Should my DH high salary exclude him from doing jobs at home

[Shout]

I am at stay at home home Mum with 2 DS my husband has quite an important job and his salary reflects it. Everytime he has to work weekends or evenings he says that is what I am being paid for.

My biggest grip is that he is getting lazier around the house, meal plates left at the table coke cans around the house, cuff links ties left out and gets more out,gets changed from work, suit and dirty washing left on bed for me to clear wet towels ,floor. The kids get 10 mins of play fighting then he watches his programs/or is on the computer.If he doesn't want to do anything he just ignores it or says its not a problem eg tyres are not flat, toilet isn't blocked!

When ever I get cross that he doesn't do his fair share he says in a jokey mannner but I get paid so much.
I asked him several times to make an appointment to discuss situation he kept avoiding it, I wrote him a letter explaining how I felt, it took him 3 days to get round to reading it and never responded.

I am back to comfort eating putting on weight and feeling crap about myself, hence all physical contact is virtually non exsistent.

Any advise out there?

I'm a bit tired so it's not that well drafted a list and some of them overlap. Any mother at home because she thinks it's best but really finds it quite hard going as a full time mother, hates the loss of status, having to ask her partner for money, being the one responsible for dross cleaning jobs, husband who doesn't help and may have lost sexual interest etc, those mothers read and digest and perhaps get back to work.

Mothers who love it at home, feel it was what they were made for, can't see themselves doing anything else and who are doing it for them, not because the child necessarily will suffer if they work, laugh at how wrong you feel I am and continue but do some anticipatory preventative stuff please just in case he runs abroad and stops work and cuts of all money. You need some protection against that kind of thing at the very least. I must go to bed.

to be quite honest i am happy to read your list and can say i work for all those reasons! i beleive in most of them. and it works!

my mom was a sahm, and we became the centre or rather, obsession, of her life. in good and bad she took us. in the bad she took us far down with her. she tried to do it all and it was too hard and would crack and take it out on us. (suffered my whole life as a result, plus it killed my confidence).
my MIL is a working woman. she has always worked, very hard, and left her kids with live in nannies and nurseries. she is the epitome of what you describe. my dh and his 2 sisters are the most sane, confident, charming, fun, loving, family oriented individuals I know! so....

i definately agree that the more experiences the merrier. why is one woman the only person who can pass on good things to her children??

and agree there is an element of not depending on a man. (although i am a hopeless romantic and love the idea of my man 'taking care' of me). but i know that being financially capable on my own gives me a lot of confidence in my relationship, and in general.

my child blossoms at nursery.

my relationship with dh is also incredible (we work together and in same office!!!!), i dont fight with him about household or child things because i dont find myself stressed about those things. i concentrate on work and quality time with fam.

still, i think that above all it is most important to feel happy with what you are doing. if you feel happy, you have the best atmosphere to raise your children in. some mothers find happines in staying at home with their children....

the sahms in my neighbourhood really dislike me and another working mom in our extended social network. they dont invite us to parties they have for the kids... it just shows that with all their show of staying at home for the kids, they in some way are jealous? of us having something outside of children

I do love your spirit Xenia

Xenia, can you elaborate on the ancient tradition of women working and keeping the children? i trust the common course of history

Is that two hours a day per child or two hours split between all five, Xenia? Bceause the first option adds up to 10hrs a day while the second allocates each child 24 minutes a day, which barely seems enough to say hello. Or maybe my children are more long-winded than most.

Shan't be voting for Xenia at next elections - don't like the forced labour camp for women and universal childcare manifesto one little bit.

I liked your list, Xenia, a lot of it rang true for me.

recoveringmim, maybe the "sahm's really dislike me " because you come across as a bit smug and patronising?

just a thought

recoveringmim - I bumped into one of my neighbours (I live in an apartment block in Paris) at the playground yesterday afternoon. She doesn't work on Wednesdays and was there with her children. We had a chat. She has quite a senior job at Total, a man's world if there is one.

Her life is just one long round of logistics - getting everyone off to work, childminder, school, rushing through the day, coming home for more of the same. A lot of SAHMs get really bored listening to working women who have no personal creativity in their lives - they just seem to be cogs in an endless system with no real control or choice over who they are.

Now I know that there are also SAHMs who don't self-define and don't make real choices in their lives. BUT the real difference between women is not SAHM vs WOHM but whether you self-define your life or are just carried by the structure you happen to have fallen into.

Recoevring mum says: "my child blossoms at nursery".

Mine doesn't. He blossoms when he is with mummy and daddy. Is that a good enough reason for me to stay at home ?

yellowrose - yes it's a great reason for staying at home.

And to my mind a child under three who prefers nursery to home must have pretty boring parents.

Anna - lol

Oh, yes, dh and I are dead boring, that is why we can't get decent jobs

I am VERY good at making things with Lego though !

I read "blossom" differently to "prefers". But if it makes you feel better, read it that way. I'd think children love their parents and prefer to be with them whether they are depressed boring parents or full of the get-up-and-go you so admire. It's us as adults that think one if preferable to another (and there may be good reasons for this, depends).

And I am brilliant at building dolls' houses .

Obviously our skill sets have developed around the sex of our child...

I didn't use the word "prefer" if you read the post carefully. I said my son "blossoms" when he is with me. There is a difference. He might quite like nursery, but I doubt he would blossom there

Yes Anna - it's all big trucks, piles of dirt, sand and Lego over here ! No pink dresses in sight

It was me who said "prefer".

But if I see any child "blossoming" in an environment I assume he likes it better to the one he has left behind.

My daugher also blossoms at home with her parents and stepbrothers, and with her grandparents, all of whom give her lots of love and attention and help her develop in different and lovely ways because they give her individual attention.

Hmm - the clothes shopping thing is already getting a bit out of control around here... but I did read somewhere that girls cost more than boys under three but that thereafter boys are more expensive to bring up

That is fine too. Even very young children do make choices and have preferances. Ds and I used to go to playgroups. He never asked whether I would allow him to live in the plastic house they had at playgroup because he preferred it to home

Yes, Anna, he'll be asking me for airfares to do a round the world trip thing next and a month's stay in Vietnam and Mexico, etc !

Obviously I agree with recoveringmum. Many women do get fed up at home and who can blame them, it's dull and repetitive work and you can have lots of time with children and still work.

Most parents are so badly scrabbling for money and surviving making self defining choices doesn't come into it at all. For those that do have those choices (as I have always had) I don't think you can distinguish working and stay at home mothers. Some stay at home mothers are martyrs to their cause, moan all the time and do very little except look after their children, over eat when depressed and not a lot else. Others particularly those rare few lucky enough to have help with housework can do things like go to the gym, go on a course etc and there are also huge differences between having one and more children too. Having one is just playing at it like having some sort of toy doll.

Anyway must get on with today's supermother work.

Which is why I am sure you are already bringing him up to be an independent, self-sufficient, knows-how-to-look-after-himself and earn-his-own-pocket-money sort of boy ... so much easier to instil independence when one is a SAHM