To think I'm doing an unfair share of the housework? (male)

"organising medical and vet appointments"
Unless your kid and pooch is deathly ill, how often an occurance would this realistically be? I haven't been to the GP in years.

Who ever cooks the other wahes up surely.
My dh does the jobs I can't but it's evenly split.
He shops as he wants lidl food and I don't drive.
He does kitchen I do bathroom.
I do washing he does shopping.
He cuts the grass I trim bushes put plants in and sweep up.
Your other half is taking advantage.I have ADHD so I can massively understand the complete overwhelm.
Your are doing a househusbands chores whilst working.!!

The problem is that my wife says she feels stressed at work and wants me to take on some more stuff to help her out.

I'm interested on what she wants you to take on? Have you asked her? According to your list you already do all the household chores so what else is she asking you to do?

I so hear this. DH isn't as bad as this at all, but if he's out and about and my phone rings, my heart sinks as inevitably he wants my input on some minor decision I dont' need to input on. Similarly, right now we're in crisis becuase he wants to do a "thing" but there's a conflict with another "thing" and he literally can't get his head around it so of course, I have to sort it out and plan it and agree and negotiate a compromise with all parties. Meanwhile, this morning I have booked DD's christmas lunch, phoned the hospital to book her appointment, responded to the SENCO at DS' school (who emailed both of us, obviously), and told DH that yes, it's fine for him to go out tonight even though he hasn't mentioned it to be before and he had to ask me because he has no idea what might or might not be on the agenda for today.

I think it's impossible not to look at this through the lens of sex, even if in the perfect world the sex of the individuals involved would be irrelevant. And the reality is that it IS unusual for the man to be doing the vast bulk and for the woman to STILL feel completely overwhelmed. Which means that either you're missing some of what she's doing or, your wife is actually in crisis and needs to possibly consider seeking some support. Or possibly some combination of those.

DH does his share, so I'm not complaining. But I guarantee ifyou asked him, he thinks he's doing a LOT more. The laundry, for example is one where he thinks he does 90% of it. hahahahahahaha. Ditto, between us, we still have quite a few day to day tasks that have to be done between fortnightly cleaner visits - if only one of us was doing them, that person would be resentful and overwhelmed. And I constantly tear my hair out at all the bloody organising I have to do - as that is 100% on me. DH just doesn't think about schedules, planning at all.

At the same time, for her ot be struggling so much also suggests there's more going on here and I think you should explore that.

Or, of course, she's just a dick. But as I said, it's almost impossible not to look at this with an understanding of what's "normal" based on sex and this is not.

This is interesting to me.

I do not think that you are MY husband, because some of the details are a bit different, but I am certainly a wife in a very similar marriage to yours. My husband does all jobs that you do, and I do none of them. What he does not do is any of the decision-making. I make literally every decision about our lives.

Where we will live with our family, how much we can spend on a house, what renovations the house needs v what we can afford, how many children we will have, what schools the children will go to, whether we can afford to work part time, what fertility treatment we will go through, what activities the children will do, where we will go on holiday, how much life insurance we need. Etc etc.

My husband does not input into any of this (literally, any of it. He doesn't even decide what position we have sex in), and I feel like my brain is drowning with the degree to which all decisions about our joint life, and therefore all risk if something goes wrong, is on me. My husband does all the cooking and cleans up and then he is DONE and he has peace of mind in his downtime, and I am awake until midnight every night going through the budgeting spreadsheet and worrying about whether we have overstretched ourselves (and by "we" I mean "I", because as the sole decision-maker it's all on me if we lose out home).

I would like to change this set up. Because I honestly feel that I have been pushed out of my family's life in some ways by not doing the everyday tasks. And looking at an objective list of jobs that my husband does does make me feel bad, because he does do a lot. Bug I also want him to recognise that it's not a simple as him having the longer list means that he does more. I have relieved his mind of every concern he might have ever had and now I scream along to the lyrics of Surface Pressure from Encanto in the car. Like fuck am I just going to start taking the bins out while he refuses any responsibility for any decisions.

To be honest, both working from home, child in (almost) full time nursery, and having a cleaner every two weeks who does the bulk of the cleaning, you only have to keep things clean and tidy in between their visits, you should both be pissing this life between you, it's worrying that you are resenting each other this much.

You're not answering the extra questions about who does the bulk of the childcare when you are both at home, you say your wife looks after her while you do all the chores, and you only mention bathtime and nursery drops off and pick up, so assumedly your wife is default parent the rest of the time the child is awake, gets her up dressed, fed, entertained, supervised, etc? I'm sure you would have mentioned that if any of that fell to you.

IMO it stands to reason that whoever is looking after the child alone after work in the evenings/weekend, the other should be doing the chores heavy lifting during that time, so making the tea, cleaning up after, walking the dog etc should be done by the person who isn't dealing with the child.. that is pretty standard sharing of responsibilities when very young kids are involved, it works because when the child is in bed you are then both free to do your own thing with all household responsibilities dealt with for the day, ideally you would both be more flexible in who does what though to avoid resentment.

I think part of the issue is that you think looking after the child isn't a 'job' that she is doing, but it really is, she's only three, not old enough to be left to play unsupervised etc, plus she is out with her three times a week.. if she did the (chores) you are describing AS WELL AS then she would be working twice as hard (doing it with a child in tow), while you get the easy life with less chores and zero childcare responsibility.

While the child is small you either share EVERYTHING 50/50 (adjusting for the disparity in your work schedules), or one deals with the bulk of the childcare, while the other picks up the non childcare related jobs (chores), if it's not working you need to address why, it's counter productive to just assume the other person isn't 'doing enough', but that seems to be where you both are right now.

DW is lazy I'm afraid.

Reminds me of a colleague at work. His DW was a SAHM whilst the kids were young and just never returned to work once the DC all left home. Sits around all day playing candycrush or on the phone to her mum. He returns home most days and the breakfast/lunch dishes are still in the sink. He has to cook the dinners and do the dog walks (even returns home at lunchtime to walk the dog), household tasks. She always has an excuse mind.

If you let her your DW will continue to take the piss.

This

Given this, I’d say with some urgency that neither of you have the bandwidth for another kid. Have you considered a vasectomy to minimize the chances of that?

Either your wife is lazy and making it seem like she is struggling when she does anything or she seriously needs help- she needs to go to her GP and you both need counselling.

@Unjeffeson there are two things here.

What would she say her tasks are and would she agree that yours take longer and are more burdensome when coupled with your paid workloads? Impartially she may agree that yours take longer task list is bigger than hers.

What you have made almost no mention of, and certainly not in the context of being a loving partner, is whether you wife is struggling to cope with her workload and therefore begging you to take on more to help her at present. If so, why wouldn’t you do this? Why would you be on here complaining about the disparity instead of sucking it up like people in partnerships have to do sometimes?

Being married to a man with adhd can be utterly draining. She may have reached burnout with doing most of the tasks on your list as well as her list for many years. Is there any possibility that she’s wanting you to experience the equivalent workload to what she’s been doing for you in the past?

I wish we had her perspective here.

Well presumably she’s sat staring at a laptop when she’s doing her work, so this is a massive double standard. You need to have a long albeit possibly painful talk about all this as the current set up seems unsustainable. Try for when you’re both calm and not knackered, although easier said than done I’m sure.

It feels to me like you’re doing quite a bit more than half of the domestic load.

Im wondering how parenting is split? The above feels fair if your wife is the main parent and is doing the majority of the looking after. Less so if that is also split.

On your list you don’t have things like getting dd up dressed, ready etc in the morning, looking after her morning and evening, coordinating play dates, planning weekend activities, looking after her in the house at weekend etc. Who gets up with her on the weekends?

I’m also wondering whether there might be a bit of a miscommunication with your wife. It sounds like what she a actually wants and needs is more child free time (she’s frustrated about your runs, wants you to not take on new client etc) whereas you’re hearing that you need to do more which doesn’t feel fair. In your position I’d try encouraging her to have one evening a week when she has time to herself. Plus occasional time on the weekends. There might be more benefit in balancing your child free time equally than in focusing on the chores.

I do agree you're doing a lot of the grunt work and she's doing the more fun stuff. Rereading your post and it sounds like you're doing nearly everything to be quite honest.

You both work full time, you both have equal mental load in my opinion (potentially you have more if I'm being honest).
Plus your doing the slog of all the physical work like cooking, cleaning, laundry, drop offs.

I agree for a short time if one partner is stressed then the other takes on more to help but if this is your daily norm, I would say you are doing way more and it's not fair on you. It sounds like you're taking this is your stride (albeit very hard work) with time to spare for hobbies and she's drowning in about 20 per cent the amount you do so maybe she is affected by poor mental health or something but I can definitely see why you are dissatisfied with things currently.

I'd sit down and talk with her but I hope she doesn't try and tell you that you're both contributing equally, it isn't true.

There's the whole cognitive load/default parent thing that women often say men don't understand, but I'm not seeing how it can equal the effort of household chores and executing logistics. Perhaps I am wrong though?

You're not wrong, but being the default parent and being responsible for most of the chores have the same end result.. you both have to sacrifice downtime, it doesn't make either person right, it means the balance of BOTH things needs looking at.

If this has only got worse over the last two years as more of the 'chores load' has been shifted to you, then it sounds like she is the main breadwinner, who works longer hours, outside of the home, is the default parent when at home and was also responsible for a lot of the household chores you are now responsible for.

If she was doing all that two years ago, and you were working from home working less hours per day and weren't doing the amount of chores you are doing now.. then what were you actually doing back then? You may find that was the catalyst for what has happened now and now it has potentially swung too far.

You need to work out what the actual problem is, if she is getting no downtime after work and at weekends because she is the default parent and is exhausted from never getting a break, then THAT is what needs fixing. IMO she shouldn't have to be doing 50/50 of household chores on top of that, when you already have a certain amount of downtime to do as you please uninterrupted by anything, and she essentially gets none.

I'm a default parent and I'd give my right arm to "only" have to do your 2-3 hours of chores in a 6 hour evening so I can then have 2-3 hours to myself without anyone wanting anything from me! You need a proper calm sit down about how you both feel and what you can do to fix it.

Quite bluntly it sounds to me like she's a lazy cow, and is taking the piss! You need to sit down together and work out a system which seems fair to you both, but don't let her keep on running you into the ground. This is the sort of thing that men do to their wives/partners all the time, and that's not fair either. Communication is everything OP, and if you can't sort it out, then I certainly wouldn't be planning on having another baby if I were in your shoes.

Propose a month where you take on the other's responsibilities. Then see how you feel about things at the end.

You are doing at least 80% of the work- that definitely needs to change.
For example I do all food shopping and planning, but I do no veg prep and no clear up afterwards- all chores need to be divided. They can also be divide by category- I do all the financial stuff but DP does all repairs and most of the DIY. You need a big pow-wow.

Well ot certainly sounds s like you are doing the lion's share while working hard.

May I ask what your wife does? Does she have a stressful job and a long commute, in which case if you wfh then I can see why the ones is on you for the at home stuff while she's out.

I feel we have an amazing split. How would this work for you (both work full-time)

Person1: bins, dogs and dirty jobs, like house maintenance and gardening. Car, car maintenance, servicing. Laundry and beds. Sickness and doctor, dentist, vet.

Person2: childcare drops& collects, budgeting, shopping, phone calls, appointments and organisation, all cooking most days. Occasions, events, clothes.

Oh wow OP! Now if only my husband did half of what you do :)

I do all the meals/clean ups/bed times/dog walks /bath times and i work full time :) which is irrelevant as we strike the balance here on other things. And he makes more money than I do so happy to carry the other bits to facilitate that.
do you think you could both afford to stretch to getting some help to give you some time? A housekeeper/nanny/cleaner type? Would a dog walker help?
we only had the one child when we did our LTP - long term plan as we figured we x amount of time and money and the more children we had we would have to shave off time/money from that..and it didn’t seem like we would all dog, child, husband or I would benefit/thrive from it.
i had a miscarriage at 11 weeks too it was actually a year before our daughter was born and it affects you even if you say it doesn’t. I was utterly bereft even though I understood the reasons why it happened and the consequences if it hadn’t… so do feel for you both. Hope you two work it out.

Whoa she’s laughing! ‘Organising the cleaner’? Medical and vet appointments? How much does that take? I imagine months where there are no medical or vets appointments! You are totally been taken for a ride mate.

Your DW isn’t pulling her weight, that’s for sure. She’s doing the nicer parts of parenting and leaving the rest to you. If you cook during the week, maybe suggest she does the cooking at the weekend. At the very least she could do the laundry. If you cook the dinner, she should do the tidy-up while you take care of bath-time. I’d definitely not have another baby until the workload is more evenly shared. Because it sounds as if your DW isn’t doing all that much really.