Honestly, I think you both need a reality check about expectations while raising young children.
Short of hiring a nanny, neither of you are going to get anywhere near as much as you need, of anything, for a certain number of years. The maths simply doesn’t work. You’re both going to spend those years running on empty and you’re both going to feel shortchanged, in general and in comparison to one another, and unless you’re both saints, you’re both going to express that in your own head, and possibly overtly, in unfair and ungenerous terms. Marriages IMO survive this period by simply toughing it out, recognising that a lot of thoughts and words are simply products of exhaustion, and not taking any of it too personally. They may be what people really think/feel in that overstretched moment, but they’re not necessarily what they really really think, the chosen values that really guide their life.
Reddit has a lot of young people and that’s why advice tends towards absolutes, black and white, leave in the face of unacceptable statements and behaviour. That’s quite appropriate. You shouldn’t embark on gargantuan feats like cramming intensive toddler care, relationship care, self care, house care, jobs, and sleep all into the same 24 hours with people who can’t even behave decently when it’s just the two of you. But when you do agree as a partnership to embark on such gargantuan feats, you’re kind of implicitly accepting that it is a stretch and should give each other some extra leeway and forgiveness for the relationship damage that goes with it. It’s temporary damage, if you’re both willing to view it as temporary damage, then draw a line under it and do the work to rebuild later.
nurseynurseygander t1_j2fmi99 wrote
Reply to (34F)(34M) she said my needs don’t matter. I said if she honestly believes that we shouldn’t be together. by ThrowRA_tireddad22
Honestly, I think you both need a reality check about expectations while raising young children.
Short of hiring a nanny, neither of you are going to get anywhere near as much as you need, of anything, for a certain number of years. The maths simply doesn’t work. You’re both going to spend those years running on empty and you’re both going to feel shortchanged, in general and in comparison to one another, and unless you’re both saints, you’re both going to express that in your own head, and possibly overtly, in unfair and ungenerous terms. Marriages IMO survive this period by simply toughing it out, recognising that a lot of thoughts and words are simply products of exhaustion, and not taking any of it too personally. They may be what people really think/feel in that overstretched moment, but they’re not necessarily what they really really think, the chosen values that really guide their life.
Reddit has a lot of young people and that’s why advice tends towards absolutes, black and white, leave in the face of unacceptable statements and behaviour. That’s quite appropriate. You shouldn’t embark on gargantuan feats like cramming intensive toddler care, relationship care, self care, house care, jobs, and sleep all into the same 24 hours with people who can’t even behave decently when it’s just the two of you. But when you do agree as a partnership to embark on such gargantuan feats, you’re kind of implicitly accepting that it is a stretch and should give each other some extra leeway and forgiveness for the relationship damage that goes with it. It’s temporary damage, if you’re both willing to view it as temporary damage, then draw a line under it and do the work to rebuild later.