To think my husband is an arse (childcare and house work related)

[thetwinkletoescollective]

Background dh and I both work ft. I am main earner and always have been. This causes dh ‘issues’.

I leave for work at 7.15 so dh gets kids up and to cm mon, Tues, thurs, fri. I do them on a Wednesday morning as I can. I collect them everyday.

This started because Dh thinks I should do all bath and story times every day because he does every morning. When I pointed out he doesn’t and also there is more to do with evening routine he argued that he does more. So I tallied it up and I have done 11 ‘sessions’ and he has done 9 sessions in the past week and a bit that I can remember (am and pm).

He shouted at me for tallying it up - saying that doesn’t show anything. I don’t understand his POV. Tallying it makes it worse.????

He then adds in he does 90 % of the household chores. ????? WTF?????

Seriously he doesn’t. When I show him actual facts he denies them. He doesn’t appreciate at all that we do different things.
I don’t know how to respond to his unreasonableness.

@NCforthis2019
Do you have kids?

He has gym time every day? Do you get the same free time? Why doesn’t he collect the kids?

On days that me and my husband are both working we get up at roughly the same time, both are busy until we leave (he leaves first so I tend to get the kids ready although he does help if he has time), he usually picks up and I get home probably 30 minutes after he does. It makes no difference who does baths and bedtime because the other one will also be doing something that needs doing. We don’t even really discuss it, if he’s busy hanging some washing out I’ll run the bath, if I’ve started cooking dinner then he’ll do baths.
I think maybe instead of tallying you should talk to him about working together a bit more - if you’re both working full time, assuming you get up at roughly the same time, you should both sit down to relax at roughly the same time in the evenings, regardless of which jobs each of you does up to that point.

I decided on arse when you mentioned the gym.

I have put this on AIBU because I do want perspectives that are not my own..so thanks...I will definitely cut down on bath times!

Poor kids with their parents fighting over who gets to spends the least amount of time with them

My EXACT thought on reading this. What a fucking tragedy.

Agree with PP - DC do not need to be bathed every day.

DH sounds arsey. What's the rest of the relationship like?

Hmmm isn’t this a place for mums where we don’t have to pretend that we never get tired? Be real it’s got nothing to do with not wanting to spend time with my children. It’s got to do with a husband and wife relationship.

So is his point that he is hard done by, or that while you contribute more financially he contributes more at home?

I drop off every day. DH picks up. I could pick up half an hour earlier but I like to get back and start dinner, plus I have a longer commute so traffic can be unreliable.

We alternate bathtimes with DH doing Mon, Weds and Fri and I do Tues, Thurs and Sat. We share Sunday bathtime. We do bathtime every night as its a wind down time for DD, try putting her to bed without it and she will generally be awake for hours, whereas with a bath she conks out earlier.

I cook, he washes up. We have a cleaner every fortnight to deep clean the bathroom and kitchen.

Your DH is an arse. he can go to the gym after bathtime, like I do.

Oh come on, it's not about spending less time with them..every single day bath time / bedtime etc is a chore, especially if the other parent isn't doing something useful to the household at the same time. Why are they in childcare til 6 if he could pick them up at 5?

Men who shout about "doing more than their share" usually believe that "their share" is about 1%, so by doing 2% they're heroes. And women on here are frequently told to tally things up to get their lazy husbands to change, usually by making lists in order to show how few items on it the man attends to. Sounds like this is to do with his "issues" about you being the breadwinner, and him resenting having to do any "woman's work" while you do the manly bits like earning the better money. In short, he sounds like an unpleasant fragile twat.

His point is that he does so much more in the house...where as actually I think we have quite a good even split naturally.
I do the food shopping, meal planning, school and life admin, tidying etc He does bins, we share doing the washing. I also -up until last Tuesday - thought we had quite a good childcare split.

Which is why I don’t know how to respond to these new ‘allegations?’ that he does 90% of all household stuff. He means it.

I don’t understand why he doesn’t appreciate the things I do..I do think he is mean and I do think he is an arse.

To be honest it sounds very much like you're both fighting over who gets to spend the least amount of time with your kids

Yes poor children. YA both BU.
Children do not need to be bathed every day, you are creating this strife unnecessarily. Maybe you are secretly trying to sabotage the relationship?

This also depends a bit on the personality of your DC and what happens in mornings and evenings.
When my DC were little I would happily have happily done 2 or 3 bathtimes instead of just 1 morning. Mornings were hard work and stressful and the DC draggedtheir feet and moaned. Bedtime was relaxed and genuinely quality time. OP's household may differ of course.

@Walkingdeadfangirl I will consider if I am subconsciously trying to create strife...

If you can afford it then get a cleaner. Small kids can make do with a bath every other day. Cut down on the cooking and buy easy pre-prepared stuff. I’d try to focus on actually spending enjoyable time with each other and the children in the evening instead of petty point scoring about who does what. However, you may be fighting a losing battle if he’d rather go to the gym every night than engage in family life. Good luck.

But does that mean I just lay down and work ft and do most of the childcare and live like he wants even though its not fair? When at the moment is sort of fair..but his perception is that its not.

I think you need to sit down and have and honest chat. Why does he feel like he does so much. Why do you feel your only recourse is to tally up, like you need hard evidence.

And to people saying this is people who don’t want to spend time with their kids. Honestly fuck off, it’s pretty obvious what op is getting at. I’m sure if she was a lone parent she wouldn’t have started this thread. Because she would expect she would be doing it all. But this is someone who thinks they have a hard life and do 80%

In all honesty. I would go away for 2 weeks.

Oh, I had one of those... He felt that doing the food shopping didn't count because it was 'an outing with the kids'. I gradually ended up doing more and more until his contribution consisted of moving the evening's pans and dishes from the table to the kitchen. Not that he washed or dried them after that.

Dh would rather pull his eyelashes out than do bath and bed - he hates reading. So I tend to do bedtimes and just bath twice a week, well shower most often as quicker. Then dh does clean up from.dinner and gets lunches ready.

I do the food shopping, meal planning, school and life admin, tidying etc He does bins, we share doing the washing

So you do all of the tasks that require thought. He just sees ‘full bin‘ and empties it?

Google ‘The Mental Load‘

@Meandwinealone...seriously I had that exact thought just today about going away and what it would be like.

Thanks there have been some thought provoking responses. Thanks to everyone who really considered their replies.

I am going to watch tv now.

Charitably, it's hard to recognise others efforts when we each feel overloaded, as anyone with young DC and a job does.

More realistically, he means you should do more because you have ovaries and this is not what he expected from life.