Advice for anger towards husband who isn’t pitching in much?
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We have a 15 month old, both work from home, and we STILL can’t manage to get all the house work done. If you can get a cleaning service, I 100% recommend going that route to alleviate this. My husband and I have had to have a lot of discussions about balance of responsibilities, so this is going to be an ongoing conversation. You probably need to sit him down and tell him you are starting to feel resentment towards him, and that’s not going to get better when there is a newborn. I’ve found it helps to plan out your thoughts before hand (I cry very easily, so I have to write them down) and discuss how you are feeling instead of how you feel at them (I’m feeling resentment as opposed to I feel mad at you). This is an us versus the problem situation, so it involves an “us” solution. Nuclear option: just stop doing the chores and when he complains inform him that you’re growing a person and are exhausted. I slept through probably 1/3 of the waking hours of my first trimester.
I had this same issue. I wrote out a list of every chore. Down to even the really small ones like changing the trash. I included a step by step guide for each that listed what products, where we store them, how much to use. Literally dummy proof. Then I sat down with him and said here’s the weekly chore list. How do you want to divide it. You should have seen his eyes bulge. He had no idea the amount of chores I was doing to keep the house just a normal level of clean. After that, he’s been really jumping on tasks and feels confident he can do them on his own because he has a step by step guide. To be fair, I work 40 hours mostly from home. He works sometimes up to 100 hours a week. So I do try to account for him working more when dividing out chores.
I would definitely have a real talk with him about your concerns once the baby comes and tell him you would like to discuss what that is going to look like when the baby arrives vs now. Tell him there is no way you can do it all with a child, full time job and all household responsibilities. Where is the teamwork in that? Naturally mommies do more of the work when it comes to taking care of the child, especially when they are small. So tell him you are going to need him to step it up with other things or you will likely lose your mind. Can you afford to hire help? Ask family too? You have to sort this all out before baby arrives or it will be so much harder post partum running on little to no sleep.