brip blap - Latest Comments in how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

PearlandMom — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:02:35 -0000

This post is excellent! I am emailing it to my husband after typing this. The points about he cell oops now its the Iphone rings true. Actually I never thought of the drinks out with the co-workers in that way, but that's a great point as well.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

sai — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:20:04 -0000

I've come across this article by chance, when browsing aimlessly.

What a wonderful article, especially since it reonates so aptly with my present situation. I am in India. I work while my wife is a stay-at-home mom. Every single word that is written here is relevant to us. The tips here are excellent and they point to all the mistakes I have been making in my life vitiating our family relationship. The mistakes like :-

1. I'm too exhausted. Because I work, I'm entitled to relax once I reach home. Dead wrong.
2. I grudgingly do chores. And ofcourse keep score. See how good I am that I help whenever I can, inspite of my workload!
3. Never even thought of me-time for my wife.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

bripblap — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:13:09 -0000

Thanks Heather!

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Heather — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:44:01 -0000

GREAT post! You really got me thinking. I'm going to make sure my husband reads this. Great blog as well. :)

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Angela — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:09:42 -0000

As a stay-at-home spouse, all I have to say is, THANK YOU! For once I feel normal for getting mad at my husband for doing the things you mentioned.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Ashley — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:34:08 -0000

All very good tips, my husband's pretty good about a lot of these, but some... Although the number one tip I would have added is "No Honey-Do Lists." The worst thing he can do is hand me a list of the stuff he wants done in the morning, as if I have nothing else to do all day. Of course, it works the other way, too. When he gets home from work I don't drop a baby in his lap and tell him to take out the trash. Acknowledge that your spouse is a grown-up, and you've both worked hard all day. A little patience and communication goes a long way. And to MOTHEROFBUN: My husband used to think I had no job. One Saturday he took over and handled our (then) one child by himself. He was passed out on the couch by 8 p.m. I haven't heard another remark about my "easy" days.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Steve (Brip Blap) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:31:02 -0000

@wanda: it's not a dumb question, but I can't answer it - it's just an image I grabbed from Flickr, so it might be fake. I would not be surprised if it was real, though - in the later stages of pregnancy (my wife is due tomorrow) the belly skin is stretched very thin!

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

!wanda — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:43:32 -0000

This is a dumb question, but is that second picture real?

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Steve (Brip Blap) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:31:52 -0000

@Trent: Absolutely, and we're by no means perfect on this one, either. Plus it assumes that there's (a) some "price" to the chores - does washing the dishes "equal" taking out the garbage? and (b) taking care of the kids is somehow equivalent to the chores. It shouldn't feel that way but as a parent I've found that there are certainly plenty of times when sitting through an extended grumpy bedtime session with a toddler feels like work.

Of course with my (semi-temporary) move to problogging, doing the chores just got a bit easier :)

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Trent Hamm — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:50:49 -0000

My wife and I have trouble with number two. If one of us does most of the chores one day, there's almost an expectation that the other will catch up the next day. If the partner doesn't notice the imbalance because they were, say, busy with the kids, then that can result in something unpleasant for all.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Work At Home Mom Tara — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 22:49:47 -0000

Excellent post! I have stumbled it!

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

motherofbun — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:29:23 -0000

Sorry to write a book there. Its just something I can't write about on my own blog...

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

motherofbun — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:28:55 -0000

As a SAHM, I LOVE this article. My husband is one of those who comes home and sits on the couch and, for the most part, stays there all night until bed. He won't even put his plate in the sink after dinner. And when he works late, (pretty much every night) there's no notice. When I have a migraine, he says, "Suck it up." (Course there have been times he doesn't feel like getting out of bed, so he'll sleep in and then tell his boss that he was late because I had a migraine.) But if he's got a cold, he's in bed for two days.

At night, he's watching tv and working on his computer. Then, when its time for bed (at least now he has a hand in helping with bedtime, before he wouldn't even do that.) he gets our son all rilled up. (I still have jammy duty and toothbrushing duty. All he has to do is read a book and put the boy in bed but since he decides that's the perfect time to wrestle with our son, our son is often up past 11 p.m. and asking for drinks, snacks, stories and whatnot.

Oh and on the weekends, he sleeps in -- sometimes well past 3 p.m. Because you know, he works so hard! At least today he only slept in until 1. And yesterday he slept until 10 a.m. but took a three hour nap in the afternoon. I have to beg him to spend some one-on-one time with our son.

He does do laundry... That's pretty much his only household chore. He does it about three times a month.

My husband likes to say, "But you get three hours a day of free time while our son is at school. What he doesn't realize is that time is used to run errands, see doctors, make phone calls, schedule stuff and whatnot.

(I picked a real winner, didn't I? Looks like he's the poster boy for how to do this all WRONG. It makes me feel like I'm the only one in the marriage and the only parent. That's pretty much why we are only having one child. I'm sad and very disappointed that he doesn't WANT to be an active part of our family.)

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

paidtwice — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:13:12 -0000

I do love this post, but I do dislike the "What to expect" book series. Intensely and with an undying passion. lol

:)

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Stephanie — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:40:40 -0000

Great tips. My husband is pretty good at these, although he could use to do more housework. But we divvy up putting the kids to bed and he has improved on helping out most ways.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Madame M — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:31:49 -0000

Excellent advice. You do such a great job of making both parties feel validated, so thank you for this.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

JHS — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:55:06 -0000

Thanks for contributing this insightful article to this week's Carnival of Family Life, hosted at the so-called me on Monday, December 10, 2007! We have many other wonderful entries, so stop by and read a few!

Interested in hosting the Carnival? The schedule is posted at Colloquium .

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

wealthy_1 — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:56:15 -0000

Where were you with this post when my kids were little and Iwas at home with them? :-)

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Steve — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 07:09:16 -0000

@John: In fact I DO intend to join your crowd, as soon as possible :)

@Marek: I couldn't agree more. Like I said at the beginning of the article I have terrible trouble remembering it all after a long day and sometimes horrific commute (up to 2 hours on a bad day, each way). However, I try every day to remind myself that sacrifices I make are not sacrifices - because it pays off in the long run with a better marriage, happier kids and a healthier home. But yeah - it's hard. Nothing good comes easy!

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Marek — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 06:30:27 -0000

Sometimes it's just plain hard to remember all that advice when returning from work at eight, tired as a rag...

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

guinness416 — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:06:40 -0000

You're becoming the king of stumbleupon Steve! All good. My husband, who is for the most part holding down the domestic fort at the moment, has just pointed at a couple of these points/comments and said HAH! I can get better though.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

John — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:40:50 -0000

Good points.
Important to remind your normal working spouse (NWS) not to wind the kids up before bed-time. And work on the decompression thing - both spouses need it at that time and the kids are naturally most active then.

Add in that the NWS does not expect the stay-at-home spouse (SAHS) to be the Secretary Of All Things - and say "you've been home all day why couldn't you get that done?"

Also, there are times the NWS needs to give SAHS time to go have a 'beer' with their 'co-workers'.

From a Stay at home Dad also running a Consulting Business. There are more and more of us - join the crowd

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Steve — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:12:07 -0000

Great comments, everyone. The second picture is a little weird, but for some reason it just caught my attention! And yes, the pearls and martini advice will come in the followup post....

Heather had a good point, that of course any of these can be modified if you and your spouse communicate about them and agree on changing them. Maybe in your family one person just prefers to be the one who is on bedtime duty ... in any case, there are a lot of ways to manage things, and most of them just require good communication.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

feefifoto — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:03:51 -0000

Amen! Be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Re: how to be a good partner to a stay-at-home spouse

Jennifer — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:51:38 -0000

Here thru Stumble Upon and glad I found this! Great post, thank you.