I need actionable solutions only.
My husband (40M) and I (40F) have been married less than a year, and we’re both very open to children if that’s in the cards somehow.
Before we got married, he seemed to be managing his money well. He was able to keep a clean house when we first started dating. He was originally very engaged in establishing and maintaining our relationship connection. I said to all my friends and family when we were dating, “thank God, I found a man who is a fully baked adult.”
But now, everything seems to be up to me. Things he said he would do, like put a specific amount of money into savings, or start the laundry when the hamper is full, he’s not doing. He forgets the things he has committed to. He will walk by a full laundry hamper for days, adding more dirty laundry to it, but won’t do anything about it. He will occasionally bring dirty dishes into the kitchen, but won’t empty the dishwasher so he can put them in there.
He is self-employed and works really hard, but I pay for everything but groceries. He doesn’t seem to really know at any given time if his business will make money this month. (He had a full time job when we met, making triple what he makes now, but he quit to start his own business).
I know he’s capable of being an adult because he demonstrated those behaviors early on. I was very discerning and unwavering in who I would partner with, because I’m looking for a partnership; not a caretaking role. But somehow now I’m still in this position.
Leaving CANNOT be the one and only solution. There must be something that can work (and I’m not talking about Fair Play or other thinly disguised parenting techniques).
Is there someone (preferably a husband) who can tell me what worked for them? My husband and I love each other, and I really miss the version I had who would have been ideal to start a family with.
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Sit down and talk.
Talk about finances and how the two of you will split costs starting next month. Talk about chores and how to split them in the household.
You literally need to talk to him about all of these things and work together to establish a plan. Don’t be antagonistic and don’t make accusations. Just say that you want to reevaluate how the two of you manage the household together, and you want to get on the same page about expectations moving forward.
Have you told him this exactly like you told it here? That you feel bad constantly, miss who he was before, feel anxious about the future,…? Like, did you have a full serious talk?
This is a boundaries situation. You decide, by yourself, what you are willing to do. This is how much you are willing to pay, this is how much you are willing to do, this is how you are willing to live. You will either live like that with him or you will live like that without him. He can change, or not. If he chooses to be someone who you can’t live with, which certainly seems like the case, then you know what you have to do.
Have you told him how you’re feeling?
I’m a husband who’s currently feeling less capable than when I first met my wife. This may or may not apply to him, but since this is the kind of advice you asked for…
The thing that stands out to me in his story is the achievements he had working for others vs. him struggling to do things for himself. I relate to that. When I worked for other people, it was easy to motivate myself to do things in and outside of work. At work, I had to worry about disappointing my colleagues, and I’d also daydream about what I wanted to do when I got home, so when I finally got there, I was super motivated to do it. Now that I’m not working for a company, I find it hard to follow up on any specific thing that matters to me because none of it is floating to the top as more important than the rest. So maybe his issue is similar, and he’s not doing these things because of choice fatigue or lack of structure.
I’m also assuming that the way he talks about his current business (being unsure if it’s going to thrive or fail) is different than how he talked about his old career, where he could just show up, do his best, and rest easy knowing he did a good job, or at least someone else would take responsibility if things didn’t go well.
In this case, an actionable solution might be to help him find a new source of that structure. You should not be the source of this structure, because that’ll reinforce your own feelings of being his supervisor. But maybe if he has a regular routine of tasks where he doesn’t have to use his executive function—just “shut up and do it, no matter” what time, where he does the thing he’s expected to do at the highest quality he can without worrying about whether he’s doing it wrong or it’ll be doomed to failure—which is separate from the time he needs to make executive decisions for the business and for the household.
Maybe that’s volunteering at a manual labor job. Maybe that’s having some list of chores that he does every morning, rain or shine, without fail. Maybe it’s a part-time job that still allows him sometime for the business. Or maybe he could go to the library and check out a book like Getting Things Done or Atomic Habits.
How long were you together before you got married?