AIBU to be scared about my marriage

[OneSadMan]

New account etc and this will lack any detail about me (hopefully) since you never know.

I thought our marriage was absolutely rock solid until last week. I work from home and I am also a stay at home dad, my wife works. We've been married for over 10 years (I dont want to be too specific)

Last week, on the way to work, my wife noticed the grill was dirty. She hadn't had the best night's sleep but that's not unusual in a house with small kids. As she was leaving for work and saw that, she went absolutely mental and shouted so loud it scared the kids. She stomped out the door.

About 20 minutes later she messaged me saying she wanted to separate. For the time being I was to move her stuff to the spare room, and we would take it from there. I was devastated that a simple bit of housework might mean the end of our marriage. We have a cleaner and yes, the house could probably be cleaner but I do work from home during the day and we've never been clean freaks who expect a spotless house and we've been fine with this so far - it's not dirty by any stretch but sometimes there'll be an annoying job we maybe put off longer than we should. All the weekly childcare is done by me, but she does more at the weekends so she gets to spend time with them, this is her choice btw since she sees them hardly at all during the week.

We messaged back and forth a bit and the gist of it was that unless I did more housework we were getting divorced. She eventually retracted that and said she didn't really mean it, but I can't get past it.

I have spent the last week dwelling on it and the last few days have been especially hard. The house is not a tip, I need to do more laundry and putting clothes away and that's fair enough but I don't see that as something worth getting divorced over, surely?

She isn't an especially tidy person herself, and while I absolutely support her as much as I can in doing her job and then her just relaxing in the evening, I just found it astounding that she was willing to threaten me like that and then pretend a week later as if it hadn't happened.

And what if in that moment that she'd messaged me, I'd said "fine, I understand"? That would have been it. I just can't get my head around how little she must value things if she would chuck away our marriage over housework. I know it happensin some of those weird old fashioned relationships sometimes when the man works and expect his wife to do all the cooking and cleaning but if the roles were reversed and I came home and said "why haven't you cleaned the grill" and then said I wanted a divorce, I feel like a lot of support would be for her and I would be called a heartless bastard - which I would agree with!

How unreasonable am I being? Have any of you ever broken up with your partner over things like housework? I always tend to see the stuff I do to maintain the kids as being a pretty big chunk of the housework as it is, but now I am sort of looking over my shoulder and thinking "what will she see when she gets in that will make her think it's over? what job will I miss that might be the final straw?" but that can't be healthy.

In short I am scared of her and how she will react because I don't want my marriage to end. I'm also scared of how casually she dismissed something I found devastating and am still struggling to understand. It's really thrown me. HELP.

That's abuse. LTB.

Oh hang on, you're a man. It must be something you did wrong.

I would definitely break up with someone because of housework, but then I am a woman, a sloven and would never agree to the double working day that so many women seem to be expected to accept.

However you work and look after the children as well. How many hours a week do you do paid work? I would think that between your job and childminding, you should both try to more or less the same amount of housework.

billsykes

mrsterry ffs not everything has to go back to an affair! No. Which is why it was a suggestion.

Can we also not have 40 pages of "if OP was a woman the advice would be different" please? The structure of society is different for men and women and this a very heavily female environment. The OP is presumably aware of this. He can choose to ask here or ask in a male environment. He can choose to take advice or ignore it. He can choose to ask women for their perspective, which might well be different to his and enlightening.

I think you should move her stuff into the spare room. Scaring the children like that, isn't right.

Can we also not have 40 pages of "if OP was a woman the advice would be different" please? Hear hear!

I think because the majority of us on here are actual women we put ourselves in the wife's position and suggest what could be the problem.

No one said abuse or ltb and wouldn't have either if it was the other way around.

Getting angry, or leaving somebody who isn't pulling their weight around the home is perfectly valid. Maybe you should have a think about whether you do enough, and of course talk to your wife.

You need to sit down and have a serious chat about if there is anything she has not told you that caused her outburst but it'd be the best time to tell her exactly how what she said and did has made you feel and I'd bloody well expect an apology or a damned good reason for her behaviour.

Not sure really, its not solely about the grill tray is it? That's likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

My DH does very little housework and I don't say anything because he's full-time, I'm part-time and because I like an easy life without arguments. So we hardly argue but resentment does brew over who does most of the housework (me) and him leaving stuff for me to pick up, and sometimes I do 'blow' over something relatively minor. I think also that might shock him because I don't shout or get angry most of the time so if I do, he probably thinks 'woah there, what the hells going on'.

Do you think this could be the deal with you and your DW? You think that everything is fine but there could be some bubbling resentment on her part. Also, who's decision was it to get the cleaner? Because that would be quite telling.

Can we also not have 40 pages of "if OP was a woman the advice would be different" please? The structure of society is different for men and women and this a very heavily female environment. The OP is presumably aware of this.

YY. Also the pressures on women do lead up to bottling-up-then-apparently-crazy-lady-explosions ... which are then used to portray us all as unhinged cruel harpies.
To be crude, on a whole society level, the expectation is one is a big 'top dog' cowing the pack, the other the goaded underdog snarling and nipping. There is often a difference between when a woman lashes out and when a man lashes out. Not in every case, but often.
That's what makes many abuse cases so sad and complex, after being called every name for years, slapped for years, the woman lashes out back and it looks like a 50/50 fight. I am NOT talking about the OP in this example just a general observation on the fact that there are often differences which professionals and volunteers see - and MN 'iit's reverse sexism' is often unhelpfully naive to this.

...though one difference relating to the OP is: even when a woman works full time, many people do still turn to her first with the head-tilt or snide comment when the house is a wreck, not the man. So aside from personal taste, most women have that pressure at the back of their mind. The grillpan IS a bigger potential stress for women than men because of society's usual expectations.

Do you OP actually see what needs doing around the house, obviously not because you didn't see the grill pan.
I have a Dh and four sons it has taken years and years to train them to see what needs doing.
I have during this training resorted to nagging , temper tantrums etc etc.

Use a bit of intelligence her standards are higher than yours, start looking at the housework differently, not the attitude "oh well the floor doesn't look that dirty" try "It would look a lot better hoovered/ washed than it does now".

Try and alter your mindset and set aside a specific amount of time each day for these jobs.
Try and understand when you have had an exhausting and trying day at work to come home to an untidy and slightly grubby house where the washing up needs doing and the washing needs putting away just about tips you over the edge, believe me I know I've been there.
Do you leave it all up to the cleaner? Unless the cleaner comes every day, someone else will have to take up the slack, probably you.

I work from home and I am also a stay at home dad, my wife works

So you work FT from home, juggle the kids and the household and your wife works outside the home?

Or you work part-time and the rest.

Or you "work" [on something that brings in very little in the way of income which you are doing because you were made redundant or through lifestyle choice, or for medical reasons, want to write a novel, want to start a new business, want to turn a hobby into a "job"], do the school runs and keep the lights on domestically but generally don't go above and beyond to do a deep clean/sort out the kids clothes/do a blitz on toys/book a holiday/sort shite basically.

I'm sorry but I think it is important to clarify this point to get to the possible root of an almighty row over a dirty grill pan. It could be due to a myriad of reasons:
Your wife is stressed about being the primary breadwinner
Your wife resents that you can work from home
Your wife resents that you have made a lifestyle choice/or been forced into being a SAHP and she has de facto become the sole breadwinner
Your wife agreed to you being the SAHP, had a bad day and the grass was greener
Your wife thinks you do sweet fa all day, saw your browsing history consisted mostly of iplayer and 4OD and decide that the grill pan was a better alternative to admitting that she's been snooping.

Your wife is just a bitch who had a bad day and took it out on you, and now can't man the fuck up and apologise for being an out and out cow

Or

You really don't get beyond keeping the lights on domestically and she thinks that you have the time to do more and should.

You are right to be concerned. Something is wrong and points to a level of dissatisfaction but you need to talk together about what's not working.

Screaming and shouting and scaring the kids is unacceptable behaviour. Stonewalling you also.

She isn't stonewalling me at all by the way - I just tend to let things fester in my mind (and the grill pan) so when I brought it up I actually needed to remind her what she'd said and that we still hadn't dealt with it.

It probably is something else, I know she's finding work tough. I was just shocked that she would resort to that particular threat. If she called me every name under the sun and told me to tidy up, I'd be a lot happier and would probably have just thought "yeah fair enough". It was just kind of cold really - sending someone a message saying you've had time to think, you're calm, and it's over.

I only worry about affairs because she's out of the house and doing things, and I'm kind of stuck at home with the nippers. We chose this life, I am very happy to have raised my kids especially since so many men don't get to do it. I feel privileged to know them as well as I do. I do stuff around the house that needs doing but a lot of it is stuff that is created and cleared up during the day while she's out - kid mess, dishes, cooking etc. So the jobs she sees are not the ones I've been doing because I've been doing the day to day kid stuff. She doesn't see the jobs I mainly do because she's not here, if you know what I mean. But that's not really something you can prove to someone, is it?

I'm hoping it was just a bad day.

If you are actually running the home then she shouldn't complain - unless you are just siting around watching telly all day, which I am sure you aren't .
During my short stint as a SAHM I did what I could and wouldn't have taken any criticism about my housekeeping skills, it was my role and I didn't give my OH advice on his job.
Sounds like a bad day, we all have them. Talk it through, good luck!

I still think this is about more than tidying and chores.

You have to sit down and talk to her. It sounds like you may be somewhat unhappy about the situation even if you are grateful to raise the kids too...

Could it be that you are not be spending enough time together? Your lives sound very busy.

time is definitely at a premium especially if I end up working in the evening as well, which I often do. it's very unlike her to get quite THIS mad which is why I was so concerned. we've had our problems in the past like anyone, but nothing this major (for me at least). Given that it apparently doesn't bother her I guess I should just ignore it, but it was alarming.

Are their issues that she's tried to raise which you havent to listened to or engaged with, have you inadvertently tuned out (I do it - I am not criticising).

In my experience if you dont connect with someone when they are trying to draw an issue to your attention then things can escalate because they are trying to be heard and understood.

Or it might be something totally unrelated to you but which you (the closest person to her) got both barrels for - which would be very unfair.

Talk to her - on your own, somewhere, sometime you both feel relaxed and give her time to explain her feelings - in return she needs to hear how much her comments have upset you.