full image - Repost: I need some advice about how to have a hard conversation with my husband about childcare. (from Reddit.com, I need some advice about how to have a hard conversation with my husband about childcare.)
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We are expecting our first baby in three months. These are not ideal conditions to have a baby at all, but I decided to do it anyway because time was literally running out. I decided that, if I needed, I could most or all the work myself. I wanted to have a kid and I know I will be a great parent, so I decided to go forward. My husband, of course, was definitely on board. He was wanted a kid even more than me in the last few years, I was telling people he was have "Ebloa-level" baby fever.The reason that this is not an ideal time is that my husband's energies are spread very thin right now because of issues with his family of origin. Over the past five years, things back home have slowly started to fall apart (or, I should say, go from bad to worse).My husband's mother, my MIL, is widowed and is the full-time caretaker to his ill and dependent adult sibling. She was the caregiver for two of them (it's a genetic condition they both had), until one unexpectedly died five years ago. The death of that sibling shattered my husband and my MIL. Shortly afterward, the other sibling that is still alive started to decline. Since then, it has been a battle for years to keep this one alive and reasonably healthy. I don't know how she could handle another death after losing her husband and her child.Between coping with her grief, the regular caregiving, and now all the extra work with all the extra medical problems, she is just mentally and physically worn out all the time. We have tried to help her build a local support network where she is (we do not live close by), and some of it has worked. They have a whole team of different medical professionals for different treatments and they seem to be available to her 24 hours a day via text and phone calls for advice and just to help her manage some anxieties. Over this same time period, unfortunately, her sister, whom she was very close to, also passed away, and her brother has become very ill, and requires care as well (she has set limits, though she cannot care for him as well). We have hooked her up with an adult niece and a nephew in the area, but they both have young kids and careers and very busy lives and don't have much time for her. But they help when they can. I will say that my MIL is extremely resourceful and is very good at finding people all over her city who can help her in various ways - get quicker doctor appointments, get cheaper medications, and finding case workers to help coordinate care. She is a genius with this stuff and I really admire her, I do not know where she gets all the energy.But still, most support work falls to my husband, particularly emotional support. He visits quite often for long periods to give his mother a bit of a break and to feel supported and not isolated. When he is home with me, he calls her every day. Sadly, these days it seems that almost every week, there is another crisis he needs to help his mother navigate. He will emerge from these phone conversations drained and just tapped out. It will often take him more than a day to recover. He has expressed that he regrets that this takes such a toll on him and our marriage, but his mother really has no one else to rely on in this way. And he is also very close to his sibling and terrified he will lose yet another loved one. When this situation reached the critical stage a few years ago, I felt I had to make a decision. There was no way this man was going to abandon his family for me, nor did I think he should. He was frank with me right at the beginning of our relationship that he had two siblings with this genetic disease, and he would likely end up caring for them one day. I decided I could handle it, and we went forward with the relationship. So, I when things got really bad a few years ago, I decided that I was going to be my husband's support and not ask much of him as a partner. I got a good shrink, worked on bringing my close friends closer, and built my own support network so we could work as a team on this situation.So, here is the issue. I did not tell my husband about this resolution or how I handled the situation. I just stepped up (or that's how I looked at it) and did what needed to be done. I put off having a baby for years, waiting for this situation with his family to reach a stable state, but I decided I didn't want to wait any longer as I was getting way too old, and so was he. It was easy for me to change the balance in our marriage, I feel, because the things I started doing for both of us he didn't really want to do anyway - work harder to make more money, do more housework, leave more of my problems outside the house and focus on keeping it as a place of emotional stability for him. But with a baby, I feel like I can't just take that from him. He wants this baby so badly, he is living for this kid. But I need to be able to plan, and I really don't know what he is realistically up for. I don't think he really gets how much a work a baby is. I feel that, if I just ask him straight out, he will be quite hurt. "Frankly, you haven't been much of a partner to me in the past few years, and I don't expect that to change with the baby. So, I need to be prepared. I need to tell my friends and relatives to be around more and I need to start talking to night nurses and nannies so I can get the help I need." I think that would be quite harsh! I need a gentle way to ask him to be honest with me about how much he can do, and we need to talk about how we can take care of the other stuff.(I will say one way he is already helping is by running interference with his mother about this. Even with everything going on in her life, she was insisting on coming to help with the baby when it came, and I said no way. I love my MIL, but she will be way more trouble than help, and he has stood firm that she cannot come and see us for at least a few months, even though it was hard for her to hear.)
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