An emergency question with a complicated answer. Ellie, I imagine you'll have plenty to say about this. I hope you will.
S. and I are going to have a big Financial Discussion one day soon. Here are the facts:
1. We have been splitting everything down the middle except for house expenses. Every time we go to the grocery store, every baby thing, all medical expenses.
2. S. went back to work F-T without really considering how it would affect my ability to work. I had counted on him being a freelancer still, working a few days a week, and having him around to help while I worked a few days a week, too. But he decided for financial reasons to go back, and now I can't really work at all without child care.
I'm sure he's going to ask me to contribute to the expenses of living in the apartment (utilities, to be sure, but he's also made noises about figuring heating costs, wihch he pays as a landlord for the whole house).
How do I handle this? I feel like I am working F-T taking care of our child, granted one he didn't want at first, but how does one handle this type of financial versus sweat equity without causing friction?
I'm sure there's stuff I'm leaving out, but I have 2 seconds left to post. Please, any insight appreciated, especially from those who are F-T caregivers of their children, and those who work to support their family solo.
My advice is to get a good handle on your feelings about those issues. It may be a discussion about money, but you'll be reacting out of your feelings if you don't identify and address your fears and hot buttons (by yourself) before you go at it with S.
Beyond that, ask for what you want. Listen. Be open to different solutions, but be firm about your boundaries. Do not try to convince S to see things your way, just make specific, behavioral requests: "I'm unable to work while caring for Lily right now. Would you be willing to pay all the household expenses(or whatever)?" If not, "Oh dear, I don't know how I'm going to be able to afford to live here. Do you have any ideas about how we can make this work?"
Hey J - One - I agree with trying to keep the emotion out of it. Hard, I know - "What!!!! I gave you the incredible gift of this child and you want me to pay half the light bill??? Don't you feel any manly desire at all to provide and protect????" - but that kind of emotion will not help you in this discussion.
SO - let's start with facing facts that he doesn't have those feeling we all wish he had. On top of it, he has considerable anxiety about his ability to provide, and has never been real comfortable sharing. Given that we know this about him - and that he (and you) started into this arrangement with the idea that you would be working - and that to him, you not working probably feels like more of an anchor (since he's not even sure he wants to be in the R, and if you have an income he probably feels "safer", like there's an out if he needs it - well, okay, this run-on sentence is probably driving you mad!!!
Anyway - I might work up a balance sheet for him in anticipation of any conversation. Find out what a decent in-home nanny costs for, say, a 20 hour workweek. Include in that the costs of doing a background check, and itemize that expense (maybe that will make him think a little about the reality of entrusting his baby to someone else?).
Figure out what your income is likely to be for 20 hours of freelancing. Be sure to factor in a slight reduction in efficiency because of the distraction of having nanny and baby around (although hopefully you will schedule them to go out for a walk part of that time). Also figure out what percent of that income would go to taxes, to figure out what your true "take-home pay" would be.
You might add in the cost of a cleaning service, explaining that nannies don't do heavy cleaning and that after working 20 hours a week the baby will need the rest of your time (never mind the nap you need each day to make up for getting up with the baby in the middle of the night).
Then subtract all the costs from your "take-home pay" and show him what the bottom line would be. He may be shocked at how little there is left over after childcare expenses are paid.
(Hee hee - you might show him how much his taxes would go down if he married you, too, but maybe that's a discusiion for another day??? )
On the other hand, you might decide that there's enough income left over that it's worth it to you to to go back to work, just to get the financial freedom of not being totally dependent on SO.
Just try to keep this from being an emotional discussion where if SO loved you, he wouldn't be asking you for a contribution. And perhaps you can discuss other ways you can economize on living expenses to help bridge the gap? If he sees you being truly responsible about finances, he may feel less pressure.
Oh - and P.S.? Don't ASSume what he is going to say.
Just checking the BB for the first time in months, up late, everyone's in bed... I should be sleeping, but can't... Thanks for checking on me, Andy.
Things in my R have normalized but not in such a good way. We have normalized dysfunction, if that's possible.
On a wonderfully positive note, however, my beautiful and brilliant baby girl is sitting up on her own now! It makes her look so big. And she is as sweet and happy as ever. What a gift.
I've been swamped, taking care of baby and working about 15 hours a week, and trying to keep some semblance of a R alive. Trying not to become the WAW. Thank god the weather is better, or I would have gone nuts by now. I've made some lovely new friends in my neighborhood (funny how carrying a baby tears down social barriers), which I am ever thankful for since many of my friends without children have dropped off the face of the earth, as though I have grown horns and a tail.
OK, really just babbling here, not much to say, and i am TIRED! I hope to be able to post more in coming weeks. I definitely need some cheerleading as I struggle with keeping the family intact for baby sweetness, against what seems to be ever-mounting odds.
Ok, being one of those whom might seem to have fallen off the face of the earth, I am here to say I have not! And publically state I am free this week and off to PR next week . . . how about Thursday night?
AND, I am very glad to see you come around and post - I do think it's still very helpful to post & vent here and look at things from other perspectives.
So tell us more . . . what are those ever-mounting odds? What are the things you think S. believes are true about you that may not be the case? Or things you could do something about to help the state of things? Where are you in the 5LL's, filling up the love tank? What do you need to see or hear to be able to believe things are moving in the right direction?
What are YOUR goals for you, and for baby sweetness? Come back here more often . . . let's work on it together.
I don't get here very often - can't with trying to work 15 hours plus my full-time baby and housekeeping gig. Before last week it had been more than a month since I lurked and certainly a few months since I posted.
I'm glad someone's asking questions because I am too stretched thin to come up with them on my own! So, from H2H:
what are those ever-mounting odds? What are the things you think S. believes are true about you that may not be the case? Or things you could do something about to help the state of things? Where are you in the 5LL's, filling up the love tank? What do you need to see or hear to be able to believe things are moving in the right direction? What are YOUR goals for you, and for baby sweetness?
The story we both stick to is that we're both miserable, starved for attention and affection, and "we just don't understand each other." Wow, what an understatement. The more I live with S., the more I realize that he and I speak such different languages as to not even be able to characterize them as, say, Mandarin vs. Spanish, but more like screeching eel vs. Pig Latin. We are not two people who speak different languaes, like people from Mars and Venus, but two different animals entirely. EVEN knowing this, even stretching to each other's phylum to try and learn the other's ways of the world, we continue to misunderstand each other so completely, so absolutely, that if it weren't so frustrating it could be comical (like, say, if you were stranded underneath a faucet dripping water on your cheek and there was a 5-second loop of Sam Kinison at top volume next to your ear, you might laugh, right? No? Well, that's about how funny it is).
We're beyond "doing" anything. We're just trying to get by. And for the most part, we're getting along as roommates who pass a baby back and forth between us. S. works until 8:30-9 and barely if at all sees the baby before she goes to bed. He gets up with her at 7 so I can sleep (because I don't sleep much during the night), and by the time I wake up to nurse her down for her morning nap, emerging around 10, he is getting ready for work and leaves at 11:30. So we see very little of each other during the week. Weekends he is so driven to get "stuff" done that he insists we make a little schedule for who is "responsible for" the baby, and we take turns keeping her while the other goes about business. We hardly ever do anything as a family.
Hearing S. loud and clear that he is "starved" for affection, and knowing from my own starved state how it feels, I've been trying to hug and kiss when I can, snuggle up in bed, and give a squeeze or hug when he is successful in getting the baby down to sleep. Today I removed his laptop and climbed into his lap, which he seemed to enjoy, and kissed his neck while I flirted gently with him. That turned into nothing as we argued about dinner and had a power struggle over the baby and how to get her down to sleep.
Good points: I can see S. working hard to "do" for the family, like going to the grocery store with the baby early mornings while i sleep, taking the baby in the mornings so I'm not exhausted from not sleeping all night, and attempting to make time for me to get things done for myself on weekends. I can see S. doing things for me (ever so occasionally), like making my coffee once to bring to me in bed (he doesn't drink coffee so a little bigger deal than it seems), or buying my favorite snack or whatever at the store when it wasn't on the grocery list.
What am I doing? I am making dinner every night, doing dishes constantly, making sure S. has enough breast milk at night to feed the baby a bottle so that he can have the bonding experience even though pumping is time consuming, getting his favorite whatever at the store when it's not on the list, occasionally making lunch for him to take to work, engaging him in conversation about his work-related interests (news, stocks) when he gets home from work, and watching movies with him even when I'm exhausted and want to go to bed.
LL: The movies are my QT with him (he loves that) and if I can manage to croak out WOA I do, even when I'm feeling like I do everything and get no appreciation for being a great mommy AND staying on top of the housework, not to mention all the reading I do about baby this and that (development, vaccines, etc.) and keeping the baby in clean clothes that fit.
So there's where we are. We have managed recently to have decent R talks (first since before the baby was born) and not gotten totally defensive. I credit my own detachment and next-to-hopelessness for the future of our R. It makes me able to talk with little emotion about what is happening. Sometimes, I get really emotional and dramatic (with myself), hating this life with him and wanting to leave. But I know I won't because of the baby at the moment, and I hang in there, wondering how it could possibly get better when we don't seem to be able to break out of the walled-in hell we're in.
BUT, we're both crazy about the baby and S. is a great dad. And the baby is happy and a joy to be with every minute of the day. And did I mention beautiful? She's a doll.
Just something I posted on Wendy's thread reminded me to note that I have been so detached as to not even be snooping much at all. I do check from time to time, and today especially was on edge as it was SM's birthday (mine is coming up soon, so I'm well aware of hers), but for the most part I've even forgotten to snoop, which is a good thing in a way and a bad thing in that I've become so detached as almost not to care.
)
And publically state I am free this week and off to PR next week . . . how about Thursday night?