goodbye guys, gonna have to call it quits.
One very good point Frankie also made is to make time together without the kids, and I would suggest that you both agree on trying something totally new to both of you that you can try together! I too have never been a dancer, but the wife and I took Cajun dance lessons and have gone to the Cajun dance hall at Wheatland for the past 2 years! It's amazing how much fun we have together doing something that we both learned at the same time, not one showing the other something or trying to get each other involved in the others interests, just 2 friends having fun trying something totally new!!
I always tell the wife that she needs a hobby, a night out by herself that doesn't involve me, going to the bar, or somewhere else where trouble could arise! Women need their alone time just as much as men, and it will pay off in spades if she can do something to decompress as mentioned above! Glad to hear you're talking it over and working together to come to a solution that works for you both!! Way to go!!!
The reason i didnt mention doing something together without the kids, as in a date night is 2 fold. First off rightfully so she does not trust babysitters. We have a 16 year old a 9 and 8 year old, and a 3 year old. The reason i didnt initally mention our 16 year old in the equation is she is either at school or her part time job. Our 8 and 9 year old used to gang up on her, and would never listen. So having her watch the kids for us even with us paying her it ends in disaster.
And 2, Trying to run a household of 6 and all this entails on one income pretty much kills my whole paycheck. I usually have nothing left after everything gets payed. My wife sits down with me and we do the bills together every 2 weeks. She sees what comes in, and what goes out. When she was working and there were 2 checks coming in it eased the financial burden, and we would try to occasionally make date night. Again the results when we got home with our oldest watching the middle 2 ( the youngest was put in bed before we would leave ) usually made my wife upset as it was like the lunatics running the asylum, and the house would be trashed. She would yell at the kids, and her and i would pick up the house and make it presentable again.
To be honest the middle 2 kids are 16 months apart, and its a full on power struggle with these 2. Its like a constant full throttle pissing contest. I have never seen or heard more hateful venom directed at each other than from these 2 kids.
My folks would love to babysit and give us some breaks, however they live 2,000 miles away, and my mother in law lives an hour and a half away. We have no other relatives close by or any friends she trusts to babysit.
When my wife was working outside the home, i had the foresight to be able to collect up parts needed, so even though now money is tight, i have a lot of what i need to progress without needing to spend money we dont have right now.
