What's going on with your life?

    That's some heavy stuff matey, and I'm no shrink, but the one constant is you must be happy with yourself before you can make others happy around you. Theirs no point kidding yourself, making others happy at the cost of your sanity is ok at the start, but it eventually catches up and makes things even worse. Although I'm not in a complicated situation like you, with a family, I decided to change my life in a big way, very soon - because I was doing my job to make others happy, not myself. I got depressed and was bitter, then I remembered I used to be a much nicer person - so I made the jump and I've felt better ever since.


    I sometimes think of people who have it MUCH worse off, and it gives me a moment of reflection, but to be fair it's not enough in the long run, if there's anything you can do to make yourself happier you should do it.


    Parents that I've spoken with, say that their job is vitally important in their family, not just financially, but as an escape, everyone needs time to themselves away from the responsibilities of being a parent and a husband. Have a night dedicated every week for "friends", go out bowling or to the cinema with friends, without the wife and kids. Balance is the key in any successful relationship.

    Quote from 2d-chris

    ....


    Now that's some solid advice. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have time alone. I love my family but I also love my Thursdays when my wife and daughter go sleep at her parents. Just one single day for myself to be able to do whatever I want to do. I NEED that day and that's nothing to feel guilty about. Do you want out of that hole? Give yourself a day and leave your guilt behind.

    I don't know how it works for you at your place Corwin but have you tried splitting the days with your wife so you can hole up at the PC some days? I had a similar situation with my wife where every other weekend we would have divergent opinions on what to do and the solution was to split the weekend evenly (each one decides what to do on their day). It's been working out pretty well as we can spend quality time together one day and I can use the other day for games/resting/work if I feel like.

    At the same time corwin, you are kind of in the middle of the storm, i mean you have two young kids who need a lot of attention, a house to renovate, and all that in a country that is not yours, without family or friends close to help you with the kids and the house, and on top of that a job in the videogame industry. Damn I can assure you this is a lot to be busy about, and i'd say this is almost normal you would feel exausted with all this at the same time. If you take a look at your parents life when they had you in france in the 70s 80s, i'm pretty sure it wasn't as complicated as that . But the more your kids will gain in independancy and the less work you will have on the house, i'm pretty sure it will give you much more time to breath, and plus like Furyo said, you will be able to share much more activities with them. Do your wife work btw ? Or her personal hobby is being a mother and taking care of the lifestyle of her family ? Because taking care of her family means also taking care of you and you of her. Kids don't ask for much, but what they care the most is being loved and live in a happy and relaxed environment and thus they need their parents to not burn out in order to not have to take their problems on their shoulders. I mean taking care of yourselves together is the best thing you can do for your kids . (being the son of two depressive alcoholics i can assure you that)

    Cheers guys, thanks for the thoughts! My wife doesn't work no, she's dedicated to the kids, but confesses too that she can't handle it on her own. She basically expects me to be another her, on who she can count to take over when she just doesn't feel like applying all the awesome principles she's trying to follow. And I try, but half the time in the back of my head I'm just thinking how I'd like to be programming this, designing that, and I can never really be in the moment. I take her to the farmer's market, or to the swimming pool, and when we come back she says she felt urged to go home because she felt as if that's what I wanted to do badly, even though I thought I acted as if I had all the time in the world.


    Recently I suggested that she take the kids and go to my mother's place back in france for the end of the summer so I could focus on the house in the meantime and be done with most of it when she comes back, but she couldn't fathom doing that, both for not wanting to be away from me and for knowing she'd go crazy trying to handle the kids on her own. I don't really have proper friends in Germany to do the nights out sadly (I'm guessing having a kid only months after I arrived didn't help socialize outside of work), and even if I could join on some of the Crytekers' events, I'm currently quite far from Frankfurt to warrant the travel time and train fees.


    The thing is, I tend to put all of it on the current situation and stress associated with it, but then she points out that it was like that before it all started, and I've been like that to some extent ever since I went back to work after my son was born, almost 3 years ago. If that's the case, I doubt that even being done with the renovations will solve my troubles. At some point I'll go back to work and have even less time to do anything besides in the train to work, and at the end of the day she'll be exhausted from handling 2 kids all day, and things will get complicated again.


    Anyway, we'll see, I do hope it gets better towards December when we're done with the roof and bedrooms

    Quote from Corwin

    Anyway, you know you are desperate as fuck when the only place you can think of sharing stuff like that is on an online forum... Sorry for ruining the mood hey, but since the topic was friends who commit suicide I figured it wouldn't be worse

    Please don't be sorry for this. Any situation like this (if I get any) are years ahead of me and matters I literally think zero of during worktime. I'm just thankful for reading this. Hope things will get sorted!

    Quote from Corwin

    ...


    Sounds to me like your wife could use some alone time too. I know child care is expensive but let her go to work again. Something part time so you don't have to rely on child care that much. Something you can combine with your work. It would give her a breather too.


    Also and this is of course, none of my business, but why would you isolate yourself so much? I for one have a lot of friends nearby but almost no one to support us with our daughter. That's why I'm working my ass off on renovating and hopefully selling this house by the end of the year. This would allow us to move closer to....well, to help basically. Because doing it alone is rather difficult. I can't imagine how difficult it would be with 2 children.


    This isn't relevant for you though, since you bought that house and there's no escaping that now. So I would really encourage your wife to find something part time, use a minimal amount of child care and really make an effort in creating some room for the both of you.


    My wife said she would remain home with our daughter until next year, but guess what, she's currently at a job interview because she's going crazy being cooked up inside all day taking care of a baby. It's understandable because I'm at work a lot and even I feel stressed sometimes when I'm taking care of business at home. That's why we've created and are creating time for ourselves. Because before we did that all we were doing was fighting. Both being exhausted, no space for yourself and constant stress does that to couple. I was seriously thinking our marriage wouldn't survive so we both talked it over and made changes accordingly. Now, everything has been going much smoother.


    It seems to me that somewhere a long the line you guys lost yourself and you need to find it again. Like I and other people said before, there's nothing wrong with you wanting to do stuff. It doesn't make you a bad father. You are a person that has a life of his own outside of his family. Go live that life dude.

    Well there's no chance she'll take on a job, even if I managed to convince her to give her children to some random nanny/kindergarten, as she's a nurse and the equivalency between France and Germany are weird (her diploma would mean she can only wipe people's asses pretty much instead of saving lives) and she has to pass a german test to make sure she speaks perfect german, which is far from the case.


    This is actually something we pondered when we were looking for a house to buy, we could have bought closer to our hometowns and within reach of our families, and the presence of those people is actually what encouraged us to stay here (besides the fact that there's no game companies there at all). Like I said, some of our life choices and principles don't get along well with certain members of our families, in particular hers. I like my family, but living next to hers sounded like a bit of a nightmare, now that we have kids (and she's the first in her family to have any).


    Anyway, no point discussing how I ended up in this situation in the first place, there were a few bad decisions, or rather good decisions for some reasons but that create conflicts for other reasons. I did talk to her again today about it all, because I absolutely hate leaving problems 'unsolved' or at least undiscussed to the extent you can discuss them, and she explained her point better this time. It fucking sucks how in the heat of arguments people just lose track of what actually is bothering them and jump subjects and point fingers all the time, leaving two angry people and no solution in sight.


    I'm not saying it'll be all fine, there will be more conflicts and more challenges before we're out of the woods, but we'll see, not much I feel I can do about that right now, better focus on the renovations while I can. Thanks for the support dudes, felt good to share, even if that doesn't solve anything in and of itself, it's good to get opinions and suggestions and to not feel too alone sometimes. Thanks! Someone else's turn now

    I can't provide any advice on kids/marriage/owning a house. But if you want to grab a beer/play some games sometime you can always give me a shout mate.

    Quote from Vilham

    I can't provide any advice on kids/marriage/owning a house. But if you want to grab a beer/play some games sometime you can always give me a shout mate.


    Thanks Will, very much appreciated

    Quote from dux

    Maybe get a boyfriend instead


    That's exactly one of my best buds did, he lives together with his gamer boyfriend and they are doing pretty well

    What kind of renovations are you doing? Any chance that she can do it while you take care of the kids?

    I know its sounds off, but it seems to me that an underlying cause here to you not being happy is because she is not happy. She getting something to do besides cradling the kids 24/7 will be good for her. As well as you getting some alone time with your kids. Which is equally important. I know that feeling you describe. The feeling that you really really want to do something creative. Its really fucking hard to not think about a project once you start planning it in your head. I've actually been thinking about implementing quests for trolls vs vikings all day even though I have been home with the wife and the kids.


    But if you all of a sudden have two kids that you, and only you, must take care of for the next few hours because your wife is away or in the next room working on the kitchen or whatever, then it wont be that long before you no longer think those thoughts about that project that you feel an urge to do. Mainly because you dont have the time to sit down and worry about it, because you are to busy running after the kids.


    Does your wife have any friends nearby btw? Does she attend anything sociable? Like dance class, martial arts classes, swimming etc? Any place she can meet other poeple and just relax or do something besides the kids? She should definitively do that too (as well as the kitchen remodeling). You get to see awesome people every day at work, remember. She probably doesnt..

    Good points, no she basically does nothing on the side except play some casual games on her tablet and some light gardening.


    She joined a badminton club in the past but got pregnant soon after and she didn't feel like driving during the pregnancy and has yet to get back to it now that the baby's out. I don't know about getting her to do the renovations, she was motivated to help out but not take care of big stuff like breaking things or doing plaster or tiles or stuff like that, more just painting and other polish tasks. She also has some pains in her back due to giving birth and sees a specialist to fix it, so I doubt now's the best time to let her do some manual work, but I'll mention it.


    I do know the feeling of taking care of the kids alone, and I agree that when the full responsibility is on you you just do it without considering options, whereas when your partner is there, you both count on the other one to do everything and it ends up sucking for everyone. Maybe the key would be to spend less time all together and split it all out, me + her, me + kids, her + kids, as much as possible.


    I'll see if I can get her back into driving (we're a bit in the middle of nowhere so she can't do much on foot). She also met another mother recently who speaks french and has a baby roughly the same age as my son and they're supposed to meet regularly to let the kids play together so that'd be nice, but we'll see.


    Thanks!

    At least it sounds like some of it might clear up, from your last post. I can't imagine any marriage without a bump in the road, maybe it's just something that will pass? I like the general ideas people have posted here, but if nothing else, the entire idea of venting is helpful as well to relieve some of the internal psychological pressure.

    This is aimed at the Mapcore dads.


    When you become a parent people tend to give you a lot of advice. Which is a good thing, because it's new and you need to learn a lot. So I have no problem with getting advice. I do have a problem with people becoming judgmental. My father and my in laws are all of a sudden starting to criticize everything. When the baby cries, it because we haven't fed her enough. If she sneezes, that means she's sick and we're not taking care of her. By now you get the point, the list goes on indefinitely. I've talked to other parents and they have the same experiences. I'm wondering if any of you recognize this? In other words, is this universally so?


    Of course I'm not taking this shit and I call them out on everything they say. But they simply will not listen to reason. For instance, I explained that we are feeding the baby on a schedule because we are trying to prepare her for solid food (meaning less feeding moments a day). Having a rhythm is also important for the child so that she learns when it's day and when it's night, when to sleep and when to be awake, etc. Plus, it keeps you sane. This works brilliantly and of course there are off days when she wants to eat more and then we oblige. Every parenting book preaches this principle. But oh no, they will not listen to this reasoning. Feeding her too much, dressing her to warm, etc. It has come to a point that I don't want my child to be there. And it's not just parents. It's even acquaintances or people outside. Like in the supermarket someone said, babies need to have a hat on. Listen bitch, it's 30 degrees outside I'm not going to put a hat on. What is it with these people that they feel entitled to completely judge us on a single thing. My dad said I hold my child too much because in the two times he visited (roughly an hour in total) she was crying and I was comforting here. WTF?


    I could use some solid advice on how to handle this because it will not be much longer before I knock someone the fuck out.


    Sorry for the swearing but damn, I'm so fed up with this bullshit. Also for the record, I'm not so arrogant as to think we're not making mistakes. Of course we are. If people point those out to me, I really appreciate it. But the examples above are not mistakes!


    Tell them to file a bug report.

    Well they are just annoying in general maybe. I'm no dad, but you should tell them nicely that it's your child, not theirs, and that the education has to be done by you. People tend to project their principles, and their "i know better" to what doesn't concern them, maybe unintentionally though. For the moment she is a baby so that is ok, but after, when she will be able to walk and talk you really need to put a stop to this kind of interference because it kind of hurt her education i think.


    Like for example, when my cousin leave his 2 years old boy at my parents home. When he asks something to eat or something to play with my mother will give him everything he wants. I think it's somehow because she wants the kid to like her basically. So of course, although he is not too annoying, he goes on a complete rampage when he is at my parents home. When I'm busy running after him when my cousin visits and he ask me : can i have that ? I answer : Alright but what do you think mom & dad would think about it ? (then he usually do a concerned face) If you want it you will have to go ask mom & dad, i can't give it to you myself. Then he goes and usually has it, but at least he understand that it is his mom & dad that have the last word.


    But also i have the good role, i'm usually the one he plays with when my cousin comes over. We usually play to the farm. But so far he just goes : LET S PUT EVERYONE IN THE FARM and then he will put the farmer, with the horse over him and throw the tractor on top until it fits. Then LET S GET EVERYONE OUT THE FARM etc etc he just doesn't get tired of that shit. I'm eager he grows up a bit so we could play the story of schmidt the ninja horse fighting the plastic trex in the land of the forsaken kitchen. Until he goes mentally ill and will be able to enjoy playing warhammer, and my plan will be perfect........


    I think the best way will be either to talk to them about it if they can understand or keep your calm and say : yes. yes. you are right.


    Also for the woman in the supermarket, you could have bought a baby hat you monster, and then put it on the woman's head. That would have been the thing to do.

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