It’s getting really frustrating for me in my marriage. I have become the sole caretaker of my family. I work day and night to earn money for my family and keep the house together. When I get home, I am the one who does all the cooking while my husband just sits around and sulks all day about his job that requires him to do the bare minimum. I hate that my husband depends on me all the time for his needs. I feel like his ‘mother’!
I wake up early in the morning and even though I have a ton of work on my shoulders, I prepare breakfast and serve my husband’s lunch on the dining table every morning before I rush to my office. He shows no sign of moving from his bed and keeps calling me to give him morning kisses or just cuddles. I am flabbergasted by how he expects me to cuddle with him in the morning when he can’t move an inch to help me at all. He asks me to iron his shirt and even set up his work table for his work day ahead. I clean up after him and even wants me to be at arm's length whenever he needs me. I feel so annoyed with his behaviour. It literally makes me feel like I am his caretaker.
Whenever my friends come home to meet me, he pipes in and refuses to leave even if I want some alone time with my friends. He makes it difficult for me to enjoy my privacy. However, when his friends come by, he makes excuses for me to leave him alone with his friends.
I have tried telling him that I am his wife, not his mother, and he simply tries to change the conversation. He earns more than me and uses it as a leverage to make me do all the work. I have tried communicating it to him that he also has to do his own work, rather than ordering me around but he turns a blind eye to all my pleas.
Situations like these make me feel like I am living with a kid and not an adult. Things have started to take a toll on our relationship. The way he treats me—like a mother, someone who has to care for him, gives me the icks. I don’t even feel like being intimate because it makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable. I have begun feeling guilty of not viewing him as my husband. Tell me, how do I when all I do is take care of him and his needs in the house like a baby?