Balancing Parenting & Supplementing Income

Kristine - posted on 09/11/2011 ( 1 mom has responded )

Hi everyone, my name is Kristine and I am new to this community so before I got into the nitty gritty, so to speak, I wanted to introduce myself.

My husband is a full time FF/EMT and works 24 on and 48 off while I am the stay at home Mom simply because the cost of child care in the state of Florida is so ridiculous that we would need 4 full time jobs each in order to pay for our twin boys to attend day care.

Basically what has started to happen, now that I'm getting control over my PPD and am being able to attend to every single need of everyone in our home without issue I feel the my husband is taking advantage of this and rather than stepping in to ease my anger and frustration in dealing with not just day to day life but terrible two year old twins with an an inability to hear (or at least it would seem), he removes himself completely from the situation and either takes his laptop on the patio, gets on his cell phone and sits on the patio or goes into the garage to work on his hobby (rebuilding chainsaws). Meanwhile I am reaching boiling point and am steps away from pulling my hair out and in desperate need of some kind of intervention and he is no where to be found. This isn't something I am making up either, our best friend, who just so happens to be a Man, sees this and sees what my Husband does when I am getting close to being pushed far and agrees that my boys Father needs to step it up and put his sons needs ahead of his own.

I never get breaks or relief from the tantrums, and unnecessary crying spells or the time outs for throwing things or hitting their brother (not often but it does happen). Even if I ask for breaks I am met with my husband telling me "You want to be a Stay at Home Mom, this is what happens." and then will go on about how I can't complain about being over stressed and exhausted and needing to sleep in because this isn't "work" it's not a "job". He will then tell me how he doesn't get break either and works when he's tired so I should suck it up because this is what I asked for.

Side note: Spouses or significant others to Fire Fighters know that they do spend a lot of time napping, eating, working out, watching t.v. and joking around especially when they are stationed in a low crime area and hadn't ran many calls that night. Once they did their 24hours they get two whole days off!! What to SAHM's get?? NONE!

It's just so frustrating because no matter what I am in the wrong, I need to suck it up, I need to stop complaining, it's not that hard, you just need to calm down, etc.

What is really starting to bother me are these comments that he makes, for example when we have the boys doctor's appointment he won't/can't/whatever take them alone because (and he ALWAYS says this in a very demeaning, condescending way) "you always so you're the primary care giver so I don't know what to talk to them about". Or he'll complain in that same demeaning way when he watches the boys for a couple of hours and very happily (in a - I told you this is easy you are just overreacting and need to calm down) says that the boys were fine for me. Well the reason they are fine with him is because the kids don't have an emotional attachment to him. They do not climb on him and fight for his attention at who gets to snuggle and cuddle with them. They do not rush to him for comfort. These are things they do with me and the reason is, I AM the primary care giver and right now, minus having a job that pays in money, I am a single parent.

Anyone been where I'm at and know how to calm down and be able to look at your spouse without wanting to scream?

Thanks!!!