To ask for help with housework

'You only have a baby?' I'm on maternity and some days I get nothing done because of the baby - they won't be sleeping through yet. Being a SAHM should be under the same working time directive as any other work - no more than 48 hours a week work. Everything above that is joint household work & should be split 50/50. The problem with any job working from home is you can end up overworking and as a SAHM you don't get a break at all and expected just to get on with it?. The partner should be doing more - perhaps taking joint responsibility for his own pants?

You sounds like your being to nice and acting like his mum to. Seriously a grown man doesn’t know how to put his washing in the wash basket? I would seriously just leave it on the floor until it builds up not do any of his washing and when he runs out of everything clean that’s his issue. As if he just sits on his phone while your bathing and putting the kids to bed! He needs a good telling off he is literally acting like a child I’m so sorry you have to put up with that bs. Honestly what grown man can’t help out his pregnant wife with his own children and house. I would be getting rid what an ass

So I think he should be doing more. I work full time- hubby stays at home with the 2 year old. I still do 3-4 loads of washing a week- clothes need cleaning I put it on. Wash up, load unload the dishwasher etc as needed or clean the bathrooms sweep etc. I am not being funny but being pregnant is exhausting, parenting a baby is exhausting. So yes he needs to step up. It also shows your children how to be in a partnership- and I know my parents taught me alot about that from how they treat each other and do things for each other- and it also taught me what to expect when I am in a relationship and how someone else should treat me

Telling a woman she should do it all is extremely problematic

Because for some women doing it all looks like:

Having a normal life, working, settling down with a partner
Having a baby
Being expected to do everything on maternity leave, housework, childcare, everything
Having to be the default parent the whole time because the father never does anything with the child
Doing all the night wakings night feeds and never getting a lie in
Getting pestered for sex when you are over tired and touched out
Being treated like a skivvy
Potentially with a side helping of physical, emotional and/or financial abuse

Then the baby reaches 9-12 months and you consider going back to work but

You partner wont contribute to the childcare bills, or even all bills towards the baby
He won't adjust his work schedule to facilitate childcare because you "rely" on his wage
He still expects you to do all the night waking and never have a lie in
He still expects you to do all the housework and the parenting
He still cant be left alone with the child because he either fucks up deliberately or sulks/gets aggressive
He still treats you like a skivvy
He's still demanding sex and gets annoyed that you are tired because hes still living the same life as before

You consider going back to work but

You are exhausted
You cant afford the childcare from your wage and you don't have access to a joint pot
You cant find a job that facilitates all the pick ups, drop off and sick leave
You cannot mentally and physically cope with work on top of everything you already do

And if there is a serious chance of you returning to work he coerces you into another child

Meanwhile he demands all the respect for being the breadwinner whilst giving you no respect for being the homemaker. Any abuse escalates because he has you trapped.

So if you were a SAHM who did it all, but with the backdrop of a DH who was respectful, appreciative of what you contributed, gave you equal access to money, parented appropriately and made sure you got leisure time and was supportive and encouraging of you going back to work then telling a woman whose husband is treating her with no respect and abusing her that because you did it all she should is frankly dangerous and martyrish

You say it's a good relationship OP. Yet you don't have access to any money. (When was the last time you had a hair cut, new clothes or underwear, the opportunity to buy something you like). He doesn't help with the kids and does nothing around the house. It sounds like you never get a break whereas he gets all the breaks he wants outside work. He is seriously entitled. I'm really sorry but this isn't a good relationship. For reference me and DH fully share finances, he helps 50:50 with kids and house (mostly!) and I can go for regular breaks and even weekends and trips away while he has the kids. Can you really live like this for the rest of your life? You deserve better. Have a Google of 'Why does he do that' by Lundy Bancroft.

So he works his work hours and you work 24/7? Fuck that.

Buy him more pants. Make sure you have enough for extras in case you can’t always get a wash done. We all have a good 2 weeks worth of knickers.

I always find it fascinating that some people expect their lives to actually get easier once they have children.
Before children they had no real excuse to not wash their own pants like every other adult, but the children come with a Service Human who will now see to all the needs of the so called "Breadwinner", whose life can carry on as before but with no domestic drudgery!
What an absolute joke.
And no, you do not need his "help*. You need him to do his share.

Good idea, but I'd add that he could buy his own.

Tell him his pants will magically appear in his drawer when he starts putting his clothes in the wash basket. No matter what him throwing stuff around and acting like a child because he has no clean pants is unacceptable. The kind of thing my ex used to do, and I was working just as many hours as he was. That’s why he’s an ex

i presume you look after your kids very well. You’re their mum not his! As long as your kids are looked after get him to wash his own bloody pants. This is not the 1950s girl! You’re doing great

It's illegal, surely, not to share access to money with you, as it's financial abuse?

You're not asking for help, you're telling him to do his fair share of household contributions. You are working, it's just unpaid labour. If you went to work out the house you'd have to employ childminders, dog sitter/walker and a cleaner, those are the roles you do. Too many grown men get given far too much credit for simply leaving the house to work, that does not absolve them of having to wash the plates they also use and clean the pants they wear. If you left then what would he do? He would have to find some way to cope with cleaning up after himself whole working. The rest of us manage it, I'm sure he can too!

What would this clown do if he lived alone?

presumably he is a grown man who can get to a shop to buy his own pants ?
OP unfortunately doesn't have access to any money ?

Can he put a load of washing on before work each day and then you hang it up to dry? That way it doesn’t get behind. I don’t think that and doing the dishes each evening is much at all. He should 100% be sharing the childcare on weekends. You both deserve a break and have to work as a team to achieve this.

@KewNutty do you get child benefit?
If so get it changed to your bank account it's outrageous you have no access to money

This

If you were a nanny you would only take care of the kids.

If you were a housekeeper you would only take care of the house.

As a SAHM you're somehow magically able to do 2 jobs at once. You also have an overgrown baby who can't even sort out his own underwear. As other mumsnetters have said, it takes 5 mins to load a batch, so he should have done it. Send him back to his mother and get a free half hour with a solicitor.

He thinks his ‘breadwinning’ is enough to pay for a 24/7 skivvy. Start as you mean to go on OP.

Is that a joke? HIS pants are HIS pants. If he wants to be sure of having pants he should do his own washings. Just wow.

You’re being financially abused by a shitty misogynist of a boyfriend. Whose house is it? You’ve chosen to be hugely, hugely vulnerable to depend on this bloke, childcare fees would need to be paid equally between you both, you’re losing out on career advancement, no pension contributions, no access to money. Being a SAHM only works when there’s not a misogynist involved, when you’re legally protected by marriage, or are the higher earner.

Contact Survivors of Economic Abuse online.

If the situation got worse, and it sounds bad enough when you are reduced to being a slave washing someone else's dirty underpants and being given hell for not doing so - you would have nowhere to go...

Is this kind of drudgery and opppresssion really how you want to live your life?

Please get out and ltb.