AIBU to feel overwhelmed by the unequal mental load at home?

You sound like a nagger.
Apologise for nagging.

Sit down make a list of tasks and ask DH to choose three. Tick those and leave list displayed on fridge.
Trial that for two months. No gentle reminders from you. He does tasks to his capacity.

After the two months, reassess. You could ask him to swap one of his chosen tasks for another of your choosing etc..

Then go on again for another two months.
Whenever asking for help ask respectfully and thank the person.
Slow gentle and respectful progress is less aggressive.

@rollinginthedeepsea
Best advice is to make the mental load visible, we put all appointments in each other's Google calendar. Everything has its place, life admin info is saved somewhere that is accessible to both of us, i make ut clear these are shared responsibilities. I still get leant on to shoulder the responsibilities but I refuse to rescue especially if I have to stop something to help when they have the tools to be self sufficient.

Enjoy these phrases:

Asking you to find something when he hasn't looked yet: "Sounds like you are asking to borrow my eyes, let me know when you've looked in all the obvious places and then i can help"

When he asks something a woman should know (That you have actually worked hard to research and learn, like cooking) "Wait, let me just ask my vagina about that"

When he expects you to remember some information you both have acess too "Sounds like you want to outsource your brain and use mine, id have to look at the calendar, can you check there and let me know"

If he wont pull his weight, get a cleaner and some child care

Oooh we did this. She had a go at me for (DH) forgetting Nephew’s birthday -I told her very clearly that it was DH’s domaine and to take it up with him (she didn’t).

He eventually now remembers his family’s birthdays after many painful years.

OP - you need to specifically allocate tasks to each other. So maybe he does bins, clearing up after cooking, babies batch, his own laundry.

If it doesn’t he done then leave it (this is hard).

You are right to worry about when you go back from maternity and you need to get full agreement for 50:50. And if he doesn’t pull his weight then how about you leave him. As it will only get worse and the resentment will grow.

Is he motivated by competition or gameification? I love the app Tody, it gamifies tidying, highlights what needs doing, and can now also show how much each person is doing.

I operate a zero nonsense policy, and have dealt with this expectation and feigned helplessness on several occasions. It’s unacceptable. He’s accusing you of nagging and threatening to leave you because he thinks it will frighten you into shutting up. That is utterly contemptible.

The next time he tries to be intimate with you, tell him that you’ve watched him behave like a helpless child for so long that you’re losing respect for him as a capable man and you’re starting to think of him like a helpless child. Ask him what effect he thinks that has on your vagina? Then roll over and go to sleep.

With dc you just have to go out and leave him to get on with it and accept he may not do it your way but the important thing he is confident doing it at all without input from you. I have friends who couldn’t have a weekend away until their dc were late teens as they wouldn’t leave them with their DP’s. Start doing half a day at weekends when you are childfree.
Who wanted the dog as that seems unnecessary extra work on top of young children.
I wouldn’t be doing his dinner or laundry if he’s not pulling his weight.
If he does leave know your house will need a lot less tidying, the dishwasher will only need putting on half as often and when you do cook you can make your meals last 2-3 days.

I follow an account called 4am Liturgies on Insta. She wrote this and i thought it might be helpful to share with your husband.

dear men,
you've probably heard terms like 'emotional labor' recently. maybe you've been told that you're adding to the emotional labor of your feminine partner.
you should know: you've been conditioned to interact with people extractively.
that means your presence alone costs people something, you just don't notice because their presence has never cost you anything.
you've been engineered (on purpose) to be a burden to everyone around you so you can use all your energy and theirs to feed the imperial machine.
i'm going to show you how to fix that.
here's how start providing for your relationships like the generous man you really are...

when i say 'extractive' here's what i mean.
you are engineered to communicate by:

• asking data retrieving questions (i.e. where is this? where can i find?).
• offering contrarian statements even when you agree with the initial opinion (i.e. playing 'devils advocate').
• positioning dialogue in opposition instead of alongside (i.e. only responding to things you disagree with and not affirming what you agree with).
• corrective language (i.e. scanning text or prose for words you dispute the meaning of).
• outsourcing labor (i.e. can you remind me? can you make me a list?).
• asking for explanation (i.e. i don't understand).
• validation seeking (i.e. do you like what i made?).

those methods of engagement all have one thing in common.
they require effort from the other person.
you're asking them to access memory for you, remember something for you, explain something to you, or give positive feedback to you.
even when you aren't getting something from them, you're triggering an emotion they need to manage.
the net energetic effect of these interactions is negative, they're 'takes' or 'walls'.
you're either gaining something for yourself (i.e. validation or information) or you're creating an emotional obstacle they need to climb over.

using these methods in predominantly male spaces is normalized because typically, no one is being extracted from.
but in spaces that include marginalized groups like women, exclusively communicating in extractive ways depletes them.
this is what we mean when we ask for reciprocal relationships.
it means that communication effort is balanced.
both parties extract and both parties give back, but men have only been taught how to do one.

'giving back' in communication is restorative. instead of taking energy or effort, it offers them.
restorative communication looks like:

• compliments (i.e. you look beautiful).
• task management (i.e. i know you have a busy day tomorrow, i'd like to bring you lunch).
• reminders (i.e. you mentioned you needed shampoo in case you forgot).
• interest sharing (i.e. i heard this song that reminded me of you).
• validation offering (i.e. i'm really impressed with how you think about that).
• information sharing (i.e. there's a new restaurant opening up close to your house).
• confirmatory language (i.e. seeking words or prose you agree with).
• initiative (i.e. i went ahead and bought tickets to the movie).
• curiosity about them (i.e. i would love to know how you know so much about that).

even when we ask for our partner's energy or effort, we can ask in a way that minimizes impact.
that way it's less 'taking', more neutral.
we can do that by:

• asking permission (i.e. do you have a minute to talk about this?).
• apologizing (i.e. i'm so sorry i forgot this, can you please remind me?).
• offering context or boundaries (i.e. i know now isn't a good time, but when you have a moment can you show me how to do this?).

it's not your fault you weren't taught how to communicate effectively, but in the same way it's your job to cut down a dead tree you didn't plant, it's your job to correct it.
if you want to provide for your relationships instead of being provided for by them, communication is where it starts.

Yes it is partly the maternity leave, or returning part time, so the default split is no longer 50/50 but some nebulous, undefined, constantly-argued-over split.
Schedules and clear responsibilities help, e.g. she always does all laundry, he always does all food shopping, then not treading on each other's 'turf'.

The mental load thing I think starts with a new mother being 'in-charge' of the newborn. She is doing the feeding (if breastfeeding), so knows when baby is hungry, and it all grows from there. The father starts deferring to her expertise, asking for her advice and input, asking what he should do and when, then asking permission to do anything with the baby, and it spirals, and can even eventually expand to every part of the housework as well as the childcare.

First-time mothers need to be warned about this trap: the baby is not purely their own to be the boss of and the expert in. The father has an equal say, and an equal responsibility. It goes against a mother's instincts to be less protective and less involved, particularly when the baby is tiny, but it is important for setting the tone, now that (nearly all) mothers can't stay home and not work until the youngest child is 16 years old.

issue with offloading the mental load is that the same things may not matter to him. But if you stop answering and picking up the slack, things will definitely improve

Absolutely, @CookingFatCat , stop knowing the answers!

I have a few vague answers I give, variations on- oh, I’m not sure, what do you think? It takes no effort and it shifts the thinking back to him.

At a pinch I get direct- use your own brain, mine’s busy!

It’s massively shifted people away from me as the fount of all knowledge.

I’ll also agree it’s hard to find things that I’ve ‘hidden in the usual place, right at the front of where they’re always kept’. That’s made him look harder in future, as well.

They think it’s easy ‘women’s work’, so don’t give any time or effort to it and don’t value yours.

The answer is that you always say to him "I don't know".
You have to train yourself out of answering.

So he asks you about the duvet cover.
"I don't know".
"But you must know, what size is it?"
"I don't know"
"Well how can I tell the difference?"
"I don't know. I'm sure you can figure it out".
Then you leave the room.
Don't give an inch.
It will be painful to start with, but eventually it will get better.

The answer to all those questions is "I don't know, what do you think?"

You need to stop answering the questions as a first step.
And more importantly, you have to accept whatever decision DH makes, even if it is not what you would have chosen.

Let the bin overflow. Keep your mouth closed on that topic.
Whatever you do, don't deal with the bin yourself if it has been agreed that it is his job.
Sooner or later, either he will step up, or you will decide you can no longer live with his disgusting standards.

He sounds like a man child. How can he not see the things that need doing?
Im so happier now I live alone. Been seeing someone for a while now and whenever he is at my house he always finds something that needs fixing and fixes it. I never ask him to and tell him he doesn’t need to but he seems to enjoy taking small jobs off me!

https://www.reddit.com/r/FairPlayLife/comments/1bokdb6/digital_fair_play_template/

There are some links to a personal spreadsheet lists of the cards on here.

I hate this approach that makes out women are all unreasonable shrews with exacting standards. Whilst there are undoubtedly cases where this is true, I think most women want basic partnership and competence.

I work with a lot of younger women who all complain about their husbands and how useless they are. However, what they mean by useless is - the husbands don’t do x, y, z the way they would.

If you want your husband to do stuff, you have have to let him do it his way.

Om the basis of your recommendation I just listened to her being interviewed on a podcast while doing my bank holiday house clean. I think she has changed my life!. Applying a project management approach to domestic life (concept, planning, execution) triggered the epiphany that DH only does the execution bit. So claims to do loads (and seems to do loads) but does no conceptualising or planning. There is so much room in his head compared to me!

I desperately want to get the 100 cards but my funds are low.

My husband and I have set jobs.

And not the "I do everything and he cuts the lawn and takes the bins out" bollocks that I see on here all the time.

I do polishing, hoovering, tidy up the kitchen and the majority of the washing, empty the bins more than him, sort recycling.

On a Friday he cleans the bathroom, changes the bed sheets, washes them and he cooks every night, so he does the shopping as well.

We both have full time jobs

If we had children then we would share, bath and bedtime, school pick up and drop offs, but we are older so all our children are adults and we got together and married later

Well, maybe something that will impact your entire future is worth taking some time to think about, isn’t it?

Usually threads about women considering going part time after children descend into rants about “feminism means women get to choose”. That’s not my definition of feminism, but if it’s what women are choosing time and time again, having multiple children with disinterested/seemingly incapable men, there needs to be some recognition of that.

OP had 6 years (at least) before her first child and recognises she was doing more before that. It became more imbalanced after DC1, but still she opted to have another child and expect something different to happen. She’s become chief question answerer to a grown man who presumably manages the demands of his jobs without needing to ask 50 questions an hour like a maniacal toddler to do so. OP needs to get tough.

You're not nagging! You're reminding him of his responsibilities. If he doesn't do it that's his fault - don't let that come back to you as 'nagging'. It's a misogynistic word that men use when their laziness is called out.

I don’t answer fucking stupid questions or questions where it’s clear someone can’t be arsed to think and wants to outsource it.

i agree with a Pp upthread that no matter what they say, it’s a power imbalance in their favour. Losing your shit can work as it makes them realise that they are in fact disposable and replaceable. It’s when they feel they have the upper hand in all things they don’t make an effort.

which is another reason why I am glad I went back to FT work.

Well of course ideally you don't start it in the first place, but multiple mumsnet threads on this topic and divorce statistics clearly demonstrate that this is a common problem.
Some of us don't have 9 years to trial run a husband before kids. Some men change when kids come along.
You sound smug and sanctimonious.