This might be a long one, so bear with me...
DP and I have been together for about 15 years, and have two young DCs. However, I'm starting to seriously question our future together.
The problem is that he's incredibly lazy and disorganised. This manifests itself in lots of different ways:
- He stays up into the early hours watching TV / playing video games / or just snoozes on the sofa. He doesn't actually need very much sleep so is able to function fine on about 4 hours, but I do often need to wake him up in the morning, otherwise he'd be late for work.
- He only does things around the house when asked, and even then I would have to ask multiple times. Most of the time, I either just do it myself or it doesn't get done. I'm keen not to exaggerate so I'd say this is the case about 60-70% of the time. The only exception to this is cooking, which he enjoys doing, so does that willingly.
- There are low-level things he simply can't see for himself need doing - cleaning of course, it wouldn't enter his mind to pick something up off the floor unless I asked him to, even if it meant stepping over it. I'm also seeing that he has a blind spot with the DC's things too - most mornings there are reading logs to be signed, PE kits to gather, homework to corral etc. But somehow that all falls to me to sort out, even though we have similar responsibilities at work. Through years of nagging asking nicely, our bed now gets made by one of us before we leave the house, and he will occasionally tackle laundry once he's run out of clean pants. But he would never think to change sheets, towels, or do any of the hundreds of little household things that just have to get done (in my opinion).
- He doesn't do basic admin stuff like renewing insurance, paying bills etc. He either puts it off until the last minute, or neglects to do it at all. This can have quite major ramifications - in the past he has had poor credit due to unpaid bills (our house is in my name). We've been uninsured at key points due to his negligence. And last week, our car was towed away because he hadn't paid the car tax. That cost hundreds of pounds to sort out, which is just such an unnecessary expense.
- The car itself is a major sore point - we drive a ridiculous 4x4 that he struggles to park on our road, despite me having NOT given him permission to when he asked. There was nothing wrong with our old car and we were meant to be saving up for some renovations. He bought it anyway, which I still think is downright disrespectful. But he likes new shiny toys and just wanted it so badly that he couldn't think straight. He's apologised since but things like that make me feel uncomfortable with him having access to our joint account.
- He stopped exercising a few years ago - when we met he was very active and played rugby / went to the gym regularly. He now spends most of his time lying on the sofa - he's made a big dent in the cushions in his favourite spot! If I'm honest I find this an incredibly unattractive quality. It's also very frustrating to see him sitting there with not a care in the world when there are dozens of productive things he could be doing instead. I do quite a lot of sport and try to eat fairly healthily and he's the polar opposite. He eats terribly for a few months at a time, then crash diets to lose the weight he's put on, then starts the cycle again. He has a few aches and pains but never gets round to booking an appointment to get them seen to.
- This isn't a core part of the issue but it's just another thing that seriously irritates me - he has to have a screen / noise on at ALL times. So when he wakes up he puts on an incredibly annoying talk radio station. I've asked if we can have some silence but somehow he 'forgets' most mornings. I follow him around the house turning off appliances. He also eats all meals in front of the television. Which means I sometimes do, which I would prefer not to. But if I didn't we wouldn't see much of each other. Apart from being annoying, it sometimes makes me feel like he doesn't value time / conversation with me.
I'm veering off the subject now, but I think that gives a good sense of what our problems are. I'm starting to think perhaps our lifestyles just aren't compatible, and that I would be happier if we lived apart.
Now for balance, I should list all the great things about him:
- He's a very good father. He loves his children dearly, and other than a couple of blind spots (not bothering to read with them, not knowing about medical appointments etc), he takes very good care of the DCs and happily spends lots of time with them.
- He's very good at his job and makes a good living from it.
- He's my best friend, and has been for the last 15 years. When times are good, we laugh lots together. He's always been very supportive of me doing as much as I've wanted to in my career / hobbies.
But on the other hand, I feel that he takes me for granted, and I live in constant fear that his irresponsibility will land us in serious trouble. Ultimately, I don't feel like I can trust him, and to some extent he's turning me into a person that I don't like - I feel like I'm close to being at the end of my tether.
Am I over-reacting? Is this something that I'll just have to learn to live with? I recognise that things could be far worse, and there are people on here dealing with much more unpleasant circumstances - but it's still something that is making me unhappy and anxious.
It's also not the sort of thing that I can talk to anyone in real life about, so I'm just interested in hearing some other opinions - thank you if you even made it this far!
