Frustrated Dad

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-09-2009
Frustrated Dad
2943
Wed, 09-09-2009 - 3:28am
I really need some opinions on my situation. I am a 30 year old dad with 3 children. I work 10-12 hrs a day 5 days a week and every other Saturday. I am pretty much a homebody, the only time I really go out is on Sundays during football season to watch the games. I do what i need to in order to support my wife and kids. But I am at wits end with my wife and need some help.
My wifes day is as follows. She wakes up any where from 10am - noon (which means 2 of our children (11 and 7) wake up feed themselves and walk to school) at which point she will got downstairs to the kitchen to light a cigarette and call her sister or best friend. During the 1/2hr to an hour that she is on the phone she will make (for herself)and drink about 3 cups of coffee. At around noon when the baby wakes up (11 months) she'll feed him change his diaper and set him on the floor and mostly ignore him as she calls her mother. Usually around 12:30 she'll head out to do errands leaving me with the baby until 1:30 when she'll get home so I can rush out to work where I'm 20 minutes away from and need to be in by 2.
Heres the thing i have no problem being the sole financial gainer in the house hold but I expect certain things. I guess thats the reason for this post to find out if my expectation are to lofty. I expect her to get up in the morning with the children make them breakfast help them pick out cloths make sure they have their homework and send them off to school( I would even help in the morning but i got sick of waking up in the morning while shes still sleeping when i was the one at work last night). I would like breakfast every once in a while made when i wake up i don't expect it but it would be nice. I would like the baby up before 11am I just don't think he should be sleeping that long. i expect laundry the be cleaned, folded and put away! The laundry in our house gets washed and dried them it usually ends up on the dining room table for half the day then it makes its way over to the living room where its folded and left on the couch for a day or two (is it to much to ask to have it put away). I expect the house clean! Cleaning the kitchen for her consist of of doing the dishes and mopping the floor! Cabinets, frig, counters, stove maybe once a month. Cleaning the dinning room consist of her wiping the table and vacuuming one area of the carpet. Bathroom, living room are cleaned in the same manner and the children's room and bedroom upstairs can go months without cleaning! I expect lunch made before i got to work! No breakfast and lunch not even a packed lunch/diner!I expect a home cooked diner for my children! Not pizza, macaroni or canned spaghetti!!! Is this to much to ask? i expect diner when I get home, real food not something she sends me on yoville or farmtown, which she's on until 2am!! DO I EXPECT TO MUCH? I thought these where to things a stay at home mom did? Are my expectations to old school? I need answers I feel like I'm being taken advantage of and I don't know how much longer I can last.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:00pm

I don't disagree that, in general, <>


I do, however, stand strong in my stance that one doesn't have to understand to

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:02pm

Snicker that was funy,

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:03pm

I did....what are you talking about, is my question.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:11pm

Hey...you can also add this thread....parents who choose not to get up with their kids in the morning.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:16pm

Iam not talking about Physically stopping a child,

Avatar for rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:18pm
To be honest, I have not read most of the exchange between you and Pumpkin, but aren't there some mistakes that you would let your kids make in order for them to learn?

~o~ ...^^^... ~o~

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Oscar Wilde

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:20pm

If this is truly an ongoing problem in your life, I wonder whether you are doing one or both of two things -- (a) "dumping" your troubles on people who really aren't equipped to be dumped upon, and creating a sense of resentment and helplessness in them, or (b) excusing behaviors and issues that trouble other people on the basis of your daughter's problems and not dealing with them properly -- allowing your daughter's problems to impose on other people.

The first issue is what has driven me into therapy a number of times. When we are going through a particularly rough patch with the kid, I can't really dump on my family and friends and expect them to understand. It isn't helpful to me, and it's unfair to them. Besides, the therapist usually is trained to give me good feedback and good ideas, so it is actually quite useful to dump on her.

The second issue is trickier, but even if a kid has ADHD or a similar behavioral problem, one often has to modify one's own behavior in order to keep the kid under control. Years ago there was a poster on here, for instance, who complained that her ADHD daughter, maybe ten years old (I forgot) made watching movies in the evening as a family almost impossible because she chattered through the movies and nobody else could enjoy the movie. Well, you cannot allow a child's problems to make movie watching impossible for other people. If she truly is so impulsive and intrusive at the age of ten that you have to treat her like a four-year old (that may be the level that she is at, that is not a slam, but a reality) then you either have to wait to watch movies as a family until she is in bed, suck it up and deal, or try things like making her play basketball outside or swim for an hour before trying to watch the movie hoping she will be physically exhausted and more likely to be able to be quiet. What you cannot do is allow her problems to dominate the experience for all concerned.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:22pm

Ya I know...I'm leaving it, for the chuckles.


<

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:26pm

<child,

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 12:31pm
I think there can, and should be, many debates about the "how" of living with ADHD children.

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