AIBU To be exhausted by the end of the day and not accepting that kids, cooking, cleaning, etc are my jobs and husband should not treat his share of house work as “help”

[Alison18031]

A family with 2 primary school aged kids and 2m old baby. Husband works 9+ hours a day from home in front of his laptop.

I do:

1. online grocery shopping, meals planning, cooking (I start cooking lunch at 9am, dinner straight after lunch as can only do things in 2 min/5 min intervals in between other things).
   
2. homeschooling these days (going through what schools are sending, making sure things are done by kids, assisting as needed).
   
3. cleaning: big clean during weekends, daily tidy ups (no one else is bothered, I hate mess).
   
4. baby is with me 24/7, not a great sleeper, more like a catnapper. I BF. Baby just lives on me, wouldn’t stay anywhere else for more than 2 min without making a fuss.
   
5. I manage to get a cup of tea and 5 min to sit down around 10pm and then I crush into bed, every other day I have to get all my remaining energy to have a shower.
   
   Husband:
   
6. wfh in front of laptop for 9+ hours a day.
   
7. takes older kids to park twice a day for 1-1.5 hours each time.
   
8. loads/unloads dishwasher and washing machine if I ask.
   
   I feel like being torn apart every second of my day (running between baby, kitchen, kids), trying to do 5 things at the same time. By lunchtime my back hurts badly from carrying the baby. I’m physically and emotionally exhausted by the end of the day. And here at 10pm comes my husband asking for sex and telling me that I just imagine things and come up with excuses and that he is also extremely tired but he needs sex and if I refuse he would have to find someone else to meet his sex demands. His argument is that he does all he could to help me and I can’t then spend 10 min with him. I tell him that what he does is not help to me but his share of housework and I don’t make up excuses I just genuinely exhausted beyond every limit and it’s unreasonable for him to expect the normal level of service these days.
   
   Am I just a lazy cow and need to get myself together and let my husband do whatever he wants with my body or I can just be tired and can go straight to bed?

[OrangeGinLemonFanta]

Your husband is a dickhead pestering for sex. But if he's working 9 hours, spending 3 hours taking the bigger kids out, and he's doing laundry and dishes that's a pretty busy day too. Perhaps you need to declutter to reduce the mess, ease up on the homeschooling (how much are you doing if they're out 2/3 hours a day?), and make much simpler meals - scrambled eggs or cheese sandwiches don't need 3 hours prep. It will feel easier when the baby gets bigger too.

[OrangeGinLemonFanta]

Oh and your baby is TINY. Your body is still recovering from pregnancy and birth and if he wants to shag someone else he can drop the emotional blackmail and pack his bags and fuck off.

[WowLucky]

He's being vile with his demands for sex and his "reasoning", if you don't want it, you don't have to have it, but as far a division of labour is concerned, if you're getting 3 child free hours a day I'm not sure what more you want TBH. How much time can managing the house take?

[tiredanddangerous]

Stop cooking lunch for a start and make sandwiches/beans on toast.

Your dh is a massive dick to be pestering you for sex.

[Aquamarine1029]

...that he is also extremely tired but he needs sex and if I refuse he would have to find someone else to meet his sex demands.

If my husband ever said this to me it would be game over, marriage over. Tell him he is welcome to go shag every woman in town as you slam the door behind him.

[Alison18031]

@WowLucky 3 hours when I’m on my own with the baby I my hands.

[arethereanyleftatall]

Pestering for sex sounds awful.

But I do think he's probably doing 'enough' yes. 3 hours a day childcare (and the worst 3 imo) 9 hours work, plus a bit of housework. You're both having it tough really atm.

I would make easier lunches.

[TitianaTitsling]

Do you have a baby sling or carrier? Save your back!

[Alison18031]

I don’t cook anything complex, putting chicken filet into Owen, rice into rice maker and washing fresh vegetables, it doesn’t take too long, I just have to do it in many goes

[endofthelinefinally]

Having a permanently attached baby is not being child free.

[TitianaTitsling]

Batch cook- what are you making that takes all day to cook?
Let things go a bit re tidiness.
What are you doing in the 3 hrs a day the older kids are out?

[Todaywewilldobetter]

What does lunch consist of? Sounds excessive.
But the sex thing isn't on. He's being a dick.

[SandysMam]

What the hell are you cooking for lunch that needs to be started at 9am? We have a 2 minute cheese wrap or tuna if I have time to open the tin!
Also, the kids don’t need 3 hours at the park every day! Unless you don’t have a garden?
Your husband is so out of order for the sex thing though, sex is about a couple connecting, not for you to act as a vessel for him for 10 quick minutes, he has a hand doesn’t he?? He sounds gross OP!!

[endofthelinefinally]

Do you have a slow cooker?
I found mine a life saver when mine were little.
I cooked double quantities for every meal.
We ate pasta with sauce, casseroles with rice/ pasta/ potatoes and frozen veg.
For about 5 years.

[BankofNook]

He has no rights to do anything to/with your body, you're not a cock-socket there to service his needs. His threats that he'll go elsewhere show what a dick he's being. Can he be spoken to reasonably? If so then tell him straight that you're tired, you're stressed, and there will be no sex until things change and no coercion into having sex full stop - coercion is not consent.

If he is not able to be spoken to reasonably or is liable to kick off, verbally or physically, then I'm really sorry but I do think you should think carefully about the future of the relationship as you deserve better than that.

In terms of your day to day could you do some things to make your life easier? Don't cook lunch, before you go to bed make a packed lunch for you and the older children and put it in the fridge so that it can just be taken out ready to eat at lunchtime the following day. Could the primary school kids help with the tidying up more, you could give them specific jobs with a reward at the end to try and encourage them? Have homeschool break up early for the summer, school ends in four weeks anyway but with everything you've got going on it won't do them any harm to end a bit early or - if you want them to still do some work - cut right back and focus on a piece of English/writing, a piece of maths, and some reading to give yourself a shorter school day. Your baby is 2m old (8/9 weeks?), don't do complicated dinners. Downgrade and do slow cooker meals where you can dump everything into it in the morning, freezer meals, ready meals, basically go for convenience for the next few weeks until your baby is that little bit older and can hopefully be put down for longer periods. Make cooking dinner his responsibility at least two nights a week, he is WFH, he can pop down and put the oven on in less time than it would take him to pop down and make a coffee. If the baby has been fed then there is no reason he can't put the baby into the pram and take him/her to the park too to give you an hour to yourself.

[WriteronaMission]

I agree with a PP. If my husband told me he'd have to go elsewhere to serve his sexual needs, he's be out of the house. Regardless of who does that, threatening to go elsewhere for sex would be a deal breaker for me. He's a pig.

[ClosedDoors]

Hmm, apart from being a sex pest I don't think what he's doing is unreasonable at all to be honest. It sounds like he does a fair bit considering he's also working 9 hours.

Why are you cooking a proper lunch? Just do sandwiches/beans on toast/soup.

It sounds like you're possibly creating work for yourself that isn't essential- with cooking a proper lunch and cleaning. During lockdown I'd not worry too much about the house being a mess.

[burritofan]

At first I thought your husband was just a lazy twat – and wondered why he's doing 9-hour days, surely not necessary? – then I got to the sex demands, threats and gaslighting and realised he's an abusive twat.

Is leaving him an option?

[tooto]

That sex comment is the real issue. I'd seriously reconsider my marriage if my husband said that to me.

It seems like he is pulling his weight with working though and taking the kids out twice (do they need to go out twice a day?). I'd perhaps assign those chores to him so you don't have to prompt/ask him to do it.

You need a baby bouncer and a carrier to ease off carrying the baby all the time. Introduce white noise at night to promote longer sleeps and less day time naps. Batch cook and freeze. Make easy lunches - sandwiches, crudités and fruit for lunch. Get older kids to help prep it if they can. Get them to start doing their own chores as well (making beds, tidying, putting laundry in machine etc) and add incentives if you have to. Only do a tidy once a day at night (not throughout the day) and learn to live with a bit of mess?

[blackcat86]

The sex comment would clamp my vaginal tightly shut. Thats not a turn on. The rest just sounds like a typically busy household. 9 hours work and 3 hours childcare is a lot. Do your older children really need that much outside time? Couldn't your husband get them helping to tidy and do a few chores. Surely they can put toys away, make beds, lay the table, make a sandwich and takes some fruit from a fruit bowl? Your lunches are over complicated. Leftovers or a cold lunch is fine. Life with such a young baby and other children is going to be hard but it feels like you're blaming your husband and being a bit of a martyr when you could probably simplify things and be kind to yourself.

[Alison18031]

I just find it very annoying when instead of showing some understanding and feeling sorry for me he says that he is also very tired. 9 hours of sitting on your bottom plus 3 hours of walking/cycling/chatting with other parents in the park while watching older kids is nothing compared with what I go there every day. I work full time in the office normally and earn more than my husband so I kind of know what 9 hours of work is.

[IfNotNowThenWhen2]

YANBU. Is he fuck "doing enough"!!
I work 8 hours a day from home. It's boring, not tiring. Fucking zoom meetings and data entry..versus cooking cleaning and washing for a family of five, homeschooling, and having a 2 MONTH old baby hanging off me? No brainer.
Listen, I'm a single parent. I manage to keep the house ok, help with schoolwork, do all the washing and shopping AS WELL as working. I don't have a tiny baby though so I'm not that tired. This man has 3 children, he needs to act like it.
I'm sorry to say, your husband is a lazy, entitled twat. I would probably leave him, but then my tolerance for dead weight is very low.
That's quite apart from the sex pestering. What, exactly, is he doing to inflame your passion? You're not a household appliance love, he isn't entitled to plug in when he has his "needs"
But you know that.

[arethereanyleftatall]

I think the parents who compete against each other for who's tiredest, are the parents who get divorced in x years (I'm one of them). The parents who accept they're both absolutely bloody knackered at the moment, and just do their best for each other and try to work as a team, are the ones who are still happily married.

[AltheaVestr1t]

Your day sounds really tiring but that's not unexpected when homeschooling two kids with a tiny baby. I agree that you are making far too much of an effort on lunch. Sling them some toast and a tin of soup! But none of those things are the real issue here, being pestered for sex when you are exhausted with a small bf baby is totally unacceptable - not that it ever is acceptable, but especially not now!

[Windyatthebeach]

Having a penis doesn't prevent him wearing a sling...
Send all the dc with him. Spend the free time doing something for you..