she wants these things to happen so bad she can do them herself ( play dates and s’mores … with sick kids???)

My husband is great but us SHAP need to advocate for ourselves . I definitely put my foot down on things I do not feel up for ( he does the same). Marriage is a partnership, not dictatorship . Start setting some boundaries !

 

[lemondrops]

@ajewelinhiscrown As a person who lived in NYC before having kids- wtf at the driving expectation. Took me 40 minutes to go to chick fil a and get through the drive thru with two kids and that’s in the suburbs

 

[ajewelinhiscrown]

@lemondrops You know what the problem is? My wife doesn’t drive and never has. She has no clue how stressful driving can be depending on the situation and she has no clue how exhausting driving is especially when you’re the one solely responsible for the lives of everyone in the car.

 

[myles0]

@ajewelinhiscrown i've been a sahp for about 2.5 years and am going back to work soon. i loved it at times and hated it at times (i think most of us can relate). one of the biggest things i have hated about being a sahp is when you get sick or are not feeling well, there is no break for you. my husband has been able to take a sick day a couple of times to help me out when i'm sick, but i hate having to beg for it and maybe or maybe not get the help. sometimes it's just like, welp, he's too busy at work for a day off so you just have no option but to deal with it. it's brutal.

i hope things will get better for you. i second the suggestion to try and learn to say no when something sounds awful. i have vetoed many, many plans that my husband has proposed.

 

[arrows]

@ajewelinhiscrown Broski, I went ahead and double checked your post history to see if it was you. Your wife is never going to change. She is a bitch. Could be a disorder of some sort, sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that your children are growing up in a household where her behavior is being normalized. If she won’t do therapy, this is an instance where things won’t get better for you until you divorce her. I hate saying that. I think it should be the last thing considered in most situations. But every time you post, your wife has one-upped her previously horrid and selfish behavior. She is horrid.

 

[mendicant]

@arrows I commented above that as soon as o saw the first sentence I knew it was him.

 

[mendicant]

@ajewelinhiscrown Dead ass as soon as I read the first sentence I checked the username and yep. Op please get help, said with love.

 

[looploop]

@ajewelinhiscrown When someone in our family is sick, we cancel everything. Why is she OK with spreading so many germs?!

 

[ajewelinhiscrown]

@looploop The child who went on the playdate has an ear infection only and isn’t contagious but I agree she was trying to do too much that’s for sure.

 

[brucepjr]

@ajewelinhiscrown Nobody gets to volunteer my time. Nobody. If she made the play date then she gets to figure out how to make it happen. I’m not going to the store unless I’m already going to the store.

Stop allowing this to happen. You aren’t her assistant.

 

[seekinggracefully]

@ajewelinhiscrown Do you think your wife could have borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder?

 

[ajewelinhiscrown]

@seekinggracefully I absolutely do. I have thought this for some time now.

 

[seekinggracefully]

@ajewelinhiscrown The reason I ask is because I just finished reading “Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On With Life”. The book is about people who become Caretakers for a person with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. It talks a lot about the typical home life for someone suffering from either disorder (which you can see if that lines up with your experiences), and there’s a TON of education on each disorder so you can (try to) understand what they are experiencing.

The author is also very blunt that, at a certain point, Caretakers become complicit in their own mistreatment by the person with BPD or NPD. This was a really harsh reality for me to hear (my mom has BPD), but the author explains that Caretakers give up power and agency in their own choices in order to assuage their partner and avoid that the blowups, guilt, etc.

Anyway, as another commenter pointed out, I can’t (and don’t want to) diagnose your wife with anything. And honestly, even if your wife is just an asshole and not someone with a disorder, I think the book will help you understand how you participate in the relationship just as much as she does.

@tory Hopefully this adds some better context

 

[ajewelinhiscrown]

@seekinggracefully This book has been recommended to me before and I really need to read it. I am positive this is my wife.

 

[arno]

@ajewelinhiscrown I would highly recommend couples therapy. Reading that book mentioned is great but without proper communication between you it may only cause more harm.

You are not happy, clearly. If your wife is resistant to couples therapy, phrase it as “wife, i would like to start couples counseling to help me communicate better with you. I think it would be very beneficial to both of us.” So that it doesnt feel accusatory.

It took years to get my husband to finally agree, but its been the best thing ever. And the years it took was just a suggestion here and there, i wasn’t pressing the issue until closer to when he agreed.

 

[bonbonmon]

@seekinggracefully Sometimes people are just assholes, and you can’t diagnose someone over the internet.

 

[seekinggracefully]

@bonbonmon Oh I totally agree. I was asking OP for more context for his particular so I could point him in the direction of some resources (books and subreddits) that have been really helpful for me in making lasting changes in my relationship with my mom, who has BPD.

 

[dither]

@ajewelinhiscrown “She begrudgingly watched our kids for an hour” - brooooo… no. Did she forget her part in making these kids?

 

[ajewelinhiscrown]

@dither She parents like a 1950s man. She wants to have time off when she’s off from work and not do anything in terms of actual parenting work beyond reading and doing light homework with the older kids. Like she wanted to take them out earlier but wouldn’t get their socks, shoes, coats on — that was MY job.