"Is This An Unreasonable Request?"

"My husband works 5 days a week & for those 5 days is up at 5.00am (home by about 4.00pm). He works at a physical & dirty job as a mechanic in a coal mine. When he comes home he showers & then plonks on the couch until dinner is ready & then after dinner he is back on the couch until bed time.

I am up every morning at 6.00am with our 13 month old daughter. I am also up with her for about 30 minutes each night for a middle of the nigt breast feed & a cuddle back to sleep. I spend my day cleaning the house, doing laundry, looking after our daughter & cooking his dinner. While he is on the couch after dinner I am back in the kitchen cleaning up the dinner mess & making his lunch for the following day at work.

I don't ask my husband to get up to our daughter over night (even when he has the next day off). I don't ask him to cook dinner (he offers to BBQ usually one night a week so all I have to do that night is a couple of salads & the cleaning up). I don't ask him to clean up the house or do laundry or do grocery shopping.

What I do ask is the following:

1. Do stuff to the car that needs doing;
2. Mow the lawns when they need doing;
3. Take the heavy bins out to the road each week (I bring them in when they are empty & light because if they stay out all day idiots run them over);
4. Look after our daughter (including feed & bath her) one night a week so I can go to my weight watchers meeting (from 4.45pm to 6.15pm); and
5. On ONE of his days off I ask that HE gets up to her in the morning at 6.00am & give her some breakfast & get her ready for the day so I can have a sleep in. On his other day off I do the same for him so he can have a sleep in. I still do the overnight wake-up as she is still having a breast feed & he is, obviously, incapable of providing this for her.

This week on his days off, he asked if he could have the first sleep in which was fine, I don't care what day I get to sleep in! The only problem is, when it came to the next morning he said he was too tired to get up & I had a two choices, I could either get up to our daughter or sleep in while she screamed in her cot (he can sleep through her crying, I cannot & nor would I want to). So I got up to her & got her breakfast & got her dressed for the day & when he FINALLY surfaced at 8.00am he had the hide to ask me if I would make him a hot breakfast!!!!!

He claimed that he had been so tired because it was a busy week & I should just be happy that he goes out & earns money so we have a roof over our heads & food in our bellies. This made me even angrier because the fact that we have a child & I quit work to care for her was a JOINT decision & me being a stay-at-home Mum was more important to him that it was to me!!!!! I was more than happy to accept my Mum's offer to have her a couple of days each week while I went back to work part-time but hubby was adamant that we should raise our child.

New Side Updates
"Hang on a second...I would just like to add that the "unexpected bills that came up" were not actually bills...it was a TRAFFIC INFRINGEMENT NOTICE which was for something YOU DID WRONG...so you can't use that as any sort of excuse!!!!!

I have to comment on what was said by one guy...
"If you get to ask that he does part of your job at home, then maybe he should get to ask that you do part of his job at the coal mine." I'm not sure what part of my job you think I am asking him to do...I thought she was OUR daughter, not just mine & I think I ask a LOT less than ANY of my friends do of their husbands (I pity your wife)...

"What about when the child is at school and you get the house to yourself most the day?" When she goes to school I will be going back to work so no, I won't be getting to sit around watching crap TV & doing nothing all day.

"Let the man relax after a hard day's/week's work." Here we go, another troglodite who thinks that raising the next generation of adults is all about relaxing at home while the man goes out to earn money!!!!!

"When the kid naps during the day, maybe you should too. He doesnt get one at work." When she sleeps during the day I do the housework because when she is awake she is a full time job!!!!! The last time I slept during the day was when I was pregnant!!!!!...view more"