To feel a bit smug at his new taste of the mental load

My husband gets all the school emails for our 1 year old daughter and girl guides communication. Guess what he does with it?? Forwards it to me!

I’m hoping that’s a typo and she’s not actually a year old & already attending school and girl guides 😂

😂😂

The thought occurs

It's easier if one person does these types of things

If you try to split it then it gets harder as you don't know what is getting done

This is especially true if each person has a different way of doing things

And yes I'm a single parent, no I don't struggle with these things

If it's something in the future I just make a note on my Google calendar when it's going to happen

Else I make a note on my phones notepad and just tick it off when I do it

I don't think I could split these types of admin jobs with someone else it would get confusing

Arrrrggghhhh

You’re a single parent so it definitely seems easier as you’re not carrying the extreme resentment of doing all the admin - which is vast with multiple kids - on top of work, the house etc, while the bloke gets to just focus all his mental energy on his own life. It’s not that it’s hard (though the volume can be overwhelming) it’s that it’s FUCKING INFURIATING

Financially being a single parent is so tough. But I think emotionally it’s actually easier. My friend who is a solo parent via IVF actually said to me “I absolutely do not know how you have the time or energy to be in a relationship on top of this”. Well, we don’t. So the marriage suffers.

Bloke has to make money as well, so it's not all focusing on his own life. Outside life maybe.
I don't mind too much as a i far too much to do and he has much more ability to make more money than i have - so sexism but i take advantage of it, make the system work for you as it were.

But yes i'd be smug too. Let him feel the pain! And he'll be less smug as a result. I sure make mine see the work i do.

It sounds like he is making conversation rather than moaning about it.

Pretty sad that your reaction is to feel smug. Is this how you operate your relationship, competing as to who has it worse and rejoicing when the other one share the hardship?

Years ago, dh took.over dental appointments. I wont lie, the time he had to reschedule 3 times because he hadnt actually checked diary or considered the activities we had on did make me (very quietly and out of sight) chuckle to myself.....

He didnt bitch or complain. I think it was a bit of an eye opener though.

Agree with this. No adult to irritate you or ask questions in addition to the children’s questions and constant needs. It is relentless as a LP but there is also a peacefulness to it when they’re in bed or away with exH for a couple of weeks.

Personally i consider work/career part of “own life”. But that may be partly because mine has suffered so badly

They are many ways:
Each parent is in charge of school comms for one child.
One parent is in charge of uniform, the other one does all other school matters.
One parent is in charge of a given sports club / beavers / etc.
One parent is in charge of organising holiday clubs / planning for childcare during holidays.
etc

To me it depends how much each partner works as to the level of mental load taking. There should always be an even split.

I agree. I'm not a single parent and have two DC.

I do all the kids stuff, schools, clubs etc. it's easier to know what's going on. DH comes to everything as much as he can, like parents evening. Some medical appointments we do individually depending on who can get.time.off work.

I do food shopping but we share cooking , DH does more of the house bills (gas/elec/internet and swapping providers etc) . He does more ironing and cleaning.

Big stuff we do jointly.

I can't imagine splitting kid related stuff but would not accept someone not pulling their weight in other ways.

We split it, but haven’t found it confusing as we have a shared calendar and just add things into that. As soon as we get the school calendar one of us puts the dates in for the whole year. I book school clubs (but that takes 5mins once a term), my husband does clubs that are outside school. We just book the dentist when we are at the dentist and all go together.

I work full time as well, then come back and make dinner, do washing, all the admin etc etc and get no financial help from my ex

But I think you put it well,

I'm not carry the resentment of me doing that with someone who makes it harder and just gets in the way

I do everything quicker and easier if I'm just left to get one with it

I get it OP. I vividly remember DH asking if I wanted to see a film once when DC were small. I said yes, so he then said, 'Great, could you just get the tickets and a babysitter. For once, I said, 'No. You asked me out on this date, so you 'just' book the tickets and sitter.' Then watched him gnashing his teeth at the convoluted ticket booking system at our local cinema, phoneing six different people from the babysitters' circle, none of whom were free, and a final one who only agreed to sit if he would sit for her children next night.

Afterwards, I said to him, 'Do you understand now, that things you think take me two minutes actually take half an hour?' and he was better after that.

I leave loads of things to him now.

It’s astonishing that in 2026 a woman can say that her husband has been surprised and annoyed by the amount of mental load caused by just two admin responsibilities, and some other women are falling over themselves to tell her she should just do it all anyway because they have to, or because the man has to work.

MN has changed a lot in 20 years because when I was first here I was struggling with carrying the mental load but not really aware of why it happened or why it was so unfair, I was recommended to read the book WifeWork. Which I did, and it opened my eyes. It improved my relationship with my husband because I insisted on sharing the load rather than carrying on like a martyr and building resentment.

In those 20 years mothers have had to go back to work earlier and work longer hours, but I see many more posters tearing down other women for being unhappy with their male partners behaving like it’s 1920.

Can you both have the app? So he sees what you have to organise?

We both get the emails and he will text me while we are both working to ask if I got it.

Not like he couldn’t sort whatever is in it. Or he will read it and go so when is that? And the info is right in the email.

Did he do the return babysitting?