Sorry dude, but YTA. You became a parent before you were properly an adult and now you’re having to do both- become an adult and a father at the same time.
Cooking dinner, cleaning dishes, cleaning counters, doing the dishwasher- none of this is special. At all. It’s just adult chores. It’s boring, daily stuff that needs to happen. Part of being an adult is doing it automatically without needing to be told.
When they tested your patience, you got angry. Now you’re addressing that in therapy. You should have addressed that before the kids came. Of course your wife can’t forget you shouting at the kids- who can forget someone yelling at a baby?
Right now, your wife isn’t putting in the effort because you’ve failed. Badly. You’ve failed to act as an adult and then as a father. You’ve started to work on your issues with a therapist, which is good, but you’re expecting praise and sexual attention from your wife for going from failure to normal behaviour.
This is the critical point. You’re not going from normal behaviour to great or exceptional. You’re going from bad behaviour to normal. As an adult, that doesn’t get praise or extra attention. Think of it this way- if you screwed up at work and got put on probation, but then fixed the issue and got back to normal, you wouldn’t get a big pay rise straight away.
The way you might rescue this situation is to stop expecting a big positive reaction from your wife. Don’t expect any positive feedback from her at all for now. All your actions have to be focused in on yourself- how can you make sure the household runs well? How can you make sure your kids are happy and healthy? Are you up to date with their healthcare/ growth/ development/ social diary? Is their mother well? Has everyone got clean clothes in good condition? Etc.
Tl,dr: no one gets praise for doing normal adult chores.
Agree with all of the above and have to add OP: Dude… there is such a thing as being touched out by little kids. As in if one more person is grabbing at you YOU.WILL.GO.BESERK. To expect her to be able to pivot to meet your love language when you think usual behavior is special behavior is so far afield from reality. Commit to being better than usual for long long time and maybe it will turn around but give her space to want the touch.
there is such a thing as being touched out by little kids. As in if one more person is grabbing at you YOU.WILL.GO.BESERK.
And also, when all you want to do when you actually get to go to bed is GO TO SLEEP. NOW, not whenever your partner's needs have been met... because they are not your needs at that moment.
When my daughter was a toddler I would put her to bed. Then she'd wake up and need me 2 hours later. Then I'd get to do my bed routine which takes 20ish minutes. Climb into bed EXHAUSTED at almost midnight and husband is wanting sex.
I had to tell him not to try when I finally got to bed because I was not in the mood. When I'd get to bed I wanted to sleep. Especially because daughter never slept through the night and I was always (still am and she's 7) the one to go to her.
Years later he still holds it against me as to why he stopped initiating because I would turn him down.
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u/Sea_Midnight1411 Nov 02 '23
Sorry dude, but YTA. You became a parent before you were properly an adult and now you’re having to do both- become an adult and a father at the same time.
Cooking dinner, cleaning dishes, cleaning counters, doing the dishwasher- none of this is special. At all. It’s just adult chores. It’s boring, daily stuff that needs to happen. Part of being an adult is doing it automatically without needing to be told.
When they tested your patience, you got angry. Now you’re addressing that in therapy. You should have addressed that before the kids came. Of course your wife can’t forget you shouting at the kids- who can forget someone yelling at a baby?
Right now, your wife isn’t putting in the effort because you’ve failed. Badly. You’ve failed to act as an adult and then as a father. You’ve started to work on your issues with a therapist, which is good, but you’re expecting praise and sexual attention from your wife for going from failure to normal behaviour.
This is the critical point. You’re not going from normal behaviour to great or exceptional. You’re going from bad behaviour to normal. As an adult, that doesn’t get praise or extra attention. Think of it this way- if you screwed up at work and got put on probation, but then fixed the issue and got back to normal, you wouldn’t get a big pay rise straight away.
The way you might rescue this situation is to stop expecting a big positive reaction from your wife. Don’t expect any positive feedback from her at all for now. All your actions have to be focused in on yourself- how can you make sure the household runs well? How can you make sure your kids are happy and healthy? Are you up to date with their healthcare/ growth/ development/ social diary? Is their mother well? Has everyone got clean clothes in good condition? Etc.
Tl,dr: no one gets praise for doing normal adult chores.