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: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:00pm

There you go again...


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Ducky

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Ducky

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:01pm

??? You honestly haven't tried this before?


*smacks forehead*

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:02pm
It won't work, why should she try it?

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Ducky

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Ducky

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:03pm

You could be right! Honestly, I was thinking about posing some other hypotheticals (kid running into the street, jimmying the lock on the cabinet to get at the draino, whatever), so I did exercise *some* restraint.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:06pm
It really does sound like she has too much stuff. I found this out when my son was a toddler. He was the first grandchild on one side of the family and got way too many books, toys, and clothes. And he would never pick them up. I began taking things away systematically when I found them in the wrong places, and rather than get upset by this, he actually seemed relieved. I kept taking things away, thinking, "My heavens, this child is going to keep this up until he has NOTHING." Well, he kept it up until he had about twelve toys, and maybe ten books, and they were toys and books he used and took care of. We realized then that he was far happier with a few things that he could actually find, and that it wasn't overwhelming for him to play with, than having scores of things that frustrated us all.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-15-2006
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:07pm
what you responded to was my saying, some willing professors do read them, i did not say they evaluate or determine the accomodations, of course that's not their job.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2005
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:07pm
Whoa! Yes, there needs to be a hamper in her room! I've improved significantly in the last decade and even I won't make it to another room to put clothing in a hamper. Sometime I won't even make it across a single room. I have a hamper in my bedroom by the door and another one in my closet.














iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:07pm
She's not. I have lived with a kid like this for years. I guarantee you, left on his own, he'd create a space that looks like a mentally ill person lived there. His teachers still make him clean out his locker every Friday. Usually this is a routine that stops in 8th grade, but he still needs the bi-weekly cleanout.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:09pm
I've been accused of being a *bad mommy*, b/c my kids hardly have anything at all, lol.

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Ducky

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Wed, 03-10-2010 - 5:09pm
Just be very careful when you empty it, because along with the dirty clothes you will find money, keys, trash, a forbidden soda can, the nail clippers you have been looking for all week, and a small animal or two.

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