AIBU to be sick of managing our lives and our home?

[NoonarAgain]

My DH is very caring and kind. He earns a good salary, works very hard at work and is good with the dds (10 and 12). I know I am lucky to have him.

Despite this, I cannot help but resent the fact that he doesn't realise/ appreciate the amount of mental and physical energy required to organise shopping, food, activities, birthdays, family events etc etc.

He is very active and does quite a few chores. However, I feel that I have to project manage everything and decide everything. It's exhausting. I work 4 days but am usually back at the end of school. He has meetings in the evening and I often have to do our usually shared evening domestic stuff alone as a result.

I am annoyed that my workload is increased by his absence and that I always have to be the constant one, if that makes sense. I have to just be here, do the extra and suck it up.

AIBU to want someone to fit around me for a change, rather than fitting in and juggling everyone else's needs?

DH just kind of shrugs and says ' what can I do?'

I wonder if this is a feminist issue tbh, cause despite the amount DH does around the house, I always feel like the buck stops with me.

AIBU to feel that doing an equal share when you are home is not the same as having true equal responsibility? AIBU to resent this?

What would you like him to do? Take on more of what you do, or appreciate you more?

Wobble, I'd like him to take the initiative more eg planning meals and thinking ahead more when his absence will impact on our schedule. Eg booking dog walker when he us away and unable to do his usual walk instead of leaving it to me. It's the organising really.

Have you talked about what you want specifically want? What was his response?

Oh and YANBU by the way, there's no reason why you should manage everything. You should be a team, working together to make life run smoothly.

He doesn't really understand how I feel in terms if having to organise/ plan/ arrange. I guess if I'd use a summer fete analogy it's a bit like the difference between Turning up on the day to run a stall and organising the whole event in advance AND running a stall!

He's a grafter, a doer. But doesn't arrange or plan ahead.

Maybe iabu

I agree. I have a fab dh but I also feel I've got to be behind everyone or nothing gets done.
Booking stuff, planning stuff and preparing for it.
We were at a festival recently and I was getting everything from the van that we needed to take to the arena for the day when I suddenly stopped and mirrored him by sitting down.
He looked at me and said "what are you doing?"
"The same as you" I replied.

Hmmm tricky one. I used to think if I went away for several weeks (possibly it might have to be 3 months) then DH would finally appreciate what it means to run a house & family. But he probably wouldn't.

Tonight he came home 2 hours early. He is lovely but it wouldn't occur to him maybe he could do dinner for a change. If I ask him to do it he'd probably pick up on the slight resentment in my voice and get massively defensive. An we'd row. So I haven't asked.

Ledkr, argy...exactly.

There's a book called Wifework which deals with this issue. Haven't read it myslef (it's on the pile) but i see it recommended a lot on here. It is a feminist issue, too

7dats, I do hear of that book...I am a bit scared to read it in case it puts me in a permanently bad mood, lol!

Had a recent meltdown w dh over exactly your issue. He works 5 days, I work 4, he does a fair amount of chores around the house, but I have to plan and organise everything. Got a short trip coming up and he's shown no interest in it at all - will expect to present himself at the appointed time and that everything will have been planned and packed.

I'm not sure what the answer actually is. He told me to tell him what he needs to do, but from my perspective, that's just one more thing that needs organising! I actually asked him to be interested and then maybe we can split the work between us.

Am not hopeful.

that's a consideration, certainly

Play...oh the irony! I've had that too ..'just tell me what you want me to do' . That's. The .whole. Point.

I know how you feel and I feel resentful too. I feel like DH is playing at it - he might go to the supermarket or cook dinner if the mood strikes him, but he knows that I'm there to do whatever he doesn't feel like doing. Whereas I'm constantly running around trying to sort everything around him. I think maybe it is a feminist issue - as the mother I feel like I can't switch off from the needs of my family, whereas DH can and does switch off whenever other parts of his life are more exciting.

Exactly the same here. He's happy to get the shopping but I need to make a list, he'll cook if I tell him what needs cooking. There are three members of his family that have birthdays this week, I've had to ring them to organise when we will see them, what the children want and get cards/presents sorted! He was given the forms from school to organise holiday childcare and have just discovered he has not booked any child care and has lost the forms!!! Grrrr!

I don't think it is possible for him to do any better and I think it's just something I have to put up with! But it does breed resentment!

Read the book. It's good.

But more importantly give it to dh to read.

HE has to read it to understand what you're saying.

Otherwise you could go on strike of the other stuff.

What other stuff is it you do that he doesn't?

What I call having to be the bloody general all the time.
It does seem to me that many men think things just happen, with no intervention necessary - medical appointments, pet minding on holidays, the holidays themselves, the rent getting paid, the bills getting paid (especially on time), steady attention to the washing so there's no need to do eleventy million loads at once, and so on.
Domestic magic.
And yes, I get heartily sick of being seemingly the only forward panner in the house.

Oh and ignore goblin.

'just tell me what you want me to do'
I want you to start looking around and seeing what needs doing without having to be told.

And GoblinLittleOwl you left out the frozen lumps of poison for dinner and living in a shoebox in the middle of the road.
Your having difficulty doesn't invalidate someone else's.

Elephant that is such a good description. I don't want to be a general all the time. All the background stuff doesn't happen by magic.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier on my own, at least I'd only have to sort myself out. [awaits flaming]

Hee, I wrote forward panner. No gold-mining here...
Forward planner.

I have to go away on a course for 4 nights in September. I'm seriously considering batch cooking and buying extra school uniform to make sure the DC are cared for. It's quite tempting to leave DH in the lurch, but I feel bad for the DC. DH is going to get enough of a shock when he discovers that homework and packing school bags do not happen by itself.

Same here in our house. I seem to organise absolutely everything. DH will sometimes come out with things like "my car tax is due at the end of the month". Doesn't seem to think about sorting that one himself though. I know he is perfectly capable to be organised with some things, as he paid for his yearly subscription for TomTom last night without me saying anything.
It's his mum's birthday soon - I will nag him to death to sort out present (mainly because she is a nightmare to buy for), but I tend to get on with most things myself (as again, I get the "tell me what you want me to do".
It does annoy the hell out of me sometimes though. So days like today, I sit back and do absolutely nothing!!!

In his defence, he does do most of the cooking. (Although I work evenings so I am not here most of the week at dinner time). And today he has decided to tidy the garden up.