Stay at home mothering

[ailbhe]

Division of labour: Rob: Earn money in 9-5:30 job plus 9 hours commuting a week, bath Linnea, take her to park 1 hour a day, cook dinner sometimes 3 nights a week, wash dirty pots, launder nappies every 2nd day or so, make three packed lunches every evening, feed cats twice daily, clean toilet daily, mix porridge ready for the morning every evening.

Ailbhe: Manage all finances in and out, care for Linnea 22 hours a day (of which she spends on average 11 asleep, though not continuously), cook dinner 4-5 nights a week, make all childcare-related decisions, all household laundry for three people (at least one load daily), grocery shopping, meal planning + budgeting, hoovering, dishes-washing (except pots), making beds, mopping up spillages, washing floors, dusting (I have a dust allergy), arrange for Linnea to see paternal relations, arrange for Linnea to see maternal relations, arrange for Rob to be respectable enough not to invite ire from paternal relations, arrange for Rob to contact his friends (I have given up on this, so if Rob hasn't contacted you, it's my fault), arrange for me to contact my friends (I do this but less than I'd like), arrange any family holidays (usually to see relations) including packing for three, booking transport for three, and either arranging or reminding Rob to arrange accommodation for three (depending on whose relations) AND do anything Rob has forgotten or neglected or been too tired to do.

And today, when I asked why he'd stayed home to help and done almost nothing, he said "But I've been working really hard!"

Can anyone give me three reasons not to kill him at this point?

Comments

Re: Stay at home mothering

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. sounds like you've already tried a lot of things. (it's always hard to guess at suggestions when one knows the situation only from one short post, *little grin*; sorry for all the wrong guesses.)

what motivates him in general to do things? what sort of things does he do at work?

depressions come in different versions. mine doesn't affect my motivation; i am still quite eager to get a myriad of interesting things done, but i just ... can't. i know which ones i have to do (or really should do), and i want to do them (because it's part of my self-definition that i be a competent person), but time is my enemy -- it does strange things, and gets away from me, even when i try to pay attention. and then there is the energy drain. there is one, in the centre of my world, and it always takes more than i can replenish, even if i do nothing but sleep. this is not a whine, just a way to explain.

i suggested lists, and fun, because they work somewhat for me. the lists need to be very detailed, contain very small steps, because i can't attack large tasks anymore; i can, however, chip away at them small bits at a time. "clean my room" is an impossible task, "move the stack of books back into shelving" can be done. and i feel more accomplished if i see things crossed off a list than if there is no list (because then the depression makes me not count a whole bunch of little things i did).

rob might not know yet what works for him. he might still be in basic denial (especially since he didn't arrive at the diagnosis for himself). he might still wish that things were still the way they used to, when he didn't need any tricks to get himself going. and, well, he might never have learned to get himself going in the first place -- did he spend much time on his own between leaving his home with his mother taking care of things, and becoming involved with you?

refusing to try possible solutions isn't the responsible thing to do. i don't like to use childish tricks on my own psyche either. i hate taking psychotropic medication. but i can't be my partner's child. that's not who i want to be. that's not for what my partner signed on. rob needs to take a hard look at himself.

what sort of a person does he want to be? what sort of a father? she's still small, but soon she'll start to see him as a role model. is that important to him? what about you? you have so many things to wrestle with already. he probably didn't sign up for those, but neither did you, and those are the cards you're dealt. so now what? (those are questions he needs to ask himself.)

Re: Stay at home mothering

[ailbhe]

We have found something that works - putting limits on the time he *can* spend doing stuff. He gets much more done with a deadline. So now, instead of a list of things to do, he has a 15-minute slot for kitchen-tasks generic, and then he stops.

When he lived "on his own" with a flatmate, he blamed the flatmate (first a male acquaintance, then me) for the squalid state of the flat, and the fact that bills were always lost until several "last chance to pay" reminders came through. So I learned how to be reasonably tidy so's to stop messing his life up.

And guess what we discovered... *wry* But he has apologised and admits now that I'm tidier than he is and no longer assumes that the dirty mug is mine etc.

He seems to be starting to care about Linnea again. Her being sick seems to have woken him up a bit. He played with her properly this evening - engaged and interacted.