I told my wife her life would be harder without me; now she's proven me wrong

"She expected me to know what to do with the baby, without telling me," says the dad, who finally half-understands exactly what the new mum had been asking him to do.

Jordana Shell

3 min read

April 10, 2024 - 2:07PM

Parenting

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When couples become parents, one of them often carries more of the mental load than the other.

This is something a recently divorced dad shared online that he's found out the hard way - although he'd argued against it in his marriage. But now that he's on his own, he realises how much more he could have stepped up to share parenting duties.

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"I realised how badly I f**ked up"

Following the birth of his now 14-month-old son, the poster's wife told him he "wasn’t pulling [his] weight with childcare and chores."

He adds, "But at the same time, she expected me to know what to do without her telling me.

"It was bad. We argued a lot, and I ended up telling her that her life would be harder without me."

When his wife didn't response, the man "thought that was the end of the argument," but it wasn't. It was the end of their marriage.

"Things fell apart, and we are getting divorced."

After a few weeks on his own, he decided that carrying the mental load and parenting simultaneously wasn't for him. He was desperate to work on things with his wife.

"The weeks I have my son, I don't get anything done, and I can barely even function at work because I'm so exhausted. I knew being a single parent wasn't easy, but I didn't really know until now. This is where I realised how badly I f**ked up because I am drowning.

"I spend the whole week I don't have him catching up, and I can't even get everything done. My apartment is a mess, and I can hardly keep up with errands and chores. It sucks."

"I thought since I was having a hard time, my wife would be too, and we could call off the divorce and work on things."

Spoiler alert: she didn't!

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"She says her life is easier without me, and she is the opposite of me. She says she isn't exhausted anymore and realised it's easier having one person to care for instead of two."

While trying to keep his head above water, he wants to ask for less time with his son but admits that he "can't afford the child support."

He ends the post confused and unsure what to do next, "I'm not looking for pity or understanding here. I know I'm not getting it."

"She's your son's mum, not YOUR mum"

It didn't take long for the onslaught of comments, with many queries about how he didn't know what to do to care for his baby.

“She's your son's mum, not YOUR mum. You're both adults. Why should she have to tell you what to do?” asked one user.

“Women aren't born knowing how to be parents!” quipped another, “It's all trial and error for us, too.”

This reader raised a relevant point: “That's called doing all the mental work. You are not capable of seeing these things and doing them yourself?”

And this person hit the nail on the head: "The chaos you’re experiencing? That was your wife’s 24/7 experience."

This mum agreed, adding, “You don’t want your wife back because you love and miss her. You want her back because you don’t know how to function as an adult without a mummy telling you what to do and when to do it.”

To which this commenter responded, "Seems like you only want your wife back because you don’t want to put in the work raising your son. Never do you mention how much you love your wife or miss her; no, you just want to go back to being lazy and don’t really seem that apologetic."