Mat leave has turned me into a 50's housewife

[walkingonair]

Having worked in highly stressful jobs for the last 10 years, I was looking forward to a year of yummy mummy freedom on mat leave with DD2. Especially as with DD1 I took only 3 months off work. I had all sorts of lovely things planned; parent and toddler sessions, coffee mornings, baby massage classes, sewing, swimming re-decorating the house, shopping, the list goes on..... the trouble is, the fantasy hasn?t quite lived up to the reality and I?m blaming DH.

Since going on ML DH thinks I should be his mum. He expects a hot meal every evening and has become increasingly lazy around the house. I don?t just mean he fails to occasionally pick up the vacuum, I mean he has turned into a teenage boy (pants/clothes everywhere, sulky behaviour if his dinners? late, dirty socks and sweet wrappers down the side of the sofa, general laziness). I?m sure, he expects me to follow him a round with a dust pan. Perhaps I should buy him a smoking jacket and light him a cigar each evening, before, massaging his feet!?

Before I went on mat leave DH and I took it in turns to cook and whilst I would do the lion's share of the housework, DH would help out. Now he assumes it?s my duty as housewife to do everything. We also run a business together so my day is often spent organising his business affairs. By the time I do the school run, look after DD2, house work, paperwork etc I have little time to enjoy being a temporary SAHM.

My biggest bug bare, is when he asks what have you done all day? Or if I do go out he?ll call me on my mobile and say with confusion ?where are you??

Sound familiar to anyone?...

[Fennel]

Can you start leaving him with the baby at weekends and see how he gets on?

There's nothing like first hand experience of baby care to bring it home to you just how it is.

[Squitten]

Well, why don't you stop doing everything for him then?

If you don't speak up for yourself, nobody else is going to...

[FindingMyMojo]

Fuck that!!!! Tell him "we need to talk" and nip all this in the bud asap.

[LaurieScaryCake]

Maternity leave has not turned you into a 50's housewife - instead it has turned your dh into a tosser.

Tell him the teenage boy act isn't sexy and you don't fancy him til he starts acting like an adult man.

[notquitenormal]

Tell him that from now on anything left on the floor for you to pick up goes into a big bag and gets burned.

Then do it.

He'll soon stop.

If he asks what you've done all day tell him 'I'm an adult, I don't have to justify myself to you' and if he calls you to ask where you are say 'I'm an adult, I don't have to justify myself to you' and put the phone down.

And at least one day on the weekend, poke him in the ribs whent he kids wake up and say, 'looks liek you've got work to do. i'm going back to sleep.'


That's my miserable, hard faces, zero tolerance approach to manchildren

[hopalongsausage]

I so get this - am now working part time, and DH and I had a hundinger of a row the other evening when he came home asking what was for dinner. I was off that day. He had it in his bonkers head that all I do all day is 'play' with 18 month old DD or 'go shopping and waste his money' - AAAARRRGHHH. I have never asked him for any money, I buy all of dd's things, AND I do the bloody ironing, cleaning, tidying up, putting his shoes away, hang his stuff up from day before, clean the bloody sink after he has poured his manky coffee down it (every effing morning!) blah blaaaah blaaaaaaaaah.

Phew. Moany rant over

[walkingonair]

I did stop doing everything in fact I didnt lift a finger for 2 weeks! The house looked like we had been burgled and when he ran out of clean pants he went to Next and bought some new pairs. Mess doesnt seem to bother him, Its me that finds it stressful! If i complain about his untidiness, he says 'well i've been at work all day'. Argghhh!!

I do leave the kids with him at weekends, in fact he's more than happy to sit in front of the TV all day, whilst our 12 yr old looks after DD2. He'll feed them rubbish and let them trash the house. I usually arrive home to find a hyperactive toddler and a 12 yr old with attitude shrieking 'Dad's been watching Rugby all day its so borrrrring!. the house will inevitably resemble a bombsite and I'll wish i'd have stayed at home.

[Carikube]

I know where you're coming from - DH was always perfectly capable around the house until I went on mat leave and now I don't think he even knows where the washing machine is. I realise that as I am at home it is kind of up to me to keep on top of the washing etc but I do find that he creates extra work (eg walking past the bin to put wrappers on the draining board which I then have to take back to the bin). I have had numerous words with him about this and can actually feel myself turning in to my mother due to the nagging that I am doing.

His behaviour means that I am seriously considering NOT returning to work at the end of mat leave as I don't think he's cottoned on to the fact that he will have to do his fair share of helping out with the DCs.

To be fair, he does keep telling me to 'do something nice' for myself but as I point out, it's a bit difficult for me to do that when I've got 2 under 2 to look after .

hopalong it feels good to rant, doesn't it?

[Carikube]

Oh and walkingonair DH often finds the DDs (19mo and 5mo) 'hard work' to look after so says he appreciates how hard I work, but then he'll sit playing on the computer whilst sticking them in front of the TV....

[scottishmummy]

for as long as you faff around after him,he will let you.feeling aggrieved and still doing stuff isnt exactly sending hard hitting im sick of it message

if you can afford it
get a cleaner

why not batch cook big dinners and freeze em.less hassle than daily cook

work out a schedule of activities and pin it to the fridge.stick to it too

discuss what is reasonable for you do to.draw line in sand and dont exceed reasonable

[onadietcokebreak]

Buy him this book and get him to play for a cleaner if its wants to act like a child.

Alternatively book a weekend way with the girls.

[walkingonair]

Carikube - Yes my DH creates extra work too! He'll finish a bottle of beer and go to the kitchen for another, without taking out his empty, dump his dirty clothes in a pile next to the wash bin rather than in it, leave the bath full of dirty water, place snot filled tissues on the kitchen worktops, I mean WTF?!..

I'm back at work in a few weeks how the hell i'm going to fit in a 40 hour job, I do not know.

Yes, it's good to rant on here instead of being a total nag all of the time. I can't be bothered with the pettiness of it all, its soul destroying!!!!

[scottishmummy]

if put yourself in wee wifie role-you will get treated like the wee wifie

is unfathomable to me that adult mess monster creates mess and get cleaned up after...so dont do it!

point out when they get home house is clean etc and that you are finished for night to,your job is done also

any additional mess they create they clean.surely that isnt so hard

dont mean to state the bleedin obvious but strikes me if you continue to skivvy about,feeling aggrieved but still doing tasks then you will just be left to it

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

hopalong - why is it a good thing that you buy all of your DD's things? Last time I checked it took two to make a baby....

I'm a SAHM and DH has never behaved like this. Not because I haven't 'let' him, but because he loves and respects me and wouldn't treat me like a skivvy.

[scottishmummy]

some of you ladies make a rod for your own back.

an adult man incapable of emptying used bath...so you do it.jesus wept

but for as long as some of you skivvy around you will continue to be treated like skivvies

most decent partners dont behave like this and this is not age or socially appropriate

[Dando]

EXACTLY.

You are not his mother. Can't make for a good sex life can it?

[ZombiePlan]

I take the point in general about nt skivvying, but sometimes it doesn't work like that - for example, if the bath is full of his scummy water, what happens if OP wants to have a bath herself? She has to empty it first!

I think this is how this kind of issue starts - one day one person (usually the woman) has to pick up the slack on a particular task for some reason, so she does it. Her OH then stops doing said task at all, because he knows she'll do it for him. It becomes "her job". Repeat process with a different task. Before you know it, the idle behaviour has crept in and made itself at home - the guy is now behaving like a knob full time. One day you wake up feeling like a doormat yet can't put your finger on exactly when you tattooed 'welcome' on your forehead...

[Mahraih]

Bollocks, just stop doing it!

And make it perfectly clear that you already HAVE a full-time job, and it isn't his maid.

The way I see it (and I have told DP this in a pre-emptive talk, twice) if I have been looking after a baby for 10 hours and he has been in an office for 10 hours, we are probably equally as tired and thus, I will not be treating him like he's the only one who has been working!

DP has said to me, actually, to reiterate zombieplan, that if I start doing something (i.e. looking for a flat and dealing with all the letting agents) he assumes that that is then 'my' job. And so he won't do it, ever! Luckily he warned me of this.

[scottishmummy]

take the bog ole cross off yer back stop being martyred wee wifie

some of you have men who take the piss because you let them- so stop facilitating it

don't skivvy about picking up his detritus

yes it is an insidious creeping up of tasks and responsibilities but if you feel put upon,time to assert self

this acceptance of ach that's how men are is inherently flawed.the implicit acceptance of it

its not how all men are- it is how some of your men are

[hopalongsausage]

Hehehe. We had friends round last night, and even my female friend stated that it was a bit 1950s at one point - we were getting dinner ready while 'the men' were on the effing wii / x box / pile of trash in the corner. Worked out ok though - we got it all ready, then waltzed into lounge with bottle of fizz, 2 glasses for us, told em to hop it and cook the damn stuff whilst we put toshy x factor on. Didn't really see them for an hour.

My DH isn't that bad, I was in a shitty ranty mood earlier . He is now getting dd's tea ready, done the recycling, washing up, putting away, tidying the lounge, stripped the bed where friends slept etc. There was a big pile of crap his things on the table yesterday, and he asked what it all was - I replied saying it was a pile of his stuff that he has left about the place all week. It's a lot smaller now....

Oooh, and Ali - re me buying all of dd's things - we kind of worked out that DH pays the mortgage and most of the bills, and I pay the nursery and childcare things - me being on the much lower wage and him on the higher city-type wage thing. Just narks me sometimes that he thinks I 'shop' all the time...

Anyhoo, rant over again - good to rant on here! I hear wine being opened also...

[ShanahansRevenge]

I stay at home...I do work a little though...I freelance but it's only part-time.

I don't ever pick up after DH...he does his own ironing too! I do always have a hot meal every night though...they all want that especially in the winter. DH does cooked breakfasts at the weekends and he likes that bit of domestic time. He often offers to be a SAHD but I always thank him and say no!

[MumNWLondon]

On the basis you will be going back to the stressful job, then employ a cleaner, and at on at least 3 days a week do all the fun things. Book them in so you HAVE to do them.

I did loads of batch cooking on maternity leave so only cooked once a week and did this the day my cleaner came so she helped me clean up. Got tesco to deliver that morning etc.

Did 5-6 dinners at a time - chicken pie, cottage pie, lasagne, fish pie, bolognaise sauce etc etc.

[WriterofDreams]

It is due to threads like this that I am currently training up my DH for when baby arrives in December! I am sitting on the couch MNing while he has just cleaned the bathroom, is currently cleaning the kitchen and will soon be making dinner. To be fair I am wrecked from being ridiculously huge so I do have a legitimate excuse for being ridiculously idle unable to help, but I have already let him know that when baby arrives next month my job will be to look after him and nothing else. I will of course pick up after myself and whatnot but DH will be responsible for pretty much everything else. Only fair I think.

[olderandwider]

Hmm, your post reminds me of that joke,

Husband arrives home from work to find house in turmoil. Kids unwashed, unfed, still in PJs, house is a tip - toys all over floor, food all over kitchen, dirty dishes and clothing strewn around. Wife nowhere to be seen.

Alarmed husband runs upstairs.

He finds his wife lying on the bed reading a magazine, feeding herself chocolates.

"What on earth is going on?" demands husband.

Wife replies, "Well, you know how you always come come home from work and ask me what I've done all day? Well, today I didn't do it."