My husband is a SAHD to our 5 year old daughter and we have a baby due in August. He homeschools our daughter, which I was not keen on, but he literally sabotaged every effort I made to get her into various schools, and would shut me down in every discussion about it.

He wants to renovate our bathroom and kitchen (which desperately need to be done) and first starting mentioning it early this year. I suggested we place my daughter in camp for the summer because then she would be there from 9-4 every day, and he’d have the whole summer to get the house done. His response was an immediate no, and that camp all summer was too much; he’d prefer only two weeks and hire a babysitter for the other weeks.

We hire a babysitter. He only asks her to come 5 hours a day, 3x a week, but it’s still expensive because we pay her $30/hr (which was the precedent we set when only having her babysit for date nights). Daughter goes to camp the first week and LOVES it (and it’s half the price each week for more than double the time). My husband then says “well can we just do camp all summer? It will give me more time to get the house done each day.” No, we can’t because it’s already booked all summer and we committed to the babysitter. And now he pretty much gets nothing done other than laundry and little things around the house “because I only have 5 hours, 3x a week.” Oh and he uses the time to go to the gym every day.

Now my husband is saying well, I’ll just do the work when you’re on maternity leave. We should rent a house for you and the kids to stay at, and I’ll do the work. So now he wants to shell out money for 1) a rental house, 2) renovations, and 3) a babysitter for the rest of the summer for him to basically do nothing. This will leave me to homeschool with a newborn, in a house that isn’t mine.

Yesterday I suggest we sign my daughter up for a program at a local private school that offers various classes (art, language and music) for homeschool classes, so at least I will have 1-2 days a week where I only have the baby while I’m recovering postpartum. His response, “no thank you.”

I’m at my f-ing wits end. I feel like he disagrees with me on everything right off the bat, for no other reason than to veto my ideas. If he just listened to me in the winter, my daughter would be having fun at camp every day, and the house would be done before the baby even comes. So frustrating!!