If you have a day off a week and your partner doesn't, you should do something productive

[TheChickenOfTruth]

Briefly:

Partner 1 works full time with some overtime and on-call work. Loves the job but it's stressful and has a lot of responsibility so hard work. Does morning routine for toddler (breakfast, bath, getting dressed) then goes to work, 5 days a week. Is often on call or working late, but is sole earner for family.

Partner 2: wanted to be SAHP. Has lie in /personal space/chill time while P1 does morning routine, then P2 looks after toddler for rest of the day, 4 days a week. Often has to do bedtime routine alone if P1 is held up at work. Very occasionally (maybe once or twice a month) has to do morning if P1 is called in to work but then P1 will be home to do bedtime - so alternating before/after work care of toddler. Child sleeps through from 8pm until woken by P1 so no night waking to manage. Child goes to childcare one full day a week. P2 does child-related "mental load", P1 manages finances (mortgage, bills, cars, etc).

My gut tells me that if P1 is at work all day every day, that P2 should use the day the child is in childcare to do the majority of the housework (or at least what can be fit into one 7.5 hour working day (minus lunch break). P2 says that P1 is not doing their share of the housework and needs to do 50%.

Who is being unreasonable?

As you set it out here it does seem like P2 is taking the piss. However if you aren’t either P1 or P2, there may be more to the situation than you’re seeing.

I totally agree.

To mention, the only reason this has come up is because P2 has complained to several people and on social media that P1 is "not pulling his weight in the household" and that P2 is "stressed from doing everything myself".

Something has gone badly wrong in their relationship if one (or more) of them are fighting their battles on Facebook.

How do you know all this stuff?

agree with PurpleDaisies. If the reason you know so much detail about their domestic arrangements is because they’re yelling at each other about it over Facebook, the future does not look bright.

That’s what I thought user1andonly.

If you are connected OP, why don’t you step in and help?

A bit of wisdom someone shared with me on a forum, that has probably saved my marriage a thousand times, is “remember that just because you’re doing too much, doesn’t mean your partner isn’t doing enough”.

Maybe they are just over loaded. Maybe they could do it better than they are doing. But that fault finding, judgey, “look who’s being lazy” mindset of yours isn’t the road to happiness for them.

P2 should be doing the big housework jobs on the day DC is in childcare, and keeping on top of it during the other 4 days, eg washing, brushing out, tidying around the needs of the DC. That then leaves weekends for downtime as a family.

Not saying P1 shouldn't muck in when at home but I think P2 is being a bit cheeky, you should get equal downtime individually, that doesn't happen in our house and is an ongoing saga .

P2 needs to grow up stop stop moaning on FB though, that would piss me off.

P1 would have worked and done the housework anyway if they were single and childless, would they not?

Based on my own experience as a rough equivalent to P1, I'd guess that if P2 and a child weren't in the house, 90% of the housework would vanish.

A person who's always out at work, and doesn't want to spend the few hours they have at home cleaning, doesn't make a mess in the first place. They own as little as possible, so stuff doesn't get in the way of cleaning, keeping their home bare and simple, eat the main meals at the work canteen instead of cooking at home. Not shopping and cooking for a family is huge reduction in workload.

P2 only cooks and does laundry for themselves and the toddler??? She sounds incredibly selfish. It's very little extra effort to make enough food for 3 instead of 2 and to keep the washing machine going all day.

The father sounds like he does his fair share in addition to his job.

Some housework can be done in the daytime, minimal tidying with spirited toddler around and weekly large jobs (hoovering, clean the bathroom) on the toddlers' day in childcare.
Some can be started in the daytime but not finished, or has a specific time when it has to be done.
E.g. you can't always cook all meals during naptime and you certainly can't prepare them and clean them up while the toddler is in childcare as you need to eat daily not once a week.
Likewise washing probably needs to be done more than once a week, bins need doing on bin day, things need to be fixed (shelves, clothes, broken toys that the toddler will be distraught without) when they are broken.
So P1 should not expect to come home, sit down and be fed while grunting behind the newspaper while P2 runs around clearing up after dinner, hanging up a wash and fixing the teddy the toddler won't go to sleep without.

P2 doesn’t do P1’s laundry or cook them a meal? Piss taking on a major scale.

Or p1 is picky about their laundry.

Without being either of the people in the relationship, it’s impossible to know. Interesting that the op hasn’t said who she is to them.

Both unreasonable because they can’t discuss it like adults and both come across as seeing child as a chore.

Ignore my last post-missed a “his”

Why would P2 not be cooking for P1 since they’re cooking for themselves everyday anyway? Seems a bit odd to me

OP does say that P1 is a man, in post at 13.54.

i Work 4 days, do works 5 days. All dc at school. I split the 5th day, half housework, half for myself, so meet a friend for lunch but spend the morning running round like a loonie trying to clean the house. It works for us.

I agree. With that and the separate laundry, sonething very odd is going on in their relationship.

P2 sounds lazy and entitled.

P2 isn’t pulling their weight.

This doesnt really feel like a real scenario. It sounds deliberately biased. How do the people involved feel about it.

Id be concened for P2 that they werent involved in the finances. Leaves them very vulnerable

I am a SAHM. I try to do the cleaning during the weekday simply because it's much easier to do it during the weekday while the kids are at school. At weekends you simply want to do other things and not cleaning.
My DH does help a bit with the household, sometimes, but generally it's me who is doing everything. In addition I cook (he never does), I am making and giving breakfast to children (DH would stay in bed longer), plus bathing, putting to bed is again me. Shopping - mainly me. To me it's like a job but unpaid one. I am looking for jobs now but it has to be flexible as I am going to be the one doing breakfast and doing the school run. With DH they would be hungry, stressed and late for school. He also goes to bed most of the times around midnight or after as he can start his job after 9am. To him it's ideal but not for me.

Very easy to feel like a slave as a SAHP. Other people's family circumstances shouldn't be judged by people outside the family however. You never ever ever see the full story. And this kind of thread is just a form of social control quite honestly.