Thank you, all, for your well-thought out advice! He is travelling this week for work, and I am doing some self reflection and planning on working this out. The self introspection leads to the "shocking" finding that over the past years, besides adding a couple of kiddos, I have changed, not so much him!!! At the risk of a storm of face punching, here is what I have found out, about us and in particular myself.
1. Division of labor - tried that multiple times, but each time when someone is sick, or other stuff comes up, or after a while (maybe a couple of months?) it slowly reversed back. For example, dog poop pick up duty. He would do it more diligently at the beginning, then winter comes, or workload crashing down, etc. it changed from everyday to every other day to every week! Imagine the amount of poo in the backyard! Then instead of nagging everyday, I would start doing it again, before a big rain or snow come for example. Quite frankly, a huge amount of poop there doesn't bother him nearly as much as it bothers me. Similar for laundry, he dose it, and he try to fold it, and I pretty much refold it every time. It looks like bunch of balls pile on each other, I do have higher standard on that. I clean the rest of the house in between cleaning lady's visit, but never touch his office or his basement man cave, because that's his responsibilities. As you can see, we have very different standard and tolerance level on things like that. It doesn't bother him a bit with bunch of poop in the backyard, or drawer is mess with balls of "clean clothes" or cobweb at the corner of the desk, but it gives me heartburn every time I sees it. I wouldn't say he is a complete mess because that's really not fair he dose try to clean once a week, it's just we have VERY different priority and standard in those things these days. If he has his way, he would outsource all that, and be very happy with it. With me, either I look the other way, or be more hands on and take over, because I don't want to hire everything out, or nagging on things like that regularly. But it annoys me a lot. Interestingly, I think I was little messier than I am now before kids. It's like the nesting instinct kicked in after kids and now mess bothers me a lot more than it used to. I am pretty sure he always fold laundry like that but it didn't bother me that much in the past, and I didn't pick up poop daily before kids. So I changed!
2. Value about paid work - He is driven, works very hard and long hours, and of the "suck it up" mentality when things get tough at work. I was like that too, before kids, and obviously not anymore. He came from a hard working family, with parents of very limited resources, who worked multiple jobs and juggle everything just to put a roof on their heads and food on the table. If not because discovering MMM years ago, I would be pretty much like him, rolling my eyes at people who "threw away" a "cushy job" or a "great career" to do something they love but may not pay. So I understand where he come from. It has just occurred to me that, all these years, before and after kids, he sort of followed along my semi MMM lifestyle because he was raise frugal and I kind of made it easy for him, I love to cook so very little dining out, I plan strategically for every low cost travel to far flung parts of the world, etc. etc. We didn't buy clown house or cars or accumulate stuff because it doesn't appeal to us. We by not means hardcore MMM, the high saving rate really comes from rising income with very low lifestyle inflation. So in short, again. It's me who changed, who want more of "my life in my control" while he cruise along happily where he always has been.
3. About the number. Originally we aimed for XX$ + paid off house, and we are there today. But now the kids are bigger, we are considering moving to a better school district (ours really sucks), and of course that takes more money. We always said the kids should pay at least half of their college expense, both DH and I were on our own for college when back in the days it was actually affordable. But now we have the means (if work a bit longer) to give them the gift of debt-free graduation. That would be nice, right? except for if I quit/laid off, all that burden of better school district and kids college will fall on him. That's where I felt guilty. I can't have it all, and it's not fair, to hope for a lot more(house + college), and not contributing to all that, without the partner OK with it. I know a lot of people out there are OK with that, but not me, hence the guilt. So here is that, we hit a number, then the goal post moved!
Quite frankly, I need more soul searching on what I really want and how to get there. But thank you all for getting me thinking, and to be honest with myself. Perhaps the OMY thing kicked in already (school district and college is a form of cushion), or perhaps I don't really have a real vision for ER life, but in the frenzy of kids + work, it's the easy way out. I certainly have more homework to do myself, otherwise it's not fair or prudent. Thank you all again!
