...maybe it is part of the under lying cause.

We have been having some financial problems. My H wants me to get a job. We have 7 kids still at home. I looked into it and found out I could never make enough to do more than pay daycare but we seriously needed more income so I took a night job.

It is killing me. If I'm lucky I get two 3-hour blocks of sleep in a day. Broken-up because I have to get kids off to school then drop-off and pick-up our pre-schooler.

I've been seriously thinking about quitting not only for my health but for our kids. I only see them an hour a day. I not there for bedtime. I can't help with homework. And dinner is either something from a box or fast food most of the time.

I told my H I wanted to quit before the holiday. He blew a gasket. He told me I was just lazy. He told me motherhood wasn't a real job and there was no real value in it. He said he will not get a second job if I'm not working no matter how bad it gets.

We have raised 9 kids total. The oldest two are on their own but are complete messes. The oldest we didn't get until he was 14 so I don't feel too bad that we couldn't help him. But the second oldest is my first born. Not my H's bio son. And he has now disowned me.

I can't help feeling I'm going to lose the rest of my kids if I can't be more of a mom to them. But my H doesn't see how this is important to the kids.

BTW my former handle was Pink1989 so if you are trying to place my story.

My H had two A's 9 years apart. It is a cyclic thing for us. But I wonder about this apparent lack of respect for me. I mean having an A shows a definite lack of respect. But to say stuff like this to my face after I have stayed with him through two affairs. I can't believe it.

Comments welcome
Trinity

"He told me I was just lazy. He told me motherhood wasn't a real job and there was no real value in it. He said he will not get a second job if I'm not working no matter how bad it gets."

That's pretty disrespectful to the mother of your children. 7 kids at home and you are lazy.....that's a joke! I think you need to give him a taste of his own medicine. Perhaps this weekend you need to go away (just you) and leave him to deal with 7 kids, homework and a list of places they need to be.

He needs a huge wakeup call, and you don't deserve this! Stand up for yourself and do what is best for YOU and the kids!

Kid

My H used to tell me I was lazy also. And I only have 3 children at home. I also tried working at night but ran into the same problems you are with getting enough sleep and being there for the kids.
Kid is right, give him a taste of what it is really like. My H used to say it was easy until he really saw what it was like. Now he says how hard it was and gives me the respect I deserve.

All our marriage I have gone away on weekends on my own. He has plenty of oportunity to "know what it's like". Beside he cares for the kids at night now.

The problem is he just hides in his room. He leaves the care of the kids to the older girls, 14 and 11. He orders people around and punishes when a five-year old doesn't get thier room clean or can't get the garbage in the garbage can outside. He has not concept of what a child can and can't do. He doesn't train or help just orders and punishes.

This is one of the big reasons I want to quit and go back to full-time motherhood.

He argues a lot of people have both parents working. It is true but usually with fewer children and the H helps around the house. My H just started doing the yard work this year. Before this I did it all, housework, yardwork, household repairs, maintaine my car, budgeting and parenting. Now I just do parenting and budget mostly. Well, when I wasn't working.

Like I said this is a cycle for us. Part of the cycle is I get sick of doing it all and tell him so. He tries to defend the fact that earning a paycheck is enough of a contribution for him.

Just before his second affair, I actually told him, "You are just a paycheck to us. You don't do anything else." He took that as "All I want is your money".

I'm just really sad and hurt by the situation now. I've always known (well since I took the blinders off after the honeymoon) that we have different values. Now I see how big the gap is. I don't see how this can be a workable marriage if we don't have the same goals.

Trinity

Trinity!!!!!!!!!!! I've missed you and been actually very worried about you. It was sad to see how pained your H is with your involvement here, and how he tried in his own way to dissuade you from participating here. Though I certainly am sad to see you here with an additional problem, I am glad to see you here.

I think your H DOES understand, at some very basic level, how hard you work. But I think you working nights took pressure off of him, and he doesn't want that pressure back...even if the end result is that you're doing physical harm to yourself with sleep deprivation...or losing out on time with the kids and creating damage between you and any of them. At least if you're working this job, he doesn't have to throw more of himself out into the world.

I'm not sure why he sees this as a Matt vs Trinity issue, instead of looking at your life together as a team...doing what each of you REALLY can to help the other. He seems very much to have picked a side (his own) and his heels are dug in. He believes he is right, and he's going to do what it takes to "win" this game.

You never signed up to play this game and there are a whole lot of lives that hang in the balance if your H "wins". (((((((Trinity))))))))) BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

I remembered that your husband had a huge obsession with video games. All this is coming from a man who has/had an addiction that resulted it his full withdrawal from his family. If nothing else, he's being a hypocrite.

Earning a paycheck IS time consuming, but so is running a household. I wonder if his reaction is some kind of deflection... for example, maybe he wants the kids to follow his orders and "leave him alone", but the require more attention that he wants to give them. Then he blames you for those "deficiencies". I don't know what it is, just that it seems like one of those things that we complain about when something else is really bothering us.

I think the easiest way to get to the bottom of that is real communication over a long period of time.

TomJ

Dear BlueIris et al,

Thank you for your concern. I know I kind of dropped off the site after the blow out over my H posting here. It didn't really have to do with that. I just got really busy with working and all. Somehow coming to this site fell to the wayside. I intented on responding to everyone's posts who posted about my H but never got around to it. Good intentions, we know where that leads.

Thanks to other who posted also for the support and for the new way of looking at things. TomJ and BlueIris both gave me some things to think about.

Trinity