Sincerely apologize if this does not belong here but I am the spouse of a biglaw NEP and I’m seeking some feedback or insight, especially from those of you who are parents.
For some background - we have a very young toddler who I take care of full time as a stay at home mom. We have no family/grandparents in the US. I put aside my job for the time being to focus 100% on our baby but have fairly well off parents who are super generous in their financial assistance (help with home purchase, want to cover all expenses related to grandchild, among other things they have offered to help with).
Since finding out we were going to be parents, I had been preparing for the fact that I would be doing the lion’s share of the day to day - all things related to the baby and running the house. I’ve managed and tried to do so without making demands on husband’s time. I’m talking groceries, cooking, cleaning, laundry, home appliance maintenance, car maintenance, bills, researching daycares/schools, baby activities, etc - my husband is fairly introverted and seems not to care so much about having a community but I cannot live like this so I’ve also been the one reaching out, organizing, scheduling, and manning hosting duties for all the social meet ups for both the adults and babies. About a year in, finally got someone to come around and help clean the house once a month and a part time nanny (totaling about 8 hours/week) so that I can have a little bit of time to myself and for things like doctor’s appointments.
Husband kindly does the dishes at the end of most days and takes out the trash. He also sets aside an hour or so each evening for bath time and putting our baby to sleep together. These are not things I asked for and happily do myself when he isn’t able to set aside the time. Happily, as in without any snarking or blaming him for being absent even when our child is being difficult. I WILL complain about being tired and exhausted but never intended to insinuate that it’s because he isn’t helping out enough.
As all new parents do, we have our disagreements but the problem lies in him always concluding that I don’t and have never understood the nature of how busy and consuming his work is. His latest comments basically were that while he has helped me out in the form of paying for the monthly cleaning service and nanny, I (obviously) can’t help him with his work and that I never seem to understand how tired he is and am generally ungrateful (real words used). When asked how I can show more gratitude, no concrete answers other than to have a better attitude. Too vague for this over-stimulated first time mom.
We have had outings where we had to turn back home immediately after arriving at our destination because he had to go back home to send an email. I am the primary chauffeur - 10 min, 1 hour, 8 hour road trips are all driven by me in case he needs to work in the car. He has to cancel social plans right before or even during the event? No problem - I’ll stay on my own and figure it out, even if it’s just me taking care of the baby alone. I have taken these occurrences in stride and never given him flak for being busy. Seriously.
I realize that this is just one side’s account (all that I can offer tbh) and we probably need marriage counseling but I just really want to hear from some other spouses of biglaw peeps or the lawyers themselves - what am I not understanding? What more do I possibly need to be doing in order for my spouse to feel like I respect the nature of his work? Has anyone worked through something like this and made it out?