Old 10-29-2011, 09:44 AM
  # 7 (permalink)  
akrasia
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 602
I appreciate the point that laurie makes about it taking time, that he didn't become an alcoholic overnight so the healing process will take a while too. It might take some adjustment of how much free time he's going to have.

BUT it's not cool for him to decide he doesn't have to co-parent anymore, and to just expect you to pick up the slack because you're the wife (it's a surprisingly easy trap to fall into).

You might like to approach this not as an A issue, but as a "both parents are super busy so how to we manage child-wrangling" issue. Just like those couples in which one has an uber-demanding job and the other is finishing law school, or whatever. It's not anyone's fault--in fact you're both working towards a good future--but in the interim you've got to work out a plan.

Sit down and plan out your days: What are your job hours? Any flex time or work-at-home possibilities? And then look at the kid-related duties: school run, making lunches, making dinner, bath-book-bed, rides to various activities, etc. (You get some evenings to yourself too of course.) Just be nerds and work out a whole schedule and write it down. It seems really anal but it's what successful families do when they have to.

If he's down with that, great. If he's like, "Yeah no, you can do all that," then hmm...
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