What to do

[Anonymousdad]

Reaching out for thoughts on my situation.

I am in a situation where my fiance and I are basically in a single income family with two kids and with my partner only working 1 day a week. With the overtime I do we are still doing it tough. I cop it off my partner that I’m not home enough to help with the kids and she questions why I need to work so much. (She knows why)

We have a 2yo and 7yo

I understand she wants/needs help with the kids but if I don’t do the overtime we won’t be financially ok.

I try to take pressure of her by her having to never worry about needing to do grocery shopping or any cooking for me at all. I do all my breakfast lunch and dinner prep On a Sunday for the week including getting things ready for our family dinner that night aswell. And on my nights off I will do the cooking.

We argue about her not getting to switch
Off because she is a full time mum which I 100% get, but she seems to think that because of my type of job I always get to have fun and my job is easy to I get to switch off and not have to worry about anything.
Which isn’t the case. All I think about whilst at work is missing time with my family, especially my kids.

Im always getting asked “ you’re not happy are you” making me feel belittled and under appreciated - especially with how hard a work-

Honestly I’m currently at a loss

[Astra-RO]

Hi @Anonymousdad 

Welcome to the ReachOut parents community and thank you for reaching out about what you're going through. It sounds like both you and your fiancé are doing the best you can to support each other and your children during this stressful time. Raising young children in and of itself is stressful, and this is only made more difficult when you're doing it tough financially.

I’m wondering if you’re currently accessing any support from the government at this time? The NSW government has a page here about financial supports available to families raising children, if this is something you might find helpful?

I can see that your partner has expressed a need to switch off from the kids and she is also concerned that you are unhappy. I wonder if you’ve talked to her about how you’ve been feeling about everything? Do you think some tips for communicating about difficult subjects could be helpful? This page has some ideas that might be worth a read

Looking forward to hearing from you