Husband refuses to help clean

Oh dear. His position is you had an agreement and now you need to honour it…? Even if carrying his baby is damaging your back …?

I’m guessing that agreement will apply even if you’ve been up all night with a sick child? Even if you have an emergency c-section? Even if post-natal-depression kicks in? Even if your child is born with additional needs? Even if breast-feeding proves difficult and you are wretched with worry? True…?

So the deal is his life continues totally unchanged with full nights of sleep plus a baby, and a housekeeper.

The biggest decision a woman ever makes in her life is who she chooses to father her children and, I’m sorry to say, I fear you have made a terrible mistake.

This kind of guy … they are special. They love the set-up they manage to negotiate and yours is holding you to it hard. But they also get irritated and bored coming home to an exhausted drained wife who no longer has energy for sex or time to focus on her appearance. Don’t be surprised if he has an affair in the future and blames you for that.

You need to renegotiate your contract.

No decent man or father would expect their heavily pregnant wife to clean.

so what he is working full time he should still be stepping ip

i would leave and go to somewhere safe

I’ve had 2 mat leave … you’re not ‘home all day’ you’re looking after a baby all day. His domestic load should not be decreasing. At the moment you aren’t just ‘at home’ you’re heavily pregnant - some people feel totally fine and can do everything, others can’t bend to tie their laces and bending over to clean would stop them breathing. I was the latter. My husband would come home from work and put my plates from the day in the dishwasher etc as I really struggled. He’d get up in the night to help me get up for the loo. He did so willingly as I was 24/7 nurturing his unborn baby with my own body.

youve set yourself up with saying what is ‘fair’. He should not be doing less because you’re at home now! You need to reassess and tell him you’ve agreed to something that isn’t fair actually!!

I'm not missing the fact that your husband is clearly an arsehole, but it's easier to clean the far side of the bath when you're in it. However if you're not able to get in it then presumably you're not using it yourself, so just leave it.

You need to have a serious talk with your DH and say things need to be re-worked - you are on maternity leave, in the final stages of pregnancy where you are tired, you are carrying a baby and need to take things easy. He needs to do his bit around the house, including when your baby arrived as looking after a newborn takes up a lot of time. If he refuses to help, then you refuse to take care of any of his laundry, you will not be cooking a dinner for him in the evening, etc.

Keep reminding yourself you are not working for a reason - you are in the final stages of pregnancy, about to birth a baby and then you will have to care for i]your baby.

I hope you haven’t agreed that you will be doing all night wakings every single night of the week.

Does your h know anything about being pg and the changes your body goes through? He needs a quick lesson.

he should of course be offering to do any tasks that you can’t.

This does not bode well for when you have your baby…

I don’t think he should be cleaning the bath because I think you should end things and get rid of this awful man. He clearly doesn’t see you as a team; you’re in pain because you’re growing his child and hand can’t even take 2 minutes to help clean the bath? He will only get more selfish once baby arrives, he’s going to expect you to be running around after him whilst he sits on his arse even when you’ve had no sleep. It’s too late to do anything about the pregnancy so unfortunately you and baby are tied to this man but it’s not too late to at least leave him and find someone who will treat you both fairly.

Send a message out to all your friends asking ‘if they know a good cleaner as I can’t manage cleaning the bath and have discovered my husband is too precious or some would say selfish to do such menial work. If so please send him the details as I’m not getting involved.’

will this extend to nappy changing and everything? Does he think he works 8-6 or whatever and you work 24/7? Have you said I you’re sick and can’t look after the baby he needs to take time off work? I hope you’re not contributing financially while you’re on mat leave!!

personally I think this is a huge red flag you are about to enter a life of misery and resentment until you leave him, so I would take this as your last chance to establish better guidelines, tell him you’ve reconsidered now you know he’s going to be so fucking selfish and you will be going back to work earlier and you can split the cleaning, you are going to be pissed off solidly for the next 8 months until you do if he thinks he works 8-6 and you work 24/7 because the two of you have a baby now, and you’re moving to your mums until the bath is clean and he’s had a good think, and you won’t be shy about why you’re there to your friends either, that actually you’ve already requested bath cleaning advice and that they send it to him. Tell him not to call you for a week while he thinks.

this is your last good chance to do this, before baby is here. And you do not want baby to arrive into the relationship as it is.

that’s my advice unless you’re also spending your savings to fund your share of the expenses while on mat leave, in which case I cancel everything I said and you should divorce him and torch his car.

Just to add, if you’re planning on breastfeeding, over the first month or so the baby will spend a lot of time cluster feeding. This means you’ll spend a lot of time snuggled up on the sofa with baby feeding. (Probably not always as lovely as it sounds if you end up with sore nipples). He’ll undoubtedly see this as being lazy and avoiding housework, when in fact you’re giving the baby exactly what they need and establishing your milk supply. You will not get much housework done during this time at all, will be exhausted (usually this will be day and night), but is exactly what baby needs, and exactly what maternity leave is for.

Marriage is give and take.

Your husband is cruel.
Invite his mother and father over for tea and while they are there ask DH whether he could scrub the bath as your stomach is too large now to manage.

I would be so ashamed of my son if he refused to help his wife with any reasonable request to help.

I’m so sorry op. You will not be able to do all the cleaning and house tasks when you are pregnant or early post partum. That is an insanely unrealistic agreement and unfair.

what if you have a c section??? Willl he still be expecting you to be doing all and sundry. You need a family meeting asap and if he won’t budge then you know the sort of man you’ve married. And it’s not a good one.

This is a really bad sign. How was he with sharing the load before you started mat leave? But regardless of this, you’re heavily pregnant with his child, and working or not, he should be helping you when and where he can, and this bodes really badly for the future. And by “helping”, it’s really just doing his fair share of caring for the household that he also lives in.
You could end up having a really difficult birth or c section and needing him to do most of the housework for weeks afterwards. My DH waited on me hand and foot for the first couple weeks after my emergency c section, whilst I focused on recovery and BFing baby.
Sort this out now. Mat leave is for resting up and preparing for baby, before baby is born, and then for looking after baby and recovering yourself, once they’re born. Yes, once you’re a little further down the line the the MAJORITY of housework will fall to whoever is home. But the expectation that EVERYTHING will be done by you, whilst having sleepless nights (assuming he’ll leave all that to you too) and looking after a baby, is completely unhealthy and unrealistic. This doesn’t sound like a partnership at all.

I think that many men seem to not realise that being a SAHM is hard work! There seems to be a school of thought that bring at home is a holiday.Not with DC sadly .He is being unkind here .You need to have a serious chat .

It's a shame that you didn't post here, before making the agreement. Single people work full time and have to still clean. It should have been you just doing the majority. But at the end of your pregnancy, resting when needed and then recovering from birth. You don't know what type of baby you are going to get, so again, he'll have to pitch in. The baby is seperate to the house, he comes home and takes the baby. Too often children are lumped with housework and seen as the woman's job.

Wow, seriously?

Oh op I'm so sorry. Maybe just show him this thread and then leave or ask him to. Heavily pregnant I just couldn't be wasting the time and energy on even trying to get someone who is immature (likely doesn't have the skills to see from your point of view)to see why its so imperative they change. He isn't just immature he is cruel.

If you have friends and family find your support system and spend time with them instead.

Oh dear, OP. He’s showing you his true colours, as men often do during pregnancy.

I would make sure you return to work and start saving.

Maternity leave is for you to recover from pregnancy and birth and look after the baby. Not to become a life in housekeeper for your husband.

Any man who treats his heavily pregnant wife like this is not a nice person. He’s showing you who he is and what he thinks is the role of a woman in the relationship. It’s not a good sign.

Leave the bath (and your husband..?)

Oh god 🙈 Good luck OP!

What a nasty fucker.

If my pregnant neighbour asked me to help clean her bath, I would help her, let alone my partner!

What are his family like? Could you call his mum/sibling and ask them to come over to help with the bath so that they see what a prick he's being? It won't change the longterm forecast but it will give them a heads up on his behaviour.

What are his expectations when you are 9 months pregnant and after birth?

Also, very sad that he is showing no interest in buying stuff for his first child and leaving it all to you just because he has a job. Everyone does mate! We still manage to get to the shops on a Saturday!

Yup, this ⬆️. Ask him if he has any intention helping you raise your child also or are you going to be a single parent with a man child to look after also. Has he any intention of feeding, changing babies nappy or bathing and putting baby to bed?
Personally, I’d stop washing half his underwear so he runs out, if he comments then tell him you couldn’t reach the bottom of the laundry basket like you can’t bend over and clean the bath! Do not pick up and wash his clothes unless they are in the laundry basket- do not move them from where he dropped them- only wash what’s in the laundry basket and only half his underwear. Please tell me he puts his own clothes away? If not, buy an extra laundry box and put his stuff in that for him to put away himself. By all means fold it but don’t group the items- ie all the T-shirts together, so it’s slightly harder for him to put everything away!
lots of petty things you can do that are so minor but slightly inconvenient to him.
Yes, they are slightly passive aggressive but sometimes these things need to be done especially when he’s being a colossal arse. By the way, you might want to mention you’ll need his help for at least the first 6 weeks after birth because you’ll have a plate size internal wound where the placenta has come away (as well as a demanding little human)- it’s invisible so no one every thinks about it.

Why did you agree to this arrangement in the first place? It’s daft!

You just had a thread deleted in which you were "fuming" because people gave you presents instead of cash for your daughter's first birthday, didn't you?

My goodness, what a pathetic waste of space your husband is. Of course he should clean the batb.