Am I being unreasonable???

[~Jayne~]

I don't think it's unreasonable at all - but good luck trying to change him. This is the basis of many an argument in my house right now. Only I moved to flipping China to see our DH more & the last 3 weeks has seen him leave for work at 6:30am & come home at 7pm every night. I'm beginning to get a complex!!!! lol

[Junglemum]

No way is that an unreasonable request in my books!

I have come to realise that men don't put the same importance on many things. To them, working is often their main priority as they are often the breadwinners. Whereas in my eyes, parenting our kids comes first, and of course work is important but not at the detriment to our family unit. I do find sitting him down and telling him how it makes me feel and effects me does help. He constantly needs reminding though. I am always nagging him to be home in time to have dinner with the kids. It's important to me.

I get the best response by not criticizing, but rather talking about how it effects us (the kids and i)

[Winter]

Nope, not being unreasonable at all.

[PollyA]

As the working partner I don't think you are being unreasonable but I do think that the key is in your approach. In my experience when you have conversations about how things run in the house etc it can deteriorate into attack/defense type conversations.

I like the idea of family AGM's where instead of bringing up something in a moment of rage or after it has festered, you can talk about different things from a neutral beginning. Ask for his side. WHy does he read the paper? Its possible its just a hard wired habit. he might have never thought about changing. Or maybe he has another reason, I can't think of any but you just never know why people do things, unless you ask. I hope that makes sense.

Good luck!

[onthefly]

I'd talk to him about it. Maybe talk about how you & your DS miss him or something like that. Or maybe talk about how important it is to spend time together and ask if he has any ideas about how you could do that...? Then it becomes his idea.
DH makes a point of leaving early for this very reason.

[Winter]

The old 'make 'em think it was their own idea' routine, 99.

Too clever MadB!

[lise]

Thanks ladies for your support and advice. We had a bit of a chat and he agreed to come home earlier where possible, but he was very defensive even though I tried not to make it seem like an attack/criticism etc. Trouble is he thinks spending 30 mins per day with DS is fine and doesn't see a need really to change anything, so very hard to get him to think of anything himself!

A work in progress I guess...

Thanks again for your replies - at least I can stop feeling bad for being unreasonable