I need some advice. Here is the issue. My husband and I have 4 kids. My husband works, and I work. We are both self employed. My husband works as many hours as someone with 2 full time jobs. I work 2 actual self employment jobs and I take care of the house, the finances, my vehicle, and 4 children. We have no family. I have one hired baby sitter that I can call (depending on her availability) if needed. My oldest child is 8.
I'm really easy going and deal with pressure very well. I am usually called on by business acquaintances, and neighbors to "help them." I try my best to manage all of this.
So what has been going on is this, he works from 5am to almost 8pm, 6 days a week. I finally after many years had him slow down on Sunday. So now he works from 5am-2pm on Sunday. I know he is at work.
I am working WHILE I take care of 2 small children, and the other 2 are in school and on weekends. Anyone who has small children can vouch for how incredibly difficult it is to do business filings, invoicing, business calls while there are 2 small children screaming, fighting, and accidentally doing something not good while you are working.
Even so I deal with it happily. I also make sure they have a fun life as they are my priority. I make sure they have plenty of fun outside play while I supervise. I make sure that they get to the park at least once a week. I make sure they have great experiences by taking them to ALL the birthday parties, the field trips, the zoo, chuck-e-cheese, the mall, everything I could imagine a kid wants to do I make sure they do it. And I am WITH THEM. My husband... at work.
When my husband comes home, I still work. I am cleaning our house, filing our documents, cleaning, and feeding kids, and doing homework. I change diapers, give baths, clip nails, clean under beds, fold clothes. I can't even list all of the things. We eat and my husband sits on the couch and watches t.v. I understand he works hard and needs to decompress. I know that need, but I rarely get to do that. When I do, it is always as I am watching children. Never do I have a time to decompress where I am not being responsible for something. I'm ok though.
I see my kids go up to my husband. They say, "Can you play with me?" And he will either ignore them, or play with them as he stares at the t.v. He will even tell them no. I will say, "Why don't you think it's a good idea to play with your child?" And then he will play with them because *I* told him to and then give me the silent treatment for telling him what to do. He never comes up with anything to do with the children. I take that back. Once I told him that he never initiates any family time. And the next day he said we should go to the zoo this Saturday. Well that Saturday that he "took off" to go to the zoo, he couldn't possibly miss that day of work. So after the kids were wound up about that, (try dealing with kids who are disappointed that they didn't get to go somewhere promised,) he set it for them to go the following Saturday. I let the big kids walk and I wore the baby in the carrier on my back. Well the youngest of the oldest kids is 5 and she got tired and didn' t want to walk. After much inspirational talks for her to continue she finally started wobbling and crying because she was tired. I asked my husband if he could hold either child and he refused. After the 'sit down and refuse to walk' stand off occurred with the 5 year old. I picked her up and we continued. Me carrying a 5 year old and and a 2 year old on my back as my husband walked hands free along side of me. This is very symbolic of my life.
If we are going out to eat lunch or dinner. He will get dressed and then sit on the couch and watch t.v. I will dress and prepare all 4 children as they fight me and he watches. He will repeatedly tell me to hurry up without offering assistance. And then when I am still not ready after the children he asks me why I always take so long. I ask him to give me a hand with preparing the children to leave and he sees how hard it is, but because I asked him to help out he gives me the silent treatment. In 8 years he has changed about 10 diapers TOTAL being prompted by me, he has given 0 baths, he had clipped 0 nails, he has gone to 2 school plays that I "dragged" him to against his will, etc. there is much more.
Yesterday, I told him that I was still felt bad because the 2 year old almost took a bad spill and I caught her just in time. His response was, "Did you talk to the appraiser?"
So in all this I never wanted to be the fussy, or nagging wife. And I definitely don't want to tell him what to do. I want him to see with his eyes. Like, does he not see this? He has to see? If I tell him anything like, "I see that you aren't doing much right now could you give me a hand with the kids? (Since we are standing in front of you struggling and you are just watching us struggle.) I can only make a similarity in this case. It is like watching someone you care for about to get hurt, and being right along side having the full capacity and attention required to prevent the accident and then just allowing it to happen as you watch. That is what I feel like this situation is in a nut shell. In fact it reminds me of the time that we were both working on an outdoor cleaning project at my child hood home. My dog was an aggressive dog and was out there. But it was my dog and I was familiar with him, and him with me. The dog sneaked up behind me (really) and attacked me. He was a very large dog. My husband stood there and watched. I was able to grab hold of the dog as the inside parts of my arm had been splayed outward, and finally was able to put him down through force. And then I ran away. The whole time my husband just watched. There were shovels, there were large items that he could have hit the dog with to get him off of me. But he just watched. I asked him later, "Why didn't you try to help me?" He said, "Well I was afraid the dog would have tried to attack me too. But it didn't matter because you did good to get away from him." :(
Any communication that I try to initiate with him is met with silence, or "oookaaaay" as the response, as if to say, "So?"
Sometimes he will start violently picking things up around the house and rinsing dishes, etc. I say, "Why are you doing that?" and he will say, "Well I guess you want me to clean the house for you." For me, him to do that would be like asking someone to catch a ball flying at them in left field and them running to home base instead. It's completely missing the point. I just want him to care about the children. I try to explain to him that I also work, and I am also tired and that does not give me a free pass to ignore the children. He will make a snarky comment about my job in reference to it not being "real work" because it is administrative vs. physical labor. He doesn't see the work I do with the kids as physical although I have to do a lot of physical work with the children.
Last night I brought up divorce. I actually thought that if he didn't live with us and saw the children just on the weekend that he would actually want to do stuff with them. I just asked him about it. I know not to discuss divorce unless you are serious, but we have been together for 13 years and after years of thinking it in my head, and making sure I was serious, I was serious.
I am asking here because I wanted an independent view. There is no way that he would share his side of the story with even me because he doesn't talk about anything that isn't related to business. So far we are still speaking, but it's strictly business chat. The tone has been neutral and friendly.
Any advice?
I'm really easy going and deal with pressure very well. I am usually called on by business acquaintances, and neighbors to "help them." I try my best to manage all of this.
So what has been going on is this, he works from 5am to almost 8pm, 6 days a week. I finally after many years had him slow down on Sunday. So now he works from 5am-2pm on Sunday. I know he is at work.
I am working WHILE I take care of 2 small children, and the other 2 are in school and on weekends. Anyone who has small children can vouch for how incredibly difficult it is to do business filings, invoicing, business calls while there are 2 small children screaming, fighting, and accidentally doing something not good while you are working.
Even so I deal with it happily. I also make sure they have a fun life as they are my priority. I make sure they have plenty of fun outside play while I supervise. I make sure that they get to the park at least once a week. I make sure they have great experiences by taking them to ALL the birthday parties, the field trips, the zoo, chuck-e-cheese, the mall, everything I could imagine a kid wants to do I make sure they do it. And I am WITH THEM. My husband... at work.
When my husband comes home, I still work. I am cleaning our house, filing our documents, cleaning, and feeding kids, and doing homework. I change diapers, give baths, clip nails, clean under beds, fold clothes. I can't even list all of the things. We eat and my husband sits on the couch and watches t.v. I understand he works hard and needs to decompress. I know that need, but I rarely get to do that. When I do, it is always as I am watching children. Never do I have a time to decompress where I am not being responsible for something. I'm ok though.
I see my kids go up to my husband. They say, "Can you play with me?" And he will either ignore them, or play with them as he stares at the t.v. He will even tell them no. I will say, "Why don't you think it's a good idea to play with your child?" And then he will play with them because *I* told him to and then give me the silent treatment for telling him what to do. He never comes up with anything to do with the children. I take that back. Once I told him that he never initiates any family time. And the next day he said we should go to the zoo this Saturday. Well that Saturday that he "took off" to go to the zoo, he couldn't possibly miss that day of work. So after the kids were wound up about that, (try dealing with kids who are disappointed that they didn't get to go somewhere promised,) he set it for them to go the following Saturday. I let the big kids walk and I wore the baby in the carrier on my back. Well the youngest of the oldest kids is 5 and she got tired and didn' t want to walk. After much inspirational talks for her to continue she finally started wobbling and crying because she was tired. I asked my husband if he could hold either child and he refused. After the 'sit down and refuse to walk' stand off occurred with the 5 year old. I picked her up and we continued. Me carrying a 5 year old and and a 2 year old on my back as my husband walked hands free along side of me. This is very symbolic of my life.
If we are going out to eat lunch or dinner. He will get dressed and then sit on the couch and watch t.v. I will dress and prepare all 4 children as they fight me and he watches. He will repeatedly tell me to hurry up without offering assistance. And then when I am still not ready after the children he asks me why I always take so long. I ask him to give me a hand with preparing the children to leave and he sees how hard it is, but because I asked him to help out he gives me the silent treatment. In 8 years he has changed about 10 diapers TOTAL being prompted by me, he has given 0 baths, he had clipped 0 nails, he has gone to 2 school plays that I "dragged" him to against his will, etc. there is much more.
Yesterday, I told him that I was still felt bad because the 2 year old almost took a bad spill and I caught her just in time. His response was, "Did you talk to the appraiser?"
So in all this I never wanted to be the fussy, or nagging wife. And I definitely don't want to tell him what to do. I want him to see with his eyes. Like, does he not see this? He has to see? If I tell him anything like, "I see that you aren't doing much right now could you give me a hand with the kids? (Since we are standing in front of you struggling and you are just watching us struggle.) I can only make a similarity in this case. It is like watching someone you care for about to get hurt, and being right along side having the full capacity and attention required to prevent the accident and then just allowing it to happen as you watch. That is what I feel like this situation is in a nut shell. In fact it reminds me of the time that we were both working on an outdoor cleaning project at my child hood home. My dog was an aggressive dog and was out there. But it was my dog and I was familiar with him, and him with me. The dog sneaked up behind me (really) and attacked me. He was a very large dog. My husband stood there and watched. I was able to grab hold of the dog as the inside parts of my arm had been splayed outward, and finally was able to put him down through force. And then I ran away. The whole time my husband just watched. There were shovels, there were large items that he could have hit the dog with to get him off of me. But he just watched. I asked him later, "Why didn't you try to help me?" He said, "Well I was afraid the dog would have tried to attack me too. But it didn't matter because you did good to get away from him." :(
Any communication that I try to initiate with him is met with silence, or "oookaaaay" as the response, as if to say, "So?"
Sometimes he will start violently picking things up around the house and rinsing dishes, etc. I say, "Why are you doing that?" and he will say, "Well I guess you want me to clean the house for you." For me, him to do that would be like asking someone to catch a ball flying at them in left field and them running to home base instead. It's completely missing the point. I just want him to care about the children. I try to explain to him that I also work, and I am also tired and that does not give me a free pass to ignore the children. He will make a snarky comment about my job in reference to it not being "real work" because it is administrative vs. physical labor. He doesn't see the work I do with the kids as physical although I have to do a lot of physical work with the children.
Last night I brought up divorce. I actually thought that if he didn't live with us and saw the children just on the weekend that he would actually want to do stuff with them. I just asked him about it. I know not to discuss divorce unless you are serious, but we have been together for 13 years and after years of thinking it in my head, and making sure I was serious, I was serious.
I am asking here because I wanted an independent view. There is no way that he would share his side of the story with even me because he doesn't talk about anything that isn't related to business. So far we are still speaking, but it's strictly business chat. The tone has been neutral and friendly.
Any advice?
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