“Mike” is a new Dad to a 6 month old. Both Mike and his wife work full time out of the home and both are fully back to work. Mike and his wife work slightly different hours, with Mike starting work a bit later and also finishing later than Mama. Therefore, Mike drops Baby off at the Day Care facility they use on his way into work and Mama then picks Baby up on her way home. They are doing mixed feeding now, so Mama breastfeeds when she can and pumps while at work so that Baby can get bottle fed breastmilk at Day Care and from Mike from time to time as well. So far, so good in that this set up seems pretty common and typical.

However, Mike is reporting a lot of frustration and resentment coming up for him in his actual lived experience of this reality. Here’s a synopsis of his experience:

“She hurriedly leaves for work, often scrambling to get out the door on time as she throws random suggestions and reminders my way, seeming to forget that I have managed to get Baby to Day Care with all the diaper bag and feeding accessories in place just fine every week for the past 12 weeks. No kiss, no hug, no “have a great day,” no nothing.

Later on when I get back home, she is often breastfeeding our Baby, holding him, or otherwise engaged with him. Which is great, right? However, she barely recognizes that I am now home, and quite often this “recognition” comes in the form of requests to get dinner started, move the wash to the dryer, or some other random task that she feels should be the priority. Again, no hug, no kiss, no “Hi honey, how was your day?”

Most evenings kind of unfold in this typical way where her focus is on Baby and/or on what she wants me to do with or about Baby, or what she wants me to do for other household or life maintenance plan or project. In short, I am treated like some sort of peripheral object that is only relevant to the degree that I am needed to perform some task or chore off her “invisible list.”

Night time and “sleeping” is a crapshoot. Between Baby waking up wet and/or hungry, us both waking up, and then sometimes arguing over whose turn it is to take care of him, I’m always up for at least 30 min at a time 3 or 4 times a night, every night of the week. And same for her too, obviously.

And yeah, I get that she is a new Mom, and feels all sorts of ways about working and not seeing Baby all day and can be preoccupied with whatever she thinks needs to be done. But all that goes for me too. I’m a new Dad, and I also have mixed feelings about working and missing Baby, and have my own list of things that I am tracking that need to be done.

But, here’s the thing. I don’t walk around issuing orders to her, or telling her not to forget to pump, or try to spend all my time holding or hanging out with our Baby. I try to treat her like my wife - the person I love and married and started a family with. I try to ask her about her day and how things are going. I try to initiate plans for a date, and moments of intimacy. These are always rebuffed, with mumblings about it being late, or her being tired, or her not wanting to find a sitter for Baby for a date when she has been away from Baby all week already. In fact, I’ve given up on trying to suggest anything the least bit romantic.

In short, she treats me like a 3rd wheel, like an afterthought, like a performance object. At times even me simply trying to talk to her results in her sighing and throwing an accusatory “What?” at me, as if my mere presence was an imposition to her. Almost every attempt I make to connect with her is ignored, resisted, rebuffed, or even scolded as me “not getting it” when it comes to knowing what she needs.

But when I directly ask “What do you need from me?”, the most common answers are either doing some silly chore or otherwise moving my attention away from her. Like I said earlier, it’s like she expects me to hang around like a servant just doing random shit around the house but also ready to drop what I’m doing at any moment and do whatever else is next on her “invisible list” of worries.

I feel neglected and lonely, and paradoxically exhausted and defeated. I work hard at my job to make sure that I am on track and positioned well for promotion opportunities coming up at the end of the year. When I’m home I try to make sure that all the usual household things are being taken care of.

I don’t go out to see my friends on weeknights, and even on weekends it’s rare that I am doing anything that isn’t directly related to meeting some sort of family or household obligation. Sure, I might get the opportunity to run out for groceries by myself or something like that, but that is just more of me being alone, right?

At the end of the day, all of this usually ends up with me in a place of constantly simmering resentment.”

Any of this sound familiar?

Thankfully, Mike reached out for help and together we came up with a plan for getting better connected to his wife, better prepared for the weeks ahead, and most importantly, better grounded in his own journey into Fatherhood. His plan involved specific action steps for all of the above, and also had what I call “early warning” indicators to alert him that he was drifting a little too far off the path.

After 6 weeks of working the plan, he happily reported that he was feeling much more grounded in his life and reconnected to his Sacred Individuality, and also much more in sync with his wife, and Baby too. In sum, he was finally starting to THRIVE in the Dad Zone!

Be like Mike. Set up a free 30-min call with me today so we can put together a customized plan to help you reach your goal of Dad Zone Thriving.