Who is BU re waking hours & being awake during the day?

[Oddoneout63]

DH & I both work - no shifts. AIBU to expect him to actually be up & awake during the day at weekends?

Eg - to use today as a typical example:

Me: went to bed at 23:30, up at 08:00. Have breakfast & take son to training at 9:30. Back by 11:00. Coffee, then tidying up, lunch, ironing, sort out stuff in house to take to dump, prepare & cook dinner. Short attempt at a nap 16:00. Otherwise on my feet all day. I'd like DH to spend the afternoon (lovely sunny day for once) clearing the mess in the garage to the dump. We can do together or ES can do it with DH so I can finish ironing.

DH: bed at 03:00, up at 10:30 ish (when I got home from training, he'd just come out of shower & was still in his towel), tea, shit, sit down in front of TV (snoring), I ask if he can clear garage today - he says he has a headache / has work to do / wants to do it methodically / it'll take all day / yadayadayada...15:00 he decides to take dog to park to watch sons on BMXs, home at 16:00, sits down, too dark for dump, takes a shit, comes down & is now in front of TV (snoring).

I'm still in kitchen (though I'm on MN right now of course!) cooking. He's in other room watching Tv.

AIBU to expect him to actually be up at around the same hours as me so he can help me with the heavy / 2-person jobs around here, instead of making one excuse after the other to do sod all?

He complains we don't see each other / spend quality time, but it's his fault for insisting on going to bed so late & then getting up late too & then avoiding doing anything for me.

Have you told him that? I agree its not really fair... You spent the day doing chores.

It's hardly quality time if you only want him to get out of bed to organise the garage, though.

I think he should help with the necessary housework (cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.) but other than that, weekends are downtime, surely? You took DS out, he had a lie-in. I don't really see the issue unless he does it all the time and never helps out.

On the other hand, if he does want quality time, he needs to get out of bed and make it happen, not lie on the sofa and complain of a headache all day long!

Your days both seem a bit odd. Why do you nap? Why does he sleep so much?

Does he really not want to do the garage and therefore just avoided it all weekend?

You have your sleep as a nap mid afternoon. He has his sleep as a lie in.

maybe you need to start be talking to him?

HJG- yes he does this all the time. Spends his weekends watching TV to the wee small hours, getting up late & dozing all day long, while I run around after everyone getting things done.

I work P-t so the mundane chores get done during the week, but I can't physically move much of the stuff that's accumulated in the garage into the car by myself so I need him to be available to help me. As a result, the garage gets more & more messy, but when I ask if we can do it together, he complains he's tired.

This is just one example, remember - just feels like any time I ask if we can do something 'boring but necessary' together it gets put off. He does the fun stuff (when he feels like it) but the boring stuff he can't be bothered to do. I have told him if it's not done by the end of Jan I will do it myself with a (female) friend. That's NBU is it?

That's different, then. He needs to pull his finger out. But I wouldn't be threatening that if he doesn't do it, you'll do it anyway! That gives him no reason to do anything.

Tell him if he doesn't do it, you'll sort it and his stuff will end up in the bin as you'll assume he doesn't want it.

He takes two shits a day? Noteworthy enough shits to end up in your surveillance list?

YANBU. My MIL allowed my DH as a teenager to sleep until mid-afternoon. I'm an early morning person. Once we started living together I 'trained' him to start getting up earlier and earlier, so that eventually he rarely slept past 9am (pre-DD). It meant that we had much more time together and got things done.

I've never really noticed when dh takes a dump.

It sounds like he really doesn't want to do the garage. It's January it's cold, cut him some slack here. I wouldn't wAnt to do the garage in his shoes.

If he doesn't help with other necessary chore like cooking cleaning it looking after the kids that's a different matter.

You should both get a day to lie in if one if you has to get up with the kids. If not then I don't see why he shouldn't get to lie in both days. 10.30 isn't that bad. I thought you were going to say 2pm!

Being on the tv rather than going out and doing things together is more of a problem. But if all you want to do is stay on top of chores its no surprise he just wants to flake.

So you cook one day, he cooks another. Take it in turns to do the shopping etc. Plan some more fun things. A walk, a coffee out, I don't know - what do you do for fun? There's a time and a place for chores. Ask him when he would like to sort out the garage and do it then within a reasonably short timeframe.

I fail to see the relevance in telling us how often he goes to the loo

I think he is being unreasonable.

You have a son, he'd can't keep teenage hours and then be too tired to pull his weight during the day at the weekend in reasonable time for you all to have some quality time as a family.

Does he work part time or full time?

Oh, and how old are the children?

Presumable the relevance of the shits is the extraordinarily & totally unnecessarily long time he takes in there. First off I'd suggest changing the routine so you send him off to footie in the morning whilst you get the chores you need to do out of the way. Lunch together, free time for each of you in the afternoon (let him sleep if that's what he wants as his time = his business) then family time in the evening. It's definitely not a fair division of labour but unless you take decisive action i doubt he'll change based on a conversation.

The loo probably is relevant if he does that thing of sitting there with the papers/iPad etc and takes half an hour over it.

He might do the odd thing here and there but only if he wants to. The rest of the time he sleeps, snores, dozes, naps, etc, having slept in anyway. As much use as a chocolate teapot at weekends.

I think if you work hard during the week, then it's fine to relax at the weekend.
"Morning people" always look down on people that like to lie in, but are happy to stay up in the evenings/ nighttime. I don't get why one person's preference 'trumps' another person's preference.

Of course, if you both wanted to lie in, and only you ever bothered to get up to take your dc to training, that's different, but that's not the message I'm getting here, it just sounds like you feel your way of spending the weekend is somewhat superior to his way of choosing to spend the weekend.

I don't think 10.30 is an unreasonable time to get up at the weekend. If my H expected me to get up at 8.00 just because that was the time he wanted to get up, I'd tell him to get stuffed.

Also, the way you describe him taking the dog for a walk and accompanying the children on an activity is unfair and doesn't acknowledge that he did these things. Does he always walk the dog? Regularly go to the park with the children?

However, with regard to the rest of it, YANBU. You are doing all the household chores while he snores in front of the TV.

My suggestion is to write a list of all the things which need doing at weekends. Then sit down together and divvy them up. Don't take all the "women's" work on yourself allocating him the occasional "manly" job.

Once you have agreed who is going to do which jobs, leave him to do them at the time he chooses, not when you've decided he should be doing them. Would it be the end of the world if he takes the stuff to the dump in a couple of weeks' time rather than the day you've decided you want it done?

How old are the children?

Are you doing up the house or have a particular project going on? I'm asking because it sounds as if there's lots of routine clearing going on. In that case you need to sit down and get a rough plan together. So it's WE have agreed to do this within this timescale and have distributed the tasks like xxxxxx If he doesn't do his bit then you don't run about covering.

If you have decided that he has to clear out something with little previous agreement then thats not the best way. I wouldn't be impressed if someone dictated to me what I would be doing that day. I have done 90% of the loft and shed clearing in our house for years with all the dirty heavy lifting and taking to the dump. It is something that you need to mentally pre-plan for. Not to be told what you will be doing that this Saturday when you've just woken up.

I'm a bit on the fence with the waking up and chores thing. Its OK to have different body clocks, no he shouldn't have to be up when you are. I will clarify that by excluding situations where there are younger children that need a parent around. Or errands that have to be done by specific times.

I am naturally a night owl, can sleep in, can't nap, I don't understand a nap! BUT I like to get the boring tasks out of the way early as possible. I like to get dirty, busy, then clean, cosy and relax.
My husband wakes very early but falls asleep and naps all the time. He puts off the boring tasks until late as possible because he likes to relax first. Then do the busy dirty stuff later.

If you have an imbalance like that then talk and stop. If you've done most of the daily shit before he notices (and yes all those naps and long shits may be a way of putting off). Don't carry on. Talk first of course but then stop carrying on with picking up the shit.

I took child to training last week, your turn this week. It hits 4pm, Urrr don't we need to put on a load of washing? House is in a state when should we get it hygienic? What's for dinner?

If you pick up the slack on the daily slog the other person never gets to see it, feel it and then deal with it.

The maths says that he actually sleeps one less hour than you do.

The stuff in the garage sounds like an enormously luxury problem, i.e something you would prefer but doesn't matter a jot in the grand scheme of things.
He takes the dog out and does stuff with the kids, sounds like a good Dad. You do stuff too - Oooh - that sounds like - let me think - A family - and a pretty well functioning one at that.

PS - only dull people are brilliant at breakfast...

?I still want to know whether he works full or part time, and how old the children are. Because it does make a difference. You started by saying that "You both work", but have since said that you only work part time. So if he works full time, there is a discrepancy you are avoiding telling us about immediately.

He might still be unreasonable, but we can hardly say so if you don't actually give the true/full facts.