u/dreamgirl993

I posted this in another subreddit, but maybe people with my same type can understand me better and give more targeted advice.

My husband is a university professor and just goes to work when he has lessons. I don't feel attracted to him when he stays home when I go to work and find him home when I return. We also have a one years old baby who stays at daycare for 4 and a half hours a day.

I think a father's job is to support the mother so that she can better take care of the baby, not the father staying home more with the baby while the mother works, or drifting in cafes or visiting his parents while the wife works.

I find it impossible to be attracted to him even though I try. He is successful and earns more than me and contributes more than me financially.

I have told him that I would leave my job to stay with the baby, he said that he doesn't want parasites and likes independent people. I could leave my job, but he would still be there all day like when I was on maternity leave and I started to feel suffocated by his presence and my attraction to him dropped quickly. We would be 24/7 together and with the baby in the days he didn't have lessons. He has told me to leave my job if I want, but he won't work more because he wants time with the family too. But in reality he spends more time with the baby than me, and also time alone when the baby is in daycare and I am at work.

He says that he has deserved this "free time" because he worked hard when he was a straight A student. So I choose an ambitious, successful man and now it has turned to this now. Thinks that I am jealous of his job (not at all in reality).

How can this be resolved? This might seem like a small problem to have but living it every day becomes big. I can not bring myself to have sex with my husband knowing he has spend all his day hours drifting in cafés and is home with the baby at 1 pm. And this repeats day after day.

Please don't judge me, I am talking about a real situation here (the loss of attraction), not trying to attack my husband.

I think my husband definitely is an infj.

My husband is a University professor with a flexible hours job and this has started to make me lose attraction to him.

A lot of moments during the day irritate me. When he prepares lectures in bed. When he meets his family at random hours during the day when I am at work. When he spends time with the baby while I clean the kitchen. This would be very good if he had been working all day, so I as a mother would need to create that space for him. But he is with the baby more than I am. He does this often. I mean does childcare tasks but leaves the housework to me. I don't care if he doesn't do housework in general. I care about losing attraction to him and losing my role as the wife and mother in our family.

I am not keeping score. I simply don't find that attractive, his presence is even annoying. I find it hard to explain exactly.

I don't necessarily compare his rhym to mine. I am not saying he has to be exactly as I am, but a man even more structured than me, that is what I find attractive. And there were times in the past that I valued his flexibility, like he would complete maybe my flows. But now it's repulsive to me. I feel already complete as I am and I would be very happy with someone structured as me instead or even better, more.

Here are some moments that irritate me and make me lose attraction

When I leave for work and leave my husband home.

When he meets his family at random hours while I am at work.

When I find him sleeping when I return from work.

When he does "research" or prepares lectures in bed at random hours.

It also irritates me that my husband often sits next to the baby in similar social gatherings with my family. Maybe I am exaggerating but I want to sit next to the baby as I am the mother, he is part of me.

He doesn't embarrass me, it's just that I am not attracted. It often feels like he is erasing a distinction in a lot of situations. And it's repulsing.

My repulson towards him is growing. When I first had the baby and I was on maternity leave, I didn't have it. First months were ok as he was present and helpful with the baby. I was in a state like being drunk by happiness. Then I started to notice it. My son was born in August so my husband was free and available all the time until the academic year started in October. When he went to teach the first time after the baby I felt relief and calmness. I knew I didn't like my husband's flexible schedule during first months too but I thought that would get resolved over time. The first time i noticed there was a problem was when I had to take every month the baby to the pediatrician for a routine check and we would go together. One day my husband said that he had a lot to do, papers etc. I told him I can go alone. He reacted intensively, like no way, it is not more important than the child. I would see other mothers going alone, and in some cases with the father's too.

Sometimes I remember the period of maternity leave and thought that it would have been much better if he had a full time job, I would have enjoyed it more.

I go to work 8.00 to 15.00. He takes the baby to daycare at 8.30 and picks him up at 13.00.

On some days I get absorbed in my own world and I have somewhat gotten used to finding him home. I know for sure that I would prefer he worked a 9 to 5 or at least more hours than me. I think it has more to do with a kind of structure and order in my life. Sometimes I don't feel strong emotions. I find him on the couch and the baby in his bed in the bedroom. When I find him sleeping in our bed with the baby, i get more frustrated.

In the future, I see this situation and even worse because the baby will be older. My husband thinks he's doing a job by putting the baby to sleep. When he's older the need for him to sleep with the child will be less and less. Of course something in me resists that image. I would like what I would like.

I tried to be happy despite of him

I think what I need is having examples that I can admire in order to know that what I want exists in the world and there is plenty of it. And also knowing that there are men who if they knew my real thoughts, like the ones that i have shared here would admire me or see me as perfection. That would make my husband irrelevant.

I know that it exists as it is the situation for most women. He doesn't understand the importance of it. And his comfort is of higher priority for him.

What keeps it important is that he has power. He can do what he wants and I have no say. It's up to him to change the situation. There is nothing I can do. Maybe if the child was older or we didn't have a child I would disappear for longer hours into work. I have even tried looking attractive when I leave for work, to emphasize the contrast between me meeting people and him being home or in caffes. But there's not much i can do. I have thought of doing the opposite: completely reversing the gender roles and letting him handle more childcare since he's available. I have asked him to do housework since he's home more so that he gets fed up and works more hours instead. Even though that's not really what I want. He simply doesn't have the substance for what I want. So the bottom point is that changing the situation depends on him.

Being organized in my work too is part of myself. But the PhD etc is also irrelevant to my happiness somewhat. If you understand what I mean.

I can't say that happiness is a man who leaves in the morning and comes back in the evening. That would be a sense of calmness coming from order or that feeling that things are in their place. Also, I wouldn't want him leaving to meet his family in the middle of the day or something similar. We have fought about this too in the past. I mean not just leaving, but having structured work hours.
So what can I do to make him irrelevant?