I need advice on how to handle the recent problems with my husband? Am I being unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Before I met my husband I was a single mom of a 7 year old. With my daughter I took care of everything and made all the decisions. I been with my husband for 5 years. And we have a 1 year old. The baby has some medical issues. And one of us needs to stay home. Since I make more in my job then he does. We decided that it was best for my husband to quit his job and stay home. For the past 5 months I have been working full time and get home from work. I have to cook and clean up and take care of the baby. Because I barely get to change and my husband is like it’s your turn now. I don’t mind taking care of my baby but I am exhausted too. The baby sleeps with my all night and I don’t get much rest. My Husband goes to another room to sleep and leaves me alone with the baby. Even if she stays up at night I deal with her because my husband needs his sleep to take care of the Baby during the day.
weekend I usually have the baby the whole time. Well last night we have an argument.
the baby took a small nap late in the day not she won’t go to bed on time. I told him either he can stay up with her and put her to bed and you can sleep more in the morning or I can stay up with her but I get to sleep in.
he said he feels like he is getting punished.
i don’t understand why? I think those are reasonable solutions, I don’t thinks it’s fair for me to stay up all night and get up early as well. I do my part by working and taking care of the bills and also taking care of my baby when I am not working. I don’t expect him to clean or cook when he is home , just take care of the baby. am I being unreasonable. What advice do you give me to better communicate with him.

[Lliam]

It sounds like he
- believes in traditional husband and wife roles in which the man goes to his job and the wife does everything else.
- has a poor work ethic.
- isn't invested in your child's welfare.
- doesn't care about your struggles.
- wasn't prepared to be a husband and father and to do what it takes to make things work out best for everyone, not just for himself.

He doesn't even clean or cook. What does he do all day while you're out busting your ass for your family?

I don't know anything about either of you. Maybe he's a great guy and helped you to raise your daughter. Maybe this new baby and the medical issues are putting strain on him. But he should realize that you are under equal strain. He should be doing everything possible to ease your load.

The only thing I can think of is to have a conversation it. Find out what the problem is. Actually, a better solution would be couple's counseling. It's really helpful in discovering things about yourselves and each other that you would otherwise never know.

[Crankor]

He needs to realize the inconveniences come with having a child. You adjust your life accordingly. Instead of viewing it as being unreasonable, have a sit down discussion of what is realistically expected of each other in the parenting role. It's also very important too to MAKE time for each other still. Any marriage is bound to fail when priorities are mismatched

[LazerBean]

Your husband sounds like a mentally weak, narcissistic idiot. It's a damn shame you married and reproduced with him. You're just going to have to tell him that either you can completely swap positions and see how well he likes the way he treats you, or he can shape up and start doing the bare minimum.

[Stevefiveo]

Unfortunately, you picked a loser and a lazy guy. He definitely needs to help out a lot more. You can't do everything. The children are involved so you are going to have to be a bitch and lay out the things he needs to do very specifically. You better have a plan b in case he bails. I was married with two kids and my wife just said she didn't want to this anymore, this is too hard and left when they were five and two so I know what you are going through.

[SiberFox]

You took away his ability to make money, he resents this. He feels weak and he's lashing out at you. He doesn't have the short-end of the stick, he's not even allowed to hold it.

[In_Trance]

It's your baby!!!
What would you do if you were single?

[LazerBean]

*their baby