Just been reading another thread about a ‘lazy fucker’ husband, and have seen loads of MN posts over the last few weeks about women running themselves ragged over Christmas with minimal input from DHs. ive thought about how my DH would do Christmas. He would book Christmas lunch out. He would go to Hamleys and buy a pile of nonsense for the DC (which they would probably love, but none of which was on their Christmas list and all of which would be bagged rather than wrapped) we probably wouldn’t have a tree,(we don’t have outside lights because putting them up an taking them down again would just be another job to my list) he certainly wouldn’t write any Christmas cards or think about gifts for teachers, gifts to DC would be thanked by him by text and he wouldn’t drive round the countryside appeasing lots of relatives. And it would all be fine.
I’ve been extrapolating the Christmas model to everyday life.
DH is putting out the bins as I type, and he hoovered downstairs yesterday while I was at work (it was bad) but largely needs to be prompted to do domestic chores unless it’s got really bad. He doesn’t organise play dates, would miss most school activities parents get invited to (with 5 minutes notice), wouldn’t spend hours actively entertaining DC (would have an entertain yourself approach). The dishes would pile up until there were none left and then he’d have to put the dishwasher on, ditto washing clothes. The grass would get cut when it was a foot high. He wouldn’t do ‘keeping on top’.(in reality I know he’d get a cleaner housekeeper twice a week and a Gardner)
Im just wondering how much ‘lazy husband’ talk is actually women (and I include myself in this) complaining that their husband hasn’t done something their way and in their time frame, rather than actual laziness or selfishness. DH survived quite well on his own before he met me, he just did things differently, and didn’t live in a disgusting pit) and even though we now have DC in the mix, I’m sure I’d be way less stressed if I could actually live some of my life his way. The house would be messier and more disorganised, the kids would certainly be more self reliant but perhaps we’d all be a bit happier?And in the grand scheme of life things would be fine.