AIBU - motherhood has ruined men for me

@HowardTJMoon No, Mary Poppins covered this, we all just need a few more spoonfuls of sugar 😂

I have had to try to ignore being at once baffled and irritated by the naïveté of some of the women accepting this with their eyes wide open.

I have partially come to the conclusion some of these women actively enjoy the subservience - almost like the kick one might get from a fetishisation of the powerlessness and the second class citizenship.

There may be a sexual element to this for both parties - that might be the “payoff” that isn’t immediately obvious.

It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

Otherwise it’s a horrifyingly unjust and brutal and savage state of affairs. So very distasteful.

If your take-away from this thread is "the problem is that people just don't enjoy doing the chores enough", you and your Nigel have MASSIVELY missed the point.

I really hope you are winding us up because if you can't see how this woukd annoy someone when the house is full if adults who could have done these tasks.... well, I feel.for.your wife. Because yhe question is... who WILL do them? The garden hose is perhaps not.essential but if I pat a gardener I would be cheesed if that wasn't done too. The phone off the hook is ridiculous and incredibly.lazy that not a single person can put it on. The plants and the dishwasher... these things need to be done. So who is going to have to do them?. Clearly it's the person who has been out all day while the rest of you sit around.

God, I really really hope you are just winding us up.

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It's the sheer amount I think. If I only had to load the dishwasher once a week or fold laundry once a month I wouldn't mind so much.

A grind?
If housework is easy that doesn't fit the agreed definition of grind.
I think some just like a complaint.
Perhaps DP and I can demonstrate how to make chores more enjoyable. There's a sense of satisfaction in completing tasks at home. Cooking can be a joyful experience, and cleaning while listening to music can be quite therapeutic.

Thinking the same thing.

All those people and none of them can’t do the simplest task of putting the phone and garden hose back, empty a dishwasher and water the plants.

What’s the point of hired help, if they’re not actually doing a part of their jobs?

I think you are winding everyone up Mr Peterson8080 - 🤣

I totally get it, the bar is so low for men that the ones who do actually do any form of parenting seem to be praised for it like they are doing the mother a favour.

When my wife comes home from work she surveys the house like Sherlock Holmes surveying a crime scene, and sees thing that other experienced detectives have not seen. Phone's off the hook, plants haven't been watered, dishwasher hasn't been emptied, garden hose not rolled up, and so on. There is a long list of things that we - being me, my adult children, the cleaner, gardeners and dog walker - have not done. The list is infinite. It would never be completed.

What undermines relationships is being taken for granted. Being told that there is no reason for you to be tired because you have had two days off, and then internalising that and feeling inadequate until you eventually realise that you have no time off. He just doesn’t value or recognise what you do. What erodes a relationship is someone that values your time so little that they are happy to leave it all to you even when they see you are struggling.

Housework is easy in the sense that most people are capable of it. Not everyone is able to do it well. And it’s the relentless daily grind that’s hard. Doing something boring repeatedly can be just as stressful as doing something out of your comfort zone.

Raising children is extremely demanding. It’s not academic smarts demanding, but the emotional labour is immense.

I disagree.

And some women live like slobs. Your clean partner doesn't negate other women's experiences. Also, you aren't living with him, as you stated his apartment.
A lot of us were also fooled by a man's clean place. And then when the moving in and having children happens, he still expects that clean place, but he expects you to do it for him.
The only blame on women is the same you will experience. That of thinking the one you are with is going to be different, because he cleans now.
Almost all of them were cleaning and taking care of themselves when they got with us. A good many of them continued doing so when moving in or marrying.
It is when that first kid comes that the majority turn into useless slobs, because now they have you trapped. By finances, lack of sleep, society, etc.

My response to this is that he does not want a closer relationship with his children nor does he wants a less stressed happier wife.

I think it's usually more simple than that. He does want a less stressed and happier wife, he just doesn't want it enough to get off his arse and mop the kitchen floor.

What he WOULD get though, if he pulled his finger out, is a less exhausted, less stressed, happier wife who had more energy and time for him and a closer relationship with his children. He's a fool for not copping onto that!
@Blubbled
My response to this is that he does not want a closer relationship with his children nor does he wants a less stressed happier wife.
A closer relationship with his children would mean he would has to tune into their emotions, think about their needs, spend time with them. He prefers to think about his own needs and focus on himself.
A less stressed happier wife would be a wife who is more in charge of her own destiny and therefore more difficult for him to control.
He values power and status, he wants to be in control of things so that he can work everything to his advantage. He does not want to cooperate with them, he wants to rule over them.

Anyone else this this was going to be a post-birth post after a very large baby was delivered??

Then why is it so hard for so many men to do it if it so easy?!

Constantly hear many men say this, yet they don’t do it, do it half-arsed, and want thanks and praise for what/when they do when they rarely ever would give the same to women.

There’s also the things they think women don’t do that they enjoy to throw in women’s faces if women decide to be single or divorce their husbands that they think they are supposedly needed for like diy, changing a lightbulb, or yard work which also aren’t that hard either and often things that are not done on a daily to weekly basis year round.

Dp wrote back housework is easy people should stop moaning.

Or, or, people that are being moaned about should start doing it then? Considering it's so easy.

One of the things that annnoys me most is when Dh actually does housework, he expects a lot of praise and if he doesn;t get it- which he doesnt- he praises himself. I empty the dishwasher every single day and I don't make a big song and dance. I have made him pay for a cleaner now every fortnight at least.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here!
At work, he gets multiple reward for pushing himself- money, status, admiration, ego strokes.
At home, he doesn't get paid for housework and childcare, he wouldn't get status from that sort of work nor the same level of ego strokes.
What he WOULD get though, if he pulled his finger out, is a less exhausted, less stressed, happier wife who had more energy and time for him and a closer relationship with his children. He's a fool for not copping onto that!
I tried so many times to explain to my STBXH that if he helped me more, and was there for me more, I'd have more energy for him, but I was talking to the wall. I think in his case, it was as Dr. George Simon, the author of "In Sheep's Clothing" and "Character Disturbance" among others, says ;"It's not that they don't see, it's that they don't agree!". My STBX definitely has a disordered character I have realised but I'm not saying all men like the OP's H are character/personality disordered. It's just that I do believe there is an element of conscious manipulation in their uselessness at home and with the kids- weaponised incompetence and/or just plain laziness and male entitlement!

Housework is indeed easy. It's just boring and a grind. Which may be why so many men avoid doing their fair share.

I have started saying to my DH when he doesn’t do domestic tasks or forgets stuff “do you not do this because you are a sexist pig and think it’s below you”! It works as he likes to think of himself as a right on lefty bloke who would never be sexist!

I share many of your frustrations and although I am not afraid to challenge them I have also found peace in accepting some of them. It’s not popular but I think it is in women’s biology to care more. My husband loves his children but I do think it’s in a different way.

There are a lot of women who have also bought into the idea that men are inherently less capable of these things. I've butted heads with my MIL plenty of times over her expectations of my DH.

Actually my DH is tidier than me and better at housework, though I am a better cook. However, I think he leaves the mental load to me because I work fewer hours, and escapes by being a workaholic, because frankly, it's more fun working.

Oh come on. You know perfectly well that his standards are ridiculously high, as they would be if he was a woman. And of COURSE we've all met women who melt down because they want vacuuming done twice daily and can't cope with a single glass left by the sink <side-eyes my sister>

But that's NOT what's been talked about on this thread. There's a bare minimum that most people would agree needs to be done and that plenty of people on this thread have given as examples. And yet many many men seem unable to meet that minimum standard, even when given plenty of chances. Making sure dishes are ACTUALLY clean is a minimum standard. When vacuuming, actually getting ALL the spots is a minimum standard. When preparing food for children, ensuring there is some nutrition involved is a minimum standard.

'll never forget my male cousin rather gleefully telling us shortly after he moved in with his female partner that she'd banned him from doing the washing as he'd out his red socks in with her white underwear and everything came out pink. He was a bit bemused when we took the piss out of him and told him he should be buying her new underwear and obviously, every time he got it wrong in future he'd have to pay up.