do you take advice like criticism?
sometimes my family make suggestions or give me unsolicited advice about things like the clothes of my baby (too tiny or too big, too warm or too cold), or even his sleep schedule (how much, where, when should he sleep) and I can't help but taking it a little personal. My mom says I shouldn't, it's not about me, but I genuinely hear "you are a bad mom" "you aren't doing a good job". I don't want to be egocentric but can't help it...😓 any advice? How do I change my perspective and stop taking it like criticism?I'm I the only one?
(I'm 21 yo, I think that's also a big factor on how people treat me)
Am I the asshole here? What should I do?
Ok, so I need some mum advice please. I’m 33F and mum to an adorable 5 month old boy. Over very much become the default parent in our house. My finance (M36) works full time while I work 3 days a week and stay home the other 2 week days and look after our son. I am also currently enrolled and studying at university to get my degree. I don’t mind being the default, the reality is I spend more time with our son, so it makes sense that it would naturally happen. But today I tried to have a conversation with him about how I feel like I’m drowning in the mental load of running our house and looking after our son. I said to him that I needed him to just listen to me, and try to not get defensive because my goal was not to attack him or make him feel like shit, just that I need him to try and understand that it feels like I’m doing most of this on my own. For context, he does not take initiative at all when it comes to our son or housework. He relies on me to tell me what needs to be done, like when feeds need to happen, or naps or what kind of solids he can have, when bedtime needs to happen (which involves him having a shower with our son each night) he’s never the one to instigate these tasks. And from a housework point of view, about the only thing he “owns” is mowing the lawn and even then that happens rarely. I do the cooking and cleaning, I wash our bedding, do all the grocery shopping and make sure the animals have food and their medications.
Anyway, me asking for no defensiveness did not work and he immediately got angry that I would even bring it up. Whenever I have tired to have conversations like this in the past, it’s inevitable that he will bring it back to money. That’s his reason “you don’t understand the financial stress I’m under, I work full time so that I can pay our mortgage and the electricity and gas and water bills”. And this is true, I don’t contribute financially to our mortgage or the utility bills, but I do pay for our sons childcare and 90% of the groceries including formula and nappies, as well as all the babies clothes and accessories like bottles, his toys and bedding.
I don’t feel like what I’m asking is unreasonable. Today he told me “you’d be homeless if it wasn’t for me” and that nearly broke me. I don’t feel like I have a team mate or a partner in this anymore, it feels like he expects me to just lump it because he pays for the house and I should be grateful. I don’t have any family support in the same state as us and I have no close friends here either. I don’t know what to do. Am I being unreasonable for wanting him to contribute more at home?
What do you think about this?
I’m a little nervous about this.. my mil wants to take my daughter overnight on a Disney trip for her and fil birthdays, my daughter hasn’t ever spent the night over at their house. We’re not far so it’s weird that hasn’t happened, before she turned 1 they were always like “soon” or “you get a little bit older and you can spend the night.” She’s 18 months now and still hasn’t spent the night, again we’re not far so it’s a little weird that it hasn’t happened yet. But now in 2 weeks they want to take her on this trip overnight and we’re 2 hours or so away from Disney, so if she doesn’t settle or something then I’ll have to drive 2 or more hours away to help out or bring my daughter home. At first I was so excited, I haven’t had a night alone since she was born, I know that should be typical when you have a child but I still got excited with the thought of it. But now thinking about it I think we need to try a trail run before at their house, depending on how they all act then we’ll go by that for the Disney trip. Thoughts?