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: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:39pm

Examples,

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:40pm
OK, I have to clue you in here. Our PA is a lovable girl, but she is part terrier and part bulldog, and once she sinks her teeth into a position, she will not let it go. She can keep this up for DAYS, as long as you have the energy to keep it going. My personal limit is 2000 posts.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-08-2010
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:40pm
If she doesn't put away the clean things though and then just starts putting the dirty ones on top, it won't make much of a difference if she has 10 outfits or 100. She knows that winter clothes ONLY go in the closet. She shouldn't even be trying to put the winter clothes in the drawers where the summer stuff is. AND...she will put the clean clothes in drawers, bottom of the closet, under her bed, in her toy box. Anyplace so she doesn't have to actually put it away.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:41pm

It is frustrating, but it needs to be done and repeated over and over and over again....sometimes that's the only way it works and if one doesn't follow through or changes the pattern, it takes more time to adjust.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:42pm

Again, I would make it physically impossible anywhere for any child that I was responsible for.


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:43pm
It will make a big difference in terms of visual clutter, which is a big, paralyzing problem for these kids, as I am sure you know. And you probably need to take away her access to the drawers she shouldn't be opening, even if you have to move the dresser or lock the drawers.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:43pm
I knew it!

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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 - 4:44pm
Oh, ITA with you that they ARE only trying to help and I have taken the advice. It is just frustrating when the same advice is given when I have SAID it does not work for this type of child. It then turns into that I don't give enough attention or I am not strict enough or yadda, yadda. Anything that is NOT considered support IMO.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2005
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:44pm

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So I'm assuming that if someone was in the kitchen and the 2-year-old pulled a chair up to the stove to try to fiddle with the knobs or grab the handles, the person would stop them.















iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 4:46pm

Death...yes, but I'm guessing those actual occurrences would be slim, although I would of course act if able....I just don't think it's a real possibility of occurring, outside of the stranger situation.


Institutions or jail, it would depend on the specifics....they might be the right consequence.

PumpkinAngel

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