Wife's SAHM attitude is getting too much

[DesperateDanny]

My wife's been a SAHM for the last 9 yrs but both our kids are now at school with the youngest about to finish P1 and i feel like I'm having the piss taken out of me. We both had careers before kids and agreed that my wife would give up for parenthood - cost of childcare, wanting to be there for the kids many of the reasons. We didn't discuss what happened after the kids went to school though.

I work full time with a bit of a commute on either end so i'm out of the house 5 days a week, my wife drops the kids off just before 9, picks up after 3 and essentially has 6 hrs/ 5 days a week with no kids. despite this household chores, food shopping, etc get divided exactly 50/50 at the weekends and any time i mention it i get shouted down with a barrage of "you'd have me chained to the sink" arguments. during the day, as far as i can tell her time is spent, going to the gym, shopping, meeting friends, getting haircuts etc. the thing that's really got to me was that during an argument about it last weekend she said that she's earned time to herself after looking after the kids for so many years.

I'm now so frustrated and bitter about it almost anything on this topic really gets to me - how come if you use the milk at breakfast it takes me to go and get some more in the evening? why if the bin is emptied at 9am is it still at the bottom of the drive when i get in, all of these petty things are really getting me down. What's more it seems she's got a group of very like minded SAHM friends who seemingly encourage her to stand her ground.

I don't know when she became so entitled or how she manages to tell me she's really too busy during the day to do x,y, and z with a straight face but I'm at my wits end, i thought that as our youngest got settled in P1 that she might think about maybe returning to PT work or at the very least do some of the work we do at the weekend to free up family time but it's getting worse and I'm really struggling to see a way out of it.

I'd really like to hear from other SAHMs r.e. when their kids went to school.

Sure. & what the nanny dues is valued. When mum dies the exact same it's not.

agree void, they are

I work 16-20 hours a week. Dp works 40.
I do all the main cleaning even weekends even though I work weekends and dp doesn't. He will tidy as he goes along I'm the day like pots after meals ECT
He usually takes dcs out for the day at weekends so just isn't at home to do jobs.
I also work some evenings so he does homework tea bath and bedtime. But only if I'm in work if not I will do it.
He does all the DIY around the house (eventually) food shopping we both do equally. He loves food shopping but he isn't very good at it.
I still have plenty of spare time.

It's not misogynistic to believe that some women need to grow the fuck up and maybe get a job or, if they want to stay at home, do the work in the home. I'd say and have said the same about men.

In fact even though I work pt. Dd's are in school and I do nearly all of the household chores, admin, school stuff I would say I actually have more spare time than him.

Not in my house either. Or by my friends and our hcp invloved.

But in general, by society, and on here, mothers doing 'women's work' are the lowest.

It's not misogyny to suggest that some people take the piss when it comes to housework and distributing me time.

I have my own views about the silly lunching ladies cliques that sit for hours in local cafes with a single 90% empty cup of coffee complaining loudly about how stressful their life is. (Seriously, other people need tables, you've finished your coffee and we don't all need to hear about your drama at baby yoga!)

Equally, if a guy spent his time doing whatever his hobbies were and socialising down the pub and expected his wife to work and sort more house stuff out so he can have his me time, id think he's a selfish cock. If a group of blokes sit in the beer garden being obnoxiously loud then I feel the same as I do about lunching ladies.

People have an issue with arseholes. It's not to do with people choosing to be a SAHP (nothing wrong with that at all!).
The OP's wife sounds like she's got in with a clique of women who want a lifestyle of leisure and as a result she's unwilling to have a sensible discussion about what happens in their family now.

Packing a swimming kit is hilarious? Nope. Just something that needs to be remembered the night before

Trying to turn the 30 seconds it would take to stick a costume and a towel into a bag as some sort of task worth mentioning is ridiculous is hilarious and ridiculous. Any child over the age of about 7 , unless there are special needs is capable of and should be encouraged to do this themselves.

I think women are conditioned to be misogynistic because society doesn't value women's work. So it's a case of conform or get labelled the same as those other women, the ones who do childcare and cleaning and who are clearly not as important!

To go back to the homework thing. I'd love for my dc to be A grade students while needing no input from me. However, mine have needed to be taught how to write essays and do exam questions and how to revise etc. Their schooling didn't prepare them totally and I have filled in the gaps. Not all kids just get it, with no extra help.

spot on maisy

Because I'm drawing on the experience of my working mum and remembering my childhood. But yes, I'm not a mum myself, so maybe I will change my tune. no doubt you will and half remembered stories about your own childhood make you not even slightly qualified to tell actual people how long their day should or shouldn't be.

How can you judge someone and their life choices based on a snapshot of them sitting in a coffee shop You could equally make judgements about people from offices sitting around in coffee shops being twats.

I think women are conditioned to be misogynistic because society doesn't value women's work. So it's a case of conform or get labelled the same as those other women, the ones who do childcare and cleaning and who are clearly not as important!

The thread isn't about viewing house work or traditionally female work as less important.

The thread is about somebody (in this case a woman) choosing with her partner to be a SAHP, but really the arrangement she wants is do do the school runs and have me time and then split all the housework with the working partner. The working partner thinks this takes the piss a bit.

It's not misogyny to point out somebody is being an arse.

By jumping straight to 'someone said a SAHM is an arse just proves how society thinks we're all awful for staying at home and there's a massive conspiracy' is just ludicrous.

Yes, I do think caring responsibilities are massively undervalued in society.
I don't think somebody wanting a lifestyle of leisure that their partner didn't sign up to is fair and I don't think it's fair that they refuse to have a sensible discussion with their partner because their lifestyle of leisure friends think it's just great to shop, get their hair done, have me time.

Without the OP coming back, it's hard to talk specifically about the wife in this situation, but I would bet that the OP has derived benefit from having had a sah partner. I would imagine it's quite nice to get on with your career and not have to give headspace to the logistics which make that happen. I genuinely doubt that the wife does nothing. I think she probably does a lot of unseen and unvalued work.

Yes I'm sure nannies do help. But I'd think the majority of houses with two working parents don't have a nanny. Certainly not to school aged children.
That said I'm nowhere near London so my view might be skewed

I don't consider childcare or domestic tasks to be automatically womens work, although I do recognise that in most couples the woman spends far more time doing the drudgework than the man. Clearly that is a problem.

In my household it was dh that spent a while being a SAHP to our school age children. During that time he did pretty much everything at home. I did things like bedtime stories and washing up after supper, cooked a meal at the weekend and that's about it. It made for very relaxed evenings and weekends, and dh said he had loads of time to do his own thing too. Not surprising really as he had 25 hours a week to play with. Very different to looking after babies or toddlers.

Half-remembered stories?! How dare you. I remember everything crystal clear and I know what mine/my mum's experience was like, tyvm. You can't devalue my experience and insinuate I can't have any valid input into this because I'm not a mum.

Also Maisypops, your coffee thing made me chuckle. A lady at work complains of the same thing. She says loads of mums turn up to the school gates half an hour early just to gossip.

she says loads of mums turn up to the school gates half an hour early just to gossip

They will be the working mums surely?

The sahm ones will have plenty of time to gossip after the children have gone in

Glad im not alone. See yolo I don't really mind if people want to gossip.
I just hate it when people feel the world needs to hear every detail / they spend huge amounts of time gossiping but then complain about how little time they get and how busy they are all the time and how hard life is.

A relative of mine was awful for it. Always on the phone and just nipping places. She'd then go on about how she 'hadn't stopped all day'. Well, yeah. But 75% of it wasn't productive.

I'm really busy. There just aren't enough hours in the day for all the mning