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: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:32pm
That may be the amount of clothes your kids and you can handle. My kids have more...they have to have clothes that meet dress code for school, and casual clothes, so they have maybe fifteen outfits a season, in that they have three pairs of khakis, several pairs of dress shorts, about ten dress shirts, several pairs of jeans, and lots of athletic shorts and t-shirts to wear on their off times or to gym.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:32pm

So how is it confusing?


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:33pm
I tried that, but ended up with clothes laying all around the hampers, lol.

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Ducky

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:35pm

Well, part of it was the stove and the design of the stove...knobs/buttons on the back out of reach and if the stove was on, then someone was in the kitchen, handles pointed to the back and so forth.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:35pm
We often have a ring of clothes circling the hampers in the boys' room. I will not wash clothes that are not in the hampers, so one day when I was picking up clothes from the older one's hamper to throw in the wash, he sees his favorite shirt down on the floor and asks me to wash it, and I say, "Not this time, it's not in the hamper." He gets all outraged and tells me, "I don't see the big deal? Why can't you just lean over and pick it up?" And I laughed and said, "You know, I have wondered that about you for YEARS!"
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:36pm
that's not what she said...but somehow, I'm not surprised by this response, or the others, in the last half hour, lol.

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Ducky

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Ducky

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-08-2010
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:36pm
ITA with you. It gets very frustrating saying the same things over and over and over every.single.day. Some things seem to just NOT sink in. That is why I DO take the advice from everyone but when some keep giving me the same advice that I have explained just does not work (things that have been tried for years or things that we are STILL trying to do year after year after year) and it is turned on me, it is annoying.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:37pm

Then remove them all but a few outfits, however many she needs between laudnry loads, make it more simple and easy to organize and keep up with on her own.


PumpkinAngel

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:38pm
It's a hypothetical--what's the problem with just answering? Let's say you're at a family member or friend's house, and it *is* possible.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:38pm

Because a *good mom* would NEVER let her kid wear dirty clothes to school.


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Ducky

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Ducky

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