How do you let go of resentment over being treated unfairly?
November 1, 2020 1:43 AM Subscribe
I’ve realized that fairness in my personal life is overwhelmingly important to me, and this may not be healthy from a practical point. I’m looking for thoughts on how to take a different perspective, especially if you’ve dealt with this too.
My main stressor at the moment is childcare. I have a 17 month old and have been the primary parent, by a huge margin, for the entire time even though my husband and I both work full time, so I’ve been extremely tired and sleep deprived, and the resentment against my spouse for the unequal load has built up. My husband has recently (in the last month or so) been genuinely trying to resolve this, and in fact, the last week we came close to 50-50, but I can’t let go of the unfair treatment from the past year and a half. This is a burden on our relationship. I feel I should just let it go and aim for our family to be happy, even if things are not perfectly fair, and arguing and feeling resentful doesn’t help anyone.
I also realized that when I am unhappy at work (which isn’t often at all, incidentally), it’s because I perceive that I’m treated unfairly. I’m happy to work overtime, take on challenges, and I bear no envy towards colleagues that are promoted above me if I perceive them as deserving it. But when I see someone being unfairly favored, it does annoy me more than it should.
It doesn’t help that in both these cases, gender plays a role (the unfairly favored colleagues are always men), and I’m a woman in a male centric job and a heterosexual marriage.
There’s a lot of messaging in feminism about fairness. Given how miserable my relationship with my spouse has become, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve been taking that messaging too seriously. Would taking on more childcare actually be worse than our current situation of being mad at each other all the time? Likely not.
I’m looking for thoughts from people who have navigated this sort of thing, whether from a gender perspective or not. I’m more interested in perspectives about fairness in personal life rather than social justice, say, since I think the dynamics of compromise and the trade offs are quite different.
My main stressor at the moment is childcare. I have a 17 month old and have been the primary parent, by a huge margin, for the entire time even though my husband and I both work full time, so I’ve been extremely tired and sleep deprived, and the resentment against my spouse for the unequal load has built up. My husband has recently (in the last month or so) been genuinely trying to resolve this, and in fact, the last week we came close to 50-50, but I can’t let go of the unfair treatment from the past year and a half. This is a burden on our relationship. I feel I should just let it go and aim for our family to be happy, even if things are not perfectly fair, and arguing and feeling resentful doesn’t help anyone.
I also realized that when I am unhappy at work (which isn’t often at all, incidentally), it’s because I perceive that I’m treated unfairly. I’m happy to work overtime, take on challenges, and I bear no envy towards colleagues that are promoted above me if I perceive them as deserving it. But when I see someone being unfairly favored, it does annoy me more than it should.
It doesn’t help that in both these cases, gender plays a role (the unfairly favored colleagues are always men), and I’m a woman in a male centric job and a heterosexual marriage.
There’s a lot of messaging in feminism about fairness. Given how miserable my relationship with my spouse has become, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve been taking that messaging too seriously. Would taking on more childcare actually be worse than our current situation of being mad at each other all the time? Likely not.
I’m looking for thoughts from people who have navigated this sort of thing, whether from a gender perspective or not. I’m more interested in perspectives about fairness in personal life rather than social justice, say, since I think the dynamics of compromise and the trade offs are quite different.
Response by poster: I don’t want to threadsit but comments like Flock’s, while well intentioned, are not going to help me. I’m not denying the unfairness. I want to choose to have a happy marriage (and career) despite it. Yes, that third utopia doesn’t exist. So what can I do instead, that will be the best option for happiness for myself and our child (and my spouse, who I love despite what I wrote)?
For example, my parents have an even more unequal marriage than I do, and my mother always rationalizes it away, mainly to make herself feel better. I think I should too. I’m not interested anymore in caring about who is right and wrong, because that’s only making me unhappy, much unhappier than the unfairness itself. This is why my question was not “here’s a fight we had, an I justified?” like a lot of posts. Because that’s not what’s important to me now.
posted by redlines at 4:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
For example, my parents have an even more unequal marriage than I do, and my mother always rationalizes it away, mainly to make herself feel better. I think I should too. I’m not interested anymore in caring about who is right and wrong, because that’s only making me unhappy, much unhappier than the unfairness itself. This is why my question was not “here’s a fight we had, an I justified?” like a lot of posts. Because that’s not what’s important to me now.
posted by redlines at 4:10 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
No wonder you’re still annoyed, a week of him ‘coming close’ to doing half the work after you’ve carried the load for a year and a half - plus pregnancy! - in no way compensates you. I think you need to feel that your partner gets what he’s done has caused damage and been unfair and is making amends in a way that works for you (because what he’s doing so far isn’t).
Think about what you might need from him to be made whole and let him know. This is not punishing him, this is giving him the chance to fix your relationship. That he broke. And he should want to hear you out and be trying to do this, otherwise you have much bigger problems. So tell him. Maybe it’s two years of reciprocation. Maybe it’s a break away from the family. I don’t know, but consider it and tell him what else you need that could go some way to fixing the hurt.
posted by Jubey at 4:17 AM on November 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Think about what you might need from him to be made whole and let him know. This is not punishing him, this is giving him the chance to fix your relationship. That he broke. And he should want to hear you out and be trying to do this, otherwise you have much bigger problems. So tell him. Maybe it’s two years of reciprocation. Maybe it’s a break away from the family. I don’t know, but consider it and tell him what else you need that could go some way to fixing the hurt.
posted by Jubey at 4:17 AM on November 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
I've had the book "Too Good to Leave Too Bad to Stay" on my to read list since my kid was the age of yours, but haven't read it yet so I don't know how much it focuses on borderline abuse or affair recovery vs. what you're talking about. But its a potential resource?
This could be my post. To be honest I've been in the category of denial and "forget" without the forgive. So about every six months the resentment super builds up and I say something and he notices and I feel better and he gets better. Then we go back into our old patterns.
I also rely on a fantasy/goal that one day when parenting is less intense I will live next door or in a tiny house and we can still be life partners who just don't have to share space. We do SO much better when we travel - it always helps remind me why I want to stay partnered with him.
I tried talking about this with a therapist but was underwhelmed at the response/options presented to me.
I hope this helps? Probably not? Just know you're not alone!
Edited to add: for the work equation of this, which I have also felt deeply but in different circumstances, it always helps to find a new job haha. I've never been in a job for more than three years of my life until now, in my fourth year of a position. The pandemic is helping me not have to deal with colleagues and my boss, who has completely dropped off my radar for their own reasons. I also don't think this helps! I just keep trying to find satisfaction for myself in what I do, and fortunately the people I serve are usually very acknowledging and appreciative of my efforts. In jobs I had before this wasn't the case and it was much harder.
posted by wannabecounselor at 5:03 AM on November 1, 2020
This could be my post. To be honest I've been in the category of denial and "forget" without the forgive. So about every six months the resentment super builds up and I say something and he notices and I feel better and he gets better. Then we go back into our old patterns.
I also rely on a fantasy/goal that one day when parenting is less intense I will live next door or in a tiny house and we can still be life partners who just don't have to share space. We do SO much better when we travel - it always helps remind me why I want to stay partnered with him.
I tried talking about this with a therapist but was underwhelmed at the response/options presented to me.
I hope this helps? Probably not? Just know you're not alone!
Edited to add: for the work equation of this, which I have also felt deeply but in different circumstances, it always helps to find a new job haha. I've never been in a job for more than three years of my life until now, in my fourth year of a position. The pandemic is helping me not have to deal with colleagues and my boss, who has completely dropped off my radar for their own reasons. I also don't think this helps! I just keep trying to find satisfaction for myself in what I do, and fortunately the people I serve are usually very acknowledging and appreciative of my efforts. In jobs I had before this wasn't the case and it was much harder.
posted by wannabecounselor at 5:03 AM on November 1, 2020
In my experience, my resentment didn't go away until my husband had really done the equivalent of what I had. I stayed home with kids for three years, unplanned. First kid had a lot of medical complications so someone had to and for a variety of reasons it was me. While I was home, we decided to also have the second kid and get that out of the way. About six months after I went back to work, he decided to stay home with the kids for a while. We are super lucky that we can have a parent stay home. It wasn't until he'd been the primary parent and housekeeper for a few years, while I got to go work with grownups and travel for work, that I felt better about the division of labor. Even still, part of me knows it will never be equal - he didn't have to do nightly wakeups for two babies, or multiple doctor and therapy appointments each week for a toddler, or teach a tube-fed kid how to feel hunger and eat with her mouth. Older kids are easier and less work. But his EFFORT over time to be the primary parent had made the difference.
I think you'll need to see sustained effort from your husband over a long period of time before you feel better. This may be hard for him to hear, and it doesn't help to keep tally. My husband found his own rewards in being the primary parent - his relationship with our kids is deep and real in a way that neither of us had with our own dads. As we've gotten more removed from the baby years, it feels more fair. I don't know if there's a way to have a fair division of labor with a baby. I've never seen it, even with people who are committed to it. But having another parent step up in a super big way when the first parent is burnt out helped a lot in our house. It just took time for me to believe that it wasn't all going to fall back on me at the first inconvenience.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 5:04 AM on November 1, 2020 [15 favorites]
I think you'll need to see sustained effort from your husband over a long period of time before you feel better. This may be hard for him to hear, and it doesn't help to keep tally. My husband found his own rewards in being the primary parent - his relationship with our kids is deep and real in a way that neither of us had with our own dads. As we've gotten more removed from the baby years, it feels more fair. I don't know if there's a way to have a fair division of labor with a baby. I've never seen it, even with people who are committed to it. But having another parent step up in a super big way when the first parent is burnt out helped a lot in our house. It just took time for me to believe that it wasn't all going to fall back on me at the first inconvenience.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 5:04 AM on November 1, 2020 [15 favorites]
Resentment (emotional pain) serves a useful purpose, much like physical pain. It's there to activate your self-protection. It motives you to look for a fairer workplace, or to negotiate a fairer balance with your spouse.
There are people who can't feel physical pain. This is convenient after stubbing their toe. However, it means they could get into a situation where they seriously injure themselves, because they have no warning system.
Are you sure that you want to de-activate your emotional warning system? You might wake up a decade from now, in an abusive job or an abusive marriage, and wonder how you let it get so bad.
If you really want to do it, emotional abusers have demonstrated how to remove resentment and replace it with gratitude. If you submit yourself to a barrage of attacks on your self-esteem, you will eventually come to believe that you are the luckiest person in the world to attract your spouse, and that you have your dream job. You wouldn't feel any more resentment.
But do you want to do that?
posted by cheesecake at 5:07 AM on November 1, 2020 [36 favorites]
There are people who can't feel physical pain. This is convenient after stubbing their toe. However, it means they could get into a situation where they seriously injure themselves, because they have no warning system.
Are you sure that you want to de-activate your emotional warning system? You might wake up a decade from now, in an abusive job or an abusive marriage, and wonder how you let it get so bad.
If you really want to do it, emotional abusers have demonstrated how to remove resentment and replace it with gratitude. If you submit yourself to a barrage of attacks on your self-esteem, you will eventually come to believe that you are the luckiest person in the world to attract your spouse, and that you have your dream job. You wouldn't feel any more resentment.
But do you want to do that?
posted by cheesecake at 5:07 AM on November 1, 2020 [36 favorites]
You are resentful about being treated unfairly, because you are being treated unfairly. Don't equate yourself to your mom - I'd be surprised if she didn't have resentment, but rather didn't have options so has to bury it. You are in a different generation, so you do have options. Rather than thinking about how you can grin and bear it, maybe think about how you can change things so there are fewer things to be resentful of? Perhaps now is a good time to look for other job opportunities? Would your husband reduce his work hours to spend more time with your child? I know you were looking for tips on how to feel happy when things are unhappy and unfair, but that just isn't reality. You are unhappy because your life is unhappy.
posted by Toddles at 5:13 AM on November 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Toddles at 5:13 AM on November 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
If you can get your husband to be the primary parent for a while, that is probably the closest you will get to equity, but even that hasn't worked for every couple I know (like, some AMAB people just cannot seem to get that parenting can actually be their #1 reponsibility - probably some AFAB people too but I've never met one of those).
The trouble is, every day your husband is taking actions that can turn the dial more towards equity or away from it. So you look at him/his actions and say, "I wish he would do X and Y" but of course getting him to do X and Y would be more work for you, so really it's about wishing you had the kind of husband who would know to do X and Y on his own, and... you don't have that kind of husband.
So I think you maybe have to look at having the kind of husband you do have the same way as you would look at any other thing that's out of your control, like the losing your house in a fire or the proverbial "rain on your wedding day."
If it rains on your wedding day, you call the tent company and you take your photos indoors and you're maybe sad about it but you understand that you can't actually stop it from raining on your wedding day. If your house burns down of course you feel sad and furious about it but you recognize that "my house not burning down" is not an option and eventually you sit down with the insurance paperwork and figure out what you can afford to replace and where you're going to live now and all that stuff.
So, I think the first step is accepting that your husband is kind of unsatisfactory! This is probably for a lot of reasons, many of them related to The Patriarchy, but regardless, he's not your Ideal Husband. Given that your husband is kind of unsatisfactory, you need to make decisions about where you want to go from there. The nice thing is, unlike a one-time event like a fire, your husband is a living, malleable human who can change. So that's one thing you can do: ask him to change, either on your own or within the context of couples' therapy or something similar. You also know that you have the option to leave (probably that would also suck! but it's an option).
But also you can choose to accept the status quo as your least worst option. This is definitely easier with work (you tell yourself, "god damn this place is a sexist hellhole but at least I have good benefits and a short commute," or "but I need money to survive, so"). Intimate relationships are, you know, intimate. But you can still choose to accept things as they are. You can even tell your husband you're doing this: "This still bothers me but fixing it feels like more work than I can take on."
Basically, you're right that this is unfair. That doesn't mean you have the responsibility to fix it. You can say, "yep, it's unfair!" and move on with whatever your best life is within the unfair world.
posted by mskyle at 5:30 AM on November 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
The trouble is, every day your husband is taking actions that can turn the dial more towards equity or away from it. So you look at him/his actions and say, "I wish he would do X and Y" but of course getting him to do X and Y would be more work for you, so really it's about wishing you had the kind of husband who would know to do X and Y on his own, and... you don't have that kind of husband.
So I think you maybe have to look at having the kind of husband you do have the same way as you would look at any other thing that's out of your control, like the losing your house in a fire or the proverbial "rain on your wedding day."
If it rains on your wedding day, you call the tent company and you take your photos indoors and you're maybe sad about it but you understand that you can't actually stop it from raining on your wedding day. If your house burns down of course you feel sad and furious about it but you recognize that "my house not burning down" is not an option and eventually you sit down with the insurance paperwork and figure out what you can afford to replace and where you're going to live now and all that stuff.
So, I think the first step is accepting that your husband is kind of unsatisfactory! This is probably for a lot of reasons, many of them related to The Patriarchy, but regardless, he's not your Ideal Husband. Given that your husband is kind of unsatisfactory, you need to make decisions about where you want to go from there. The nice thing is, unlike a one-time event like a fire, your husband is a living, malleable human who can change. So that's one thing you can do: ask him to change, either on your own or within the context of couples' therapy or something similar. You also know that you have the option to leave (probably that would also suck! but it's an option).
But also you can choose to accept the status quo as your least worst option. This is definitely easier with work (you tell yourself, "god damn this place is a sexist hellhole but at least I have good benefits and a short commute," or "but I need money to survive, so"). Intimate relationships are, you know, intimate. But you can still choose to accept things as they are. You can even tell your husband you're doing this: "This still bothers me but fixing it feels like more work than I can take on."
Basically, you're right that this is unfair. That doesn't mean you have the responsibility to fix it. You can say, "yep, it's unfair!" and move on with whatever your best life is within the unfair world.
posted by mskyle at 5:30 AM on November 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
I agree with the people saying that turning the tables is necessary for husband training. There was so much I just didn't get until I was the primary caregiver and housekeeper. I'd never had to learn self-discipline until I had to do all the dishes and the laundry and the cooking and the child entertaining and I was the one getting antsy when she was at work late. I learned so much practically and emotionally. And now that we have a more equal job situation again, I make sure to hold up more than my share of the household stuff, both as a point of pride and because I learned to like a lot of it (still hate folding laundry).
I am sorry that men have been raised and trained to be bad at this. It's unfair to everyone. I know I carried a lot of unfair expectations about being the financial provider that I had to work my way out of too. Patriarchy is a trap for everyone, but men have less incentive to see the problems and solve the problems. It's totally fair to make him work to prove how much he loves you and your kid, though. Just keep in mind that if you get him to take over as primary caregiver for some time, he will do it somewhat differently, he will make mistakes, he will make different judgment calls than you, and letting go of that can be a whole other form of stress on both of you. You'll both learn a lot, and probably both become better parents, but it's not necessarily easier.
Even a short loving-kindness meditation (daily is best) helps me let go of things I can't change. Visualizing all the people supporting me, wishing me well, holding me in their hearts, and then turning that feeling onto others: the people who love me, the people who are neutral, and even the people who are antagonistic. Wishing them free from trouble, especially so much of the internal trouble that is self-inflicted and culturally inflicted. Fairness is a great goal, but humans are flawed, even when we're trying.
posted by rikschell at 5:52 AM on November 1, 2020 [12 favorites]
I am sorry that men have been raised and trained to be bad at this. It's unfair to everyone. I know I carried a lot of unfair expectations about being the financial provider that I had to work my way out of too. Patriarchy is a trap for everyone, but men have less incentive to see the problems and solve the problems. It's totally fair to make him work to prove how much he loves you and your kid, though. Just keep in mind that if you get him to take over as primary caregiver for some time, he will do it somewhat differently, he will make mistakes, he will make different judgment calls than you, and letting go of that can be a whole other form of stress on both of you. You'll both learn a lot, and probably both become better parents, but it's not necessarily easier.
Even a short loving-kindness meditation (daily is best) helps me let go of things I can't change. Visualizing all the people supporting me, wishing me well, holding me in their hearts, and then turning that feeling onto others: the people who love me, the people who are neutral, and even the people who are antagonistic. Wishing them free from trouble, especially so much of the internal trouble that is self-inflicted and culturally inflicted. Fairness is a great goal, but humans are flawed, even when we're trying.
posted by rikschell at 5:52 AM on November 1, 2020 [12 favorites]
No good deed goes unpunished.
My life has improved immeasurably since I wholeheartedly embraced this principle.
posted by flabdablet at 5:54 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
My life has improved immeasurably since I wholeheartedly embraced this principle.
posted by flabdablet at 5:54 AM on November 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
You're asking us to tell you how to stuff your feelings down and how to make yourself even smaller. I don't think that you're going to get great advice on that front. You may want to think about going to a therapist so that you can process these feelings somewhere safe. That may help you feel less resentment at your lot.
posted by k8lin at 6:05 AM on November 1, 2020 [37 favorites]
posted by k8lin at 6:05 AM on November 1, 2020 [37 favorites]
I think the book "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle" might help you. I unofficially call it the, "Burnout book for women" because it is focused on helping women understand why they feel burned out and how to recover it, in a society that positions women as the "human givers" vs. "human beings." The first chapter is about how to deal with the stress even if you can't deal with the stressor, which tl;dr - which is usually things like exercise, crying, affection etc. [link to an article summarizing this]. Subsequent chapters focus on the importance of rest / sleep as a key part of recovering from stress.
The authors have also a free podcast "Feminist Survival Project", that appears to cover most of the same topics -- it looks like episodes 1, 2 and 3 would be a helpful start for you.
posted by ellerhodes at 6:27 AM on November 1, 2020 [8 favorites]
The authors have also a free podcast "Feminist Survival Project", that appears to cover most of the same topics -- it looks like episodes 1, 2 and 3 would be a helpful start for you.
posted by ellerhodes at 6:27 AM on November 1, 2020 [8 favorites]
It is not uncommon for mothers to take over so to speak, or do the majority of care, when it comes to infants and babies. That's a fact of human life. Fathers might step back and allow because they think everything is fine, or it doesn't come natural, or it does not occur to them. I'm not arguing that males or fathers are incapable of caring for babies. I'm not disagreeing that it's an overwhelming and stressful time and you needed help. Maybe it did occur to him and he chose to sleep anyway. Only you know the situation.
My husband was and is very hands-on with my kids, yet I did the majority of infant care because I was nursing. Also, I don't know if I could have slept if my baby needed attention during the night. If my husband got up, I got up with him. I probably should have slept and let him take care of things but I didn't most of the time. I was a new mom and wanted to be with my baby. It's a trying time and both parents are trying to cope with a new and stressful situation in the best way they know how.
Life seems more balanced now from your description. Your husband is helping more with childcare and is aware of the situation. I would let it go and move forward with good will. Resentment is living in the past as they say. I would not frame my relationship in the concepts of amends and compensation as a commenter has suggested. That kind of thinking will only lead to more resentment --for both parties. I wouldn't frame my marriage as who is the winner and who is the loser, or who is the oppressor and who is the victim. That sounds dreadful.
Life is not fair and while we are always striving for equality, there is no such thing. Sometimes the undeserving will get the promotion. There will be times in your marriage when you are doing more and times when you are doing less.
In the majority of times where I felt resentment it's because I didn't speak up. I went along or agreed and didn't voice my opinion or preference and then resented the person later because I went along with their idea or remained silent. I am not so great at speaking up at work. It is my responsibility to speak up. Nobody can do it for me.
I have a boss who I believe is incompetent -- I can feel a lot of resentment towards her especially when I complain and do nothing but remain at the job. What can I do in this work situation?
1. Keep complaining to myself, my husband, or my commiserating coworker which only causes resentment to build.
2. Accept the situation and mind my own business and do my work with integrity and accept that there are incompetent bosses in the world and I may not know the entire story of what she does to keep our department running.
3. Speak up and tell her what I think.
4. Leave the job.
We have choices -- practical choices and a choice regarding how we choose to think about a situation. It's my problem if I seethe with resentment instead of taking action, letting it go, or accepting that in life there will be unfairness. Also, I should be aware when self-pity is playing a role--Do I feel like the victim where people are taking advantage and I feel like I have no agency? Of course I have agency. Of course I can take action.
Marriage should not be a score-keeping endeavor. When it comes to love and marriage you have choices, boundaries, the ability to take care of yourself, and the ability to voice your needs. You have the ability to recognize what your husband does for your family, as he probably wants to do his best to help his family and make you happy. If this is true, what is the purpose of staying mad and miserable?
posted by loveandhappiness at 6:49 AM on November 1, 2020 [9 favorites]
My husband was and is very hands-on with my kids, yet I did the majority of infant care because I was nursing. Also, I don't know if I could have slept if my baby needed attention during the night. If my husband got up, I got up with him. I probably should have slept and let him take care of things but I didn't most of the time. I was a new mom and wanted to be with my baby. It's a trying time and both parents are trying to cope with a new and stressful situation in the best way they know how.
Life seems more balanced now from your description. Your husband is helping more with childcare and is aware of the situation. I would let it go and move forward with good will. Resentment is living in the past as they say. I would not frame my relationship in the concepts of amends and compensation as a commenter has suggested. That kind of thinking will only lead to more resentment --for both parties. I wouldn't frame my marriage as who is the winner and who is the loser, or who is the oppressor and who is the victim. That sounds dreadful.
Life is not fair and while we are always striving for equality, there is no such thing. Sometimes the undeserving will get the promotion. There will be times in your marriage when you are doing more and times when you are doing less.
In the majority of times where I felt resentment it's because I didn't speak up. I went along or agreed and didn't voice my opinion or preference and then resented the person later because I went along with their idea or remained silent. I am not so great at speaking up at work. It is my responsibility to speak up. Nobody can do it for me.
I have a boss who I believe is incompetent -- I can feel a lot of resentment towards her especially when I complain and do nothing but remain at the job. What can I do in this work situation?
1. Keep complaining to myself, my husband, or my commiserating coworker which only causes resentment to build.
2. Accept the situation and mind my own business and do my work with integrity and accept that there are incompetent bosses in the world and I may not know the entire story of what she does to keep our department running.
3. Speak up and tell her what I think.
4. Leave the job.
We have choices -- practical choices and a choice regarding how we choose to think about a situation. It's my problem if I seethe with resentment instead of taking action, letting it go, or accepting that in life there will be unfairness. Also, I should be aware when self-pity is playing a role--Do I feel like the victim where people are taking advantage and I feel like I have no agency? Of course I have agency. Of course I can take action.
Marriage should not be a score-keeping endeavor. When it comes to love and marriage you have choices, boundaries, the ability to take care of yourself, and the ability to voice your needs. You have the ability to recognize what your husband does for your family, as he probably wants to do his best to help his family and make you happy. If this is true, what is the purpose of staying mad and miserable?
posted by loveandhappiness at 6:49 AM on November 1, 2020 [9 favorites]
How much of your situation could you improve by throwing money at it and hiring cleaners, babysitters, and so on? If your goal is to not be upset all the time , constantly having to keep track of the percentage of labor your partner is doing is an awful time suck in itself. Maybe you just need to agree to spend more money and take off some of the pressure that way. If you come up with a budget for this together and track it together, it may seem more like you are sharing responsibility.
posted by BibiRose at 6:55 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by BibiRose at 6:55 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I have felt the way you are feeling — even contemplated making an AskMefi post about it. It has definitely seemed to me at times that reading metafilter wasn’t helping; all the people (correctly!) pointing out how things were unequal and unfair did not give me tools to deal with the feelings that those recognitions brought up. I wasn’t looking for a new partner, so all the “I would never put up with that” language just made me feel like I was being a failed feminist.
You’ll notice I’m speaking in the past tense here. What changed? First and foremost, our kids are older now (5 and 9), and it’s just so. much. easier. So much less minute to minute work to care for them, and that makes it much simpler to find routines that work for everyone in the family.
The second thing that is different is that we’ve had several structural reasons where my husband has had to take on full responsibility for whole areas of family life. His work hours decreased very dramatically, and so now he does all the shopping and cooking. It’s a whole area of life where I don’t need to even think about it, no negotiating or anything, because it’s 100% on his plate. Another example: last year, our younger son had to spend a month in a full body cast, in my husband’s home country (we were visiting family when he broke his hip.) I came home with the older kid for work and school. My husband stayed and did 100% of everything. I’m not recommending this experience! But it was a structural thing, where we didn’t need to negotiate daily about who did what because well, he was there and I wasn’t.
One more small example: I get the younger kid to bed now, husband does the older kid. We may switch up if one of us needs it, but that’s how it goes most nights. And that’s so much less stressful, knowing what to expect each day.
Tl;dr: this -does- get easier with older kids. And see if there are whole areas of life where you can divide responsibility, so that you each have ownership over that area, rather than constant friction trying to divide the same area up fairly.
posted by wyzewoman at 7:05 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
You’ll notice I’m speaking in the past tense here. What changed? First and foremost, our kids are older now (5 and 9), and it’s just so. much. easier. So much less minute to minute work to care for them, and that makes it much simpler to find routines that work for everyone in the family.
The second thing that is different is that we’ve had several structural reasons where my husband has had to take on full responsibility for whole areas of family life. His work hours decreased very dramatically, and so now he does all the shopping and cooking. It’s a whole area of life where I don’t need to even think about it, no negotiating or anything, because it’s 100% on his plate. Another example: last year, our younger son had to spend a month in a full body cast, in my husband’s home country (we were visiting family when he broke his hip.) I came home with the older kid for work and school. My husband stayed and did 100% of everything. I’m not recommending this experience! But it was a structural thing, where we didn’t need to negotiate daily about who did what because well, he was there and I wasn’t.
One more small example: I get the younger kid to bed now, husband does the older kid. We may switch up if one of us needs it, but that’s how it goes most nights. And that’s so much less stressful, knowing what to expect each day.
Tl;dr: this -does- get easier with older kids. And see if there are whole areas of life where you can divide responsibility, so that you each have ownership over that area, rather than constant friction trying to divide the same area up fairly.
posted by wyzewoman at 7:05 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
This is actually a really common conservative critique of progressive philosophy, the notion that, even though an idea may be “right” in the abstract, it can often lead to a cycle of resentment and misery if conditions are anything less than perfect. The oft-proposed solution - bootstrapping and just dealing with it - has its flaws too, to be sure, but be aware that it is something that happens and people think about.
One thing to keep in mind is that, while I don’t want to invalidate your feelings of unfairness, that’s the kind of thing that’s really subjective, and it’s common for there to be another side of the story. It’s even possible that your husband feels that the situation is unfair as well. I had a situation last year where both my wife and I thought our household chore situation was unfair. She resented that she did more than “her share” of daily cleaning (things like dishes and taking out the trash). I pointed out that I do 100% of the cooking, plus at the time I had an hour-plus commute each direction, as opposed to two blocks for her. To her, it was unfair that she had to do 75% of the cleaning. To me, it was unfair that I had to do 50% in addition to all the cooking in less time. Each of us was right in our own way. (The situation eventually resolved itself when I got a new job with a shorter commute, but that’s a deus ex machina that didn’t actually answer our question.)
There are other examples you could come up with easily. Consider a partnership where one partner earns an income of $100,000 and the other earns $30,000. The higher-earning partner might think it’s fair to split expenses 50-50; the lower-earning partner is unlikely to view that as fair.
There are work examples, too. I had a situation at my old job where I was buried in projects. At one point I had 16 open, when the departmental target was 8/person. One of my colleagues only had one, but it was the biggest project in the history of our company, and they were accordingly demanding. She was regularly on four-hour conference calls, and the client was in Europe, so those calls would start at 5am our time. If I just looked at numbers, it would seem to be a pretty unfair distribution. But I wouldn’t have traded places with her.
The thing is, if ours looking for unfairness, you’re going to find it. The only way out is to stop looking for it. Additionally, leave the past in the past. One commenter mentioned that she didn’t feel fair until her husband had done what she had done, basically paying off his debt. If you’ve been feeling this way for a while, you’ll be feeling it even longer that way. Reset everything and start fresh from today.
You still have to talk to your husband and your manager. I’m not saying you shouldn’t look out for yourself. By all means, make them aware of how you feel and what you’d like to see going forward. But it just goes in that one direction. You can’t expect retribution, and you have to be open to the fact that they may have different ideas of fairness.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:08 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
One thing to keep in mind is that, while I don’t want to invalidate your feelings of unfairness, that’s the kind of thing that’s really subjective, and it’s common for there to be another side of the story. It’s even possible that your husband feels that the situation is unfair as well. I had a situation last year where both my wife and I thought our household chore situation was unfair. She resented that she did more than “her share” of daily cleaning (things like dishes and taking out the trash). I pointed out that I do 100% of the cooking, plus at the time I had an hour-plus commute each direction, as opposed to two blocks for her. To her, it was unfair that she had to do 75% of the cleaning. To me, it was unfair that I had to do 50% in addition to all the cooking in less time. Each of us was right in our own way. (The situation eventually resolved itself when I got a new job with a shorter commute, but that’s a deus ex machina that didn’t actually answer our question.)
There are other examples you could come up with easily. Consider a partnership where one partner earns an income of $100,000 and the other earns $30,000. The higher-earning partner might think it’s fair to split expenses 50-50; the lower-earning partner is unlikely to view that as fair.
There are work examples, too. I had a situation at my old job where I was buried in projects. At one point I had 16 open, when the departmental target was 8/person. One of my colleagues only had one, but it was the biggest project in the history of our company, and they were accordingly demanding. She was regularly on four-hour conference calls, and the client was in Europe, so those calls would start at 5am our time. If I just looked at numbers, it would seem to be a pretty unfair distribution. But I wouldn’t have traded places with her.
The thing is, if ours looking for unfairness, you’re going to find it. The only way out is to stop looking for it. Additionally, leave the past in the past. One commenter mentioned that she didn’t feel fair until her husband had done what she had done, basically paying off his debt. If you’ve been feeling this way for a while, you’ll be feeling it even longer that way. Reset everything and start fresh from today.
You still have to talk to your husband and your manager. I’m not saying you shouldn’t look out for yourself. By all means, make them aware of how you feel and what you’d like to see going forward. But it just goes in that one direction. You can’t expect retribution, and you have to be open to the fact that they may have different ideas of fairness.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:08 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I should add that most marriages have problems around fairness. What separates good ones from bad ones is how they communicate those feelings of unfairness.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:18 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 7:18 AM on November 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm with the team that says don't suppress your anger. You need that anger.
One thing to consider is that your anger may be a cover for another even more hard to bear emotion. For example a part of you may equate care taking with being loved so the fact that your husband does not take care of your and the child's needs may make you feel that his commitment to you is either lukewarm, or self serving and so limited as to be deliberate exploitation. Worse, your anger may be partially directed at the child or yourself, if you are finding your life as a parent miserable. Remember that feeling ambivalent is normal. It is much more acceptable to hate your life and your school and yourself during exam week than it is to feel that anger against your spouse, your child and yourself. But because you can more freely express that annoyance and disgust with the situation at the school it is also can be easier to switch back to appreciating your life and school and self once the exams are over than it is to get over a bad patch in your family relationships. You won't get a lot of push back if you grumble, "I hate exams," but the push back if you grumble, "I hate babies," may be a tsunami.
The first thing I suggest is that you tease your anger apart to figure what the strains are. For example you had to go through labour. Your husband did not. If you are angry about that being angry at him for biology is not fair either. Neither of you chose your gender, so it would be like being angry at him because when the bird flew over it pooped on you. That does NOT mean you can't be angry about it, but that your anger is better directed at the bird, or the owners of the aviary or something else.
Another thing to tease out is how much you are angry at him because he is not like you and he should be like you. If you wake up easily when the baby cried and he doesn't wake up easily you can attribute this to shirking on his part and lack of bonding. It may indeed be this. It could however be initially and largely because he is a deep sleeper, and as a sole or primary parent responsible for night feedings your infant might have to have been loudly in full cry for ten minutes before he can stagger groggily in the right direction.
A similar example of him not having natural aptitude for things would be if say he constantly leaves tools out and doesn't sharpen them or oil them, so they get lost, blunt and rusty, whereas of course you take decent care of tools. But if he took terrible care of tools before he ever met you and will take terrible care of tools after you are gone, being mad at him for taking terrible care of tools is being mad at him for being who he is. In some ways your husband is going to be lousy at certain things and being angry at him for those is like being angry at him for being the one the bird pooped on. I've seen people rage at their partners or children for things like that, but that's just punishing someone for things out of their control and attributing far more control to them then they have, which makes it abuse.
Basically if he hadn't had sperm and you hadn't had eggs there wouldn't have been a baby. Ideally this is a matter of the sum is greater than the parts, and your differences combined complement each other, and you married someone whose weaknesses match your strengths and whose strengths match your weaknesses. That may not be how it is playing out, but that is what you want to aim for, not rage at him for being different, or less, or better, but USING those differences to make life better for everyone in the household.
Anger can often be a symptom of exhaustion as it is a tool we use to get us moving. If we are having trouble getting out of bed, lying there hearing the baby crying, the thought, "Goddamn it, why does he always leave it to me...!" can be enough to get the covers flung aside and get you on your feet. You may be using anger this way if you are sufficiently over extended. You may have gotten into the habit of producing a surge of rage because the alternative is to just curl up in a ball weeping, "I can't. I can't." In that case it's not the anger that needs to be fixed, but the untenable situation that is requiring you to use anger as a motivator.
If you have some time and feeling and motivation and executive ability reserves around the edges of your life, then anger can be usefully displaced into other things. You can use it for a social connector and connect with other people also feeling anger such as mothers on a social media group, or radicals striving for political change, or parents who are advocating for their schools.
You can use it for a physical motivator, as in every time you feel anger you give yourself a ten minute run on the treadmill, which both burns it off a bit but also is working on your self care, as at the end of the day you could discover with mixed pride and dismay that you have run 15.6 kilometers...
You can use your anger to motivate your husband - I do not advise this as it produces diminishing results and produces learned helplessness. In the long run this usually results in him figuring you are always angry at him and there is nothing he can do to prevent it and the best thing to do is to hunker down and endure. Like spanking a child in anger there is usually enough irrationality involved in using your anger to change other people's behaviour that it is all too likely to really be just undirected hitting as a reaction to frustration and lead to self justifying that abuse.
You can use your anger as creative inspiration such as by creating music or stories - the stories could be lyrics, written works, or simply fantasies in your head. You can also create art. Stories are good because if you tinker with them you displace some of the feelings into your characters, and can experiment with the different ways they find resolution. You can also gain perspective. If you write a story about a protagonist who is a handmaid in Atwood's world and compare her situation with yours you may either find far too many parallels not to move for change, or so few that you find your situation easier to take.
Finally anger at your spouse may actually partially be a need for closeness with your spouse. Like when a child cannot get attention and affection by being a good child and starts misbehaving, your anger may be more a feeling of being ignored and a desire for intensity. This is NOT a reason to discount your feelings and tell yourself to just act like an adult. The anger can be a sign that your need for the physiological signs of connection - eye contact, listening, agreement, working together, entrained movement, physical touch - are so badly neglected that you are instinctively preparing to break away. In this case the way to deal with it is to make time for intense physiological closeness - put on some loud music and dance with the guy, have a competition to see if you the pair of you can get two cords of wood into the garage in less then twenty minutes, or have a competition to see who can make the other laugh first. I'm not going to suggest sex, although that works extremely well for some couples. For others adding the weight of attempting to use sex to produce closeness between two cranky overworked alienated people with libidos ravaged by the usual drop that follows the birth of children will exacerbate any distance between them, and create new problems in their sexual relationship.
But please accept your anger as an important self-protective instinct.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:49 AM on November 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
One thing to consider is that your anger may be a cover for another even more hard to bear emotion. For example a part of you may equate care taking with being loved so the fact that your husband does not take care of your and the child's needs may make you feel that his commitment to you is either lukewarm, or self serving and so limited as to be deliberate exploitation. Worse, your anger may be partially directed at the child or yourself, if you are finding your life as a parent miserable. Remember that feeling ambivalent is normal. It is much more acceptable to hate your life and your school and yourself during exam week than it is to feel that anger against your spouse, your child and yourself. But because you can more freely express that annoyance and disgust with the situation at the school it is also can be easier to switch back to appreciating your life and school and self once the exams are over than it is to get over a bad patch in your family relationships. You won't get a lot of push back if you grumble, "I hate exams," but the push back if you grumble, "I hate babies," may be a tsunami.
The first thing I suggest is that you tease your anger apart to figure what the strains are. For example you had to go through labour. Your husband did not. If you are angry about that being angry at him for biology is not fair either. Neither of you chose your gender, so it would be like being angry at him because when the bird flew over it pooped on you. That does NOT mean you can't be angry about it, but that your anger is better directed at the bird, or the owners of the aviary or something else.
Another thing to tease out is how much you are angry at him because he is not like you and he should be like you. If you wake up easily when the baby cried and he doesn't wake up easily you can attribute this to shirking on his part and lack of bonding. It may indeed be this. It could however be initially and largely because he is a deep sleeper, and as a sole or primary parent responsible for night feedings your infant might have to have been loudly in full cry for ten minutes before he can stagger groggily in the right direction.
A similar example of him not having natural aptitude for things would be if say he constantly leaves tools out and doesn't sharpen them or oil them, so they get lost, blunt and rusty, whereas of course you take decent care of tools. But if he took terrible care of tools before he ever met you and will take terrible care of tools after you are gone, being mad at him for taking terrible care of tools is being mad at him for being who he is. In some ways your husband is going to be lousy at certain things and being angry at him for those is like being angry at him for being the one the bird pooped on. I've seen people rage at their partners or children for things like that, but that's just punishing someone for things out of their control and attributing far more control to them then they have, which makes it abuse.
Basically if he hadn't had sperm and you hadn't had eggs there wouldn't have been a baby. Ideally this is a matter of the sum is greater than the parts, and your differences combined complement each other, and you married someone whose weaknesses match your strengths and whose strengths match your weaknesses. That may not be how it is playing out, but that is what you want to aim for, not rage at him for being different, or less, or better, but USING those differences to make life better for everyone in the household.
Anger can often be a symptom of exhaustion as it is a tool we use to get us moving. If we are having trouble getting out of bed, lying there hearing the baby crying, the thought, "Goddamn it, why does he always leave it to me...!" can be enough to get the covers flung aside and get you on your feet. You may be using anger this way if you are sufficiently over extended. You may have gotten into the habit of producing a surge of rage because the alternative is to just curl up in a ball weeping, "I can't. I can't." In that case it's not the anger that needs to be fixed, but the untenable situation that is requiring you to use anger as a motivator.
If you have some time and feeling and motivation and executive ability reserves around the edges of your life, then anger can be usefully displaced into other things. You can use it for a social connector and connect with other people also feeling anger such as mothers on a social media group, or radicals striving for political change, or parents who are advocating for their schools.
You can use it for a physical motivator, as in every time you feel anger you give yourself a ten minute run on the treadmill, which both burns it off a bit but also is working on your self care, as at the end of the day you could discover with mixed pride and dismay that you have run 15.6 kilometers...
You can use your anger to motivate your husband - I do not advise this as it produces diminishing results and produces learned helplessness. In the long run this usually results in him figuring you are always angry at him and there is nothing he can do to prevent it and the best thing to do is to hunker down and endure. Like spanking a child in anger there is usually enough irrationality involved in using your anger to change other people's behaviour that it is all too likely to really be just undirected hitting as a reaction to frustration and lead to self justifying that abuse.
You can use your anger as creative inspiration such as by creating music or stories - the stories could be lyrics, written works, or simply fantasies in your head. You can also create art. Stories are good because if you tinker with them you displace some of the feelings into your characters, and can experiment with the different ways they find resolution. You can also gain perspective. If you write a story about a protagonist who is a handmaid in Atwood's world and compare her situation with yours you may either find far too many parallels not to move for change, or so few that you find your situation easier to take.
Finally anger at your spouse may actually partially be a need for closeness with your spouse. Like when a child cannot get attention and affection by being a good child and starts misbehaving, your anger may be more a feeling of being ignored and a desire for intensity. This is NOT a reason to discount your feelings and tell yourself to just act like an adult. The anger can be a sign that your need for the physiological signs of connection - eye contact, listening, agreement, working together, entrained movement, physical touch - are so badly neglected that you are instinctively preparing to break away. In this case the way to deal with it is to make time for intense physiological closeness - put on some loud music and dance with the guy, have a competition to see if you the pair of you can get two cords of wood into the garage in less then twenty minutes, or have a competition to see who can make the other laugh first. I'm not going to suggest sex, although that works extremely well for some couples. For others adding the weight of attempting to use sex to produce closeness between two cranky overworked alienated people with libidos ravaged by the usual drop that follows the birth of children will exacerbate any distance between them, and create new problems in their sexual relationship.
But please accept your anger as an important self-protective instinct.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:49 AM on November 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
Lots of great advice here, including from those who point out that anger and resentment are very important warning signs and should not be ignored or suppressed any more than physical pain should be. You can numb yourself in the short term but if you don't deal with the underlying issues in some way, they will come back to bite you that much harder.
We do live in a sexist and misogynistic world and that is deeply unfair. In my view, you'd have to be a statue not to be angry and resentful once you become conscious of it. However, how do we respond to that in a way that allows us to be happy and positive and have strong relationships with those--of all genders--whom we care about?
I struggle with this myself and have by no means cracked it, but a few things have helped me along the way:
-I tell myself to let things "be" rather than let them "go." It's a small semantic difference but it allows me to accept that I might be angry, resentful, or whatever, and that's just the way it is. Certain things might have happened, they might have been very bad, maybe they shouldn't have happened, but they did and I cannot change that. In your case, your husband did not pull his weight for a long time and you are not going to get your time and energy back from the past. It's okay to still be angry about that and you will probably feel that way until you don't feel that way.
-I recognize that I can have feelings but I don't have to act on them. Meditation and journalling help a lot with this.
-I set boundaries, giving myself a bit more "room" than I actually need, and I enforce them early and often. I no longer wait until I am seething or deeply hurt before I say something. If I know I'm going to be in a situation where I have to deal with a boundary-buster, I think through where issues are going to come up and decide in advance where I'm going to draw the line. Some of these conversations can be awkward, but in my experience the awkwardness usually passes fairly quickly, definitely more quickly than my anger or resentment would. Getting comfortable with dealing with the discomfort of boundary-setting has improved every single one of my relationships that were worth saving (and shone a spotlight on those that were not).
-I focus my energy on the things and people that I care about and just leave the rest alone. One key aspect of this was recognizing where my own female socialization had trained me to take on emotional and other labour that was not really my responsibility. I wish I could recoup the thousands of hours that I spent propping up various incompetent or semi-competent men, "helping" them with time-consuming administrative tasks that they were just too high-minded or busy or important to do, etc.. I can't get that time back but I have now reached a point where I simply don't notice those gaps unless they involve something very important to me, and then I make my support visible. Sometimes people have to deal with the consequences of their own action, or lack of same. There are no more "magical elves" in either my workplace or my home.
-The concept of "strategic unavailability" had really helped me in all this. I block out time for myself and my needs and wants--including the things I want to do for the people I care about--and then I'm just not around for the other crap. I don't get into big explanations, because I've noticed that if I do, people often argue that whatever I'm focussing on is not as important as whatever they want from me.
For me, focussing on my own inner peace is the bottom line. In some cases, you might decide to take on more than is fair because you will feel better about doing so, and in those cases, you are right to do so. But, your feelings are important and deserve to be factored into the cost/benefit analysis just like everything else.
posted by rpfields at 9:56 AM on November 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
We do live in a sexist and misogynistic world and that is deeply unfair. In my view, you'd have to be a statue not to be angry and resentful once you become conscious of it. However, how do we respond to that in a way that allows us to be happy and positive and have strong relationships with those--of all genders--whom we care about?
I struggle with this myself and have by no means cracked it, but a few things have helped me along the way:
-I tell myself to let things "be" rather than let them "go." It's a small semantic difference but it allows me to accept that I might be angry, resentful, or whatever, and that's just the way it is. Certain things might have happened, they might have been very bad, maybe they shouldn't have happened, but they did and I cannot change that. In your case, your husband did not pull his weight for a long time and you are not going to get your time and energy back from the past. It's okay to still be angry about that and you will probably feel that way until you don't feel that way.
-I recognize that I can have feelings but I don't have to act on them. Meditation and journalling help a lot with this.
-I set boundaries, giving myself a bit more "room" than I actually need, and I enforce them early and often. I no longer wait until I am seething or deeply hurt before I say something. If I know I'm going to be in a situation where I have to deal with a boundary-buster, I think through where issues are going to come up and decide in advance where I'm going to draw the line. Some of these conversations can be awkward, but in my experience the awkwardness usually passes fairly quickly, definitely more quickly than my anger or resentment would. Getting comfortable with dealing with the discomfort of boundary-setting has improved every single one of my relationships that were worth saving (and shone a spotlight on those that were not).
-I focus my energy on the things and people that I care about and just leave the rest alone. One key aspect of this was recognizing where my own female socialization had trained me to take on emotional and other labour that was not really my responsibility. I wish I could recoup the thousands of hours that I spent propping up various incompetent or semi-competent men, "helping" them with time-consuming administrative tasks that they were just too high-minded or busy or important to do, etc.. I can't get that time back but I have now reached a point where I simply don't notice those gaps unless they involve something very important to me, and then I make my support visible. Sometimes people have to deal with the consequences of their own action, or lack of same. There are no more "magical elves" in either my workplace or my home.
-The concept of "strategic unavailability" had really helped me in all this. I block out time for myself and my needs and wants--including the things I want to do for the people I care about--and then I'm just not around for the other crap. I don't get into big explanations, because I've noticed that if I do, people often argue that whatever I'm focussing on is not as important as whatever they want from me.
For me, focussing on my own inner peace is the bottom line. In some cases, you might decide to take on more than is fair because you will feel better about doing so, and in those cases, you are right to do so. But, your feelings are important and deserve to be factored into the cost/benefit analysis just like everything else.
posted by rpfields at 9:56 AM on November 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
One more point to add to the post above: recognizing that two seemingly contradictory sets of feelings about the same situation or person can exist simultaneously and both be equally valid and true has helped me a lot. For example, I used to think that if I saw the good things about my mother, and recognized the ways in which her own life had been difficult, I could not be angry with her about some of the things she said and did over the years. I thought I had to somehow reconcile the two sets of emotions, or make a decision that she was "on balance" one way or another. Now that I accept that I feel both ways about her, things are a lot easier.
In your case, it's entirely possible for you to love and appreciate your husband for all the things he is and does, and still be angry and resentful over some of the other stuff. You don't have to deny or ignore one in favour of the other.
Let it all be.
posted by rpfields at 10:37 AM on November 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
In your case, it's entirely possible for you to love and appreciate your husband for all the things he is and does, and still be angry and resentful over some of the other stuff. You don't have to deny or ignore one in favour of the other.
Let it all be.
posted by rpfields at 10:37 AM on November 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
In my experience its pride that keeps you from enjoying the progress. You will always feel a sense of "being owed one ". You not only feel overlooked in the compromise but in the Male/ Female dynamic in order for one to make it right they should be doing above and beyond to make you feel you're evened up, am I right? You may find yourself with a little more free time to ponder and ruminate on your owed desserts. It will have to come from the heart, your level of forgiveness, not from anything he is or isnt doing to make it up to you. Either walk for 20-30 minutes briskly or invite him over when your not doing an emotional tally sheet.
posted by The_imp_inimpossible at 10:47 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by The_imp_inimpossible at 10:47 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
I guess it depends on how long you're willing to put up with it. I found that leaving was the only good solution in the long term. Many years and a judge to finally get some child support out of my first son's mother, and the second is too fixated on pretending to be more disabled than she is but at least she's now draining the public purse not mine.
Parenting solo is not only a whole lot easier and more fun without being dragged down, but all concerns of fairness go out of the window.
posted by tillsbury at 11:35 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Parenting solo is not only a whole lot easier and more fun without being dragged down, but all concerns of fairness go out of the window.
posted by tillsbury at 11:35 AM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
I had similar issues when parenting my toddler. My solution was to open myself up to work travel, then take off for 12 days on an exciting project and a nice calm hotel room. I also made it clear I expected our kid to eat healthy food and enjoy enriching activities, and come home to a clean house. I was gone long enough for my partner to learn how to actually pull his weight. Parenting responsibilities went from 80% me to 50% me, my partner figured out how to parent so he has continued to pull his weight MUCH more than before, our toddler was totally fine and bonded more with his father, and my career jumped ahead. It was truly win-win-win.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 1:11 PM on November 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by nouvelle-personne at 1:11 PM on November 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Therapy.
Talking to my therapist bi weekly and raging or crying and being as emotional as I want and hearing “Yes that is hard, it makes sense you’d feel like that.” is hugely helpful. I feel like most people around me didn’t expect my primary new motherhood emotion to be white hot rage at the unfairness of the world and they don’t know what to do with it. But my therapist does! She listens and she validates and she then asks how do I want to feel and we go from there. My anger is more at society so I don’t know if what’s helping me would help you. And honestly I might end up on anti depressants because some days I’m doing great and some days I want to scream. I want to be the best person I can be and that might mean accepting there are limits to what work I can do on my own. But I do know I’d be a lot worse off right now if I didn’t have someone to help me deal with my feelings.
posted by lepus at 2:33 PM on November 1, 2020
Talking to my therapist bi weekly and raging or crying and being as emotional as I want and hearing “Yes that is hard, it makes sense you’d feel like that.” is hugely helpful. I feel like most people around me didn’t expect my primary new motherhood emotion to be white hot rage at the unfairness of the world and they don’t know what to do with it. But my therapist does! She listens and she validates and she then asks how do I want to feel and we go from there. My anger is more at society so I don’t know if what’s helping me would help you. And honestly I might end up on anti depressants because some days I’m doing great and some days I want to scream. I want to be the best person I can be and that might mean accepting there are limits to what work I can do on my own. But I do know I’d be a lot worse off right now if I didn’t have someone to help me deal with my feelings.
posted by lepus at 2:33 PM on November 1, 2020
I just wanted to chime in to agree with this:
You're asking us to tell you how to stuff your feelings down and how to make yourself even smaller.
I've been in two situations like yours, one of which was very much like yours, involving childcare and a really uneven marriage. In both of them I basically wanted what you wanted: to not feel resentful, to not feel angry, to not feel used. In both of them, those emotions were important warning signs that I was stupid to ignore. I did a lot of harm to myself because did ignore them and I therefore let myself be repeatedly emotionally damaged. A lot. It's pretty hard to overstate how much damage I took, or how much I've struggled trying to deal with it afterward.
I know this is not what you want to hear. I seriously do: the reason we get stuck in these situations is that any alternative is difficult. I did what I did in both cases because I didn't see another solution other than to suck it up and try to feel differently. But, spoiler: that was not a solution. I did not succeed, I really fucked myself up emotionally, and it didn't end up saving anything anyway.
posted by forza at 11:14 PM on November 1, 2020 [8 favorites]
You're asking us to tell you how to stuff your feelings down and how to make yourself even smaller.
I've been in two situations like yours, one of which was very much like yours, involving childcare and a really uneven marriage. In both of them I basically wanted what you wanted: to not feel resentful, to not feel angry, to not feel used. In both of them, those emotions were important warning signs that I was stupid to ignore. I did a lot of harm to myself because did ignore them and I therefore let myself be repeatedly emotionally damaged. A lot. It's pretty hard to overstate how much damage I took, or how much I've struggled trying to deal with it afterward.
I know this is not what you want to hear. I seriously do: the reason we get stuck in these situations is that any alternative is difficult. I did what I did in both cases because I didn't see another solution other than to suck it up and try to feel differently. But, spoiler: that was not a solution. I did not succeed, I really fucked myself up emotionally, and it didn't end up saving anything anyway.
posted by forza at 11:14 PM on November 1, 2020 [8 favorites]
I'm going to try and answer your actual question, about resentment -
Your child needs to be cared for (and you need to live in a nice environment).
Your child will get to the age where they are old enough to probably *recognise* resentment from their parent, but not really old enough to comprehend why.
So a parents biggest priority is probably something like, having your child not feel like they are a chore to be passed off.
Secondly, and when it's not affecting a child, trying to make sure adult convos about fair distribution of childcare happen at a time when kid won't be bothered.
But to a certain extent, it's easier to do that if you're just arguing to ensure you're being treated fairly, but you're not really *resenting* it, because that, again, will be picked up by a kid.
So, that jedi mind-trick can be something along the lines of - my child deserves to be taken care of, regardless of what any other adults are doing. I ensure my child is well cared for, and that that caring meets my standards, even if I'm not doing it. I love my child and this is something I've committed to.
And again, make sure you're having healthy adult conversations about load being taking off, but it kind of helps to think, if you were single parent, probably wouldn't be a in a better boat. And the caring for your child is not what you are resentful about, that's just the whole showing love thing.
posted by Elysum at 4:41 AM on November 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
Your child needs to be cared for (and you need to live in a nice environment).
Your child will get to the age where they are old enough to probably *recognise* resentment from their parent, but not really old enough to comprehend why.
So a parents biggest priority is probably something like, having your child not feel like they are a chore to be passed off.
Secondly, and when it's not affecting a child, trying to make sure adult convos about fair distribution of childcare happen at a time when kid won't be bothered.
But to a certain extent, it's easier to do that if you're just arguing to ensure you're being treated fairly, but you're not really *resenting* it, because that, again, will be picked up by a kid.
So, that jedi mind-trick can be something along the lines of - my child deserves to be taken care of, regardless of what any other adults are doing. I ensure my child is well cared for, and that that caring meets my standards, even if I'm not doing it. I love my child and this is something I've committed to.
And again, make sure you're having healthy adult conversations about load being taking off, but it kind of helps to think, if you were single parent, probably wouldn't be a in a better boat. And the caring for your child is not what you are resentful about, that's just the whole showing love thing.
posted by Elysum at 4:41 AM on November 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
I understand you to be uninterested in hearing from us on strategies to try to change the conditions of unfairness, so I'm going to honor that. I would second therapy -- there are many different kinds, and some are well suited to teaching you new ways to view things -- and meditation. I was taught that when meditating, it's ok to scratch an itch or straighten out a leg because your knee is bothering you or something like that; you just are supposed to not do it immediately. You're supposed to try to ride it out for some unspecified number of seconds, let's say, so you're not just reacting to it -- you're sort of more thoughtfully deciding whether to address it. This itch isn't just going away; I'm going to go ahead and scratch it (or, to give it yet a little more time).
This could translate, after some number of weeks of consistent meditation, to those situations that we don't see coming and that can lead to confrontations, or just to intense negative feelings. The idea as I understand it is that we'd now have practice not just reacting to things; we're putting space in between the event and any action we take, and in time we get better at filling that space with intentional thought. Maybe we give ourselves time to reframe the event: There is some mitigating factor that we can live with, now that we think about it. Or maybe we decide to speak up or act; now we're doing it thoughtfully instead of emotionally. Meanwhile, the meditation is also benefiting us in terms of how we feel, and/or how intensely, and/or for how long.
posted by troywestfield at 9:57 AM on November 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
This could translate, after some number of weeks of consistent meditation, to those situations that we don't see coming and that can lead to confrontations, or just to intense negative feelings. The idea as I understand it is that we'd now have practice not just reacting to things; we're putting space in between the event and any action we take, and in time we get better at filling that space with intentional thought. Maybe we give ourselves time to reframe the event: There is some mitigating factor that we can live with, now that we think about it. Or maybe we decide to speak up or act; now we're doing it thoughtfully instead of emotionally. Meanwhile, the meditation is also benefiting us in terms of how we feel, and/or how intensely, and/or for how long.
posted by troywestfield at 9:57 AM on November 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
I really appreciate your question and all the comments, I can relate to so much here! I experienced an onslaught of unfairness-realization after my child was born, both at home and at work (being a mother in academia - oof). The problems of living in a misogynist world really hit home when I became a mother. Before then, I was able to truck along feeling (pretending) like I had great autonomy and independence. But suddenly all these small things added up to an enormous burden. (CV depletion due to reduced conference travel because I had a nursing child, for example; plus the realization that I was somehow still the default cleaner of our house even while I was feeding a baby every 45 minutes, plus, plus, plus...)
To be honest, I'm 7 years in as a parent and still struggling, in career and marriage both. My spouse and I struggle with our gender dynamics, struggle to feel close to each other. Covid parenting is ridiculous, my university has not been enlightened in their policies about it, and too many of my colleagues seem oblivious to the real toll this is taking on my tenure-ability. None of it is anywhere near fair.
However: my spouse and I have had some success at opening up our communication and rebalancing domestic labor - first it was awful to discuss (rife with defenses and upset), and now it's more steady. One thing I have found enormously helpful as we leaned to talk about the gendered unfairness in our house is recognizing that we've both been trained into our roles through our whole lives, and shucking them is not easy for either of us. His domestic and emotional labor blind spots fit hand-in-glove with my habits of taking on emotional responsibility for others, of assuming that domestic labor was mine to do. We're both unlearning now, and it's not easy for either of us.
The whole mess still sparks my anger a lot. But it helps immensely to recognize that 1) my partner's sometime failures to take responsibility are deeply ingrained - they are not easily tossed-off, and 2) sometimes I'm my own worst enemy, because misogyny lives within me too. Of course, I'm more able to take this generous read of our situation when I see him making efforts to do more work - which he is doing. And it helps that we've been talking about this stuff so long that we can now catch ourselves and each other when one of us falls back into an old gendered habit.
I don't know if we'll ever get out of the woods with this! I don't know if I'll succeed at being an academic mother! I don't know if gender dialogues have killed all possible eros in our relationship forever! I don't know whether I even want to be a wife any more! Establishing that the unfairness our problem, not just mine, has taken open, honest, difficult, often gut-wrenching conversation. It is a many year project, and not guaranteed to succeed. But I do know that figuring out how to share the burden with my spouse has been invaluable. Learning to achieve emotionally open communication, to articulate the problems and seek solutions together: this has been a most excellent, illuminating, empowering thing.
posted by marlys at 10:09 AM on November 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
To be honest, I'm 7 years in as a parent and still struggling, in career and marriage both. My spouse and I struggle with our gender dynamics, struggle to feel close to each other. Covid parenting is ridiculous, my university has not been enlightened in their policies about it, and too many of my colleagues seem oblivious to the real toll this is taking on my tenure-ability. None of it is anywhere near fair.
However: my spouse and I have had some success at opening up our communication and rebalancing domestic labor - first it was awful to discuss (rife with defenses and upset), and now it's more steady. One thing I have found enormously helpful as we leaned to talk about the gendered unfairness in our house is recognizing that we've both been trained into our roles through our whole lives, and shucking them is not easy for either of us. His domestic and emotional labor blind spots fit hand-in-glove with my habits of taking on emotional responsibility for others, of assuming that domestic labor was mine to do. We're both unlearning now, and it's not easy for either of us.
The whole mess still sparks my anger a lot. But it helps immensely to recognize that 1) my partner's sometime failures to take responsibility are deeply ingrained - they are not easily tossed-off, and 2) sometimes I'm my own worst enemy, because misogyny lives within me too. Of course, I'm more able to take this generous read of our situation when I see him making efforts to do more work - which he is doing. And it helps that we've been talking about this stuff so long that we can now catch ourselves and each other when one of us falls back into an old gendered habit.
I don't know if we'll ever get out of the woods with this! I don't know if I'll succeed at being an academic mother! I don't know if gender dialogues have killed all possible eros in our relationship forever! I don't know whether I even want to be a wife any more! Establishing that the unfairness our problem, not just mine, has taken open, honest, difficult, often gut-wrenching conversation. It is a many year project, and not guaranteed to succeed. But I do know that figuring out how to share the burden with my spouse has been invaluable. Learning to achieve emotionally open communication, to articulate the problems and seek solutions together: this has been a most excellent, illuminating, empowering thing.
posted by marlys at 10:09 AM on November 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
I think it's possible to address this as a team, as long as you are a team.
For you, I suggest the following:
- for the sake of your emotions you can take a longer view, like plan (don't just hope) that he will be the primary parent doing all the kid activities and birthdays and planning from ages 3-6 or whatever, if you did 0-3.
- nthing that going away for a period of time greater than 4 days is probably the quickest way to give him some insight. If you do this, do NOT do all the work in advance.
- make a plan today for things he will completely manage. For example, in the non-Covid times, we arranged that I would sleep in on Saturdays and my husband would get up and take our child to swimming and then to kindergym, and then manage lunch, and then plan the afternoon.
- make it clear that 50%-50% is not enough. Some weeks and months, you are going to be at 35% capacity, especially if you're coming in with a deficit, and so he has do 65%.
- simplify everything so that you're both experts...like I made my own baby food to exacting standards, when we should have just had a set of jars we could both open
- book your leisure time. Around when my son was 2 I started booking one night a week out with friends (Fridays...frankly sometimes I hid in the basement and slept), one yoga class on the aforementioned Saturdays, and writing time in a cafe, plus work time.
- the hidden dual-income secret, if your jobs are able, is this: Female member, whose parenting is seen as an impediment to her career, does the daycare drop off three days a week, and can stay at work as long as necessary those three days. (not Friday.) Male member, whose parenting is seen as proof he's a responsible guy, does the daycare pickup those three days, gets the other two as his drop-off days so that he can stay late. I hope that makes sense.
This also puts him in charge of Feeding Child more weekdays.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:56 AM on November 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
For you, I suggest the following:
- for the sake of your emotions you can take a longer view, like plan (don't just hope) that he will be the primary parent doing all the kid activities and birthdays and planning from ages 3-6 or whatever, if you did 0-3.
- nthing that going away for a period of time greater than 4 days is probably the quickest way to give him some insight. If you do this, do NOT do all the work in advance.
- make a plan today for things he will completely manage. For example, in the non-Covid times, we arranged that I would sleep in on Saturdays and my husband would get up and take our child to swimming and then to kindergym, and then manage lunch, and then plan the afternoon.
- make it clear that 50%-50% is not enough. Some weeks and months, you are going to be at 35% capacity, especially if you're coming in with a deficit, and so he has do 65%.
- simplify everything so that you're both experts...like I made my own baby food to exacting standards, when we should have just had a set of jars we could both open
- book your leisure time. Around when my son was 2 I started booking one night a week out with friends (Fridays...frankly sometimes I hid in the basement and slept), one yoga class on the aforementioned Saturdays, and writing time in a cafe, plus work time.
- the hidden dual-income secret, if your jobs are able, is this: Female member, whose parenting is seen as an impediment to her career, does the daycare drop off three days a week, and can stay at work as long as necessary those three days. (not Friday.) Male member, whose parenting is seen as proof he's a responsible guy, does the daycare pickup those three days, gets the other two as his drop-off days so that he can stay late. I hope that makes sense.
This also puts him in charge of Feeding Child more weekdays.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:56 AM on November 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
Would taking on more childcare actually be worse than our current situation of being mad at each other all the time? Likely not.
I mean . . . try it for a month and see what happens. I couldn't without making my soul want to die, but you do you.
Sometimes you have to let yourself try something before realizing that it's really not for you. In my case, I buckled down and tried to become a good, attachment parenting, stay at home mom--and then within a year of finally getting childcare came out as genderqueer and stopped apologizing at work and now 4 years later I'm finally on the road toward equality in my relationship, though it's always a struggle. But I'm closer than I've ever been and happier than I've ever been. COVID threw a temporary wrench in that and suddenly I was making terse jokes about driving off to Canada like the mom in The Hours and feeling like a trapped bird in a cage. Got daycare back and hey, I'm human again and no longer feel like peeling off my own skin from the fundamental discomfort and misery of my life. You're not me and you're not your mom and need to figure out what works for you, though.
I agree that your anger is useful here and it's what's causing progress and change. I'm guessing you haven't accessed all of your anger, either. There's probably more to come. Previous generations have written about this. The novel of the Stepford Wives is a pretty good take on deliberately killing your ambitious, human self in order to accept less.
But really, I hope you don't. When I think about where I was when my kid was seventeen months old and my life was an overburdened mess--sheesh. Yeah, no, wouldn't want to do that again.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:11 AM on November 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
I mean . . . try it for a month and see what happens. I couldn't without making my soul want to die, but you do you.
Sometimes you have to let yourself try something before realizing that it's really not for you. In my case, I buckled down and tried to become a good, attachment parenting, stay at home mom--and then within a year of finally getting childcare came out as genderqueer and stopped apologizing at work and now 4 years later I'm finally on the road toward equality in my relationship, though it's always a struggle. But I'm closer than I've ever been and happier than I've ever been. COVID threw a temporary wrench in that and suddenly I was making terse jokes about driving off to Canada like the mom in The Hours and feeling like a trapped bird in a cage. Got daycare back and hey, I'm human again and no longer feel like peeling off my own skin from the fundamental discomfort and misery of my life. You're not me and you're not your mom and need to figure out what works for you, though.
I agree that your anger is useful here and it's what's causing progress and change. I'm guessing you haven't accessed all of your anger, either. There's probably more to come. Previous generations have written about this. The novel of the Stepford Wives is a pretty good take on deliberately killing your ambitious, human self in order to accept less.
But really, I hope you don't. When I think about where I was when my kid was seventeen months old and my life was an overburdened mess--sheesh. Yeah, no, wouldn't want to do that again.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:11 AM on November 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
As someone else with small kids, a very male-centered job, and a husband, I feel your pain, so, so much. I went a long time blaming myself and seeing my feelings as the problem. But somehow lately I've broken through to a different mindset. I am allowed to feel annoyed when something unfair happens at work! I am right to feel frustrated when I'm stuck at home with the baby while my husband and older kid are out doing fun things more often than the reverse. I deserve to have as much free time as my husband does, I deserve to work with a team of people that treat each other as equals and all share the work and the success fairly, and I deserve to take up space, both physically and emotionally. A little therapy went a really long way for me.
Do I get everything that I want and deserve? Of course not. But being better at seeing and accepting my feelings has been a helpful first step toward figuring out what I can accept and what I need to take action to fix. Also, acknowledging my feelings and accepting that they are legit has helped me to manage them better I think? Like, just because there's an unacceptable situation at work doesn't mean I have to go through my day in a white hot feminist rage. The anger at a bad situation is simpler and easier to deal with when it's not layered with shame and anger at myself for feeling angry about it.
Can you get into therapy somehow? Maybe remote sessions would be easier to work into your schedule than in-person ones? I feel for you and I hope things get better.
posted by beandip at 12:52 PM on November 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
Do I get everything that I want and deserve? Of course not. But being better at seeing and accepting my feelings has been a helpful first step toward figuring out what I can accept and what I need to take action to fix. Also, acknowledging my feelings and accepting that they are legit has helped me to manage them better I think? Like, just because there's an unacceptable situation at work doesn't mean I have to go through my day in a white hot feminist rage. The anger at a bad situation is simpler and easier to deal with when it's not layered with shame and anger at myself for feeling angry about it.
Can you get into therapy somehow? Maybe remote sessions would be easier to work into your schedule than in-person ones? I feel for you and I hope things get better.
posted by beandip at 12:52 PM on November 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
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There's still a tremendous amount of unfairness in most heterosexual relationships. It's not ok, and it's not trivial. This is your life, and your time and your labor. What would really be fair would be for your hubby to make up for all the time he essentially stole from you when he wasn't bothering doing his share of child care.
I have not coparented a child, but I have dealt with a shit ton of inequity at work. You truly are damned if you do, damned if you don't. You can either live with the simmering rage from tolerating the inequity, and on the surface have a "pleasant" marriage that becomes less and less authentic and more poisoned by resentment. Or you can make a stink about the way your supposedly loving spouse has treated you, and then he can act all butt hurt that he's being called on his shit. I wish for your sake that there's a third option where he takes responsibility and tries to make amends by doing *more* than his fair share for a while. In my experience this type of utopia has never existed.
I'm sorry I can't suggest a perfect solution, but I did want to chime in and say I feel for you, and that you deserve better than the way you have been treated. Good luck.
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 3:50 AM on November 1, 2020 [18 favorites]