How to get DH more involved at home?

[Kristie]

wow.. sounds like you still have a little training to do (I tend to call it training still hehehe). What's the one thing that bothers you most that you'd like to try and manage better?

I can relate to the drop something and see how long it takes someone besides me to pick it up...done that before and it'd be literally days before it'd be picked up - by me.

my DH will sometimes gets into lazy mode like that and sometimes it takes about a month and a good rambling bitch to get him out of it and back on the road to "feeling like a home owner" again.

In fact, for a while there, my DH thought his home was a hotel and literally treated it that way until I set him straight and yes, it was a knock down/drag out type of "set it straight" (put down the freakin lid and pick up your towel). a lot of the times, he feels like he's more of a visitor than an owner.

How does your DH feel when he does his own bid and doesn't look at the consequences of commuting or bad layovers or bad schedules or what not? does he not care about how long he's gone, where he's flying or if he has to commute to work the night before a trip starts etc????

[lucky81698]

You'd think after being married almost 10 years the training would be over! The stuff that really gets me nuts is when he is just sitting there reading the paper or watching TV while I am running up and down the stairs with laundry, cleaning, doing his bid, etc. And when I have to pick up after him like I have 2 six year olds instead of one! At least he does put the seat down, except in hotels. For some reason he has this thing that if we are in a hotel he doesn't have to put the seat down. Once, in the middle of the night I didn't turn on the light and almost fell in.

Usually it is just easier to do everything myself that way I don't have to nag about it. He'll do stuff I ask, but waits until "he feels like it". So at 8pm I'll ask when he is going to clean the bathroom floor and it will end up being the next day cause he "forgot". I think he does this so then hopefully I will just end up doing things!

Oh when he has screwed up his bid then I have to hear him bitching and moaning about it all month. Not to mention the same coming from myself. It takes him forever to do it too. Then I end up spending most of my time trying to do trip trades.

He does spend alot of time with DS when he is home so I really can't complain too much in that area. I hate to even say anything because it ends up just like Amber said her DH does. He'll turn it all around whining about how awful he is, what a horrible husband, and father, it's all his fault cause he has to go away to work..blah blah blah! Then I have to spend the next hour telling him it's not true and nothing ever ends up getting straightened out. Or if it does it lasts a couple weeks and that's it.

He says I should be lucky that he doesn't do some of the stuff the guys he works with do...golf all the time, go out drinking with friends when home, spend tons of money on overnights etc. I am lucky in that way, but he told me how one guy he flew with had to get a BMW to please the wife and something about how she had to have an $800 purse and stories like that, so he is lucky that I'm not like that too!

I'll stop complaining now, it could be worse!!! [img]images/graemlins/eusa_boohoo.gif[/img]

[MQAAord]

An $800 purse? Damn, that thing better answer the door, make toast & wash the car for that kind of money!

As for bids, I don't do his for him, but about every other month or so he 'forgets' to bid. Yes, FORGETS to bid. In 7 years of flying I never ONCE *ever* forgot to bid. It's your freakin' SCHEDULE for crying out loud, I can not fathom how he can actually forget to put his bids in. But he does. He usually ends up with a fairly lousy schedule anyway, and trips trades are impossible with the current staffing levels. Oh well! Not my problem. My life is no different when he's here or not, so he can work whatever schedule he gets, it makes no difference to me. No, wait, when he's not here I can actually get in my bedroom before noon.... [img]images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

In his defense, and I know I've really made Bill out to be a loser here lately, when he's here he does play with Alex, and spend a fair amount of quality time with him. He does NOT ignore or neglect him in anyway. Alex adores him, and Daddy is his absolute favorite person in the world.

I find myself thinking Bill's pretty damn lucky to have me. No one else would put up with his sleeping habits with as much grace & dignity as I do. I don't care how much money we make, I've been poor my entire life and can make do with very little. Any designer clothes in my closet have come off the 70% off racks at Fields, I still have jeans I've had since college. I'm as cheap as they come!

[roz]

I can't believe that people forget to bid either. But it must happen everywhere because, every month Charlie gets his first or second choice because some senior people forgot to bid! It happened at his previous airline too.

Guys have a different sense of urgency. If it's important to them, they will jump right on it. If it's of some significance, they will commit to it but on their schedule. If it is of no consequence, they will ignore it.

Nagging gets you no where because they turn off their hearing aids! Making them feel guilty doesn't work either because it's still about them. You have to make it about you and your needs that they are not fulfilling.

Have you tried positive reinforcement? Notice some little thing they do and compliment them on it. Give them a long, sexy kiss. Whisper that there would be more of that if they would put the seat down. Then when they do that, whisper about something else you want done or changed. Whisper that it makes you very happy when they try so hard to please you.

It's you that has to be happy. They are already happy sleeping late, reading the paper, etc.

And there are some things about which you will just have to let go. Pick what's important. Forget the rest.

[Debbie]

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lucky81698 said:
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MQAAord said:
He says "he knows" and that he "feels bad he's not a better husband/father". He always plays the martyr and turns it around to "oh, poor me, I'm such a bad person, wah wah wah..."

He sees and understands my issues, he just doesn't want to make the effort and make the changes. I refuse to nag, and say the same things over and over and over again. A broken record never gets listened to.

Like I said, I've given up. I don't know what it would get to make him change his 'clock' around. He's jet-lagged, essentially, and just refuses to make himself do the hard thing and change. I want him to do it for himself, I want him to WANT to change. Nagging, yelling, being a bitch on my part won't bring that on. He has to want this for himself, and nothing more I can do will accomplish that.

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Oh my God Amber. Your husband's name is Bill right? Well so is mine and your story sounds like I could have said it word for word. Especially the first paragraph.

Jan

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DITTO!
Debbie