Looing for some advice and perspective

[Gwylenna]

I know this is unusual for our forum, but I have come to respect many of you and think that the diversity of our group might give me some different approaches and viewpoints.

Okay, looking for advice because I am not sure what else to do. And I hope my husband, who rarely noses around Legions, doesn’t decide to while the post is up.

This involves “chores” and marriage. Sorry it is long because it needs some background.

For the first couple of years after my son was born and the first year after my daughter was born I was a stay at home mom. We often were struggling and did without, but it was something we did for our kids.

When we moved from Boise Idaho to Las Vegas my husband took a job as a car salesman. At first he did real well and was making enough money for us to be comfortable. Then he became disillusioned or it became too hard or whatever, he didn’t want to do it, his sales went down, money got tight and he started looking for a new job. He found one, that in the long run would have decent pay, but in the sort run would only pay about $10 per hour and it was in a field he had lots of experience in.

I immediately started looking for a job at night so that we would not need to pay for child care and I could be at home with the kids during the day. As we moved to this two person working family I expressed my concern that I would end up with having to pull in an income and do all of the housework and care for the kids.

Off to work I went. Once I started working he quit his job since he often had to work until ten pm, but I had to be at work by 9 pm. I asked him to look for a temp day job until his new job started in a little more than a month. He felt most of the $8.00 per hour temp and convention jobs were too far beneath him and stayed home. If my family hadn’t given us money that month we would have been evicted from our home, but they did, though he had no idea at that time that they would.

So I spent the next 5 months working nights and caring for the kids by day, averaging 4 hours of sleep per day, including “catch up” sleep on his days off. I often when 36 to 48 hours without sleep.

The last month I worked this night job I had been promoted and had some increased pay, so we hired some day-time help so I could sleep. At this point I felt that this was no longer a job that I could work, so I left. And when I say I could no longer work, we are talking personal safety stuff not just I don’t like it any more. I felt I would be in danger if I stayed.

So now I had no income, but we would get evicted if I didn’t bring in some money soon so I did what I had to until I could decide what to do and brought in some money in a legal, but not really good for me venue. My husband thinks it was something I “wanted” to do, not something that I felt I had to do to keep a roof over our heads. Which kind of pisses me off.

Now I work a “normal” job and make decent money, the kids are in pre-school and extended care during the day and we look like most American two earner families.

One of my biggest fears about both of us working is that I would put in a full days worth of work, then be expected to do most of the housework and childcare when I am not at work. He assured me this would not happen, but it has.

We have had fight after fight about it and he gets mad at me for getting upset about or nagging about it.

Finally we agreed that he would have one thing in the household he was responsible for, the kitchen. At first it worked, the kitchen was clean and that made me feel like cleaning the rest of the house because I wasn’t so overwhelmed with “everything.”

Then last week he slacked off, okay no big deal everyone has a few tough days where they should be allowed to slack off. However one of my friends from work was planning on dropping off some stuff for us that he was clearing out of his garage on Sunday. I let him know that was happening and that I would be cleaning the house on Saturday.

He stayed up later than I did on Friday, I assumed doing his part in cleaning the kitchen. He works on Saturday so I am alone with the kids on Saturday. Anyway I wake up Saturday morning, ready to get things done I go down to the kitchen and it is a complete mess. A couple hours worth of a mess. So I spent all of Saturday, nine full hours, cleaning and fuming.

When he got home I said I wanted out, that I wanted a divorce. I was tired of doing most of the work in our marriage. Now true the cleaning is not the only issue in our marriage and maybe is only a symptom, but it seems like it is the biggest right now and until we figure something out about that we can’t fix anything else. It also seems to represent to me our biggest difference, I want a 50/50 relationship, he wants something else. I am sure culture plays into some of this since he is from Ecuador, but he has lived here a long time and married an American woman and says he agrees with the equality thing.

A week has passed since the melt down, his saying yeah I screwed up, but are you going to leave over dishes? Has he upped the ante and really tried to do his part…..not really.

He loves our kids and they love him and it seems cruel to hurt the kids over such petty stuff. But I am at a loss of what to do. It seems my choices are accept that I have do it all as if I were a single parent even though I am married, or leave and actually be a single parent.

So any advice or suggestions?

By the way I do not think I am perfect. I have my faults too. Maybe I need to look in the mirror more, but I have done a lot of that and what I see is not all me, however I seem to be the only one willing to change. He says he will then doesn’t.

[Post]

Something that I'm still struggling with in my current relationship, is not to try and measure our input to the relationship. I simply need to give everything. And if she's not, then that's an issue, but not because I'm giving more than her; it's because she's simply not giving everything.

With that said, it sounds like the best thing would be to try and get this stuff completely clear between you. If you feel that he needs to have this stuff done, then there's a problem with him not doing it, regardless if it's really needed or not. He needs to know that what's important to you, and he needs to either follow through on what's important to you, or let you know that he won't.

Have you thought of counseling? If nothing else, it will put your relationship in perspective. There's probably a lot more than what you're stating bothering you, and there's probably things that are on your husband's mind as well. Counseling will encourage hearing that out, without it being out of anger, and instead, being out of trying to solve the issue. At the very worse case scenario, you can rest confortable that you took the steps you could, and having a divorce was the best solution.

Communication sounds like the largest problem.

[Gwylenna]

We tried couseling before and due to culture and upbringing he was resistant. Not only that, he would "go along" durring the session only to discount and disregard everything afterward because of his views on couseling.

I might still be willing to give it a go, except it is cost prohibitive, not just the cost of the session, that might be managable, but the childcare durring. Sitters are not cheap or plentiful where we live.

I guess I should mention that not only does he really not help out much with the household dutied, but he also then reminds me how dirty the house is and how much happier we would be if we would just keep it clean. He also has recently told me our 4 year old speach impared son told him he likes Aunt Loli's (his sister) house better because it is clean.

[Noleader]

It sounds like you have been working at it for a long while now. The only thing I would ask is have you been communicating the issues you see or have you been 'hinting' it to him. Worst thing I could think of is a marriage ending that both parties would have liked to save because one party does not know their faults. If you did tell him what you needed from him and he did not step up to the plate then by all means I would say getting out would be your best resolve.

Also it sounds like the job you took when times where bad kinda put a wedge between you. You placing fault on him because had he kept a job you might not have had to, and he is upset because he did not want you to take the job at all.

All in all it is your life and you have to live with whatever you do. I implore you to explore all your options and take what is said here with a grain of salt. We are by no means experts at this and most of us have similar problems in our own life :D

[Noleader]

I guess I should mention that not only does he really not help out much with the household dutied, but he also then reminds me how dirty the house is and how much happier we would be if we would just keep it clean. He also has recently told me our 4 year old speach impared son told him he likes Aunt Loli's (his sister) house better because it is clean.

Hate to break it to you but that will NEVER change. I grew up in a very ethic italian family. My Mother is American but my Father is off the boat Italian. Just because of upbring he feels it is the womans job to make house and take care of the baby. Mind you all while my mom works 50+ hours a week. Took her 30 years and a lot of bitching just to get him to lift a finger inside the house, and he still makes it known whenever he does clean something. I think the only reason she stuck with him is due to her upbring (earily 50's) when it was the womans job to do that stuff.

He also use to always compare our house to his mothers. Easiest way my mom would shut him up was just note that he has not done shit to help and that his mother did not have 3 kids making a mess as fast as she cleaned it up.

[Allison]

Check your PM's. :)

[Nymf]

1. counseling
2. A sit down with u, him and his mom ( i presume equadorian have same etchnical preferances as an south europeen , if not that might be an bad idea )
3. A Preist , even if niether of u are religious they are wise and understanding third part.


since u already brought up divorce, he prolly gonna swallow his pride and agree on any type of communication solving.

[MickeyFinn]

My parents had that exact issue. Both of my parents worked hard as hell to survive and had no energy at home, so most of my advice is going to be from the perspective of a guy who watched it as a kid. They too ended up in a divorce, eventually.


You can't change somebody's wiring. Knowing you, I doubt you try to change a guy in the first place, but it needs to be said. People only change if they want to, or if they absolutely have to.

Here is the big thing. If you aren't happy, your kids already know it. Maybe not in a literal sense, but kids pick up on that aura of tension and dissatisfaction. Both myself and my brother were much better off after our folks split. You have to make yourself happy before your kids will be.

[Noleader]

And Axester does not live in Utah so you know he knows his shit! :D

[]LoL[Harm]

I went through a very similar thing, however I'm the male side. Mine was a little rougher because my wife didn't have or could not keep a job for more than a few months. So she stayed at home all day. But I still did 95% of the chores and worked full time (with roughly two hours of commute time each day :), god bless Seattle traffic.)

I kept asking, and asking for her to just clean up the messes she created during the day while I was at work. She would for a few days after I asked but then reverted to her normal, very lazy, self. I ended up giving her an ultimatum of doing half the chores, all spelled out in writing with some other issues that we were having. She said she couldn't meet them and the marriage was over.

I also did counseling, though everything that was revealed in counseling was things I had already discussed and revealed to my wife when I attempted to speak with her, so it was a large waste of money on my part. Though it was nice to hear a professional psychologist relate (in kind words mind you) that my wife was being overly selfish and not committing herself to the relationship.

I have no idea if any of that is useful to you. But as Mickey stated, I also was a kid with unhappy parents and it wears on you. I was also more happy when my parents split up because they were more happy.

I will state that you need to do everything you can possibly think of to make sure the marriage can be saved. But I do not believe you should sacrifice your happiness for the happiness of your children because it most often won't work that way.

[Boom]

I am not qualified to give any kind of relationship advice. But I really hope it works out for you Gwyl, one way or another. You are good people and deserve to be happy.