As much as I love my husband, majority of the time I feel like I’m the only adult in our household and I have two kids whom I have to supervise at all times. If you feel like I do, you are not alone! Nearly every mother I talk to, agrees with you and I.
As a new mom, I had and have to figure most things out on my own by experimenting, reading, listening to other mothers, researching and learning from my mistakes. I have to admit, I felt the pressure of making the right decisions as a parent and wanted my husband’s support and feedback. I was very quick with rolling my eyes and getting frustrated if my husband was clueless about or was not fast enough with dealing with a problem. For instance, if our little knocked a cup of soup and it’s all over the kitchen counter, by the time my hubby cleaned up, troublemaker would have moved to another room with his dirty hands touching the furniture so there would be a bigger mess.
Whenever I left the two at home, I would come back to a bigger mess. I would get upset and aggravated asking “why can’t you at least clean after yourself?” The toys would be everywhere, sink would be over flowing with dirty dishes, food would be left on the counter top, baby would be in an absurd outfit and diapers would be on the floor instead of the garbage.
After many arguments, rolled eyes, passive aggressive notations and slammed doors, I concluded that was not the way to win this one. Instead of criticizing and comparing my hubby to myself, I tried to see things from his perspective. I realized even though I was a new mom, my gut told me what to do majority of the time. My husband was clueless and he was trying to do one thing at a time. Instead of talking about the desired outcome, I started talking about how to get to the desired outcome by giving him examples. It worked. After couple more times, he was able to put toys back, diapers were in the garbage, dishes he told me to leave them for him. Even though things were not done in my time frame, he was getting them done in his.
Having a child totally changes your marriage both in a good and a bad ways. It’s such a blessing and an unconditional love that comes with a lot of work. As a working mother, I believe in sharing house work with my husband. It does not necessarily mean, “I ll do the dishes today and you will do them tomorrow.” It may be I will cook and you will do the clean up. I will do the laundry and you will fold. It is never totally 50/50 sometimes yes I do more work, sometimes he does more work. Communication is very very important since exhaustion, disturbed sleep and then pressure of multi tasking can easily blow up a simple issue into a disaster.
Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think! I would also love to hear about your experiences/thoughts!