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I'm not totally comfortable with this, but I'm desperate and don't know where else to go. I don't have anyone to talk to...my parents have told me not to bother them anymore and since becoming married my friends have all gone their seperate ways. My husband brushes off my depression as hormonal imbalance due to pregnancy - and maybe my 'condition' makes things seem more extreme, but I fully believe that I wouldn't be having such a hard time if he could give me a little support or even just listen to me...
Firstly, we are struggling financially. We bought a house last year and a vehicle the year before. Between bills, insurance, car payments, home repairs (we just replaced our furnace and are in the middle of re-insulating our windows for winter), and groceries, we are barely scraping by. We also have property taxes due by the end of the year, a broken water softener and a need for a bigger vehicle this winter that I have no idea how we're going to come up with the money for. I'm a stay at home with 2 kids and 6 months pregnant. I've been trying to find a way to bring money into the home - I'm fairly decent with sewing and needlework and have been scouring the internet for jobs I can do at home - but between kids and chores I rarely have a moment to myself and so this avenue appears to be fruitless. I'm teaching a cooking class through our community center next month, which could potentially pay off most of our property taxes if enough people sign up and my husband holds to his word to watch the kids while I'm gone. My husband has a good job in the trades, though he's new to the trade he has the opportunity to advance by getting his papers (4 years of school...and extra expense). His wage allows us to pay the bills, but leaves nothing to put away for savings and only gives us enough to make minimum payments on our dept. We can't even afford for him to take a sick day. I do everything I can to save where I can - I make 99% of our food from scratch, I buy our kids clothes second hand, and wear my husband's old worn out work jacket in the winter since mine broke on me early last winter...Yet my husband still spends money on chocolate bars, chips and other junk food while he's at work - even though I send him a lunch - even though he has agreed to stop spending needlessly (I don't think he realizes that I find the wrappers in the car). We are more or less reliant on my husbands income, but I'm constantly stressing out over his job. It's good, but he's unreliable. He's late for work every day because he can't get his butt out of bed in the morning. He stays up until 1 am and expects to be able to be at work at 8 am. He usually rolls out of bed around 730, with my prodding and nagging - and I feel like I shouldn't have to kick an adult out of bed daily. He then takes the next half hour or more to get ready, visit with the kids and pittle around the house (looking for tools he needs for work or unloading firewood from the car, etc). On Monday he was over 3 hours late. I'm just waiting for the day he comes home and tells me he was fired - because quite honestly if I were his boss I would've done it already. We're in a rural area, so jobs aren't exactly abundant in this area, and good paying ones even less so. I don't know what we're going to do in the winter if we get snowed in and has to miss work - it happened several times last year.
Secondly, I clean the house over and over again and yet it's still a mess. I'm not talking about kids toys on the floor or unmade beds here. For example, I clean our entryway and within a week my husbands tools are all over the place. I don't mind him starting a project but it takes him a month or more to get the project done, at which point he tells me he'll get around to cleaning up his tools when he has some time and energy. After a week or so I finally get sick of the kids and I stepping on nails and having to kick giant painters tarps infront of the door so we can get our shoes and jackets and then infront of the closet so we can get out the door, that I pick it up. Then he comes home and says something about how I didn't have to do that he was going to get around to it. Then usually give it a few weeks or a month and he's throwing a tantrum because he can't find the tools I put away because I didn't put them away properly. Or nearly every morning I find a plate and water cup sitting on the computer desk. He constantly complains that his water cup disappears, so I started leaving his water cup alone, and within 3 days he had 3 water cups all sitting together on the desk - if he isn't going to reuse it why is it a problem if I clean it? I feel like I shouldn't need to constantly pick up after him - it's like I have an extra child in the house! Then he tells me if I need a hand with something to just ask him. So I ask him to carry the laundry basket upstairs when he goes to bed for me, and after a week it's still sitting there - and usually by that point all the nicely folded clean clothes have been thrown all over the place by the baby and need to be refolded. Or I ask for help with the dishes and he whines the whole time he's helping.
Thirdly, I never get any time to myself. I can't so much as pick up a book when the babe is awake, if she catches me doing anything but paying attention to her while she's awake she feels the need to correct this. We also homeschool our oldest, and so when the baby is napping it's 'school' time. Even right now the only reason I can write this is because I'm neglecting his 'school' time and the baby is asleep (this is actually the second time I'm writing this because she caught me at the computer while she was awake and came up and jammed the keyboard and somehow deleted my post). I often go to bed shortly after my oldest does, after I've done dishes and tidied up - usually while hubby plays on the computer, although sometimes he works late and doesn't get home until the kids are in bed. Even when he is home on time asking him to look after the kids for a bit is usually more trouble than it's worth - he often gets grumpy and then I get 2 grumpy kids to put to bed and a grumpy man to deal with the rest of the night. I get up before the kids so I can shower and maybe squeeze in some time for myself - and I'm lucky if the baby doesn't wake up early. When hubby and I sat down for a 'serious' talk a few months ago he promised he'd get up with baby in the morning so I could have some time for a walk or yoga or whatever, but that lasted a few days at most. The only time he really looks after the kids is when I have a mental breakdown, which is happening more and more often these days, and quite literally lock myself in our bedroom to force him to look after the kids - which sometimes means he has to miss work which again is not good for his reliability or our financial problem. Sometimes I go to the city on weekends (when hubby doesn't have our only vehicle) and leave the kids with my parents for a few hours, but this time is always spent buying groceries. After a day in the city I usually come home to a disasterous house - I honestly don't know how hubby makes such a mess at home by himself all day. It usually takes me a day or two to catch up on the dishes and find all the junk that's been left around. And it doesn't seem like he does anything the whole time I'm gone. Must be nice for him to get a day all to himself to do whatever he wants. Or even if he does do something (like installing our new furnace) at least he gets to do it uninterupted. Usually he's hungry and needs me to fix food when I get home too, or bring something home with me. I feel selfish demanding time to myself, and those days I have mental breakdowns and do get time to myself I can't really classify as 'relaxing' time because I spend most of it bawling my eyes out and pull myself together - I can't even manage to read a book or anything during these times because I'm so distraught. I don't like my kids seeing me this way either, it's not fair to them. Am I a bad person for wanting a little time for myself? Alone?
I feel terrible and trapped; like my life is over and all I have to look forward to is misery. I love my kids but I feel like I can't be the parent they deserve and I feel even more guilty because I'm bringing another child into this atmosphere. My whole life all I ever wanted was a family, but I feel like I'm a failure and I'm seriously starting to regret ever having followed this path. I feel like running away, but I have no where to go - my parents have already made it clear I'm not welcome to live in their home and my siblings don't have room for myself and the kids. I used to feel welcome to stay at my local temple - I have a lifetime membership there - but since everything else has been going on in my life my service there has been severely lacking and I rarely even make it to Sunday program and so I don't feel like that option is available to me anymore...I don't really want to leave my husband either, I feel like it's just admitting defeat if I do and that life isn't going to be any easier if I do anyway...
I don't know...I just needed some sort of an outlet....
