No, DH, you are not fucking 'helping' me

[KatnissMellark]

By doing the dishwasher once in a blue moon

Relatively light hearted. He grew up with a mother who did everything for him, has vaguely learnt to pull his weight but occasionally often slips back into lazy mode and when reminded to contribute to the running of the household is terribly offended and feels I'm calling him a bastard. I'm not most of the time

Padparadscha they don’t because the don’t see it as their responsibility. It’s like going to a busy cafe, I can see tables that are dirty and need clearing but I’m not going to get up and do it because it’s not my job so why should I. Just plain old entitlement and engrained gender roles.

My husband came out of the bathroom the other day telling me he'd had a poo and put the scented cleaning powder down the toilet 'for me' and then told me I could have said thank you when I just stared at him! No DH you've cleaned up your own shit, you're not getting a bloody thank you, or a round of applause. Thing is he's actually really good at doing his fair share. Don't know what he was thinking

This gives me the rage! Occasionally dh will ask what he can do to “help” me. Open your chuffin eyes! The bin is overflowing, there’s laundry to be put away and sink overflowing with pots!

My mil thinks she’s doing the cleaning for me! Wtaf?!? No you’re doing ur lazy son’s share! I am not actually responsible for all the cleaning & tidying!

I know us chaps can be pretty useless, but my mate at work absolutely floored me when he explained why he bought a sandwich off the tea van. It was because his wife was not feeling well the previous evening, so she went to bed early and there was no-one to make his pack-up for work.

Oh gawd, this was my ex down to a tee. After a couple of months of marriage, he declared he wanted his old life back because he didn't like having to do household jobs. Tough titties! You live in the house too, you can clean it too! I am not your mother! Made me stubborn to the point I refused to do any of his washing, or ironing (mummy used to iron his jeans, like WTF?) and if I cooked (he did cook sometimes begrudgingly) I would make sure I used every pot or pan I could think of to make his washing up job harder, haha! Thinks didn't improve much when DC came along and I eventually left him. He wanted mothering. Not me mate!

How can we escape from this assumption that women naturally take on the house work and men help with it. If both parties work, it still seems to be an underlying rule that the woman is the home maker/housekeeper/cleaner/organiser. Do we secretly want to be in charge? Are we just better at it, multi tasking. But it is the case isn't it that the school will phone up the mum first if there is a problem with the child, why is that? Would the bank do the same? Maybe 'home' means something different to the woman than to the man, maybe she likes things done 'her' way and the man just can't be arsed. In my opinion, he could if he had to, but knows that if he didn't if would still get done. Mothers should teach their sons how to do all house work and expect them to do it along with their daughters too.

Padparadascha, I can agree with you that some people can be totally oblivious to mess, dirt,rubbish, filth and live in it quite happily. Cleaning is a mystery to them. Somehow they seem to function.

And there we have it, a man stays at home to look after his kids so his wife can have a night out, and the comment is that's good of him. Take thisnfurtherbdown the line, a woman stays at home, dull time to look after the children and run the home and do all the school stuff education, homework, doctors ap dentist app, morning assembles everything, is that good of her? Mean while, her husband is following perhaps a carrier ladder and building up a pension because he can as his wife has /Is being the homemaker. So,,if they separate, does the years of her homemaking count for anything, of course not, should e is left with nothing, no job, no career, no prospects, no pension, no security, it certainly 'good of her' to take on the children.It is still such a man's word, world and I (sadly) doubt it will ever change.

Can’t believe how many of your men are still living in a world where they don’t view running a house, child related stuff, finances and chores as being a joint / team responsibility.

My DH makes breakfast every morning, helps get our child to school, load and empties dishwashers, food shops, runs laundry and hangs it out when working from home , does ironing in fact pretty much everything and anything as and when it needs doing and he is available. Yes he lets me know it’s done or he will be doing it but only for the reason that I know I can focus on other things. It’s efficient team work and communication and shows real commitment and respect. Naturally I am similarly knocking off the chores when I am free (I work 2 days a week)

Oh and he brings in over £70k a year which is shared equally so after all the bills are paid and savings sorted, we both have an identical amount to do with as we please.

Many of the men you describe sound like they are selfish bastards.

Has anyone posed this yet? Really opened my DH's eyes.

english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

A guy I know of actually has his mum make his tea and take it to him in bed every morning. She also makes his packed lunch and polishes his shoes. His is 36 and she is 67.

He is still single and I can't see that changing anytime soon. Every potential girlfriend has fled after one date and I'm not surprised.

it’s true that some people can’t ‘see’ mess. My dh gets irritated by things laying around a lot more than me. I do like basic tidiness, but Am no at show home level of tidy ness.

However, there is some is 30 bottles of water (from Costco) laying in our hallway that has been sitting there for a week. I asked dc and dh to put them away several days ago ( I put the rest of the shopping away). And they are still sitting there.

I've told DP to stop saying hes helping me by doing the dishes or anything else in the kitchen (the kitchen is usually my domain). I prefer to think of it as him contributing as we're a team.

But, to be fair, he does do way more in the house than most of the partners listed on here! Id say our chores are evenly split most of the time.

My husband is the same, but he is trying. His mother is a nightmare and sees all household tasks as my responsibility. It’s no wonder he struggles with them. However he has changed when I challenged him on what he wanted for his own ds and dd.

maccycheese dp brother is like this, 35 lives at home, his mum still gets him up, makes his breakfast, washes, does his lunch, dinner etc. For him, she's up, he's disrespectful, gets drunk comes home late having lost his keys and wakes them up, rude, aggressive and generally a twat, but why should he change when he doesn't have to ? i'd of kicked him out years ago

My mother in law always says she’s having the children for “‘me” in the summer holidays etc. Not for her DS of course...as the man he doesn’t have to justify HIS job!!

@blamethecat it's these bloody women who are giving birth to and rearing these special snowflakes. Seriously some women have no sense of shame or self worth. I'd be ashamed to polish my son's shoes when he's 36. I'd feel that I haven't done my hob as a parent if he still needs handholding (minus SEN) as an adult. My neighbour asks her 6 yr old son's permission to eat a biscuit ffs. No bloody way, what kind of message is she giving him? That a woman needs a man's permission to eat? Absolutely all shades of wrong.

Exactly ! Do these women look at their menchildren and think 'I did a great job there ' ?

Exactly ! Do these women look at their menchildren and think 'I did a great job there ' ?

There is so much blaming of women on this thread. What about the fathers who raised these men?

Oh, Dippy Eggs - I bloody hate that.

I had dinner with some friends on Wednesday night and it’s only on the blue-est of blue moons that i do. And one of the girls said ‘is your husband going to babysit?’

And i may have snapped at her more than was entirely necessary.
But I feel really strongly about it, cos it just reinforces the ridiculous ‘you’re so lucky’ attitude that’s so prevalent.

It is sad that so much is still presumed to be a woman's job. Other than poogate my DH does his fair share. I'm actually the full time worker in our house and he's basically a stay at home dad that works at the weekend. It's more my family's expectation. When I'm at work it's perfectly fine to alternate cooking tea but at the weekend it is always, without fail, what are you doing for his tea when he gets home. Also had a few arguments at work with old school people who seemed disgusted that I was back at work and my husband was running the house

My oh was like this when we first moved in together (he isn't now). He had his own views on what was clean/ tidy, and always kept it to that standard, but for me it wasn't enough. He now does half of everything (well not atm as I'm not currently working so I do more, but when we both work he does his fair share).

He was modelling the behaviour he saw as a child. His mother did everything around the house whilst his father sat and watched tv. He grew up with it being normal for the woman to do everything and the man nothing.
When I asked him about it (I wanted it sorted before it became a big enough issue for me to leave him over) he said "my dad worked full time and mum only worked part time".
When I pointed out that didn't apply to us as at the time we both worked full time (If anything me slightly longer hours due to my rota) he started doing more. He occasionally slips, but he's generally pretty good.

What infuriates me on these threads is when women say that their husbands pull their weight because they, "mow the lawn, put the bins out and do some DIY." Putting the bins out is a once a week job, ditto mowing the lawn (maybe once a fortnight and not at all during the winter) and DIY is a "once-in-a-while" event.
How on earth does that compare with doing EVERYTHING ELSE around the house (meals 3x a day, laundry, cleaning, admin etc.......) the rest of the time?

OhDearGod- I have named that The 50:50 Fallacy. It made people very cross with me.