OH! I thought your kids were still at home. *Nevermind* to a lot of that, lol.
I did have one thought, though...
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3. It is important to W to have a true day off on a *consistent* basis.
Well, as I said above, and I will add to now, I have been on her for weeks to continue to pursue "time off" but she chooses not to. She keeps saying OVER and OVER AGAIN that she only wants to go out maybe once a month. I AM THE ONE who says "No, go out once a WEEK, you deserve that."
...
...She said above all else, she wanted to feel free to either stay or go and I made sure I didn't do anything to make her think she didn't.
My first thought here was that I would not want to have to get out of the house (go out with friends, for example, which is another obligation of a sort) in order to get an evening off. Sometimes, it is nice simply to be at home and not be on call.
But, it sounds like you (now) do plenty of evening child care, and she has several days free. Still, I expect she does more during the day than you think and that much of her time is spoken for one way or another. (NOTE: if so, alot of this is probably in HER control, she can choose not to take on obligations in some cases.)
Anyway, I guess it sounds as if you perhaps resent all her free time a bit (or maybe not, lol, as you also said you hadn't given it much thought). Anyway, if you are a bit resentful, this could be making you demanding in subtle ways of which you are unaware. Or, you might be anyway simply because it is pretty natural. Like, maybe when you are watching the kids in the evening, mom is still definitely "on call" for many various and sundry things that go beyond real emergencies. So, maybe one night a week, EACH of you could have evenings during which you are on call SOLELY for emergencies. This would mean, barring disaster, you are totally free to do your own thing. Your own thing might be to watch a video with the kids and spouse, or it might be to go through a closet, shop on the internet, go out with friends, *whatever*. The point is that there be no expectation or pressure to choose the spouse or family on that night, but make it really, truly a *free* night.
And, remember, free time IS NOT equal to time out of the house...
BTW, it sounds like she really DID want to go to WDW. She had the space to figure out what SHE wanted, and figured out for herself that it was to join you. That had to feel soooo much better for both of you than her going because she felt it was expected of her
Life with H and Newtimer is excellent. H is *great* in terms of our working together to make sure I have time off, even though Newtimer is still nursing. I really appreciate his efforts here so much. I can't imagine having a decent life with kids without this kind of support. Thus, my post to you (because I thought your tikes were still at home for some reason.) Hopefully, I'll be able to get a major project finished up in the next several months and we can start working on Newtimer's sibling
