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: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 1:57pm

<if they need or want anything that requires the parent's help, they are stuck deciding whether they consider it worth waking their parents

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:01pm

Honestly, I had no idea that morning routines for some children were so complex, so detailed and required so much parental hovering to insure that everything goes smoothly to address all the possible unpredictable

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:05pm

<>


Part of what he is complaining about, is when he is at home: the school age kids in the morning, the baby sleeping until noon, leaving the baby with him while she runs errands...


It would also seem that since he does work that schedule, she has more of her share of parenting the kids in the evenings.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:06pm

n/t


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2003
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:13pm

if you don't understand that there is

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:44pm

As I have said before, I totally understand that there are steps along the way, but what I don't understand is the need for the parent to be hovering constantly to insure that noting goes wrong, that any and every need and want is addressed at the moment it occurs, which seems to be in the morning in these posts.


What I don't understand is how the lack of that hovering of the parent to anticipate

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:48pm

~I am certainly thankful for an easy morning routine!~


me to! :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2005
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:48pm
I certainly agree with everything you just said. I strongly suspect that there needs to be better communication of needs and expectations between the OP and his wife. If the two older children are capable of getting themselves dressed, fed, and off to school on their own every day, I don't understand why their presence in the home should prevent her from doing a load of laundry daily and cleaning the counters/frig/stove/bedrooms more than once a month. Heck, she could put them to work. Really, it sounds like their problem could be solved with two things: better communication and Flylady.














iVillage Member
Registered: 02-06-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:48pm

But you did decide to reply while ignoring all my actual points?

Meez 3D avatar avatars games
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-06-2009
In reply to: daddy_gil
Fri, 03-05-2010 - 2:49pm

BWAH! I missed that one!

Meez 3D avatar avatars games

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