Need Some Marital Advice...

[pjfootballer]

No kids and my wife works full time and goes to graduate school full time. We have to share in the household duties. Only thing she doesn't do is yardwork. I mow, trim and weed. She'll sometimes weed. She helped me wash the cars and wax them a couple of weeks ago. She had surgery a week ago, so she can't do too much yet.

I guess my point is, try and share in the work, even if it looks as though you do the majority. She'll appreciate the effort and you may be rewarded if you know what I mean.

[EnFoRcEr_uPu]

No kids and my wife works full time and goes to graduate school full time. We have to share in the household duties. Only thing she doesn't do is yardwork. I mow, trim and weed. She'll sometimes weed. She helped me wash the cars and wax them a couple of weeks ago. She had surgery a week ago, so she can't do too much yet.

I guess my point is, try and share in the work, even if it looks as though you do the majority. She'll appreciate the effort and you may be rewarded if you know what I mean.

I can certainly tell you that reward doesn't come often. I'm one of the lucky ones whose wife had children and her hormones have caused her to lose almost all sex drive!!!!! :doh:

[allsup]

My first thought was depression. Sometimes people in her situation, home all day with no outside interaction, tend to feel they have no value and that feeling can snowball.

Keep supporting her and let her know you are there for her. My hunch is when she starts school in the fall she will gain more self worth and start becoming more involved.........or maybe not.

[EnFoRcEr_uPu]

My first thought was depression. Sometimes people in her situation, home all day with no outside interaction, tend to feel they have no value and that feeling can snowball.

Keep supporting her and let her know you are there for her. My hunch is when she starts school in the fall she will gain more self worth and start becoming more involved.........or maybe not.

I actually had that same thought, and I hope you are right. I know at times she feels almost like a fixture in the house, which is why she's doing the church cleaning thing, it makes her feel better. Hopefully starting school helps. It's just hard on my end to know that she'll follow through and work hard at that while still being able to do things around the house and such, knowing she has a hard time already. I'll just have to have faith in her for that, which is what marriage is all about anyways.

Thanks for the tips everyone, hopefully all goes well.

[motorhead]

honestly, it sounds to me like she feels she is your maid in a way.

why dont you try cleaning up or cooking every once in a while and show her that you are an active participant in keeping the house in order and actually appreciate it. I am sure you do appreciate it but it can be easy for a woman who spends all of her day at home in her own head to start thinking that way.

i would encourage her to start doing stuff outside of the home and to get hobbies/interests that are "grown up" and are NOT centered around the home life and raising of the kids.

put yourself in her shoes for a minute. would you like it if you spent ALL day every day at home with 2 children? I know I would feel like a trapped rat and it would be extremely easy for me to get caught up in a rut and become depressed. And if you are telling her that she isnt doing the job she supposedly has that can easily lead to not feeling appreciated and help make you become more depressed.

I liked a lot of what said. I was married for 30 years she was also a stay at home mom. 3 great kids. I loved the **** out of her.

But when you said "i would encourage her to start doing stuff outside of the home and to get hobbies/interests that are "grown up" and are NOT centered around the home life and raising of the kids."

That's when she found her new boy toy. Damit!:2cents:

[Larry Brown #43]

I wonder if perhaps she's severely depressed, and not just a little depressed. As I read your original post, the word "depression" quickly jumped to mind, even before you mentioned it. It sounds as though she has a fairly serious lack of motivation, which is often related to depression.

You mention that she has issues with urgency, but the fact is, it seems to be more than that. The problem isn't that she takes too long to get to things...it's that she doesn't get to them at all.

I'm no doctor, but it sounds as though she's got some bigger issues going on than you can fix on your own.

Can you get her close friends or family involved--the people who care about her--kind of like an intervention? Or perhaps she needs professional help--but for that to work she needs to be able to open up to a professional about herself. You may need to help her do that, maybe by sitting in with her on these appointments.

I think you need to let her know that you love her and that you're very concerned about her, and that you're willing to do whatever it takes to help her. And explain to her exactly why you're concerned. Let her know the only thing you're not willing to do is ignore the situation and let it deteriorate.

[HogNose]

I wish I could give you some advice but I'm the one in our marriage that usually needs to be reminded three times to do something.

Same here. I need a good kick in the arse sometimes to get things done but I usually get them done and help around the house. My wife is a "type A"( thankgod) because I am a type B. We balance out.

Anyway I would suggest marriage counseling or find some time to sit down and discuss this with her.

[DeanCollins]

Dude, you didn't see this coming? Depressed most of her life. Does her mom act like that? Usually women become their mom to some extent or another. It might be a phase that she's going through or it is what it is. You may have to accept it or prepare to move on. It's certainly not something that you're going to have any control over. I know that you've got reasons for her being a "stay at home mother" and I'm not going there. But personally I don't think that's its a good idea for a number of reasons. It tends to lower the women self esteem, and I think that it takes a strong person to be in that role. With a history depression, it doesn't surprise me that she's acting dysfunctional. It's a sign that she's not doing well. Have you had any discussions about her going back work? Maybe the timeline needs to be shortened.

Another reason that the SAHM deal is not a good one (I'm gonna take some heat for this ) is that it guarrantees alimony if the "D" word comes into play.

[Enter Apotheosis]

I love it when people choose to dump on their significant other in a public forum. It seems that it's scarcely ever intentional... but I really just don't get what possesses someone to air out all the flaws of someone they're close to. You're more likely to do more damage doing that than you are to come up with a solution or provide relief.

If you really wanted to help her you'd probably do best to speak to a qualified professional and other people who are more intimately familiar with her as an individual (e.g., very close friends and family) instead of soliciting the advice of people who will make judgments without any firsthand experience.

[Sarge]

Obviously you have not trained her properly.

GIve her a list of **** that needs to be done everyday. Tell her to have it done by the time you get home and like it. And have dinner ready, the kids put in bed, be bathed and ready to go by 9pm

:paranoid:

I had to put this way down here so Mrs Sarge didn't see it:laugh:

Actually, if you say she's better than she used to be, then maybe it's something that is just going to take a little more time to get to your standard

You're both young and your marriage is reletively young as well. You'll both change a lot in another five years and for the rest of your lives. Hopefully you'll get to a point where you can finsih each others sentences like Mrs Sarge and I.

If clean is you thing, take one night or day a week (We do it on Sat) and clean the whole house before you do anything else. THen it's just a matter of a little pick up here and there during the week

[Bang]

Here's the only thing I can think of..

My ex wife= pig. The house was filthy. Laundry everywhere, dishes piled up.

My now-wife= totally opposite.

So I've lived in both instances. And when I think back those messes were big, dauntingly big, and typically would become big again after a LOT of cleaning.

But, since then my now-wife keeps things straight, and I've found that it is very easy to keep things that way once they are there.

So have a cleaning party. Don't blame her, don't start a fight, just say "honey, we're going to clean this house top to bottom, and then we'll just maintain that clean."

And hopefully she'll find that it is MUCH easier to keep it straight then to let it go to hell and clean it ALL.

With any luck she'll figure out how much less time is acually spent on cleaning when you just keep it that way. Use a dish, wash it right away. Doing laundry, fold it as it comes out of the dryer and it doesn't take much time at all.

That's basically it. Maybe you can show her it's easier on her to simply maintain the neat rather than become overwhelmed by a huge mess.

~Bang

[Mark The Homer]

Sounds to me like the whole thing stems from the depression you mentioned. You might focus on solving that first. :2cents:

[EnFoRcEr_uPu]

I love it when people choose to dump on their significant other in a public forum. It seems that it's scarcely ever intentional... but I really just don't get what possesses someone to air out all the flaws of someone they're close to. You're more likely to do more damage doing that than you are to come up with a solution or provide relief.

If you really wanted to help her you'd probably do best to speak to a qualified professional and other people who are more intimately familiar with her as an individual (e.g., very close friends and family) instead of soliciting the advice of people who will make judgments without any firsthand experience.

I can understand your position on this, but my wife actually now knows about this thread. I basically told her that I'm trying anything I can possibly think of to help her with this, and that this in no way was a way of bashing her. She knows she has trouble with this stuff and is okay with me trying to find ways to help, even if that means asking others for advice. Let's be honest, she'll never actually meet anyone on here in real life anyways.

[Bang]

Find her a shrink.

No joke, it does help for a LOT of things. Sometimes all it takes is talking to someone who knows what they're listening to.

I've seen one for over a year, and it helped me to really move through some things that were holding me down.

~Bang

[Capt Rich Fla]

I wish I could give you some advice but I'm the one in our marriage that usually needs to be reminded three times to do something.

One thing I can tell you is that when you have kids, the laundry is NEVER done. That's just the way of things.

Laundry? It's not like you have to go down to the creek and beat that stuff on rocks anymore.

[Kosher Ham]

24 and married. Glad I waited.

Maybe she is watching porn while you are out. Same thing you do.