# Tired of being tired.



## Irritated (Oct 23, 2008)

My wife and I have been married for a seven years and have two children, 6 and 3. My 6 year old is in school and my 3 year old stays home. Our marriage has never been the best and we've been through some difficult times, but we've pulled through. I'm in the military and she is a stay at home mom. Needless to say, we both have very busy lives.

I work night shift from 10PM to 8AM. More often than not, my days will run later and I may not get home until around 9-10AM. I am fortunate and get 2 days off a week, so no complaints there. 

Here is a quick outline of my normal weekday: I get up around 7PM and have my pot of coffee. I help with the kids as much as I can since it's almost their bedtime by then. After the kids are in bed, I put my uniform on and check my email and the news. I come back downstairs around 9:30PM, shave, pack up my lunch and go to work. I get home from work anywhere between 8 & 10AM. I then watch our 3yo while my wife goes out to get her coffee and run some errands. I put our 3yo down for a nap around 12:30PM and go to sleep myself.

And a weekend day: My weekends are Sunday/Monday, so on Sunday I get the kids up around 8AM. I give them their breakfast and medications, then do the dishes. After this, I straighten up the house and watch the kids until my wife gets up around 10:30. I make her coffee when she gets up and listen to her talk about whatever's going through her mind that particular morning. Then, she leaves to get her coffee from the store and I watch the kids unless she decides to take one of them with her. She usually gets home sometime that afternoon. On Monday it is the same, except I take the 6yo to school.

A quick note before I get down to the meat of my issue -- when I mentioned straighten up the house, I wasn't refering to your every day put this and that away. My wife is a slob. She leaves her shoes and clothes on the ground wherever she takes them off, she goes through around 8 or so glasses and cups throughout the day, which she leaves wherever she used them last. She makes a mess all over the kitchen counters whenever she cooks and leaves the food remnants wherever they lay, and she has a tendancy to take things out of the refrigerator and leave them out. All of this makes my "straightening up" a time consuming, unending task.

Alright, now to my point. My wife constantly tells me I don't do enough to help her. I will readily admit, there are some days when I am so beat down and exhausted from work and not sleeping that I just pass out shortly after I get home. I will also admit that there are some days when I might not get around to feeding the dog in the morning, or doing the dishes, or cleaning up after my wife. But personally, I think I do a lot more for my wife than most husbands do, considering the amount of hours I spend at work and at manditory appointments, and of course the fact that I have to clean up after a grown woman. 

I have confronted my wife about this numerous times, but whenever I do, she tells me I'm trying to turn it around on her. She tells me I'm trying to make her the bad guy and myself the victim. I have no desire to be victimized; I'm just sick of being told I don't do anything around the house when I clearly do.

So, what do you guys think? Should I take over the laundry, clean more, and cook dinner too? Or should I once again tell her how I feel, and if so, how do I tell her without having her turn it against me?


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

Irritated said:


> Should I take over the laundry, clean more, and cook dinner too?


No. You'll only feel more resentful and the tension will just get worse. Im sure whatever you are doing is fine. 

But likewise i think you should back off about the cups, etc. she is a grown women, but you're a grown man, so dont clean up after her if you dont want to. no one is making you clean. if you want it clean, then clean, but realize its your choice. no one has to live the way you like just because its good for you.



Irritated said:


> Or should I once again tell her how I feel, and if so, how do I tell her without having her turn it against me?


First off, do you two spend any time together?? Your schedules are so insane and it seems like you are never together. This alone could cause little things, like cups and laundry, to become a big issue. I think you two are fighting around the fact that the intimacy in your marriage is shot. 

So before you start arguing about cups and laundry, maybe you two should talk about whats really going on.


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## Irritated (Oct 23, 2008)

Thank you for your reply, ljtseng. I focus on the cups and dishes laying around the house so much because our children live here, and I would like for them to have at least a mildly sanitary environment. If I don't clean it up, then it very well may sit there for a few days. I'm not a big fan of rotting food and mold covered drinks.

No, we don't spend a lot of time together. When I am on my days off, she leaves to run errands and whatnot because she doesn't have to take the children with her. She sometimes tries to get me to go out with her, but whenever I do I wind up standing in a clothing store keeping the kids out of trouble while she wanders around and shops. I figure I can babysit the kids at home, why go to a store and babysit them? We don't enjoy the same things either, so there's really not a lot for us to do together.


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

Irritated said:


> Thank you for your reply, ljtseng. I focus on the cups and dishes laying around the house so much because our children live here, and I would like for them to have at least a mildly sanitary environment.


Sure everyone wants a nice clean place. but what do you think your kids will remember? do you think they'll grow up and think, im so glad i had a clean house, even though mom and dad fought all the time and got divorced? Try to remember whats really important to fight about.



Irritated said:


> No, we don't spend a lot of time together. She sometimes tries to get me to go out with her, but whenever I do I wind up standing in a clothing store keeping the kids out of trouble while she wanders around and shops. I figure I can babysit the kids at home, why go to a store and babysit them? We don't enjoy the same things either, so there's really not a lot for us to do together.


This is something worth fighting about. What did you two used to do together? How did you fall in love? I dont blame you for not wanting to stand in clothes isle keeping track of kids. I woudnt want to do that either. I think you guys need to find some time to get interested in eachother again. Can you find a babysitter?


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## Irritated (Oct 23, 2008)

ljtseng said:


> This is something worth fighting about. What did you two used to do together? How did you fall in love? I dont blame you for not wanting to stand in clothes isle keeping track of kids. I woudnt want to do that either. I think you guys need to find some time to get interested in eachother again. Can you find a babysitter?


We used to sit around and talk, go out for dinner and drinks, and just drive around BSing. We both stopped drinking, and it's too expensive to just drive around anymore. I have a hard time talking to her now because she will either go on and on about one subject saying the same thing over and over, or she will just sit there and tell me how rough a life she has. It's just not interesting to spend time with someone who wants to complain all the time. 

She's also so obsessive about our finances that it's her primary focus 24/7. We are doing quite well with money, and have absolutely 0 debt due to a lot of hard work and careful budgeting. Nevertheless, the almighty dollar is her chief concern in life, and I'm just sick of hearing about it, and reassuring her that we are financially sound when she has access to all our accounts and can plainly see how we are doing. I even go so far as to limit myself to under $40 every two weeks, so as to not be harassed about spending money. 

I really don't know what we could do to spend time with eachother since she's so OCD with the finances. The only thing I've been able to figure out is to suck it up and sit on the sofa with her watching the Lifetime network, which I dispise. lol


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

Irritated said:


> She's also so obsessive about our finances that it's her primary focus 24/7.


Oh i so know what you mean! My H is obssessed with money. He has an excell spread sheet with ten pages to document EVERYTHING we spend. I have to keep my reciepts on everything and let him know EXACTLY how much i spent. If he cant balance out his excell sheets to match the bank statement, and im talking about to the penny, he'll sit there for hours making it right. And he is constantly saying we live pay check to pay check. we do not. We live well and have a lot saved up. We have no cable, a small apartment, two cars bought and paid for, all so we can put most of the income into savings. Its a dire process. 



Irritated said:


> It's just not interesting to spend time with someone who wants to complain all the time.


No, its really not. It'll be hard to approach her about this though, because you have no foundation to go on. I mean, would you go up to a stranger and starting pointing out their flaws? that will harldy get you a friend. So you have to have a foundation if you want to start pointing out corrections. 



Irritated said:


> The only thing I've been able to figure out is to suck it up and sit on the sofa with her watching the Lifetime network, which I dispise. lol


Boo that's boring. Make a list of what you like to do. then have her make a list of what she likes to do. Then give eachother your lists and you each take a turn planning the weekend for eachother. Or, you can just plan what you like to do, and then do what she likes to do, alternating weekends. Its what i do with my H because we have NOTHING in common. I go play tennis with him, and for however long I play tennis with him, he has to read something with me. It works.


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## Irritated (Oct 23, 2008)

I've considered the one weekend is her, one is mine approach, but ran into two hitches. I really don't know what I enjoy -- I've done nothing outside of work for the past 10 years; and she really doesn't know what she enjoys, because her interests have changed so much since we got married. She seems satisfied to sit on the sofa and watch television anymore.


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## AZMOMOFTWO (Jun 30, 2008)

How about if you sit down and make a list of all the things that you do, then all the things that she does. Ask her to look it over and add to her list whatever you have missed. Tell her you would like to find a way to free up more time to spend with her and that you know her days are busy to so you want to work on this with her. She needs to see all the things that you do. I do think its important for the father to do things for the kids even though mom is SAHM. But she certainly should clean up after self. When you broach difficult topics like that don't start with "you" instead start with "I". "I think it would help me to have more time with you and the kids if I didn't have to straighten up the kitchen when I get home". Sometimes people are just slobs...my daughter is one. But its not fair of her to say you don't do anything, the list may really help. I would also suggest that the two of you get a babysitter once a week and spend some real time together. I think these issues are only a symptom and would be easier to resolve if you spent more time connecting with and enjoying each other, remembering why you got married to begin with.


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## AZMOMOFTWO (Jun 30, 2008)

Irritated said:


> We don't enjoy the same things either, so there's really not a lot for us to do together.


This is problematic. You need to find some things you enjoy together. I've recently gone through a bad situation and it boiled down to disconnecting and spending too much time on work, cleaning, etc. What we did to rebuild our relationship was began to date each other. We can't do it once a week as many relationship guides recommend but we do it once or twice a month and its made a huge difference. We also developed some new interests together. At first he was not interested in doing this so I threw out some things and kept trying and developed an interest in his stuff. Now we enjoy camping with our family, shooting (hey I even bought a .9mm!), and collecting aquarium fish. I found I enjoy all these things. I began exercising and he started exercising with me and I always wanted to try rock climbing and he's gotten in to that. Also some little things like enjoying a t.v. program together. These things made a huge difference and we now really enjoy and cherish our time together. We also have very busy schedules and small children. Find an interest or hobby together!


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

Irritated said:


> I've done nothing outside of work for the past 10 years;


Ok so you've turned into a kind of boring guy....j/k. Since you have no clue what you enjoy this is a good place to start. Look up things to do in your area and just try some things out. You can invite her along or not, but if you make you happy, she'll start to notice.


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