Is this a fair split?

Blimey.

He only works 15 hours a week. Is at home all day while the kids are at school and somehow you still end up doing the majority of everything? That's not on at all.

This will be the end of your marriage. The resentment will build and build and you won’t ever want to fuck him (why would you? He’s a lazy twerp and you’re exhausted). Time for The Final Conversation about what needs to change and what happens if it doesn’t.

Remind me of my ex husband. He was unemployed for a few months and I’d come home from work after dropping our kids off to childminder and crèche, working a full day, collecting them from crèche and childminder, and he’d be sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of books on the table, on his laptop, surrounded by the bread cereals and dishes, claiming he was job searching online all day! He wouldn’t have even emptied the dishwasher I’d filled the night before!!!

Sounds like my exH who claimed in divorce was sahp (and not a lazy self employed freeloader) and made cooking one evening meal and doing f-all else sound like a full time job. He would cook but trashed the kitchen so much it took me longer to clean up than cooking myself would have taken. He would then sit down and leave all evening care dc to me.

My hunch will be he won’t change at home and your best bet of staying together is for him to get back to fulltime paid work and use the money for childcare etc. not everyone has the motivation and discipline to pull their weight left to their own devices at home. Resentment is a huge marriage killer.

If you did split and he has low wage it’s going to mean you sharing all the results of your hard work with him, your pension etc.

Is he earning at least min wage x 15 hours or is his evening work just a piss-take vanity project / excuse get out of helping at home ?

There’s at least 6 hours between those tasks where he’s doing absolutely fuck all

I work full time from home and get more done in my lunch hour then he does in a whole day.

I think I would do the following:

• List all jobs that need doing (regardless of who currently does them) in a table. This should include traditional house work, childcare, admin etc.
• Add cadence: when the job needs doing (per day/week/month/year or adhoc).
• Add time requirements (picking up children from school etc).
• Validate list with your husband and invite him to add to it.
• Colour code who currently does the job.
• Then together size the jobs by estimating the effort.

Identify the time available for household jobs - time available to you both outside of working hours. Distribute the jobs fairly based on time available.

I believe that the part time working parent needs to take on more of the household work (childcare is included as household work though).

I would be stating how unhappy you are and that this is your solution to a fair split. If he doesn’t listen or acknowledge your unhappiness then it might be time for ultimatum.

I agree. I definitely would not do any of his washing or any of his personal admin/shopping needs etc. anything just for him, he can do. Another lazy cunt expecting his partner to do everything

Sounds to me like he has a hobby, not a job. The problem is the timing - he disappears off to do his 'job' just as you get home from a long day, leaving you all the family stuff to do. This just wouldn't work for me. He must have so much free time during the week!!

This. Laundry is an obvious thing that the person who is home all day should be doing. Plus why doesn't he do the kids' homework with them? You're not getting back till 6.30 so what are they all doing between school finish and then?

Is it worth trying to pick off one thing at a time, given how resistant he's been to the idea of looking at your overall workloads? Try saying homework is now his thing.

Have you thought about showing him this thread?

The danger is resentment. Once that sets in it's like marriage mould. It's an instant 'ick' and hard to come back from.

I work 30 hours during school hours (and same in school holidays). DH and I both get the DDs up and ready for school, but I do all pick ups, dinners, loading the dishwasher, roughly half the washing up, buying groceries, laundry, homework, roughly half the bedtimes, most of the tidying. Yes it's unequal (DH has some health issues), but wanted to point out what your DH could be doing. He ABSOLUTELY should be doing more of the day to day grind.

It might be minor in the whole mess but I'd stop washing his clothes. Let him sort his dirty work clothes out

I was always a SAH parent and DH worked the long hours with the long commute. But I did everything at home and with the children in the week. I even did some stuff I thought a bit pointless because DH liked it done and it made his life better. The only things on your list that he did were the internet/tv/mortgage stuff. And I had loads of time to volunteer and do stuff just for me. What does your dh actually do all day?

Years ago my dh and I got into a 'who is more tired' kind of competition, and it was hard to see the wood for the trees as we both felt like we were doing a lot. We sat one night and listed all the tasks, everything from the tiny 30s jobs to things which take hours each week. We then allocated them in a spreadsheet against who did them, or proportionally if we both did. Then it was clear I was spending much more time doing tasks than he was, and had much less downtime - the maths made it unarguable. We were both working similar hours at that point so we didn't include that, but your calculation should include working time too for you both, and commuting.

it wouldn't tell you anything you don't know (ie obviously he isn't pulling his weight, you don't need any maths to tell you that), but it was a less emotional, more practical way of going about things. We both tend to prefer building habits so we just allocated the jobs to either one or the other of us, and went from there.

if he wouldn't sit with you and do it, you could do your own spreadsheet and give it to him, the bottom line is that he needs to do more, you will keel over otherwise. Good luck

Why doesn’t he get a full time job?

We have an agreement that if one of us is not working (as is the case at the moment) then that person, more or less, does the domestic lion's share.

So, the way I would look at this is between you, work and commuting takes up 75 hours a week of your joint time.

In percentage terms, you do 80% of the working hours and your husband does 20% . Added to this, you have to get up early and commute, plus you have the return journey to contend with.

I would suggest this weighs the split in your favour to 90% versus 10%

This means your husband should be roughly doing 90% of the home based tasks.

So once he's taken the children to school and probably back home by around 9.30am, WTAF does he do with his remaing 6hrs of free time during the day?!
We all know you're not being unreasonable here OP. You need to stop doing the clearing up/dishwasher type stuff etc and leave it for him to do during the day! Just stop doing it and let it pile up.

Wiping down the kitchen counter as he goes along, emptying the dishwasher and doing the laundry during the weekdays would lessen your load. Especially, if you are doing homework and bedtimes. Weekends of you are both off you can do more.

How did this division of labour start? Are you someone who tutts and sighs, rage cleaning muttering 'I may as well do it myself' instead of suggesting he does it. Is he a half arsed can't be bothered person, or I'll do it in a minute but secretly happy you are doing it?

You say you are earning a good wage - suggest he chips in for a housekeeper.

I feel for you 💐

Honestly read what your have written... I would be in therapy and on meds too anyone would.

If you were my friend I would tell you I think you should "play the game" on your own so you can the unequal load in black and white with your own eyes. Then discuss with your therapist what living separately could look like / how it could practically work vs your life now. Which would make ypu happier? What would your life look like in 5 yrs in each scenario?

So what is he doing during the day when the kids are at school? If I’ve read this right he is home and works in the evenings?