This is less about teamwork, but more about the unresolved energies afoot during the death rattle stages of late patriarchy. Husbands haven’t put down their confusion around not being ‘head of household’ and struggle because they have not been ‘skilled up’ to being contributing members of domestic life.
It stinks having them around cause they think they should have a say in how everything goes... but, they weren’t ever prepared for the job. So there’s constant training and resistance to training, etc. Modern heterosexual relationships are so extra.
Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
It’s often so much easier to do bedtime/dinner alone and give yourself permission to make your life easier. Like when I’m by myself I’m 100% making boxed mac n cheese or frozen pizza, letting the kids watch tv and immediately putting them to bed. When we’re all together I try harder and I’m also trying to meet my spouse’s expectations. Things like the kids should eat vegetables, we should sit at the table for dinner, or to floss the kid’s teeth. Instead if I remember to brush their teeth and they go to bed without me yelling I figure I’ve won.
This is it for me too -- I just give myself permission to order takeout and let them do more screentime and not really care about small battles that much when it's just me parenting. Makes it feel like kind of a break.
I am heading toward a Mom-only weekend and there will be nachos and there will be those really good mini gummy bears from Trader Joe's. There will be a hard 8pm bedtime. There will probably be a visit to Waffle House. And no, we will not be attending the 8:30-10pm baseball practice for my 11yo, because WTF is that?! And then, I will partake in some excellent starfish sleeping in my bed alone.
I really think the reason why it is easier is because of the novelty. And there is no opportunity to "go ask Dad" when Mom says no. And they know what we like. When it's Dad-only, they get him to make kitchen destroying meals and watch all the Marvel and Star Wars garbage. When it's Mom-only, we have silent nachos with our new library books and giant fro yos for dessert. I think they love both equally, but especially not having one of us jump in with a reasonable excuse to NOT do the thing.
I might have mentioned this in another issue but Christina talked once about taking the kids to the store when her spouse was traveling and letting them choose sugar cereal for the occasion. Fun Mom!
The library is my Fun Solo Mom activity, too! Every Sunday evening, we go to the library, have Panera for dinner, and see how fast we can do the grocery shopping (my 9yo times us on his stopwatch).
I love the library and I feel like such a great mom while I'm there. Look at my wonderful book-loving children, taking advantage of public services. Meanwhile the librarian is probably like "This bitch again..."
Lol, as a librarian, as long as they’re not complete developmentally inappropriate menaces every time you come in (let’s be honest, all kids do these things sometimes), the librarian probably loves it. Bonus points if you teach them to ask the librarian all their questions instead of you!
This is also my go-to solo mom activity! But my children spend about 10 minutes picking out books and then 1 hour playing with the magnatiles and train table so I can't feel too smug about it. But we can walk there so everyone gets some exercise and it makes my husband think I am very virtuous.
During early Covid I got a DVD player so Paw Patrol didn't hog bandwidth from simultaneous Zooms. My 6-year-old still loves checking out DVDs from the library as well. Our library also has a (not fancy) scavenger hunt my kids want to do every time.
I’m curious about this phenomenon. I wonder how much pressure we take off ourselves at the same time as knowing that we are the only adult present so there can’t be active resentment directed towards the oblivious dude (usually it’s a dude but not always). Like are we performing some gender norm moreso when they’re around? Do we give ourselves permission to relax more aka “be a bad mom” when they aren’t around? (We aren’t being bad it’s just not holding as high of a standard?)
I’m researching how whiteness shaped mothering ideals in America for a college paper and am discovering that women are handed a lot of competing ideals - white women try to carry them all despite their incompatibility. So, for example, we want to have egalitarian partnerships and we want to practice intensive parenting. But intensive parenting is an ideal that’s mostly borne by mothers and generates conflict in the couple relationship bc it’s so heavily gendered.....
It takes so much brain space to track another human being in the house, when my spouse is at home I have to take him into consideration and make decisions I know we're in agreement about, when he's not home I can just do things my way, which is just less thinking.
On the other hand when he's gone I also have to remember how the dishwasher works, lol.
This is exactly it. When he’s home I feel like we have to make decisions together, but that hesitation kills me when we’re trying to address something quickly.
Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
Yes yes yes yes. Tom has been away almost a week (typically he goes away like 2-3 days) and EVEN with a crazy sick child, it has been sooooo easy and simple and so many early bedtimes. Only hard part for me is that I am sole dog walker of our dogs who want to fetch at the beach on every walk. Tater tots for dinner, cereal for dinner, yes and yes to more shows and early bedtime. Winning! I should add that my kids are 3rd and 6th grade so very self sufficient, and I can leave them alone for dog walks and grocery trips. Sick kids and traveling husband when the kids were little is super duper hard.
This is so validating to read today. I have been solo parenting most of these past couple months while my husband takes care of his parents, who are both ailing/in end stages. So I feel very guilty that about preferring the temporary solo parenting life while he's going through something really tough, even though he honestly has a pretty Zen acceptance of it as it was not really unexpected in either case. I actually think it's better for both of us that I am just handling things at home and he has the physical and emotional space without kids to process it all (his brother is there with him also, so he's not totally alone).
That said, our eldest is 9 and our twins are 5, even a year ago I feel like it would have been a lot harder, but now I just let the screen time and snacks flow and they're fine. I think part of what's easier when he's gone is that I really work to make sure we're a united front when he is here so now I don't need to run anything through committee. And yay for remote meetings so I don't have to trudge into the city for every little thing anymore! In general it's also been a nice realization that parenting is not as physically exhausting as it was when they were younger (I know it will be more emotionally exhausting soon enough) and is even fun at times.
Also, and I feel like this is the only group I could share this with, he feels SO guilty about being gone so much lately and he shouldn't, but he does because it's definitely harder for him when I am gone as I do all the day to day shit like snacks and meals and laundry and because picking out clothes for our twins (girls) gives him extreme anxiety for whatever reason. So now I've built up all that capital, and he keeps telling me to go and take some time for myself when we get on the other side of this.
Mar 14, 2023·edited Mar 14, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
Just have to add that TWO nights in a row my husband has tried to face time at a time when I was putting kids to bed. First night I just missed the call completely. Last night I answered while in bed with Sam and he asked us multiple times to "just turn the lights on so I can see everyone" and thank god Sam said "DAD!!! I am half asleep, no one is turning lights on." This sums up my husband in general, he just has never been able to be "bothered" by "remembering" (yes all of these quotes are said with anger) bedtimes. Quinn said the other night "It's so nice not to hear dad say out loud - oh sorry Quinn I just have one more quarter to watch - when I really want to go to bed."
That's something else I forgot to mention--we don't really stay in touch when he's oot. That used to put me in such a bad mood--the kids would be quiet watching TV and he'd say "You free for a Facetime?" Now it's like you can get actual face time when you're home. Doing bedtime alone for several nights as atonement for your alone time.
Yes so that's how I feel, but then I also feel like a bitch when I'm not excited to answer his calls. Personally when I go away I don't want to call or check in. I HATE THE "can I FaceTime in 10 minutes" text from him. Sometimes I respond, sure you can try, but I doubt I'll answer. Not to mention that the kids just don't love Facetiming with him. It's tricky! I love that he misses them, but but but also leave us alone.
Yes, same! Luckily both my husband and I have a mutual understanding on this, it's a mostly no-contact situation when either of us are traveling, I just want 1-2 texts a day to know nobody is sick and everyone still has their limbs and digits.
Lord, same. Like, give me a quick text/call once a day and I'm good. Last time he was OOT, he called one evening and we spent over an hour on the phone. Like, I'm touched that you miss me, but the kids are in bed and I just wanted a little alone time!
Yes! And when I have a business trip, I don't want to facetime with them either. Let me have my 24-48 hours of uninterrupted adult conversation or alone time. You can tell me all about the weird shit you ate for lunch when I see you tomorrow
HAAA! My husband also likes to tell me exactly what he did and ate all day and honestly it's boring. Thanks for the picture of you at a mall in Paraguay buying sunscreen, I'm eating cake and watching tv with the kids and can't be bothered.
Totally. Tom actually said last night "did you show Sam the video of the truck on the bridge" and I was like nope I did not and I didn't even look at it myself.
I can top this, RIGHT when I was finally getting our 9 y.o. bedtime procrastinator into bed last night, husband called to tell me I should put on ESPN for him right now because they were simulcasting a hockey game with all Big City Greens characters. I couldn't NOT show him this but then I had to deal with talking to husband on the phone while 9 y.o. was barking at me to look at funny things on the screen and take pictures of it with my phone to show his sisters, who had just gone to bed.
This is so interesting, I used to travel regularly for work when my kids were really little (like 4 months to 2 years old) and I always wanted to see them and finally, my husband said - "I need you to facetime in the evening and not in the morning because they get all upset." And I realized that they didn't really miss me, and I was messing up their routine. Now I never travel (hahahaha, thanks pandemic), but if I did, I would also probably not call.
Totally agree! I think there's something to the idea that I'm juggling the moods/desires/expectations of one fewer person, so can relax a bit more. I love my husband, he's very helpful, etc., etc., but I fully admit that I have been looking forward to the fact that he's out of town on business for an evening this week.
Yes, 100% agree (now that my twins are 8)! We have a snow day at school today. Even though I don't love trying to work from home while making sure the kids are fed and entertained all day, I'm SO glad my husband still went into the office. Trying the manage all of those things while making sure the kids aren't so loud as to disturb him on calls AND also getting annoyed that even though he's home, I'm still doing 90% of the childcare, is just too much. Blah blah I love my husband but I'm happy to be solo today!
100% the hardest part about snow days is that my husband is used to WFH all alone now, and his office doesn't have a door, and he's super pissy about noise. It creates massive resentment in the rest of us, tiptoe-ing around, me being the one to make excuses for the cartoon noises in the background of my meetings, and then also his swanning in whenever he needs a break, disrupting whatever i've managed to scrape together for an activity or distraction, and then waltz out when he's ready to get back to work. No one can function like that, and he gets mad that he hears me telling him not to come out of the office for a break, but that's not it, it's that I can't get anything done in a sudden, unexpected 5-10 minute burst of him being around (not to mention he actually is talking to me the whole time anyway!) ARGH sorry, snow days are kind of the worst.
YESSS the wfh husbands are a hard breed. Mine is the same - oooooh hang out with me during my 5 minute break - with no regard to the rest of us. And the noise. My kids don't give two craps if they see me on a zoom, but they are so respectful of my husband and his working. I guess they know who makes most of the money (not me).
I know a couple that is expecting their first child and the husband works from home and I'm really curious to hear how that will go. I was so resentful of my husband for leaving the house and experiencing life when I was on mat leave but I might be even more mad if he was in the next room working instead of fully out of the house. I'm sure I'd find a way to be mad no matter what.
Ha. I think Tom was out of the house for both kids being babies...but he was working from home when Quinn was a toddler and screaming at nap time (and sometimes screaming for Tom) and I HATED that he could hear and was home and sometimes would come out and try to fix things himself (clearly I have control issues). Unless they work from like the garage setup, having them in the house is hard as hell - or maybe it depends on what kind of person you are. My kids would sometimes melt down outside the closed door to our bedroom/Tom's office and I would have to scoop them up like a maniac and it just was so annoying- bringing back stressful memories. Now my only major stress is taxiing them and listening to them talk to friends while playing video games "bro..bro...bro...bro"
I don't mind at all when mine (3.5) wants to be on a Zoom with me. People generally are understanding and enjoy seeing kids. It's a big part of the resentment for me is that my husband won't use a single cent of social capital at work to say "my kid's home for the day, sorry about the noise" -- he'd rather stress the rest of us out.
I AGREE so hard with the acknowledging that you have children and they make noise. I think my husband at least struggles with the idea of what working from home means. I think he still pictures his work should be silent and untouchable as if it was 1960's Madmen era and he was the most all important thing ever.
YES this was basically the first 6 months of the pandemic for me, and I wanted to scream the entire time. Now I'm like, please just go into the office.
I really feel like this is an unspoken, unexamined piece of the stress so many women have been reporting since the pandemic. working with your partner is the pits
OMG thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. I have a friend whose partner travels a lot and it looks super hard for her because they have two kids, 4 and 1.5. But I just have the one, she's 3.5, and everything is easier when I'm alone with her. We get into our rhythms without being interrupted or having to explain myself and my plan - for some reason that annoys the daylights out of me - if you have a plan for the day, by all means, tell me what it is and we can do it, but if I ask, do you have a plan and you say no, then I'm going to make a plan and do it and you can come along if you want or not.
I've started trying to incorporate some of my solo habits into every day life, too, especially around food. If I get a text at 3 asking what's for dinner, I'll tell you what I want to/can make/pick up and if you don't want it, you can make other arrangements. Often I get a lukewarm response to the menu I text, but it sure gets eaten.
I've just kind of decided that if I'm not going to perform some kind of domestic perfection for social media, why would I perform it for my husband.
I genuinely enjoy the couple times a year when my husband goes away with friends because of how much less insane bedtimes and school mornings are. I also try to take my kid out for at least one mom/son outing a month or so, because the dynamic with just the two of us is so different. Not better; I still love when all three of us do certain things together. But I truly enjoy my kid's company when it's just the two of us doing something we planned out together. I find that my husband and son rile each other up on outings in a way that drives me crazy, especially in the car, and that doesn't happen minus the husband. Last week he had a half day of school and no aftercare, so I took the afternoon off (my husband could not) and took my son out to lunch, to an arcade for an hour, and to get ice cream sundaes. Most of it was his design; he had a good report card and I told him he could pick an activity and a treat. But we just had such a nice day and we always come away from it with a funny in-joke or something that we hold onto until the next outing.
Dog house here, no kids. Partners can be exhausting. Managing their moods and anticipating their wants while trying to keep a handle on your own sh*t. My husband is doing a golf trip next month. I'm so looking forward to running the house the way I want!
I always say it's a LOT that the person you live with has to be your roommate, lover/partner and co-parent. Even without the parent thing it's hard to love someone a lot and live with them at the same time. you know too much.
I couldn’t agree more. Another factor that I think plays into this is that although my husband is a good co-parent and also does a bigger share of our domestic labor, he sometimes takes a backseat to answering questions and doing all the millions of things the kids ask when I am around. It’s somehow more exhausting than when I’m on solo duty. Definitely a hot topic for us.
having been cultured to manage everyone's moods and being responsible for everyone's happiness - I'm having so many realizations about why I was frustrated with my therapist recently, when she was basically telling me to stop feeling this responsibility and stop feeling defensive about my husband's moods -- So many of you are dealing with the same feelings, this is not some failing on my part.
How exactly did she want you to stop feeling responsible? That seems a lot harder than she is making it out. I was just having a discussion today where a friend said she holds all of the family emotions like she is their giant handbag that has endless space for all of their emotions - but god forbid she react or seem frustrated!
We talked about how my husband is an "external processor" who has to verbally work through his reactions to things, especially disappointment and frustration, but that often results in, for example, him saying, while we are awake overnight on vacation bc the kid has a cough, that he is miserable, the trip is irredeemable and we should fly home tomorrow. And while I look at flights at breakfast, he is planning our day of vacation activities bc he processed that flying home mid-vacation is kind of nuts. Meanwhile, I got to hold all of the anxiety and dread and -- honestly -- whining. And she was trying to tell me to look at it as his feelings about the trip and not feelings about me or my planning of the trip or how I handled the coughing kid. Which, valid, but also difficult.
Oh my goodness, so difficult. I’ve had things like this (not necessarily from a partner — from anyone who unloads their burden at you and then feels better while you’re still reeling) described to me as literally that: they’ve given you something to hold, they’re over it, but now YOU need to process it so obviously you’re not. I can imagine learning to compartmentalize it would help, but also: how??
omg, are we married to a polygamist? Are you actually me (I also just noticed we have the same name, ha)? Because this is exactly my husband. This is also exactly how I feel. Such helpful advice, alternate universe you really needs to find a good therapist.
It's helpful to an extent. I'm having trouble balancing patience with resentment because I sit there kind of fuming waiting for him to catch up with reality and be reasonable. And he doesn't take kindly when I use, like gentle parenting scripts on him about "that sounds really frustrating. You sound really disappointed. " which is honestly the only thing I can think to say in the moment, so it's either that or ... silence. which just sort of festers....
My (witchy) mom still talks about how it drove her crazy that my dad would get home from work just as she had us calm and reading before bed. (I do remember jumping on their bed yelling, "Daddy's home!")
Also if my husband gets home from something RIGHT after I've put the kids to bed and I want to be done talking for the night but there has to be a whole new round of talking and enthusiasm. Which sounds so minimal out of context but it can just be one of those things.
My husband's father used to work really late, come home, WAKE UP HIS CHILDREN, and then GO TO SLEEP after telling his wife THE KIDS WERE AWAKE AND NEEDED HER. This story was always told like it was the funniest thing ever and after the first time I heard it, I asked my husband, and your mom did not kill your dad in his sleep? He was surprised, and then had this oh...wow, OK, that story isn't as funny as it used to be revelation once we had a kid.
I think it helps that we have a kid who wants nothing more than to wake up at 5:30 a.m. and then to wake up his dad to go play Hot Wheels with him at 5:30 a.m.
I also credit lots of therapy, a desire to be different from his parents in almost every way, and, yes, to his mom.
This is less about teamwork, but more about the unresolved energies afoot during the death rattle stages of late patriarchy. Husbands haven’t put down their confusion around not being ‘head of household’ and struggle because they have not been ‘skilled up’ to being contributing members of domestic life.
It stinks having them around cause they think they should have a say in how everything goes... but, they weren’t ever prepared for the job. So there’s constant training and resistance to training, etc. Modern heterosexual relationships are so extra.
I'm also seeing a lot of complaints about performative domesticity -- i'm 100% guilty of this too.
OMG THISSSSSSS! Wow, training and resistance to training is so true and I've never seen this expressed in this way before.
You speak all of the truth!
It’s often so much easier to do bedtime/dinner alone and give yourself permission to make your life easier. Like when I’m by myself I’m 100% making boxed mac n cheese or frozen pizza, letting the kids watch tv and immediately putting them to bed. When we’re all together I try harder and I’m also trying to meet my spouse’s expectations. Things like the kids should eat vegetables, we should sit at the table for dinner, or to floss the kid’s teeth. Instead if I remember to brush their teeth and they go to bed without me yelling I figure I’ve won.
I was going to either send out this issue or a thread on battles we have graciously chosen not to fight. Definitely related topics.
Absolutely.
This is it for me too -- I just give myself permission to order takeout and let them do more screentime and not really care about small battles that much when it's just me parenting. Makes it feel like kind of a break.
I am heading toward a Mom-only weekend and there will be nachos and there will be those really good mini gummy bears from Trader Joe's. There will be a hard 8pm bedtime. There will probably be a visit to Waffle House. And no, we will not be attending the 8:30-10pm baseball practice for my 11yo, because WTF is that?! And then, I will partake in some excellent starfish sleeping in my bed alone.
I really think the reason why it is easier is because of the novelty. And there is no opportunity to "go ask Dad" when Mom says no. And they know what we like. When it's Dad-only, they get him to make kitchen destroying meals and watch all the Marvel and Star Wars garbage. When it's Mom-only, we have silent nachos with our new library books and giant fro yos for dessert. I think they love both equally, but especially not having one of us jump in with a reasonable excuse to NOT do the thing.
Silent nachos and new library books. Adopt me.
I might have mentioned this in another issue but Christina talked once about taking the kids to the store when her spouse was traveling and letting them choose sugar cereal for the occasion. Fun Mom!
The library is my Fun Solo Mom activity, too! Every Sunday evening, we go to the library, have Panera for dinner, and see how fast we can do the grocery shopping (my 9yo times us on his stopwatch).
I love the library and I feel like such a great mom while I'm there. Look at my wonderful book-loving children, taking advantage of public services. Meanwhile the librarian is probably like "This bitch again..."
Lol, as a librarian, as long as they’re not complete developmentally inappropriate menaces every time you come in (let’s be honest, all kids do these things sometimes), the librarian probably loves it. Bonus points if you teach them to ask the librarian all their questions instead of you!
I do!! I learned that from my mom. The librarian is your friend and knows everything and wants to be bothered. Unlike me.
This is also my go-to solo mom activity! But my children spend about 10 minutes picking out books and then 1 hour playing with the magnatiles and train table so I can't feel too smug about it. But we can walk there so everyone gets some exercise and it makes my husband think I am very virtuous.
During early Covid I got a DVD player so Paw Patrol didn't hog bandwidth from simultaneous Zooms. My 6-year-old still loves checking out DVDs from the library as well. Our library also has a (not fancy) scavenger hunt my kids want to do every time.
I’m curious about this phenomenon. I wonder how much pressure we take off ourselves at the same time as knowing that we are the only adult present so there can’t be active resentment directed towards the oblivious dude (usually it’s a dude but not always). Like are we performing some gender norm moreso when they’re around? Do we give ourselves permission to relax more aka “be a bad mom” when they aren’t around? (We aren’t being bad it’s just not holding as high of a standard?)
I’m researching how whiteness shaped mothering ideals in America for a college paper and am discovering that women are handed a lot of competing ideals - white women try to carry them all despite their incompatibility. So, for example, we want to have egalitarian partnerships and we want to practice intensive parenting. But intensive parenting is an ideal that’s mostly borne by mothers and generates conflict in the couple relationship bc it’s so heavily gendered.....
It takes so much brain space to track another human being in the house, when my spouse is at home I have to take him into consideration and make decisions I know we're in agreement about, when he's not home I can just do things my way, which is just less thinking.
On the other hand when he's gone I also have to remember how the dishwasher works, lol.
This is exactly it. When he’s home I feel like we have to make decisions together, but that hesitation kills me when we’re trying to address something quickly.
Yes yes yes yes. Tom has been away almost a week (typically he goes away like 2-3 days) and EVEN with a crazy sick child, it has been sooooo easy and simple and so many early bedtimes. Only hard part for me is that I am sole dog walker of our dogs who want to fetch at the beach on every walk. Tater tots for dinner, cereal for dinner, yes and yes to more shows and early bedtime. Winning! I should add that my kids are 3rd and 6th grade so very self sufficient, and I can leave them alone for dog walks and grocery trips. Sick kids and traveling husband when the kids were little is super duper hard.
This is so validating to read today. I have been solo parenting most of these past couple months while my husband takes care of his parents, who are both ailing/in end stages. So I feel very guilty that about preferring the temporary solo parenting life while he's going through something really tough, even though he honestly has a pretty Zen acceptance of it as it was not really unexpected in either case. I actually think it's better for both of us that I am just handling things at home and he has the physical and emotional space without kids to process it all (his brother is there with him also, so he's not totally alone).
That said, our eldest is 9 and our twins are 5, even a year ago I feel like it would have been a lot harder, but now I just let the screen time and snacks flow and they're fine. I think part of what's easier when he's gone is that I really work to make sure we're a united front when he is here so now I don't need to run anything through committee. And yay for remote meetings so I don't have to trudge into the city for every little thing anymore! In general it's also been a nice realization that parenting is not as physically exhausting as it was when they were younger (I know it will be more emotionally exhausting soon enough) and is even fun at times.
Also, and I feel like this is the only group I could share this with, he feels SO guilty about being gone so much lately and he shouldn't, but he does because it's definitely harder for him when I am gone as I do all the day to day shit like snacks and meals and laundry and because picking out clothes for our twins (girls) gives him extreme anxiety for whatever reason. So now I've built up all that capital, and he keeps telling me to go and take some time for myself when we get on the other side of this.
Just have to add that TWO nights in a row my husband has tried to face time at a time when I was putting kids to bed. First night I just missed the call completely. Last night I answered while in bed with Sam and he asked us multiple times to "just turn the lights on so I can see everyone" and thank god Sam said "DAD!!! I am half asleep, no one is turning lights on." This sums up my husband in general, he just has never been able to be "bothered" by "remembering" (yes all of these quotes are said with anger) bedtimes. Quinn said the other night "It's so nice not to hear dad say out loud - oh sorry Quinn I just have one more quarter to watch - when I really want to go to bed."
That's something else I forgot to mention--we don't really stay in touch when he's oot. That used to put me in such a bad mood--the kids would be quiet watching TV and he'd say "You free for a Facetime?" Now it's like you can get actual face time when you're home. Doing bedtime alone for several nights as atonement for your alone time.
Yes so that's how I feel, but then I also feel like a bitch when I'm not excited to answer his calls. Personally when I go away I don't want to call or check in. I HATE THE "can I FaceTime in 10 minutes" text from him. Sometimes I respond, sure you can try, but I doubt I'll answer. Not to mention that the kids just don't love Facetiming with him. It's tricky! I love that he misses them, but but but also leave us alone.
omg I have found my fucking people.
Yes, same! Luckily both my husband and I have a mutual understanding on this, it's a mostly no-contact situation when either of us are traveling, I just want 1-2 texts a day to know nobody is sick and everyone still has their limbs and digits.
Lord, same. Like, give me a quick text/call once a day and I'm good. Last time he was OOT, he called one evening and we spent over an hour on the phone. Like, I'm touched that you miss me, but the kids are in bed and I just wanted a little alone time!
Also then he'll get home and you'll have nothing new to talk about. Save up the conversation in the talking bank!
Yes! And when I have a business trip, I don't want to facetime with them either. Let me have my 24-48 hours of uninterrupted adult conversation or alone time. You can tell me all about the weird shit you ate for lunch when I see you tomorrow
HAAA! My husband also likes to tell me exactly what he did and ate all day and honestly it's boring. Thanks for the picture of you at a mall in Paraguay buying sunscreen, I'm eating cake and watching tv with the kids and can't be bothered.
Guess who just sent me a photo of the Empire State Building “for the boys.” I bet they would love it if I paused this tv show to show them, so much.
When he sends me a pic and says "For the boys." you can show the boys when you get home brah.
Totally. Tom actually said last night "did you show Sam the video of the truck on the bridge" and I was like nope I did not and I didn't even look at it myself.
I can top this, RIGHT when I was finally getting our 9 y.o. bedtime procrastinator into bed last night, husband called to tell me I should put on ESPN for him right now because they were simulcasting a hockey game with all Big City Greens characters. I couldn't NOT show him this but then I had to deal with talking to husband on the phone while 9 y.o. was barking at me to look at funny things on the screen and take pictures of it with my phone to show his sisters, who had just gone to bed.
I just love everyone in here so much right now.
This is so interesting, I used to travel regularly for work when my kids were really little (like 4 months to 2 years old) and I always wanted to see them and finally, my husband said - "I need you to facetime in the evening and not in the morning because they get all upset." And I realized that they didn't really miss me, and I was messing up their routine. Now I never travel (hahahaha, thanks pandemic), but if I did, I would also probably not call.
Totally agree! I think there's something to the idea that I'm juggling the moods/desires/expectations of one fewer person, so can relax a bit more. I love my husband, he's very helpful, etc., etc., but I fully admit that I have been looking forward to the fact that he's out of town on business for an evening this week.
Yes, 100% agree (now that my twins are 8)! We have a snow day at school today. Even though I don't love trying to work from home while making sure the kids are fed and entertained all day, I'm SO glad my husband still went into the office. Trying the manage all of those things while making sure the kids aren't so loud as to disturb him on calls AND also getting annoyed that even though he's home, I'm still doing 90% of the childcare, is just too much. Blah blah I love my husband but I'm happy to be solo today!
100% the hardest part about snow days is that my husband is used to WFH all alone now, and his office doesn't have a door, and he's super pissy about noise. It creates massive resentment in the rest of us, tiptoe-ing around, me being the one to make excuses for the cartoon noises in the background of my meetings, and then also his swanning in whenever he needs a break, disrupting whatever i've managed to scrape together for an activity or distraction, and then waltz out when he's ready to get back to work. No one can function like that, and he gets mad that he hears me telling him not to come out of the office for a break, but that's not it, it's that I can't get anything done in a sudden, unexpected 5-10 minute burst of him being around (not to mention he actually is talking to me the whole time anyway!) ARGH sorry, snow days are kind of the worst.
YESSS the wfh husbands are a hard breed. Mine is the same - oooooh hang out with me during my 5 minute break - with no regard to the rest of us. And the noise. My kids don't give two craps if they see me on a zoom, but they are so respectful of my husband and his working. I guess they know who makes most of the money (not me).
I know a couple that is expecting their first child and the husband works from home and I'm really curious to hear how that will go. I was so resentful of my husband for leaving the house and experiencing life when I was on mat leave but I might be even more mad if he was in the next room working instead of fully out of the house. I'm sure I'd find a way to be mad no matter what.
Ha. I think Tom was out of the house for both kids being babies...but he was working from home when Quinn was a toddler and screaming at nap time (and sometimes screaming for Tom) and I HATED that he could hear and was home and sometimes would come out and try to fix things himself (clearly I have control issues). Unless they work from like the garage setup, having them in the house is hard as hell - or maybe it depends on what kind of person you are. My kids would sometimes melt down outside the closed door to our bedroom/Tom's office and I would have to scoop them up like a maniac and it just was so annoying- bringing back stressful memories. Now my only major stress is taxiing them and listening to them talk to friends while playing video games "bro..bro...bro...bro"
so hear the "bro" "dude">one of them called ME dude...and I almost lost it
I don't mind at all when mine (3.5) wants to be on a Zoom with me. People generally are understanding and enjoy seeing kids. It's a big part of the resentment for me is that my husband won't use a single cent of social capital at work to say "my kid's home for the day, sorry about the noise" -- he'd rather stress the rest of us out.
I AGREE so hard with the acknowledging that you have children and they make noise. I think my husband at least struggles with the idea of what working from home means. I think he still pictures his work should be silent and untouchable as if it was 1960's Madmen era and he was the most all important thing ever.
YES this was basically the first 6 months of the pandemic for me, and I wanted to scream the entire time. Now I'm like, please just go into the office.
I really feel like this is an unspoken, unexamined piece of the stress so many women have been reporting since the pandemic. working with your partner is the pits
OMG thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. I have a friend whose partner travels a lot and it looks super hard for her because they have two kids, 4 and 1.5. But I just have the one, she's 3.5, and everything is easier when I'm alone with her. We get into our rhythms without being interrupted or having to explain myself and my plan - for some reason that annoys the daylights out of me - if you have a plan for the day, by all means, tell me what it is and we can do it, but if I ask, do you have a plan and you say no, then I'm going to make a plan and do it and you can come along if you want or not.
I've started trying to incorporate some of my solo habits into every day life, too, especially around food. If I get a text at 3 asking what's for dinner, I'll tell you what I want to/can make/pick up and if you don't want it, you can make other arrangements. Often I get a lukewarm response to the menu I text, but it sure gets eaten.
I've just kind of decided that if I'm not going to perform some kind of domestic perfection for social media, why would I perform it for my husband.
Yep- such a timely post! Another Amy here whose husband is away… having a ball managing things (by the seat of my pants) 💪🏼😁
I genuinely enjoy the couple times a year when my husband goes away with friends because of how much less insane bedtimes and school mornings are. I also try to take my kid out for at least one mom/son outing a month or so, because the dynamic with just the two of us is so different. Not better; I still love when all three of us do certain things together. But I truly enjoy my kid's company when it's just the two of us doing something we planned out together. I find that my husband and son rile each other up on outings in a way that drives me crazy, especially in the car, and that doesn't happen minus the husband. Last week he had a half day of school and no aftercare, so I took the afternoon off (my husband could not) and took my son out to lunch, to an arcade for an hour, and to get ice cream sundaes. Most of it was his design; he had a good report card and I told him he could pick an activity and a treat. But we just had such a nice day and we always come away from it with a funny in-joke or something that we hold onto until the next outing.
Dog house here, no kids. Partners can be exhausting. Managing their moods and anticipating their wants while trying to keep a handle on your own sh*t. My husband is doing a golf trip next month. I'm so looking forward to running the house the way I want!
I always say it's a LOT that the person you live with has to be your roommate, lover/partner and co-parent. Even without the parent thing it's hard to love someone a lot and live with them at the same time. you know too much.
I couldn’t agree more. Another factor that I think plays into this is that although my husband is a good co-parent and also does a bigger share of our domestic labor, he sometimes takes a backseat to answering questions and doing all the millions of things the kids ask when I am around. It’s somehow more exhausting than when I’m on solo duty. Definitely a hot topic for us.
It's the emotional labor, 100%
having been cultured to manage everyone's moods and being responsible for everyone's happiness - I'm having so many realizations about why I was frustrated with my therapist recently, when she was basically telling me to stop feeling this responsibility and stop feeling defensive about my husband's moods -- So many of you are dealing with the same feelings, this is not some failing on my part.
How exactly did she want you to stop feeling responsible? That seems a lot harder than she is making it out. I was just having a discussion today where a friend said she holds all of the family emotions like she is their giant handbag that has endless space for all of their emotions - but god forbid she react or seem frustrated!
We talked about how my husband is an "external processor" who has to verbally work through his reactions to things, especially disappointment and frustration, but that often results in, for example, him saying, while we are awake overnight on vacation bc the kid has a cough, that he is miserable, the trip is irredeemable and we should fly home tomorrow. And while I look at flights at breakfast, he is planning our day of vacation activities bc he processed that flying home mid-vacation is kind of nuts. Meanwhile, I got to hold all of the anxiety and dread and -- honestly -- whining. And she was trying to tell me to look at it as his feelings about the trip and not feelings about me or my planning of the trip or how I handled the coughing kid. Which, valid, but also difficult.
Oh my goodness, so difficult. I’ve had things like this (not necessarily from a partner — from anyone who unloads their burden at you and then feels better while you’re still reeling) described to me as literally that: they’ve given you something to hold, they’re over it, but now YOU need to process it so obviously you’re not. I can imagine learning to compartmentalize it would help, but also: how??
omg, are we married to a polygamist? Are you actually me (I also just noticed we have the same name, ha)? Because this is exactly my husband. This is also exactly how I feel. Such helpful advice, alternate universe you really needs to find a good therapist.
It's helpful to an extent. I'm having trouble balancing patience with resentment because I sit there kind of fuming waiting for him to catch up with reality and be reasonable. And he doesn't take kindly when I use, like gentle parenting scripts on him about "that sounds really frustrating. You sound really disappointed. " which is honestly the only thing I can think to say in the moment, so it's either that or ... silence. which just sort of festers....
Valid yes but hard to handle!
My (witchy) mom still talks about how it drove her crazy that my dad would get home from work just as she had us calm and reading before bed. (I do remember jumping on their bed yelling, "Daddy's home!")
Also if my husband gets home from something RIGHT after I've put the kids to bed and I want to be done talking for the night but there has to be a whole new round of talking and enthusiasm. Which sounds so minimal out of context but it can just be one of those things.
My husband's father used to work really late, come home, WAKE UP HIS CHILDREN, and then GO TO SLEEP after telling his wife THE KIDS WERE AWAKE AND NEEDED HER. This story was always told like it was the funniest thing ever and after the first time I heard it, I asked my husband, and your mom did not kill your dad in his sleep? He was surprised, and then had this oh...wow, OK, that story isn't as funny as it used to be revelation once we had a kid.
Ohhhhhh my god. It is amazing that your husband turned out to be marry-able after growing up with that. Credit to his mom clearly.
I think it helps that we have a kid who wants nothing more than to wake up at 5:30 a.m. and then to wake up his dad to go play Hot Wheels with him at 5:30 a.m.
I also credit lots of therapy, a desire to be different from his parents in almost every way, and, yes, to his mom.