My husband is driving me crazy! He works nights so if someone in our family has a doctors appointment then I don't have to take time off or pay someone to do it. I come home and he plopped all the kids in front of the TV the whole time I was gone (1 hr)! Yesterday morning he was upset because he wanted to watch one of his tv shows in the living room. I told him no, dck are here. He was so upset. I told him to go upstairs to watch it. We have this argument often about him wanting to watch TV during dc hours. He says it is his house and he is not at work so my parents and I should understand that he can do stuff in his house. Kindly I reminding him...hey I am working! It is a constant battle! I go to bed at 10:30 he stays up until 1 or 2 am. I wake up and I have crushed up crackers/cheese on the floor, a full load of dishes to do, clothes all over the floor and other junk. I have to wake up 30 minutes earlier than I need to, to clean up the mess, get our kids ready and out the door, shower, making breakfast and anything else. Urg! I honestly want to ban him from the house in the morning until he gets off work. Then keep him upstairs so he doesn't make a mess! (Or throw the tv on the curb haha) Sorry just so tired of this. It's been going on for 2 years now since he moved to a night position.

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Maybe you could "term" him

Sorry... I have no advice but he sounds like more work than a toddler.

for putting up with that and NOT being paid for it

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I would not put up with that.

Ever.

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My husband puts up with a lot because of the daycare, and has been working crazy long hours at work in 130 degree heat this summer. Since these long hours started, I get up, pick up his clothes off the bathroom floor, clean the bathtub, because he took a shower after work, go pick up his empty pop cans from the living room table, and clean up from whatever mess he left in the kitchen while scrounging for a meal after work.

I was angry when this stuff started a few months ago, but I got over it and I never mentioned it to him. He sleeps in the basement during the week so that the kids disturb him less, but he still doesn't get "quality" sleep with kids running around right above his head, he still has to get up in the middle of his sleep to cover me for appointments, and he has to live with sharing his house with a bunch of 1-5 year old boys (ALL BOYS!). He puts in work in the yard to make a nice and safe place for them to play, recently made an 80 mile round trip to pick up a playhouse for the daycare kids that he found a bargain on, and generally supports me in my business. If I have to pay him back by picking up after him while he puts in 70+ a week at work, I just grit my teeth and do it.

I'm NOT saying that you shouldn't have rights, but that your husband is probably just as inconvenienced by your career choice as mine is. Is he the kind of guy who is willing to compromise?

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Gee, I have been battling those same fights for 29 years now. For the most part he's, good about it. Or I should say, good about everything except for his tv time which is from 7:30AM until 9:30PM.

I have no advice because I've yet to win this battle.

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I've been doing daycare almost 2 years now and my husband and I used to have the same conflict constantly when he would get home from work around 4:30pm. My daycare was open until 5:30. He would leave the baby gate open, want to watch tv, make himself a meal, poop and stink up the house, shower maybe, smoke a pipe maybe, talk to me, say something dumb to the parents, etc etc.

We decided the best thing to do was for him to just not come home until daycare was closed and it was just "home." It relieved all the tension. He started going to the gym after work, or going to Tim Hortons to study, or making an appointment, visiting a friend, going to the grocery store, etc.

That's what worked for us. Just an idea.

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^^^ Could not agree more.

Not a fan of the "man child". Life is too short.

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My hubby tried the "man child" before and lets just say that ended real quick. One time he went thru a horrible stage of throwing his crap everywhere and I took EVERYTHING and dumped it on his side of the room for days till he cleaned it up himself.


but also, this is his home too. I do my best to make sure the daycare kids dont take over the whole house all the time. I am guessing you dont have a separate area for daycare use only?

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After a good nights sleep, I was wondering that, too.... Has the daycare breeched the family space??? If so, not cool.

It does seem this would have been discussed at length before opening a home daycare, though. Especially one in your living room. That, even I could not tolerate.

OP, can the two of you work on a plan to move the daycare out of the family area? Maybe by renovating the garage into an awesome playroom (that is what we did)

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agree. I will be honest that at one point, my husband and I were really struggling in our marriage and huge factor in that is the daycare taking over our living space, forcing him to have no kid-free zone and forcing our whole family to live in a space that wasnt working for us. It is a huge problem. we moved to a new home that has a basement playroom. I cant imagine that any daycare provider is going to last long at all if they are sharing the same space with the daycare and the family. its a recipe for disaster.

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Thank you all so much! For listening to my rant and for your advice! Our house is not very big so daycare is everywhere in the house and the only place that we have that is not used for daycare is our room and the laundry room. We are looking to move at the beginning of the year. My ideal house would be a walk out basement! The basement completely dedicated to daycare and the rest just the family! Plus the parents drop off and pick up in the basement so there would be no reason to be upstairs.

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if he wants to act like a spoiled child you should charge him like the rest of the kids...actually double cause he's family

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Time for a serious talk. He'll miss the $ you bring in if he doesn't quit sabotaging you & grow up.

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