Demanding job

so you pretty much organise the DCs' stuff daily then. do you generally do the washing (clothes, sheets, towels) and cooking too? Or is that shared?

If the former then it would not be at all petty to stop doing DH's. You are looking after three people plus paid work, while he would be looking after himself only. If you got "major attitude" that'd be his decision.

Make sure you get a better counsellor next time!

We have a cleaner yes, once a week. Thank goodness because that would never get done otherwise. My parents do ironing/gardening for us. On the surface it would seem like theres not much left to do but it doesn't seem that way. Not enough hours in the day.
I asked him to help me clear up after my weekend away, which he did half-heartedly. He does school run then goes to work himself. But I have to get DDs lunch packed up, get PE kits out, get coats out, get drinks bottles ready etc or it wouldn't get done, DDs would go to school/preschool without.
I would get major attitude from him if I didn't do his washing/cooking - if I was doing it for everyone else anyway, would just seem very mean and petty.
I agree, the counsellor was rubbish - I hope we see someone else next time. That was just the assessment meeting where I was told that.

Hels that's such rubbish from the counsellor. It's housework, not astrophysics, it's not that hard to teach yourself how to do it if you want to learn.

I imagine if you were discussing with the counsellor how you were a very accomplished cyclist and you wanted your husband to learn so he could share your passion that she would be able to find ways to build a plan for him to learn to be a better cyclist. Not come out with some bollocks about being sympathetic because he never saw his parents cycle

Hels, that sounds shocking. do you at least have a cleaner? That seems to work to some extent in some households I know of with lazy men.

When you got back and the house was a shit tip did you ask him to clean it up?

Does he do any school runs/breakfasts/teas?

Have you tried doing just yours and DCs' stuff (more than enough I know) and not cooking for him or doing his washing?

I am sorry, Hels

I couldn't live that

it seems he has no care for you and you becoming ill means perhaps you might as well be better off without him

at least you would have only yourself and dc to look out for if he wasn't around

Oh and when on the rare occasions I do go away for the weekend - think once, maybe twice since having the DC - the house is an absolute shit-tip when I return. Think dishes piled up in the sink, dishwasher full or dirty pots, laundry baskets overflowing, toys everywhere, children half dressed, empty food wrappers littered about, bagged up nappies still in baby's room, used milk bottles sitting on side etc etc etc
so much so, its not worth ever going away because of the devastation that greets me on my return 'oh I didn't have time' is the stock reply. FFS.

I've read the riot act and got serious, many many times over the years. Things improve for a while then slowly tail off again so that I end up back where I started. Discovered I was anaemic the other day, 15mo DS waking every night at least twice, and then getting up for work every morning was about the limit of my tolerance/energy. Its becoming unbearable.
Any I had doubts about the (female, older) counsellor's wisdom too - she arched her eyebrow at me when I said I wasn't sure I wanted to conform to the old-fashioned norms of women's work and mens work and household duties particularly as we both worked.

this totally gives me the rage too. I resolved it when I started to travel a lot more for work and therefore he had no choice but to step up. I used to cook like mad before I left on a week's work trip and that meant that the kids had some semblance of nice food - but recently as I had no time, the kids ended up eating tinned food, McD's a couple of times, and oven chips. It's disappointing because he is actually able to cook (he used to do really nice shepherd's pies etc) but he doesn't now 'because he has no time'.

I on the other hand started to cook a lot more now because I didn't want the kids to just eat crap. The kids (7 and 4) do say though, that when I'm home, they eat better food. it makes me so angry.

He now works from home, but he doesn't put the dishes in the dishwasher (just leaves them on the side - because he's 'too busy') and doesn't take clothes out of the w/m because he's got no time'. I don't get it. the amount of time I 'waste' when people come knocking on my office door - I could use that time to hang laundry, load dishwasher, defrost a chicken...!

He also won't throw away old letters, newspapers, nonsense like that; his idea of tidying up is piling all that shit in a pile whereas I have to go through the pile - coz he's got no time.

argh.

I have some friends whose wife couldn't do the washing up for a while, so the husband had to do it. that weekend, they went out and bought a dishwasher. simples.

I have the Demanding Job in our house so DH has to get on with it. Although we do have a lot of outside help.

I do sometime have to remind him that things need doing sometimes but im quite grateful to be forgiven participation in the daily drudge as a result of my work.

Hels you might have to get serious on his ass

Do what Ido -Act like a man!! Simples - i come home from work sit on the sofa and ask my partner for a cup of tea!! His duties are dishes and cooking, if dishes arent dine i leave them until they are. I learnt tbis by realising if you fo it eventually why shpuld they. I used this strategy on all my exes and it worked a treat. Some were taken back by it but came too and got used to it.

Hels I had something similiar with my DH and I read the riot act to DH. Told him he needed to do x, y and z (yes I ended up giving him a list and it helped a lot) and get more involved in parenting our DC. I pushed the point that our DD is going to look to us first when it comes to deciding on what she wants to do in life. I aoso reminded him that how his parents ran their household was irrelevant. Told DH he should have married his mother if he wanted the same home environment he grew up with.

We have 2 DC aged 2 and 4. DH does have a demanding job as do I. We also live 3000 miles from home with closest family some 500 miles from us. We both get exhausted.

that counsellor is crap, Hels (and please don't give up your job and make yourself vulnerable for a selfish man)

my H was raised in a similar household

his mum worked FT (in a more demanding job than her husband), 3 kids under 5, she used to start the tea when she got in before she had even taken her coat off

FIL in the pub, he came home when tea was ready and then sat reading the newspaper while MIL cleared up and got the kids to bed

luckily for me I guess, H recognises this as wrong and despite a few incidences of selfish behaviour at the beginning of our relationship he has always done his fair share

Hels I don't if that would help but the only thing that really worked with DH is to put him in the situation where he HAD to pick up some slack.
I don't mean going on strike or whatever but engineering things so that he had to pick up the dcs from school and feed them for example.
Or I have been on a course over the weekend and he had to look after them, feed them, do the washing and ironing so that he (and I and the dcs) had something to wear.

The main thing was that I wasn't there so couldn't do it. I didn't nag because again not present. It just had to isywim.

That and just stating that xxx is his responsibility is that OK? and then not making any comment about it and never ever doing it for him.

We've also had 'discussions' about HW etc whereby I would talk about x friends or the NDN and didn't you that xxxx and how awful it is that xxx. Things that he couldn't really argue about (like it's not on he is doing nothing when she is already working 50 hours a week or when his DW is ill etc...) but that slowly made him aware of hard it is for the woman when her DH is doing fuck all.
And that he is a fully functioning adult therefore no reason not to do it, not been able to do it or not knowing how to do it (Can use Youtube has been one conversation we had). Or rather if a man isn't doing xxx the it HAS to mean he isn't a functioning adult!

It took time, years, but as I said he is now better than me in some respect lol!

Exactly - and now we have 3 DCs, so there is triple the work and mess and washing and cooking. Yet no input from DH unless prompted nagged
I really really really don't want to give up my job, which I love, to pick up the slack that should be covered by DH. We are at an impasse at present. I don't see a way forward.

Re the influence of parents...
FIL has never ever lifted a finger which has always annoyed my MIL. So she swore that she would bring her ds up so that he would know how to do HW.

Now the reality is that he learnt how to tidy and that he needed to be done. He also learnt how to do the washing up. That's about it.

When he REALLY learnt was when he was on his own at UNI and then when I put a stop to the 'this is woman's work' attitude (that appeared just after dc1 was born of course....).
Because the reality is that that sort of attitude isn't often there when you are in a couple wo children. It starts when you have your first child and the woman in on ML and she is supposed to take on the HW 'as she is at home all day doing nothing'.

Hels [shoch]
And from that... have yoou managed to sort out the problem?

I agree with Gray.
I am the one with the demanding job or rather the long hours job. Not back home until 7.30~8.00pm 3 days a week when DH finishes at 5.00pm everyday (sometimes earlier).

DH has learnt to be quite good at HW, picking dcs up from after school club, taking to activities, pushing the hoover around, knowing when to put the washing to go etc...
Actually, nowdays he is probably better than me in some respect as I've learnt to 'relax' from some duties.
He DOES see mess too more than me

The issue here isn't an issue about a demanding job etc... It's the fact that some men (but not all of them!) can't be bothered and know they can get away with not doing things.
And the fact that some women are also convinced that 'men can't see mess' and that they have to pick up the slack so then the men do even less than before (why should you make an effort when you know someone else is going to do it or has already done it?)

FWIW DH wasn't l;ike this when we met. I've had the 'but I don't know how to use the washing machine', the grumbles at being asked to deal with his dcs (I don't want to be a childminder) etc... But he learnt. Well he didn't have the choice.

How disappointing and infuriating Hels.

Just shows how strongly rooted the idea of "woman's work" is

Went to Relate counselling with DH and we discussed this exact issue, because resentment is building from my side about the disproportionate amount of chores/admin/child organisation/dog walking/cooking/food shopping that I do in addition to working 4 days a week in a 'Demanding Job'
It got down to our upbringings - my parents both worked and both took part in household chores equally, his DF went out to work and his DM stayed home and exclusively looked after his DF and him, he never had to lift a finger or do anything for himself. Now according to our counsellor, I should make more allowances for the fact DH wasn't brought up in a home where the chores were equally divided and if he doesn't 'see it' then I should direct him.
I was and and all at once. and had nothing further to contribute to the discussion after this.

My understanding of a demanding job with long hours is one where you leave the house before the kids get up and get home after they've gone to bed, in which case, how much help can you be day to day?

If both parties in a couple have jobs like this then usually there will be a nanny who does everything.

More usually if the father has a job like this, the mother will either be a SAHM or have a part time job, in which case she does the lion's share and that is fair.

If the mother has a job like this and the father is a SAHD or works part time the he does the lion's share.

Can't see the problem.

The only time it will be an issue is if either both partners or just the mother works these hours and the father doesn't pick up the slack.

I left my ex because even when started working FT he still expected to do nothing around the house. That's not fair and shouldn't be tolerated.

Except that, it isn't.

Obviously being blind I would give some leeway on actually seeing mess but thinking he's somehow a bit more special/hopeless/incapable/programmed to be a disrespectful twat by dint of having a Y chromosome... not so much.

It is quite a balance between the woman's threshold for mess/dirt and the man's. Also, I think you are right re "he doesn't see mess as his responsibility". Quite often my DH will talk about "your mess" (mine), and when I look at it, it's either the kid's mess or shared mess (unopened letters). Again, he's blind, so maybe he doesn't know what he is looking at, but mess-wise, he definitely does not see himself as part of the family!

It is how men grew up/are socialised, but we can't always blame it on our MIL, most of the time I think it's actually the FIL being a bad role model - we copy our parents, whether we like it or not - and that's been going on in generations, and it decades ages to change it. It's the "outside" part that's "easy", like women working full time, it's sharing the house work that's hard. Instruction doesn't really sink in, but learning by watching our role models is very efficient.

I don't know, I think there is something in that one, re. men not seeing mess. Or rather the small bits of mess. I think it might go on a scale, ie. if theres actual pieces of rubbish on the floor/surfaces and dirty plates, they notice them. One they're cleared, they will notice the surfaces themselves are dirty. When the surfaces are clean, they finally notice the long-term stains or dust on the skirting board or whatever. Whereas a woman looks at it and sees it all at once, men only see the most pressing thing. (Really want to mention the 'gathering berries vs hunting theory' of this and the lovely statistic that 80% of food for hunter gather societies was/is the stuff gathered by the women.... bet the men go off hunting with much pomp and circumstance though and )

The problem is, they don't care. My signicant other does deep cleaning of his flat in bursts after letting the filth mount up, making it harder work to clean and then starts noticing the ingrained filth, and laments it would be easier to to bother starting to clean because you notice there's more to do. (This is one reason he remains not DP.)

This one is really hard because you can end up in a stupid debate where they don't think it matters, so if you do you clean it... style of thing. (SO doesn't do this thankfully but is getting slowly more housetrained). What to do about this?