My husband doesn’t help around the house

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Hi, I am Ana Parra Vivas and I help women to reconcile their professional and their personal lives so they can have success and a well-balanced lifestyle. You have kids and you notice you are doing more than your husband. You might even feel your husband doesn’t help around the house as much or at all! Why?

I have been married for 15 years. And my marriage has changed throughout the years. I noticed a change when we had children. We were married without children for seven years, and when we had children, all of a sudden I noticed he was doing less than I was. I noticed that he was not as fast as I was expecting him to be.

My husband doesn’t help – He doesn’t want to be here!

For some reason, I didn’t notice that before having kids. When we had our first baby, my husband, for some reason always wanted to be outside of the house. He offered to go to the grocery store.

And because you are learning and you don’t know much about babies you say, “Oh, we are missing a bottle.” Then, “We are missing milk.” And then he says, “Oh, I’ll go.” And then after a while, I say, “Wait a minute, he just wants to be outside of the house. He just doesn’t want to be here.”

And at home, I noticed that he probably forgot to put the dishes in the dishwasher. He was not making dinner at night when I got home. I start noticing things that I didn’t notice before having kids. I said to myself “My husband doesn’t help me with the baby. Worse, I started to feel my husband doesn’t help me with anything!

Men Experience Parenthood Differently

We need to understand that they didn’t have those babies in their tummies for nine months. Mothers develop an unconditional love for those kids. For fathers, it takes time for them to develop that love because they just met that person. We need to understand that.

And if you expecting your first child, you’re going to notice the same thing. I thought that he was going to love that baby the same way I did the first time he saw it. But it is not like that. It takes time for them.

It takes time for fathers to adjust to everything that is going on. It’s a new child. Now they have work to do. Now his wife is upset and mad all the time. It is an adjustment for them also. Are you surprised your husband doesn’t want to help?

The more I learn about myself, the more I learn about my husband. Back then, when I didn’t study myself, of course I was blaming him. And, of course, I was upset. I was asking him to be another Ana. That’s what I was doing.

Now that I understand more about me, I understand more about him, and I know it was not fair to him.

So what can you do?

Understand the Difference

The first thing we have to do is to understand they’re different. He didn’t carry that baby for nine months. He didn’t develop that love as we mothers do for those kids. Women are made to create children. That’s how our bodies were built. When we have a bond with those babies, we don’t want anything to happen to those babies.

For fathers it takes time. It does not happen as quickly as for us because we develop that even before they’re born. Don’t expect your husband to be another you. I was expecting my husband to be another Ana. And that’s impossible because we can do multiple tasks at the same time. They can’t.

Look at What’s on Your Plate

And this is very important; you have to review your workload. Of course, you probably have some time away from work because you are going through recovery after the baby is born. You may even be struggling with postpartum issues. But what if you already went back to work like I did and I noticed all of these problems at the house?

I noticed that my husband was doing less than I was doing. Friends have said to me after their first child “My husband doesn’t help around the house anymore.”  Like them, at that time I didn’t understand why he was like this.

I was working a lot. My job was very demanding. I was working not just nine to five, I was working on the weekends and at night. So that job was not the job that I needed when I was raising a young family. Probably later in my career, but during that time, it was not the best thing to do.

The first thing to understand is I’m not asking you to quit your job, but at least review your workload. What are you doing? What are the things that you can do to reduce your stress? Perhaps having a part-time job. Maybe become an entrepreneur, or just have some flexibility. And also talk with your husband.

Before talking with your husband, let’s plan this because if you start talking with him without a plan and without direction, you will not get anything done and you will probably start fighting with him.

Finding a Compromise

What I suggest is let’s review what he can do with his skills. One of the things that you can do is see if he likes to grill. If he loves to grill, you can say, “Hey, you’re going to grill meat and sausage or potatoes or whatever on the weekends so we can use that for meal preps for the week.” Or maybe he loves to cook.

My husband loves to grill, so that’s what he did. And if your husband loves to cook, say “On the weekend you cook for the week. So, during the week I don’t have to do that.” And you can use that prepared food for dinner or for lunch.

Review what else he can do to help you. He can probably do the grocery shopping. Sometimes I see couples at the grocery store, young couples with three or four kids and the kids are not happy, the wife is not happy, and nobody looks happy.

What do you want?

I understand you might want to go as a family but instead of doing that, what if he goes alone? You stay with the kids. You go to a park during that time. Or you can say, “Hey, you stay with the kids and I will go grocery shopping.” Something that is going to help you relax. It’s just grocery shopping. But even going alone, you can put some headphones and music on to block out kids crying.

Before talking with your husband and planning this out, you need to think about the things he can do. What are things you can do? How are you going to split things? What are your relationship goals? Because if you think that he’s going to read your mind and he’s going to know all of a sudden everything about kids, about babies, everything that they need, that’s not going to happen.

And that’s why we feel frustrated.

Talk with Your Husband About Your Wants and Needs

What I suggest is to review the situation and tell him. Your husband will love to hear from you what you want.  One of the things that I learned during my journey was that I couldn’t work the job that I had. I am not suggesting quitting your job or to quit your career.

I did change my career. I am now an author, an entrepreneur, and a coach.

Before, I was thinking that I could just manage a nine-to-five job, but it actually was more than that. I wanted my career to be flexible. And now there are so many ways to earn money or to earn an income, but we just got to be open. We cannot expect our husband to tell us what to do because you are the only one who knows what you want.

I send weekly emails that are Manifest Mondays, in which I include this information and more. You can subscribe with this link