05 March 2024 , 19:36
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Dear Coleen
I’m a 38-year-old woman, I’ve been married for 10 years and we have three young children. I don’t work any more. I gave up my job when my youngest came along three years ago, as I just couldn’t manage juggling the kids with working full time.
I was happy to do this for our family and, my husband, who has a decent job, agreed it was the right thing to do.
Now, however, we bicker all the time and I’ve gradually started to hate him. He’s like a bear with a sore head every evening when he gets home from work and expects everything to be done – kids bathed and ready for bed and his dinner in the oven!
To cut a long story short, we had a huge argument the other night over something one of the kids had done and he said a few things to me that were so horrible and patronising.
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The gist of it was that I have an easy life at home and don’t understand what he has to cope with every day out there in the working world. He said all I do is buy coffees and meet my friends at the park.
I was literally dumbstruck and so angry that I still haven’t talked to him about it, although he’s looking pretty sheepish. How the hell can I sort this out?
Coleen says
Reading between the lines, he sounds quite stressed and now it’s all boiled over and he’s said some things he probably regrets. I think it’s obvious you’ve stopped communicating on any meaningful level, so you’re both storing up lots of resentment and anger, which is going to explode as soon as there’s a trigger.
I’m tempted to say you need to go on strike for a few days, so he has to cover your shift at home and realise what it’s actually like to look after three young kids full time and keep the house running.
However, what I actually think you should do is stop and reboot.
You have to somehow find a bit of time on your own as a couple and open up that can of worms you’ve been avoiding for so long. Neither of you sounds happy and fulfilled, you both seem tired and stressed so, the question is: what do you do about it?
How can you help each other out more? How can you carve out some time to be a couple and rediscover romance? You need to find empathy for each other and work as a team again, so it’s important to listen and appreciate how the other person feels.
If there’s a lot of low-level bickering, you need to start being honest about why you’re not happy and what you need to make things better.