Evidence for God from Science

Long time no see to anyone who remembers me.

My baby is now almost six months old and i am blessed with a job that allows my wife to stay home and not work. I am very, very happy with this arrangement, but i need third-party advice to settle a dispute we have.

When we decided she would stay home, we tried to set 'rules' as to who does what. We agreed that for the eight hours i am at 'work' and she is at 'home', we would just consider both of us are at 'work'. SO, essentially, from 8-6, we are both at our jobs (her with our baby {Alayna} and me at my 'job'). SO every evening and every weekend (and every night) we share the burden 50/50. Sounds fair?

We still have the recurring argument that she needs 'a break' from the home. I think this is fair, but I don't ever get 'a break' from the house, because, quote, "You are not home all day." So, since i am 'not home all day', i don't get a break.

Is that fair?

EXAMPLE:

A friend is moving this weekend. All throughout the week, i watched my baby and my friends four year old so they could prepare for the move. Today is the actual move, and my wife doesn't want to watch the two kids for a few hours so i (being the only one who can lift certain things) can help the friend move.



FYI, my wife is reading this post, so i'm not trying bash her. We're just having a friendly disagreement.

My wife and I tried this and it nearly cost us our marriage. I'm not saying it may not work for the two of you but for us it simply was a disaster. We set ourselves up for failure from the get-go by being too legalistic so-to-speak. Once we started spelling out exactly what each one should and should not do, how many times and how often they're allowed to do it, both of us would always find a reason why one is getting more and the other short-changed. We ended up keeping track of EVERYTHING. How many bathroom breaks each took, how many showers, how many minutes away from the kids. It eroded the trust we had built in one another as we became obsessed with our selves and neglected the big picture (our marriage first, and raising our kids second). Thank the Lord we finally saw the light and scrapped the whole thing. We made a concerted effort to put the other's interest ahead of our own and to work on the common goal of the best interest of the kids. It took some time and a lot of hard work but we worked through it (17 years of marriage and counting). It doesn't get easier, it's is still a challenge every single day but it does become familiar.

P.S. Dealing with the kids for 8 hours is NOT the same as dealing with a job for 8 hours. Try a role reversal every once in a while and you'll discover why. (moral of the story: give her what she wants or else ).

Good luck to both of you.

Thanks byblos, but not the 'moral' i was looking for.

I don't think i explained the problem properly. We don't argue about who does what, etc. I have stayed home plenty of times (my wife worked for a few weeks after Alayna (baby) was born and i did stay home a lot of that). I completely understand how hard it is staying home. She also watches our niece for a couple of hours and is about to start watching our godson all day. Come January, she will also have our other niece all day. So, four kids, all under 5, for most of the day... I tried to warn her.

Anyway, the main problem we are having (i can't say it is a huge problem, since we both seem to laugh the entire time we 'argue' about it) is that she feels she deserves a bigger break (going shopping with a friend, whatever) than i do. When we first started, we were afraid i may 'belittle' her (not the right word, but i can't think of one) for not working. THe problem has actually gone the other way around, where she seems to think i don't work as hard.

I agree with Byblos,

And I will add this. Stick together. Stick together. Stick together. Do you see I repeated 3 times?
Having kids is a 24h job, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year and thats for the rest of your life, each one of you. Nothing less. I may sound moralistic here but I know what I am talking about. I am 53 years young and my wife is 50. Our kids are grownups and lives far from the house (son 27, daughter 20 - still a student becoming a doctor).

Byblos wrote: We made a concerted effort to put the other's interest ahead of our own and to work on the common goal of the best interest of the kids. It took some time and a lot of hard work but we worked through it (17 years of marriage and counting). It doesn't get easier, it's is still a challenge every single day but it does become familiar.

Yup, ditto. I will add: try to communicate do not argue, try to communicate do not fight. Always remember that the kid(s) came after. You are the pillars. Like I said in another topic everything you do (and/or ask) comes with the package. And it is so true with our children.

I am self employed and in our case I stayed home for work and care of the house. We had that problem where my wife was out with people (at her work) evening reunions, etc. while I was stucked in the house, somehow confined to it. When the kids where youg it was a lot harder cause I had to swallow... or embrass it?

Today we are old and sage. F...right we are: This fryday morning we planned our weekend: Friday night at home, super with a good bottle of red wine and simply watch TV. Saturday a walk in town and visit the Museum (Louvre in Quebec show) and watch a movie on TV. Sunday shopping for the winter that is coming, sort of

Fryday afternoon my wife calls me on the phone: our daughter is coming for the weekend. Our daughter is a tornado, she takes a lot of space! So we ended up changing our plans. We embrassed it, may I say. We are sage

I will give you both a 3 secrets: Hug yourselves. Hug yourselves in front of your kids. They have the right to know that you are one together. Plan sometimes for yourselves alone without the kids as they get older... Never go to sleep without solving an arguement or a fight.

Good luck to both of you.

My 2 cents.

Zebulon and Koko (my wife) .

"Never go to sleep without solving an arguement or a fight."

That's so right, Zebulon; you have such a great attitude!

Enigma, I hope you guys get it worked out. I truly think you'd have to be a "kid" person to watch all of those kids all that time. I couldn't do it myself (and maybe I'd feel resentful until I realized this). And as far as you feeling that she thinks you don't work as hard, is that really so? I'm sure she realizes that you "bring home the bacon" and that if you didn't, things wouldn't be the way they are. Anyway, only you and her know all the details. Perhaps things will get worse before they get better. In any case, I'll try to remember to pray for you; the Lord bless you both.

I also work and my wife is a stay at home, Home Maker (we have one boy he is now 8 years old, we have been married 10 years). She and I consider this her "Job". She needs a break and I also need a break from home. It works.... If not then you both need to make it work, somebody will ALWAYS be on the short end of the stick. Marriage is TAKE and TAKE, or GIVE and GIVE, Never give and take. It is never even 50/50 on anything. You both need to be understanding of each other, and bite your lip when you get the shaft, because both of you will be getting the shaft.

My wife is one in 6.5 billion, and I am very fortunate that God let us be together

Enigma7457 wrote:Long time no see to anyone who remembers me.

My baby is now almost six months old and i am blessed with a job that allows my wife to stay home and not work. I am very, very happy with this arrangement, but i need third-party advice to settle a dispute we have.

When we decided she would stay home, we tried to set 'rules' as to who does what. We agreed that for the eight hours i am at 'work' and she is at 'home', we would just consider both of us are at 'work'. SO, essentially, from 8-6, we are both at our jobs (her with our baby {Alayna} and me at my 'job'). SO every evening and every weekend (and every night) we share the burden 50/50. Sounds fair?

We still have the recurring argument that she needs 'a break' from the home. I think this is fair, but I don't ever get 'a break' from the house, because, quote, "You are not home all day." So, since i am 'not home all day', i don't get a break.

Is that fair?

EXAMPLE:

A friend is moving this weekend. All throughout the week, i watched my baby and my friends four year old so they could prepare for the move. Today is the actual move, and my wife doesn't want to watch the two kids for a few hours so i (being the only one who can lift certain things) can help the friend move.



FYI, my wife is reading this post, so i'm not trying bash her. We're just having a friendly disagreement.

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I'm gonna get flack for this, but here it goes.

My wife and I early on used to work different shifts. I worked swing ( 4pm - 1am) and she worked the day shift (7am - 3:30pm) We had our daughter and so I was the one that looked after her "the most". But it was sooo easy and I loved it! Please excuse me for finding this homelife so simple and relaxing! The ONLY drawback was that my daughter would get up early and I always wanted to sleep in, but I can't help but smile to think of it. Once my daughter could walk, she would come and wake me up by saying, "Daddy...are you awake yet?" and poke at my eyes with her soft little hands...*sigh*...I miss that! (she's 18 now) I did everything on a nice schedule. It worked flawlessly for the years we did this. I had all kinds of time to do everything I wanted.

I would gladly change this 8-hr daily grind for that life again!!! Even better would be to be the "mom" 24/7. I would have sooo much time to do lots of extra-curricular things after bedtime for the kids!

It's all about scheduling and time management!!

Ready for the flack from the moms out there.
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I couldn't agree with you more Bavarian Wheels. I was a stay at home mum until mine were 10 and 8. I loved it. I think men have the worse deal, having to work long hours and missing out on lots of the fun stuff.

catherine wrote:I couldn't agree with you more Bavarian Wheels. I was a stay at home mum until mine were 10 and 8. I loved it. I think men have the worse deal, having to work long hours and missing out on lots of the fun stuff.

A defector! Thx Catherine.
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Wow, a lot of varying opinions.

First of all, let me add this: We are not having any marital troubles. We practically never argue. I love my wife and i am very, very grateful i have a wife who wants to stay home. I love it.

My only complaint is that i don't get any breaks from the home. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve them, because lord knows she does (even if we didn't have a daughter, she'd need a break from me ). It also doesn't help that i hate my job.

Anyway, thanks for all the adive, will put some of it to use.

Until we meet again