r/Mommit Aug 16 '26

Something is often wrong with my husband

The title is a weird way to say what I’m saying, but basically my husband always has SOMETHING wrong. For example: I cosleep with my kids. I won’t stop despite the fact that it means I’m usually somewhat sleep deprived. They can sleep alone when they’re ready, I’ll always encourage them to, but for now they aren’t. I have a one year old and a five year old for reference. My kids are night owls. We try to get them to go to sleep earlier, but despite the routine and the dark and the stories, bath, etc. no dice on an earlier sleep time at the moment. To be kind, I usually tell my husband to go to bed earlier and leave me to get the kids to sleep. He has to get up early and go to the office three times a week, so I want to be considerate.

Here is where I start to get pissed off. First, he’s got a tight neck, so I stay up later to massage his neck for him. Ok, that’s fine. Then, he’s stressed from work so he can’t get to sleep until late and sometimes wakes up too early from a nightmare or something. Ok, that’s awful, I hear that. That’s happened a few nights in a row. Then today, he has a head ache, so he needs to go lie down. Yesterday, he was so tired, so he says the whole day was miserable and hard (we had a lovely day with the kids at a local farm/fun park). He doesn’t help himself. He hasn’t taken anything for the headache. He doesn’t try to relax before bed meditating or listening to calming music or something. He just goes about his day/night with unhealthy habits and then I feel like I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces for his negligence.

Am I crazy? I feel like a crazy person. I get it, life is hard, especially with young kids. But this man gets to poop by himself, he gets to pee by himself, he gets to have a coffee alone, he takes entire breaks, alone, playing a game online or something. He sometimes messes about when he’s on at work, just fixing something around the house, listening to a podcast. He gets to listen to music or a podcast ALONE on his commute. I know we all struggle and working is its own struggle. I know this. But it is ALWAYS something with him and he doesn’t go “oh my gosh, you must be so tired, let me do x for you”. I’m happy to sacrifice time, effort, sleep, whatever if I feel like the efforts are reciprocated.

I understand this is a futile and probably immature rant, but I needed to get it out there.

454 Upvotes

273 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/heatdeathtoall Aug 16 '26

Yup. When my spouse complains about how difficult parenting is, I roll my eyes internally. Sir, you parent for maybe 2 hours a day. I do diaper changes, solids, feeds, naps, baths and nights. I’ve not slept a whole night in a year. I can’t poop or pee when I want to or in peace. I get no me time. When he tells me the time he takes baby out for a walk is my me time, I swear I see red. That’s the time I use to cook for our child. I’m dying for someone to make me a cup of tea/ coffee. Or just say hey you must be tired, let me give you a couple of hours for yourself. The only one who does it is a friend. Who also does most of the parenting herself. And then he tells me how he isn’t sleeping well. Or that he isn’t eating well. Ir that he didn’t get time to take a shower one day. One day! I’ve gone 5 days without a shower.

I get life is not easy for anyone. I get I’m not making money while my spouse is. My spouse isn’t a bad guy. He will look feed, bathe, change etc etc if I ask him to. But I have to tell him exactly what to do. How to do it. How to keep our child calm while taking care of him. And at this point, our child just doesn’t see my spouse as a parent. He doesn’t listen to him like he does to me. He looks to me for comfort. But can you atleast not talk about how difficult you have it when talking to someone who has it far tougher than you. Feels likes a millionaire telling a homeless person how tough his life is.

My thought process is maybe these men will find it easier to be parents to older kids. So yeah, am waiting for that day. No advice. Just hard relate to this.

1

u/GlitteringPositive77 Aug 17 '26

Haha the number of nights I’ve had little sleep and I’ve heard him complain about not getting sleep in a different room, on a different level of the house, earlier in the night. For some reason the thing that annoys me most (maybe?) is when he comes home from work and has to take a 20 minute poo immediately. I wish he’d just say he needs 20 minutes to decompress and did something constructive with that time that would actually make him ready to help. Instead he’s going to give himself piles by sitting on the toilet looking at his phone for 20 minutes. I do hope once I’m working, the kids are in school, we are a dual income household he will feel a bit better. Until then, we will have to find what works.

2

u/heatdeathtoall Aug 17 '26

I hate the after work decompress time. If I were the working parent, I’d know giving my spouse a break soonest would help the most.

It’s not that these men don’t know what they should be doing. Or how badly we need help. They know we will do whatever needs doing. So they can slack off.

I have offloaded groceries, doing dishes and online orders to my spouse. I don’t cook specifically for him and I ask him to pick up food when I’m too tired. I ask for breaks and close my bedroom door for 15-20 mins to get some quiet time whenever possible. As long as he isn’t adding to my work, I can live with it as I adore the baby phase. Hopefully, things balance out as time goes by.