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?

Good advice DC

Xenia, fancy coming for a pint if you're ever in Swansea?

Oooh, wise words from DC.

Blimey

"Obviously it would suit stay at home mothers to think that you can't work full time and have a happy marriage".

no-one has said that you cant work full time and have a happy marriage. you said that you cant work part time or be a SAHM and expect to be treated equally. very different. really am going now...bath time.

Why, thank you very much, Donnylass!

DC, I think I know where you are coming from. I used to have the sort of job that left very little energy for housework or the detritus of daily living. So I did get a cleaner. But there's still an issue of respect - everyone who lives in the house has to contribute to keeping the show on the road. You can't just leave your underpants in the middle of the floor until the cleaner turns up because a. it's rude and b. someone might trip. You can't just put a glass down wherever you are sitting and leave it there until the cleaner turns up, because it's in someone else's way.

Money is neither the cause, nor the cure, here. It's 'attitude' and not to money, but to what makes a partnership work for both involved......

DC invites another (humorus) thread..'what's the very worst example/episode of your slovenliness..')...

can't beat the loss of a door though..

Money is neither the cause, nor the cure, here. It's 'attitude' and not to money, but to what makes a partnership work for both involved......

DC invites another (humorus) thread..'what's the very worst example/episode of your slovenliness..')...

can't beat the loss of a door though..

Loss of door is good. My dh used to have a study all of his own. Such a tip it got to the point where you couldn't actually get in the room - you could just about open the door and reach in to get something from the top of the pile, but that was it.

Still think it's unforgiveable for a husband to
expect the missus to clear up after him. That's a completely separate issue to 'who does the housework' and, in my experience, there's no point having a cleaner if the house is not reasonably tidy so s/he can clean when they get there. This is a question of respect and I can't see much evidence of it in what the OP wrote about her DH.

steinermum's right, and it's not the solution.
It's a start on the process, and given the tone of the original post, a step to making things better that she can control.

Am loving loss of door too - can't quite work out how that works.........

Xenia - not entirely sure who you think is suggesting that women can't work full time and have a happy marriage and children. Yes, re. the money - does 10m / 500k, whatever - is there a point at which he can expect a certain 'service'? My previous post was that the actual amount is irrelevant, different amounts in different locations buy different lifestyles, one man's 50k is a fortune and another's pittance. Interesting about the court case - maybe she wasn't building his career, but surely raising his family counts for as much? Not heard of this, but v. interesting case.

Sensible post there, DC. Careful now or you'll make a habit of it.

Havent read the entire thread.. Ernest - im really sorry about what has happened to you.

I genuinely hope I don't offend anyone here but could I put a different spin on this - or perhaps I don't fully understand - from what I can gather from speaking to sahm/ds, their full time job is caring for the children and taking care of the house and wish this job to be accepted as this - a full time job. Now, what I cant understand is has your partner ever asked you to go into their place of work and do their job for them? - surely not? then why would anyone expect (if staying at home needs to be valued and considered a job) their partner to come home and do THEIR job for them..?

If your husband/wife is working out of the home full time, with possible weekends and evenings why should they be expected to leave that job to come home and do another? obviously, in respect to spending time with their children this is different but in respect to cleaning/care of the house... I dont know.. im sorry, but don't agree atall..

It seems that possibly some may want it all! to have staying at home recognised as being a job but also wanting someone (who has THEIR own job) to do it aswell...

to the op, I hope you are ok, in regard to comfort eating and all physical contact virtually non exisistent something really needs to be done within your relationship to help, that must be awful!

The pint... I don't like beer I'm afraid.
The other things, depends on your situation. With a new tiny baby or twins like me it can be very hard to get dressed never mind have the house perfect when someone comes back from work. At the other extreme if all your children are at school 9 - 3 there's plenty of time and some people will fall in the middle of that. Some housewives are really messy and happy with the mess and others aren't. It's when both halves of a couple differ you get arguments over mess. Some people just don't put things away as they go along and sometimes they can't be changed and you just have to accept that and either leave the less, clear it up or get someone else to clear it up.

On the divorce case England is the divorce place of choice for lower earners worldwide because we give the lower earner 50% as a starting point even if it's 50% of £200m. If you value childcare etc and being a loving wife at that level fine but I think it's unfair if one has made a stellar contribution through their work. The biggest divorce pay out was a woman to a man (the Picasso heiress) so it's a fairly sexually neutral issue (in which I have an interest having had to pay my ex husband loads of money even when we both worked full time - so it isn't even contribution for housework and career sacrifice - it's 50% of presumably giving me sex or just for being married or whatever, 50% without justification). in one other case Macfarlane the wife gave up a career at a law firm where she may have got to be a partner on £1m a year to spend 20 years instead bringing up their children. Her husband on £75k a year on divorce gave her half their assets £1.5m and had to pay £20k per annum child plus school fees I think plus £250k a year for life to the ex wife because of her career sacrifice as compensation for what she'd given up. It's an interesting issue. Had she been his secretary with a £20k a year earning potential would she have got a lot less?

I don't expect "service", one girl I lived with offered basically this. Got a cold look until she shut up, but that's me.
Some couples like it that way, I apologise to edam for lapsinng into my "normal self", but some women like a role where they have clear domain of the home, where they do everything and have authority over it.

What I see in the OP is two people who now have different expectations, and don't think either are happy even if Shout is more unhappy.

My wife has picked various people to work in our house, frankly she's better at it than me. I think Shout should do this. It's a power thing.
DH is not being sexist (I don't think), in that it's unlikely he would do the same with a female colleague. Yes, some blokes do this at work, but it often goes badly for them.

My model is thus to "promote" herself to the level of "house manager". To do that she needs staff. I think there is a good chance that DH will at first show more respect to the cleaner than Shout. Saying "Mrs. X will have to pick up the cans" may have more effect that "I'm sick of your crap".

I may be wrong of course, since I'm working on very slim data, but the most likely failure scenario is that he doesn't respond at all. In which case at least shout has someone to take some of the housework load.

Get a male au pair.

DC, you are still making sense.

FFS

Of course Edam is right. And DC

You need to hire a cleaner and a gardener and and an ironer. And say to DH that you're only prepared to do the childcare.

But leaving your underpants for someone else to pick up, is showing contempt for everyone else in the house. Would you do it if you were a guest in someone else's home? So why treat the people you are supposed to love, with less respect?

Sorry it sounds like I'm addressing the OP as if she's her husband. When I say you, I mean, one of course!

I thought most people pick up the underpants of others. I can't think of a day in 22 years despite having a cleaner when I haven't picked up some item of clothing.

xenia - i read all your posts with interest and have come to the conclusion that you have maybe one tiny little ....feminine bone in your body

i dont have a cleaner nd i have never picked up any undies and i have three boys.

this is becuase they stay where they fall until you move them and wash them. at the very least inthis house you couldput them in the washing basket and hope somone else does them as part of a wash - no guarentee - or do it yourself.

however there is a greater question around what seems like his contempt for you. rather than differing expectations.

Xenia - the difference is that you don't mind picking up someone's item of clothing if either a) they also pick up yours with just as much frequency or b) they are physically and/ or developmentally unable to reciprocate.

Otherwise it's just being treated as a skivvy, which no self-respecting person can tolerate. A high income doesn't give anyone the right to treat the person they claim to love as a skivvy.

notano, I'm reasonably feminine I think.
As for picking up stuff I have 5 children and I like the house to be really tidy so yes I pick things up more than they are picked up for me. I am quite happy with that so it's not an issue. I wish they'd stack the dishwasher more but that's not a huge issue.

Reading your OP you asked for advice...well like some others have said, hire a cleaner and ALSO a personal trainer, one that comes to the house if you have no free time away from the children. Plus (and I realise this sounds a bit WAG) get your hair done! Feeling good about your appearance makes a tremendous difference, well for me anyway and it sounds like you might need a little boost!!! Dont worry about the money, he can afford it and you deserve it.

My hubby also earns a lot and often the kids dont see him at all during the week and he often works at weekends. Therefore, my logic says that his salary needs to make my life easier during the time he isnt here. If he earnt less and worked fewer hours then he would help me more.

Try and stop clearing up his crap. If you cant cope with that, then just stop cleaning up the things related to his work, like ties and cuff-links. When he runs out of those one morning he will take notice!!! It is really hard to take a stand, but try it.....

Custardo may be right that there is contempt, and I don't doubt that he is rationalising his behaviour, because people rationalise a lot more than they think.
I am far from convinced that failing to clean up the crap will work. I don't even think it will make things worse, I just think it will be slotted into the model of the world DH has.
The way to bet on any change in the way people think is that of minimum change.
Since realising he's a slob and altering his behaviour is a big change, it will be easier for him to simply think that Shout is failing in "her job".
My view is that to rebalance the relationship, Shout needs to be seen as an equal, not a failing servant. That means (ironically) a cleaner house.
From her post, I fear that a psiral the other way is starting. Rapidly achievable goals like hiring a cleaner will help steer her out of the skid.
I hate the word empowered, a lot, but it applies here.