AIBU - motherhood has ruined men for me

Just posted similar before I read this. You are damn right.

But those are the interesting and novel jobs (bar the bins which is a once a week five minute effort). They are the ‘hero’ tasks. The ‘look at what I’ve done’ tasks. It’s the invisible daily grind that EVERYONE needs to do but grown ass men seem to think is beneath them. The things that don’t get acknowledged.

E.g. Xmas. DH cooked dinner. I planned the meal, decorated the table, got the food, cleaned the house, cleaned up afterwards. Guess who got all the thank you’d and praise? I don’t want thank yous and praise but it’s a good example of all the invisible, behind the scenes stuff that they won’t do. It’s been devalued by society.

E.g. program on TV. Building bridge to island. Two teams. Stack of money on island for winners. Female player injured herself so can’t build so says I’ll do all the cooking and cleaning up so you all can focus on building. She got voted off for not doing anything. But they had to eat to have the energy to build. The cleaning up afterwards had to be done or they’d have got food poisoning and nit be able to build.

My DH knows it’s important now, sees it as his job, has learned how to do it, but doesn’t want to. His ego sees it as beneath him. He can’t talk to his mates about how well he washed up today. He can talk to them about painting the shed.

I think a lot of household tasks that men like to take on are very often performative. So cooking very elaborate meals. This isn't to help...it's because it's fun and gets them praise. Same with BBQs. DIY and doing the garden...the results are usually very visual and result in much praise. The boring stuff is usually the stuff that no one notices until it's not done..

I’ve also been hoping DD will turn out to be a Lesbian. Not saying relationships are easier but men are just so often utterly entitled . I think I know one dad who I would say genuinely does a fair split in a dual income household.

DH is a decent parent and happy to do his share and does chores (I’m a SAHM), organises appointments, buys Dd clothes, did do a lot of nights though whilst working full time (I had severe PND), organises holidays etc etc. On the whole we have a good split.

I do suspect though that if I went back to work we would have to have a chat about sharing mental load and he’s definitely one of the good ones.

The number of women I’ve spoken to who seem to need to organise their husbands all the time is extraordinary. I think I’ve actually lost the opportunity to make friends because a lot of women where I live seem to start with “my husband is fucking useless, they are like extra kids aren’t they” and I sort of say “that sounds hard but no not really, mines fine” and then they stop talking to me.

I have a weekly cleaner, it's not ground breaking. We take out our food waste and nappies daily but she takes out the general waste (nothing gross in there) and recycling.

If we needed to we could have her twice a week without breaking the bank.

And yes, I absolutely could pay a gardener to do most of the jobs on that list above, in fact I have done in the past.

You pay someone to take out the bins?

...mowing, raking, repainting the fences, pressure washing everything thats gone green over a really crappy winter, scraping weeds, repairing our BBQ, taking stuff to the tip, unpacking our garden furniture, planting flowers, putting up a new washing line, resealing some windows etc etc.

All of these things can be easily and fairly inexpensively outsourced to someone unrelated to the family, without any negative consequences (other than financial).

Some things that can't be outsourced (at least not without chipping away at family relationships or health):

Brushing your reluctant children's teeth twice a day
Reading them bedtime stories and convincing them to go to sleep every night when they just WANT TO PYAY
Comforting them after yet another grazed knee
Negotiating dropping them off at nursery when they don't always want to go and need reassurance that you do love them and aren't just trying to get rid of them

These are constant, several-times-a-day jobs that are Mummy's jobs in my house. Luckily my dh knows these are not remotely comparable to mowing the lawn or taking out the bins, all of which I can (and sometimes do) easily pay someone to do.

How do you think women who live alone manage those tasks?

I do all the things you listed and I don't think it's "backbreaking" work. It certainly requires physical effort but no more than other domestic chores. IMO mowing the lawn is easier than mopping the kitchen floor and pressure washing is easier than hoovering. And none of the garden tasks are year round.

More fool women for staying with these men.

They just don’t want to do it.

Menial work, mundane work, repetitive domestic work, cheap work, invisible work isn’t valued in the west. It’s not contributing to building or maintaining the male ego, which is paramount in our society (does anyone ever even hear about the female ego?).

They can outsource it all, ideally to a woman (because they’re cheaper, and immigrant women are the cheapest). Or, if they can find a low-enough maintenance gf or wife, they can get sex and companionship thrown in for free too. Failing that, they will lower their standards. Or they will resort to mothers and sisters. Anything, but lowering themselves to mundanities that don’t move them ahead. It’s all about the male ego. Theres no room for domestic labour and child-rearing in the male ego. It’s pointless to them.

But why do you collaborate with him in this farce? Why don't you just leave your phone in another room and just ignore it all?
Your behaviour seems more puzzling to me than his if I'm honest.

Are you saying only men are ND?
And those men are high earners?
I'm not sure that remotely that case.
I did have a high earning ex (not ND) and he definitely tapped out when he came home.
I tapped him out.

He absolutely should say he doesn't want kids, but men know that most women do so I can see why they just go along with it. My dad was not hands on but he worked damn hard to pay for us and fixed everything in the house whilst my mum worked part-time. And I never appreciated it at the time.

And instead of doing the thinking himself it's then on the woman to REMIND him that he needs to decide how much he wants to have to do with the kids before they even become parents. Please tell me you don't really believe this.

If it's the woman that wants the kids and is going to change the status quo of the relationship then yes.

Having kids and sharing your personal space with a man is completely optional. If women on here hate men so much stay single? I looked at what having kids entails and thought "fuck that", if I had a partner who wanted kids he could do most of the parenting, and I'd make that VERY clear beforehand.

I used to think I was one of those really lucky women that never complained about their husbands. And then we had a baby. How the fudge did he become so unbelievably incompetent. He, too, like OP's husband has an incredibly intense job that requires all sorts of forward planning etc and yet when it comes to DC and home organisation it's like I'm dealing with a nursery school kid. Incredible.

Ah so he does this once a year and it's all great. Nah, I'm not buying it. It doesn't require special skills nor does it need doing on a particular day or a particular hour like the real domestic or mental load does. It's much easier to do all this with no pressure behind at all. Because what's gonna happen if he delays the job a few days. Exactly. Nothing.

What? The woman has to ask the man how much he wants to do with regards to kids? This is so backwards and precisely the point of this thread. It's not the woman's fault that the man 'goes along with it even though he doesn't really want to'. He should express himself clearly as the default is 50pc of the kids parents will be dads and the other 50pc mums unless three or more people are involved in conception.

And instead of doing the thinking himself it's then on the woman to REMIND him that he needs to decide how much he wants to have to do with the kids before they even become parents. Please tell me you don't really believe this.

I do all that stuff myself now. I'll let you into a secret- it's easy! They just made it look hard to big up their teeny weeny contribution

I wouldn't call all the dirty/manual jobs easy at all.

Dh is very much the bins/DIY/gardens person here (that's not all he does but all of that is his job and i'm more than happy to leave him to it). He's spent hours and hours over the last few weeks just on the outside...mowing, raking, repainting the fences, pressure washing everything thats gone green over a really crappy winter, scraping weeds, repairing our BBQ, taking stuff to the tip, unpacking our garden furniture, planting flowers, putting up a new washing line, resealing some windows etc etc.

It's been backbreaking and constant and (except the flowers which was just a nice to have) it all needed doing desperately. Definitely not a 'teeny weeny' contribution in our world.

Yeah they'd be even less happy if the man said "no kids" though.

I agree with you.

I think this is partly true tbh. They almost see having kids as a favour to their partner and that their partner should enjoy doing all of it because that's what she wanted. I always want to ask "but did your husband actually want kids in the first place?" on these threads but I know it won't go down well. Maybe before having kids they should make it more clear about how much they expect the men to do? But assume they might not get the babies they want at all in that case.

He can handle the resuscitation of a child but can’t cope when OUR child has a tantrum.

To be fair I've read a lot of posts from mothers on here who can't cope when their child has a tantrum either...

I do all that stuff myself now. I'll let you into a secret- it's easy! They just made it look hard to big up their teeny weeny contribution, and then criticised our own attempts at "blue jobs" for good measure.

They don't keep their partners happy though do they? They are very often the source of major dissatisfaction in their partners and their children.

Oh and don't get me started at the suggestion that the poor men are tricked into fathering children. Crazy crazy crazy.

The inconvenient truth is that men, in general, go along with having kids to keep their partners happy or have parenting foisted on them by unplanned pregnancies.

Hear you loud and clear OP.

I was very happily married to my STBEX. Him moving his way up the career ladder with me bringing up the rear doing my best work wise, and also the lions share of every fucking thing else.

Then I began to struggle with my health, and try as I might I couldn't keep all the plates spinning. Turns out he couldn't love me anymore, mainly because the house wasn't as he liked it, dinner wasn't on the table, he felt unloved and unappreciated plus he felt I'd become opinionated.

He even wrote to my mum making his excuses for leaving including that I was "undisciplined around household tasks".

I'm ashamed to admit I loved this man and I was devastated when he moved out 3 days later to live with his sister (and next door to his mum), both of whom luckily met his high standards and couldn't wait to get him back "home" where he belonged.

Luckily I came to my senses swiftly. Despite a brutal ongoing divorce and looming financial challenges I have never been happier. I am free.
It is wonderful to no longer be weighed down by his expectations, and exhausted by all the plate spinning.

I've realised how wonderful my friends are (mostly women). I am incredibly lucky to have them and they are so much more precious than EXH ever was.

I'm not sure that I will want a relationship with a man ever again. I shudder at the thought of living with one, becoming a slave and loosing my spark.

If I could choose my sexuality I'd be a lesbian without hesitation.

I think you have to go through this, and come back out the other side.
I totally remember feeling everything you've said lol, but as time goes by...who does all the DIY, who takes out the bins, who does all the dirty and heavy work, here it's DH and I'm sorry grateful for his side.