₦airaland Forum

Thanks so much for this advice. I really need a vacation , which i know he wont agree to because i have asked of one before and his response was , how will a responsible mother and wife leave the kids behind for her own selfish interest. As for leaving the kids with him for hours, hmmm he wont agree at all. just for me to go to the salon to make my hair, either i take the younger one along with me or the stylist should come to the house to make my hair and i will still be taking care of them simultaneously.

whenever he comes back from work i will dish his meal them go into the room to rest from the stress, i usually play soft old school music to help me out. the next thing after his meal he will come with the kids to disturb me saying why the distance that i don't want to spend time with him since he left me since morning. i will try that bath tub thing i know that will work, i will just lock my self in .
it just got dawn on me that he is a real traditional man.

babyosisi:
Take it easy,you don't need stress at this time.
First I will say that after this third child you call your last,go and get your tubes tied,so that you deal with just the three and have time to plan and get into your career.
The mistake you made is the same mistake many women make in marriage
We come in being a superwoman,we even see the man taking his own food from the pot,we run and collect the plate and serve him
Big mistake
I guess it is harder for housewives to ask for help because the man thinks you are home doing nothing
My hardest times as a mom was when I had to stay home with two little kids
I was tired all the time.just watching the kids alone was so much work let alone the housework and cookng.
After this baby,you must find something doing
Send them to school and daycare even if 2/3 of your salary will go there,you need it for your sanity sake.
Go to any day care,the workers don't last
Because it if tough caring for children but most men don't understand it and they have to be taught that wisely

Let me tell you something I did especially after my last baby.
As soon as hubby gets home and I say welcome,I run into the bathroom ,sit in a bubble bath with music playing from my laptop and I will be there one full hour or more
Every blessed day
It was one of the best things I did your myself,it was so calming
All the stress of the day disappeared in that water
It was either that or my sanity
Hubby simply got used to it and will sometimes make his own pounded yam and warm soup or wait till I came out.
That may have been the only time I had to myself all day and I needed it.

Sometimes you need to take a walk and leave him with the kids.
There is nothing that teaches a man to appreciate what we do than leave him alone with the kids a few hours or days to handle them he will be a changed man.
Try it
Take a vacation for a few days and leave him with the kids
Go out shopping a few hours and leave the kids behind

For the younger women reading,please do these things from time to time from day one so you don't fight and conquer in the battles some of us fought,I could fill a whole thread with my experiences.
When you are invited to a baby shower or bridal shower,leave the babies behind,he is their father
Invited to a wedding,he doesn't wanna go,share the kids ,give him the two smaller ones,take the older ones.
You have to assert yourself in some things o

I am also married to a traditional man,mine is so traditional he eats pounded yam every night but my mom came visiting when our kids were small and saw him doing housework and thought what a wonderful man,not knowing we didn't get there from day one.

So my sister be wise
[b]Don't take on any more tasks anything you can't handle say it upfront and ask for help or leave it undone
Get used to the scattered environment ,sometimes just use leg and kick the toys one side and pass
When the child misses school a few times or makes him late a few times,he will learn to help
Trust me it works.
But nothing works better than you going on a trip for at least 7 days without the kids
You will come home to a renewed man.[/b]

I had a talk with him today, but it yielded nothing positive. He kept telling me its my job to bathe and take care of the kids, that i should go and ask my mum. Funny enough, he can cook, and do chores well without stress if he wants to do them, but he is just being lazy or maybe proving a point to me. he said i cant be assigning chores to him, when i only begged him to start bathing our first son and then we do chores together. Hmm mm, it is well o

thorpido:
Your hubby is your hubby but I'm not sure he is your friend.Why would a husband not help out a heavily pregnant wife with house chores?
I think your hubby is the traditional african man and the fact that he's the one handling all finances makes him not want to help out.
Have a talk with him when the mood is right and if after all these,he still wouldn't budge,just do the much you can do each time and you have the next day to do the rest.

Thanks so much for sharing your story, it makes me know am not alone in this, but mennnn you are really trying. i have to do somethings fast so as not to let own get to this stage.

shrekandfiona:
when I read your post, it was a "deja vu" for me. Like you I have 2 kids pregnant for my 3rd as well. I married a traditional man who sees the woman as a domestic being. I am working though so what I did was employ a house help he never supported at 1st but I pay her myself. She is not a live in help. She resumes 8am and closes 5pm when I get back from work.

I wake up daily by 5am, cook for the house wake kids up by 6:15am to get them ready for school, their school bus picks them up by 7am, thereafter I prepare for my work. Hubby is still asleep till 8am when he wakes to eat his breakfast. I leave for work by 8:30am by then the help has resumed for cleaning.

can you believe by 1:30pm everyday hubby calls me to ask if his lunch is served at home and me am at work o. I have to call my help at home to make sure his lunch is ready. Note that he doesn't allow the help to cook his meals o. I cook and store away while the help just warms and serve.

It has not been easy but I had to adjust. So my advise to you is to get a help (not live in o) or get a relation like a younger sister or cousin to help you out because if your hubby is like mine, he will never yield to helping around the house o. I had to even change jobs to a more flexible but lower paying one just to reduce stress

Ridicule ke, instead i will be more than thankful. Doing chores for me had been an issue right from time , but its telling on me now. Finance is not the problem for getting a nanny or maid. he is scared of the recent development of house helps in the house. The monthly house keeper works in his company as a cleaner so he doesn't want him frequent in the house.
the problem is that even if the house is messed up he doesn't care, while i cant stay in a dirty environment. i ave tried it before to ignore the chores and just have a good rest, yet in that rest my mind keeps urging me to make the house clean.
i just need God's help n wisdom right now.

MarvellousGod:
Seems to me that he doesn't really care about you.. Has he always been like this or something prompted this attitude? Why wouldn't a husband help his wife grow her business? When he helps with house chores or does stuffs for you, do you ridicule him or something? Is he having a hard time at work or undergoing any tough situation? If he wasn't like this before, then you have to look well and find what brought about the change. If he's been like this, then you have to get used to it dear and there may be little you can do about it...

@bolded, once a month? quite ridiculous.. As i said earlier regarding chores, just do only things you can, there's always a next day...Maybe if he sees you no longer take care of laundry et al as you used to, he will be forced to employ an househelp...Or could it be he can't afford a nanny/househelp seeing he went for a monthly cleaner? do you know his financial status?..
All the best dear..

He really thinks and knows i can always stand in gap for him, but am human too with feelings. we had to move to another country because of his job, there i started biz. i was begging him to assist me with customers (his colleagues) for fast sales, he refused and asked me to go look for my costumers else where, in a place am just new to. Now he is making me to patronize his colleague wives in biz marketed by their husbands. i am just fed up he wants me to do things without his help. As for the house help he bluntly refused a stay in house help. when i opted for a housekeeper next, he said that will just be a waste of money since what i really need is a nanny or stay in house help but wont agree to that. just last week he brought a guy home to clean the house and said the guy will only be coming once a month.

MarvellousGod:
I wonder why a man will refuse to help in his own family, so silly.. Or maybe because you have always acted as the super woman(which isn't bad), he thinks you can handle just anything even when you are pregnant, He is so insensitive..
i will advise,
--Have a heart to heart talk with him when he's in a good mood.
--Do only things you can, don't over stress yourself.. could lead to health issues
-- Get an househelp..

All the best..

You are very right, i started what i thot i could finish. Anyways i have to put a stop to this, will surly look for the best time to address this.Thanks for the advice.

Renaj:
Your husband is obviously a traditional African man who believes certain roles should be for a woman alone. From the start, l think u were the super woman. Now with increasing responsibilities, he still demands that from u and nothing less. He is being frigid and emotionally abusive. Why can't he dress up his own child? First of all, find a good time, talk to him and express your anguish.

God bless you for this thread, i wanted to create a new thread for advice but found this matured thread with sincere n honest answers.

Hmm mm, where do i start from? I am married for 5 years with 2 children and heavily pregnant for the last child. My hubby takes responsibility of the family for now. I just finished my M.Sc. program awaiting my graduation, i don't work presently. I took in when my second child was just 9 months old, it has not been easy because i am alone with no nanny or house help. In fact since I got married I had been the only one with no help to assist me, i give God the glory for my strength.

To my problem, I have been having issues with hubby helping me with house chores it has been an issue for a while. With my pregnancy I would carry the little baby at my back to the markets, run errands and do house chores. When he saw the pain was much for me he decided to help by doing shopping n going to the market which i appreciate. Now i just entered my third trimester so it quite difficult for me to bend low. i usually wake up as early as 5 / 5.30 am to prepare the children for school. Oga will be sleeping till 6.30 am before he wakes up, at times when i wake late 6am i beg him to help bathe the first child. Today just got me thinking, why my hubby will call me names like lazy brat, bastard, useless, pathetic just because i asked him to help bathe his child so that he won’t go late because he takes him to school. He actually bathed him after a lot of complains but threw my child's shoe and sucks at me to put it on for him with all these abuses following his action. He also said i want to turn it to his job bathing our son.

Now i have decided to show him how a lazy brat behaves from now on. i think he is taking me for granted, because i behave like a super woman at home doing all the chores n errands even when am weak i still manage because i no he won’t help out.
please i need advice because those words are just too heavy for me and am hurting. i did not and will never call him names .