To be pissed off with DH’s laziness

[itsnotterrysitsmine]

Ok so DH & I have been together 15 years & have 3 young DC together (6, 4 & baby under 6 months who is ebf). I’m currently on maternity leave but will be returning to work full time. DH works a strange shift that means he starts work mid afternoon & finishes work at 1.30 am, his job is 5 minutes from home, Monday to Friday. We have absolutely no help at all as we have no support network.

I do all cooking, washing, cleaning, help kids with homework, majority of food shopping, school pick up on foot, school drop off when able, I do bedtime single handedly most nights including weekends, get up with older DC every morning & make sure they’ve had breakfast, school bag as ready, empty & reload dishwasher, express milk if I have time. DH will take DC to school if needed or wake up to look after baby dc while I take them,

He rarely does any household job without me asking him to apart from get the DC dressed if we’re going somewhere, but then thinks that’s all that’s involved in getting ready to go out & will put them straight in the car while I run round like a twat making sure we’ve got coats, wallets, changing bag etc & then have a go st me for not being ready. The overwhelming majority falls to me, all the time. He will always take the easy option like ‘I’ll look after DC so you can crack on with things’ which actually means I’ll take them to a play centre where they can entertain themselves & I can enjoy a coffee while looking at shit on the internet.

Today we were all supposed to be going to a friends house that is an hour away. DH had a very early night last night as was tired from Friday (didn’t get much sleep as baby had hospital appointment) so had over 12 hours sleep. I had sorted all 3 dc at bedtime, tidied downstairs etc This morning had to wake DH at 7.30 as older DC have an activity they go to that starts early, I was feeding youngest DC & they needed breakfast. He went down, brought us a drink up & sat in bed, asked if I would take DC to activity so he could have time with baby. Had agreed last night that I’d have shower & get ready while they he took them & they were out but fine. Get back to find baby in cot & DH sitting in bed with a coffee watching the news Baby needs feeding again so ask DH to get me something to eat, he asks what I’d like, I say toast, he says he can’t be arsed with that. I point out that most nights I can’t be arsed to cook dinner but do, he begrudgingly makes it. I go & collect DC from activity, DH still not dressed. I empty the dishwasher, tidy up, put a load of washing in while DH plays with baby & talks to his mum. I say I’ll forgo my shower as times getting on & don’t want to get back late as want to get DC in bed at a reasonable time, have jobs to do & once they’re settled there is something I’d like to do for myself that I’ve been putting off for a couple of weeks due to prioritising everyone & everything else.

DH then disappears to the toilet for a leisurely 10 - 15 minutes. Fine, I get on with scrubbing stains out of DC’s clothes ready for next load of washing. Baby needs feeding again, I sit to feed baby, DH has a lie down & read of the news on his phone. I ask DH if he’s going to get ready, he says in a minute, 10 minutes later I start to ask him to get ready again & get my head ripped off with ‘I know, stop going on at me woman, you don’t know when to stop’. I said ‘fine, you can go on your own’ I was so pissed off with him as I knew he’d get dressed when he decided in 5 minutes & expect everything else to be magically ready. Baby finished feeding so I went & got on with more jobs while he stay put for another 15 minutes. He got up, asked older DC if they were ready, looked at me & said ‘not you’.

We ended up having an argument with him accusing me of going on at him, whining at him, listing everything I do (as I tried to point out everything I actually do & make the point that it would be nice for him to get off his arse once in a while), told me he’s sick of this, he just needed half an hour to come round etc (he’d had 3 fucking hours by this point) I only wanted to go so we could get back early so I could do my thing, dc haven’t got school tomorrow so it doesn’t matter.

I’m by no means perfect or innocent, but I’m so pissed of with his laziness, it’s actually starting to feel really bloody selfish of him. We’ve both said things we shouldn’t have.

He works crap hours, doesn’t always get enough sleep, is a loving father (& husband most of the time) but his laziness is really pissing me off. AIBU?

He's not a good husband leaving you to deal with everything. I'm sure we'd all like to be lazy and sit around doing the bare minimum while someone else does everything but that's not a luxury we can all have.

Lazy isn't an excue or an unchangeable personality trait you have to accept. He's also not demonstrating good parenting for his children.

‘Does he expect you to do everything you do, or do you just do it?’

A bit of both I think. Somewhere along the line I’ve picked up more & more, he’s done less & less, I’ve got sick of asking / waiting for things to be done so get on & do them. He’ll sometimes say ‘just because I didn’t do it the second you asked’. No, because if I wait for you I’ll be waiting for god knows how long & there’s other stuff that needs to be done or happen around the dc eg. Swop the washing over now so that we can get another load in while one dries & take advantage of the time the DC’s are occupied & baby is napping

(Dragon my DP is just like that! I can't even make him a cup of tea because I don't do it right...)

OP you're DP is a pretty bad person to you, in your marriage. That kind of laziness when he has 3 DC and a lactating wife is, in my view, the choices that a 'pretty bad person' makes. In the long haul, taken overall, he may be okay, but at the moment, in this phase of your life, he is letting you and his DC down, focussing on his own needs first and foremost, and even labling your reluctance to take on the lion's share in a lazy, obvious (nagging wife stereotype) way.

Mind you, I don't see there is much you can do, other than suck it up and hope he shines when they are teenagers - running them around here and there in the car at hours inconvenient to his news-watching; putting up with moods and tantrums and not responding badly even though he's tired; staying calm and supportive helping them with their studies even when he'd rather be chilling out after a day's work... can you see him doing that? maybe you can

ShawshanksRedemption

I get what you're saying but sometimes 'communicating ' just feels like yet another chore. This is such a common theme in here that at some point we women just have to stop doing, stop telling and just stop!!

• your DP not you're DP

You enable him to be like that by doing it all.

If you really want to change things then send him an email or write out a page of all the things that need doing daily, weekly and monthly and so on.

Ask him to put his initals next to half the the things on the list.

Get him to do everything that he would need to do if he was single: so laundry, cooking, bins, cleaning, babysitting so that you can go out. Divide up the weekends so there is downtime for you.

Basically you are preparing him for a life as a single parent so that it won't come as a total shock if you do decide enough's enough.

Never clean up after or do a lazy man's laundry. You won't ever be accused of nagging again and you will get his respect back.

At the moment he just sees you as the drudge and nag so cut back on doing anything for so he respects and appreciates you again.

Good luck

I'm sorry that a change in his working pattern isn't a possibility op.

This aside, he sounds very lazy and is probably unlikely to change.

‘I know, stop going on at me woman, you don’t know when to stop’

There is not a single woman I know who would put up with having that said to them. Referring to your wife and mother of your children as "woman", really that's not on. Mine wouldn't even dare say that even if he was joking.

He is also a lazy arse and is taking advantage of you, big time.

You need to give him a bit of shock treatment. Get up one weekend morning, express some milk for the little one, then piss off out and leave him to it.

So he can spend 15 minutes taking a shit but you're not allowed to have a shower?

Luxanna I made it quiet clear I was not impressed with what he’d said. While you’re suggestion is a good one, I’d come back to literally nothing having been done except for him feeding the dc & himself.

The shower was my choice to speed up getting out as also need to wash my hair. Was going to dry shampoo instead.

No he isn't a nice husband, and doesn't sound like a nice person either.

if you had a friend who constantly used you to make their life easier - lifts, money, taking advantage - but refused in return to do nice things for you - toast? Can't be arsed to make that for the person who recently gave birth to my baby, no - I've a 15 minute shit to take! - what would you think of them?

He's supposed to be better than a friend. Your other half and team member, but he's just a user.

For a start, I'd stop with the cooking for him. Why the fuck should you? Tell him your job sheet is full, thanks. And stop going on about it, boy. Don't you know when to leave it?

Can you imagine yourself saying that to him?

He's not a good person.

If he moves to nights he will do nothing.
I dont' see that getting to bed at 2 is much worse than getting up to breast feed a couple of times a night.

He should have AT LEAST an hour, if not two, spare a day between getting lots of sleep and working - ie up by 10 or 10.30 at the latest. An hour to chill 11.30, so then 3 hours before he leaves for work.
Plenty of time to clean the whole house.

YANBU but you are definitely not alone. DH has disappointed me a bit since we've had our baby. He honestly doesn't seem to notice the amount of actual work it requires to look after her. I also EBF (although we're now starting solids) and I think it's tricky when you can't just hand over the baby for a whole day early on so they're forced to do everything. My DH also works a really weird shift - 11am to 8pm five days a week including some weekends - and a long commute so gets home about 9pm, after bath and bed is done. All I want is for him to take her for a longer time every morning to give me the space to have a long shower and get ready for the day (i'm still on mat leave) and somehow i always end up rushing and getting DD dressed, nappies etc too as well as myself. If he takes her he's either put her in the cot or high chair and just talks to her while getting himself ready rather than giving any dedicated time to her.
We've talked about it but it always ends in a row. There will be a hard reset when I go back to work when she's 11 months. I'll be working 8-4 so four days a week i'll be gone by 7am and he'll have to do everything - and realise how much there is to do!

'He’s not a bad person or husband, he’s just unbelievably lazy.'

Yes, he is, because he's a selfish, entitled twat who has no respect for you.