21st century women can be difficult

I'm a new dad, and my wife and I have been married about five years. I married a very progressive, 21st century woman. We dated a long time before marriage, too.

I work long hours (60+ a week), but bring in a comfortable standard of living. My wife does not work anymore. She had an on-and-off again career in education, but never needed to work.

Here's the rub, she WANTS to stay home for our newborn, and I'm cool with that but now that I'm a little older and worn out I wouldn't mind having married a less-progressive woman. I'm more stressed out when I come home than when I'm working. I come home and I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'd just love to have the smell of dinner in the house. Never. Even the mention of that expectation would be enough to have me labeled as a neanderthal. We have a house cleaner, and now we're looking in to hiring a nanny part-time too.

My wife takes care of the baby, but I watch him mornings and for a good part of the weekends. When I get home from work I want to unwind, but instead I have to jump into taking care of the kid.

There's a part of me that wonders if I'm an unreasonable savage and there's another part that wonders if being a liberal, 21st century male means I've lost my balls.

Your desires are not unreasonable at all.

..

Wait, your wife doesn't work but doesn't cook or clean? WTF is she doing all day? However, you marred her so tough ******* for you.

I want your wife's life minus the baby.

Do you want to be paying alimony in a few years?

Surely a progressive woman believes in equal division of labour and responsibilities?

Are you going to go easy on her because she is a woman and your wife? By the sounds of things, you would cook dinner and look after the kid if she was working.

You can hardly be a progressive man if you're not eating.

Originally Posted by VelvetGreen

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Surely a progressive woman believes in equal division of labour and responsibilities?

Are you going to go easy on her because she is a woman and your wife? By the sounds of things, you would cook dinner and look after the kid if she was working.

You can hardly be a progressive man if you're not eating.

I don't think op's wife is progressive, just lazy. I know plenty of progressive women and they understand division of labor.

If there's no partnership, where is the relationship? That's sort of a fundamental thing -- the difference about "modern" if you will, relationships is that the roles aren't pre-defined. But there still needs to be partnership. ~ H

I don't know, man... your wife just carried your child for 9 months and had to go through labor to bring the child out, plus ppd is always a possibility... I'd cut her some slack for now.

Originally Posted by acidboy

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I don't know, man... your wife just carried your child for 9 months and had to go through labor to bring the child out, plus ppd is always a possibility... I'd cut her some slack for now.

What he really needs to do is tell her how he feels not us. I'm sure there is a midpoint they can meet at like he gets 45 minutes of alone time when he gets home from work or something.

I have a close friend who has a very similar situation that recently ended in divorce this past year - after 15 years of marriage. OP needs to address this before this type of relationship becomes entrenched or he will do whatever it takes to spend beyond those 60+ hours a week somewhere besides home.

This is actually quite common, I have several friends in the same boat. It will progressively get worse for you when the second kid comes and the children start to grow up.

Definitely raised the issue and her argument is she is always on with the kid while I at least get to go out to lunch etc. It's a bad bad thing. You're right.

I'm far from a marriage expert. But I cannot imagine the marriage continuing happily if you feel trapped in a stressful cycle of work in the office and more work at home without a wife who understands and is willing to help out.