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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Avatar for rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 3:10am

I think that several people have suggested counseling already, and the more you post, the more it sounds like you are at a complete impasse, no way forward, no idea what to do etc. A counselor could probably really help with that, but it means that both you, dd and dh have to go.

It will, of course, also mean that you will be like some of the people you seemed to take great pleasure in putting down and belittling, but that's life.

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

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

Oscar Wilde




Edited 3/11/2010 3:14 am ET by rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-01-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 6:00am
we're doing the laundry lesson now b/c at her dad's house she complains she doesn't have clean school uniforms - so I'm teaching her how to be able to make sure she does...
Avatar for rollmops2009
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 6:09am

I taught dd when she started moaning about her fave jeans or whatever not being clean when Miss Thing wanted to wear them. First of all, she is every bit as sloppy as the dd of SSD when it comes to clothes, so half the time the jeans had perhaps been in the hamper half a day, after spending 10 days under her bed or something. Besides, I do not provide services to order. I provide them as I see fit.

She still tries to complain sometimes, but she has actually learned that if she wants to make sure something is clean at a certain time, her best bet is to take care of it herself.

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

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

Oscar Wilde

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-15-2006
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 6:20am

i have one mesh bag hanging on a hook over the kids' bathroom but don't have hampers.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-01-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 6:40am
our washer and dryer are in our finished basement-we've been known to hurtle a few dirty items down the stairs rather than taking them up stairs to the hamper just to take them downstairs to the laundry
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 8:05am

That was when my DDs learned to do laundry. I had set days that I did laundry. If they wanted something washed other than those days then they had to wash it themselves. But they were not allowed to wash only one item. They had to do a full load, even if that meant washing other family members laundry to get that full load.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 9:16am

My dd does the same thing. She does not have a lot of clothes because she wears a uniform to school. Having a manageable number of clothes makes no difference to a slob. They'll just wear the dirty clothes if they don't have something clean.

I've gotten to the point where I just let it be during the week b/c she's busy with homework and activities. I don't have the time to constantly check her room to ensure her clothes are put away properly. Come Friday, she's not allowed to do anything after school until she cleans up her room and her cubby in the mudroom.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-01-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 9:20am

I'm also kind athinking that remembering the kind of kid I was if I had a parent who was so obsessed with neatness and order the way I'd rebel would be through messiness and chaos.


my father was obsessed with an 'orderly' refrigerator. To this day I take special delight in putting everything on the top shelf just to spite him...

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 9:22am
Ooooh, them's fighting words. I'm pretty anal about the fridge.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
In reply to: daddy_gil
Thu, 03-11-2010 - 9:24am
That's the way I look at it. My dd does the same thing as hers - leaves clothes all over her room, under the bed, in the closet, even behind the toilet in the bathroom. If she doesn't have something clean to wear b/c she doesn't get her clothes in the hamper in time for the laundry getting done, then so be it. There have been times she doesn't have a clean uniform blouse for school so I tell her she'll have to find one in her piles of clothes and wear it. I've told her that there will come a time when she gets embarrassed b/c her shirt smells like B.O. or that it's all wrinkly and then she'll get the hint. It's starting to work. She's finally getting to that age where she is more aware of her appearance.

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