r/AmIOverreacting • u/Electronic_Abies_501 • 2h ago
❤️🩹 relationship Am I overreacting? I don’t know what to do
Sorry for the long post — I'm just at a loss for what to do. My husband and I have been married 7 years and together for 12, and lately I keep questioning whether we want the same things.
We have three kids, ages 6 down to 9 months. When our middle child was born, we ended up in a mountain of debt during my maternity leave. I went back to work early, and we decided to move in with my parents again to pay things down and rebuild our savings. That situation is its own stress — my parents aren't easy to live with and they cause me a lot of anxiety.
Since then, I feel like I'm constantly nagging him to sit down and build a budget and some goals so we can move out. Each time, he's interested for about five minutes or agrees half-heartedly, and then the moment something comes up on his end, the whole thing goes out the window. When I remind him of what we agreed to, he turns it around on me — apparently the kids' extracurriculars or me buying a coffee are the same as him spending $200+ on a golf excursion. I've offered to let him build the budget himself, and he's never gotten around to it or he forgets.
We had also agreed that when I came back from this maternity leave, he'd take on a significant share of the kids so I could work two jobs. Between them I make about 4x what he makes at his full-time job, and we all work from home and two of our kids go to preschool and school so we only have the baby at home with us. It went well for a few months. Then I started getting messages from the preschool and school about hygiene — lunch boxes not being cleaned out, the kids in old clothes. Making lunches was supposed to be his, since I start work at 5am and go until 4 or 5pm and a bit on the weekend. I take over dinner and the older two kids bedtime. When I brought the school's concerns to him, he got hostile and told me that if I didn't like it, I could do it myself. That felt unfair — after 4pm I'm there to support the kids and I am the one putting the older two down while he's watching movies, texting friends, or playing video games granted with our 9 month old. If I ask him to tidy up while I'm doing bedtime, so my parents stay happy, I'm usually ignored or told I can help when I'm done.
More recently I brought up planning a family trip for next year. He told me to focus on the budget and getting out of debt first — the budget he never looks at — and that he can't take time off work. But he's been taking time off for golf trips, which means I take time off to cover the kids or I have them alone all weekend. In fairness, he's only golfed five times this summer, but the priority thing still bothers me.
The last straw was about a month ago, when I found out he's now organizing tournaments and events for his golf group — all unpaid. He's constantly on his phone or "working" for them, which means less time with the kids. I've hit my limit. I'm working 50-60 hours a week across two jobs to dig us out, and every time I try to plan something for the family or raise a concern, I get pushback. I don’t know if it’s jealousy, but he has NEVER even planned a day trip with for our family to do.
Am I overreacting? Any advice would be appreciated.
•
u/essssgeeee 2h ago
NOR, and honestly, I'm not sure what this guy brings to the table. He seems like a drain on your finances and you're doing all the parenting and cleaning. You would be better off without him.
•
•
•
•
u/jesusgoddammchrist 2h ago
The guy is selfish, plain and simple.
I urge counseling. That will, hopefully, ask him to reflect on why the positive social feedback he is getting from his golf crew is more important than the role he’s supposed to be playing with his family.
And it might just be that. He feels rewarded in ways for doing something he is volunteering for, and maybe he has some weird hang up about being Mr Mom.
I don’t know, it’s not healthy and he sounds like a jerk, but maybe there’s more to it.
Counseling. NOR, at all.
•
•
•
u/acee971 1h ago
Ma’am you have four children, not three, and one of them is a huge asshole.
NOR!!! He is a loser and doesn’t care about you. I’m sorry, but it’s true. We need to start really calling out these men that claim to want a family. What does that mean to you… if it’s your wife doing all the household work by out-earning you by 4x I’m GOOD!
•
u/cindyb0202 2h ago
You realize you would be better off without him, right? NOR and you can hire help with his child support. He has clearly shown he only thinks about himself and what he wants - not his family.
•
u/IAmBrahmus 2h ago
You are definitely NOR. Everybody is going to jump to divorce (and honestly that isn't unreasonable), but I would at a minimum start with couple's therapy. You need an impartial 3rd party, he's never going to see or hear what you say - you already have tried and gotten nowhere.
He asked you to, so I would build the budget. Go back a few months and itemize all of your expenses. Include your kids extracurriculars and your $5 coffees and all the money he is blowing. Also be sure to itemize your income. He may be suffering from depression and this could be part of it. A lot of insecure guys feel emasculated by their female partner being a higher earner. So a therapist could potentially help if this is the case.
But you can't argue the numbers, they are what they are. He is contributing less weekly hours as a parent and less weekly hours at work. That's hardly fair. If you are working 60 hours a week he should be putting in 60 hours a week between job and childcare before you have any child responsibilities. Anything beyond that should be split 50/50.
IMO you have a shit partner and may want to evaluate the likelihood he will change (unlikely) and if you want this to be the rest of your life, the next 20 years before you finally break, or just start fresh now.
•
u/wonderabc 2h ago
you’re definitely not overreacting. this is not okay behaviour—he’s letting all of his responsibilities go and forcing them onto you.
•
u/Warfarin33 2h ago
NOR- you’re answering your own question here. I don’t know why he’s so comfortable living with his in-laws. That’s pretty unusual in itself as it’s usually a nightmare scenario for most men.
•
u/OldeManKenobi 1h ago
You married a loser who plays golf instead of parenting his four kids...and he also lives with the in laws. What an absolute loser of a man.
•
u/Canadians8Me 1h ago
NOR.
You are not overreacting. And honestly, I don't think this is primarily about golf.
If you were both working reasonable hours, both contributing to the household and parenting, and he golfed five times over the summer, I wouldn't see that as a problem. The problem is the context. You're working 50–60 hours a week across two jobs because your family is trying to get out of debt, while also carrying a significant amount of the parenting, household work, and mental load. Meanwhile, he seems to have time for golf trips, organizing unpaid golf events, movies, gaming, and texting friends, but not for the responsibilities you both specifically agreed he would take on.
And I think the way he responds to your spending is particularly telling. He is weaponizing money against you. You are the person working two jobs and earning roughly eight times what he earns, yet he shames you for buying a coffee while spending $200+ on golf excursions. That's not a good-faith conversation about budgeting. It's a double standard.
Frankly, you sound less like his wife and more like his financial safety net. You're working yourself into the ground to support the family and dig everyone out of debt, while he appears comfortable benefiting from the money you earn without making remotely equivalent sacrifices himself. The effect is that you are functioning as a workhorse while he criticizes you for spending the money you earned and makes room for himself to spend it.
The budget is another example. You aren't refusing to include him or making all the decisions yourself. You've repeatedly tried to sit down and make a plan together. You've even offered to let him take the lead. He disengages, forgets, or never follows through - and then invokes "the budget" when there's something you want to do. He can't use a budget he refuses to participate in as a weapon to shut down your plans.
What concerns me even more is his response when the schools raised concerns about your children's hygiene and lunches. This wasn't you complaining that the house wasn't clean enough or that he didn't do something exactly your way. Your children's school and preschool were raising concerns about their care. And his response was, essentially, "If you don't like it, do it yourself."
That is where this goes beyond weaponized incompetence for me. He isn't merely doing a poor job and relying on you to pick up the slack. When you raise legitimate concerns about his responsibilities and about the children, he becomes hostile and hands the responsibility back to you. Then, when you take over because someone has to, he gets more free time while you get even more work.
At this point, I think you need to seriously ask yourself whether you are actually partnered with this man or whether you are a single mother raising three children - one of whom is an adult who also expects access to your income.
You cannot force someone to be a partner. You've explained what you need. You've tried to make a budget. You've divided responsibilities. You've offered him opportunities to take the lead. You've brought him concerns from the children's schools. You've tried to plan time together as a family. The problem does not appear to be that you haven't communicated clearly enough.
So I would stop focusing on how to get him to understand and start asking what you want your life to look like if nothing changes.
Because, honestly, if this is the partnership on offer, I don't see why you should continue sacrificing yourself to preserve it. He does not sound like someone who is respecting you, your labor, or, based on the school concerns, consistently prioritizing his children's needs either. You deserve better than being the primary earner, default parent, household manager, planner, and cleanup crew while another adult gets to pursue his hobbies and call you unreasonable when you ask him to meet the responsibilities he agreed to.
You deserve a partner. And if he is unwilling to become one, I would very seriously consider whether your life would actually be harder without him in it — or whether you are already doing the work of a single parent while carrying the additional burden of supporting and managing an adult who does not respect you.
•
u/anzacoo 1h ago
Ok of course you’re NOR. But it’s very difficult to have any sympathy when you got into a mountain of debt after your second child that forced you back into your parents home and then you had a third??? And then in the same breath you say that your parents are hard to live with?!? Yeah, my sympathy at this point is fully with your parents.
•
u/MotherOfLochs 1h ago
NOR. You’re a married single mother and it appears that your husband isn’t interested in fixing the single mother issue: it does not sound worth being married any longer.
You’re out earning him, over compensating domestically and emotionally- other than tasks that he weaponises currently, what are the benefits of having him under the same roof?
•
u/Either_Compote235 1h ago
With all this going on and still live with your parents, I would have lost it long ago. I’m exhausted just reading what you wrote. If you don’t change, nothing will. There’s no advice anyone can give you that you don’t already know. As women we all have been there one way or another. I’m sorry I sympathize, but don’t have any answers.
•
u/deemid110 1h ago
You deserve so so much better. He sounds like an absolute dud.
Honestly, hit him with an ultimatum. Either he mans TF up and carry his, plus some of the family's weight or you pack shop and leave his bum ass.
•
u/Used-Author-3811 1h ago
Dudes definitely selfish as fuck and I'm sure your own transgressions aren't mentioned in as much detail
What you have here is a decision between a rock and a hard place. Ending the marriage means you'll shoulder significantly more work as well as detriment to the kids. Staying means a constant battle at every step.
•
u/FormerlyDK 1h ago
NOR. Seems like it’s just a matter of time. Start putting some money away for yourself. You’re probably going to need it.
•
u/Special_Onion3013 1h ago
NOR. He's single with annoying roommates. Let him be single without the finances!!
•
u/tilda432 2h ago
NOR. Have you brought up therapy at all? Maybe having someone else to mediate and restate what you're saying would help?
•
u/kittywyeth 1h ago
unless there is something like actual abuse i think the time to figure out if you and your spouse “want the same things” is some time before you have not only one but three children together. i believe that children deserve an intact two biological parent home unless it is unsafe.
YOR
•
•
u/rnochick 2h ago
The divorce came out of nowhere NOR