DH referred to me as "my cleaner"

[namechange1796]

So DH works from home on Fridays...using the kitchen as his office. He has lots of conference calls and it means is can be difficult when the kids are around/jobs need to be done. I needed to be at the Church for the Primary dc service and needed to get downstairs vacuumed before I went. Therefore, I asked DH to move so I could get the vacuuming done ...as a “joke” he said to the colleague “just hang on a minute, my cleaner has asked me to move” Then he followed it up with “the cleaner is actually my wife” “now I’m in the bad books” “if looks could kill I’d be dead now”

So as not to drip feed - I’ve had a hard time recently - 2 mc in 6 months - one a mmc and one earlier one just this week. I’m the wrong side of 40. I’ve been a SAHP all my life and am finding adjusting to this part of my life very hard.

Dh is all “sorry!” “It was just a joke” “you’d have found it funny before” etc I’m just fed up with everything and feel my life has been reduced to tidying and cleaning. 2 of my dc have ASD And DH’s job also makes retraining for me near impossible.

Am I just being over sensitive? It would be the first time in my life I’ve been told I am!

Do YOU feel he contributes a fair amount to the running of your home & running with & for the children, given the hours he’s home?

Tell him that the kitchen is out of bounds for work, he either always uses another (agreed on) room or he buggers off to a local cafe or his office. It’s not fair to impose on the rest of you. It’s just not. It’s not like you’re in a studio flat where there aren’t any other options.

You are a point in your life where you need to think about ‘what now’. Whether you are ready to change direction or whether you do actually really want to have more children, which will delay other options.

Given you said you feel your life has been on hold...do you want more of that, or do you want to choose not to have more children?

I think whichever way you go, you need to actively choose, rather than ‘see what happens’ to feel like you have some control over your life.

Take some time out (yes, DH needs to step up!) and really think about what YOU want. Could you go away by yourself for a few days over the Easter Holidays and let DH @ the older kids crack on with it?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you were run over by a bus they’d have to!

this is just banter

It’s ‘just banter’ sometimes and when it FEELS like banter. It’s FAR from banter when 9 people take you for granted and you FEEL like the cleaner/maid/laundry service...not like a loved and appreciated wife & mum.

My dh once mentioned he was 'bringing home the bacon' when I was in (paid) mat leave form my (paid) job

If looks could kill!

Sounds like being a SAHM is all you know, no wonder the thought of that possibly being at an end feels a bit scary. I know someone like you. Her entire adult life since 18 has revolved around children and she simply doesn't know how to be as a person seperate to them. Has there ever been anything else you wanted to do?

So you really have 8 children?

Why?

And you're obviously trying for more I take it?

Is it possible that all you know is children and that you don't realise that he needs to be professional at work?

Interestingly, primary school teachers are excused from jury duty.

8 children, 2 with ASD, and dogs (plural), would have me in a grave or a vegetative state. Why on earth have you had 8 children? I mean 4 I can understand, but eight? Were they all planned? Not meant in a derogatory way, I'm just fascinated!

And how the hell do you pay for them all?? Do you cook a turkey every evening or two legs of lamb or something?

I'm not surprised that you're being unreasonable. I'd be demented.

How the hell do you afford 8 kids on 1 salary?

@whatsnewpusaycat yes as a little girl I wanted to own an orphanage 🙈 Then I was going to be a paediatrician (got into medical school but had a breakdown at 18). Ended up studying a medically based science degree in my early 20s but didn’t sit my finals as I had my first child.

@whatad yes planned and DH has a high salary - we don’t claim any benefits.

I wonder if it's hit a nerve because your self esteem isn't quite where it should be.

All those spinning plates, when did you last take any time for yourself?

Be kind to yourself, it sounds like you've not had a moment to process your recent events and your hormone levels may also be playing merry hell.

I don't think it's just a matter of affording them - what about time and attention? You're already failing to equip your teens for their lives once they have left home (and doing everything for them is failing to equip them) because you feel bad about how thinly your attention is spread. Honestly, I know we're not supposed to criticise people's decisions to have (more) children on here, but a ninth child sounds like the last thing you need. At your age, there is a greater risk of chromosomal issues. How would you cope with a child with SN?

He probably was joking but I’d have said - loudly
‘It’s ok. He’s my second best lover’
‘

I have to disagree with the “failing to equip” Just because I don’t ask the teens to do lots of chores in no ways mean they aren’t able to! They can all prepare meals, use the washer (if they need to), they have to tidy and clean their own rooms (albeit reluctantly) because I’ve shown them how to do it. I’ve baked with them, made play drought with them, taught them how to cook etc They have all benefited from me being there to do every school run, every performance, every church service, open day, sports day etc etc in the way I certainly didn’t with having 2 working parents. I’ve been out 4 times in 18 years - none of them have lacked attention! Even now we all eat virtually all meals together at the weekend.

We eat every evening meal together - not just at the weekends - just to be clear!

However, it’s very unlikely that I will have another child.

What would you like to do going forward?

I get the sahm with so many dc, but I don’t get the going out 4 times in the last 100 years - have you no interests that would take you outside the home? Go to a cheap hotel and read a book even, just demonstrate to your family that you don’t just exist to serve them.

OP I mean this in the kindest way. And I imagine it's very easy with 8 kids, but.

The 'being back on the school run the next day even though your dh was off' and the 'I have to Hoover even though I should be resting' and the not going out, is it because you feel like all you are is a housekeeper and mum and feel you must always do it. Do you feel if you rested or went out you would be failing?

Because you wouldn't. But you may need to come to terms with that, babies arent part of your future but start thinking about what you do want from the rest of your life as a person. Not just as a mother or wife.

@Tunnockswafer no...I’ve no interests that take me outside the home. I have literally devoted my life to being a sahp and supporting DH (we’ve had to move a number of times but don’t have to now). I’m very aware that this has led me to the place now where I am “the cleaner”, which is why it upset me. As a teenager I got the highest grades, played 3 instruments, I was in girl guiding, embroidered - I don’t do any of that now.

If they can do these things, but don't have to if they don't want to, then no, they aren't being equipped for the practical grind of life away from home, which requires sometimes getting on with things even when you don't particularly feel like it. They seem to have done these things as enriching activities only (iyswim).

Going out 4 times in 18 years and never doing anything for yourself doesn't actually make you a better mother. Mine see me doing my stuff, as well as being there for them for important things, obviously.

They have all benefited from me being there to do every school run, every performance, every church service, open day, sports day etc etc in the way I certainly didn’t with having 2 working parents. I’ve been out 4 times in 18 years - none of them have lacked attention! Even now we all eat virtually all meals together at the weekend.

As you've made a little quip to working parents there I feel a need to comment, I work, I have 2 children, I have never missed a sports day, parents evening, Christmas play etc, I work flexibly and with just 2 kids that is quite easy to organise (in my job at least) especially as similar age same school etc. I find it hard to believe a child in a family of 8 children has the same amount of attention as my children do despite us both working. You sound deeply unhappy, you clearly have unresolved issues demonstrated by the fact you've had 8 kids in the first place through to being very sensitive to a comment made by your husband. I'm so sorry for your MC, but you need to carve some time for yourself. It is not just for your own benefit but it's so important for children to see adults undertake self care so they know they should too and so they don't grow up thinking they're the centre of the universe. Though how you do that with 8 kids I don't know, could you get an actual cleaner with your husband's salary?

Yes, I noticed the dig at working parents, OP, and tbh I wasn't impressed. It seems you have got yourself into an idea of yourself as essential to your family and you've prolonged that by having more children and doing all sorts of 'above-and-beyond' stuff for them. And then you rage when your dh referred to you as 'the cleaner'. I still think he was aiming a quip at the seriousness with which you take your responsibilities - as if you were doing them in a high-level professional environment (i.e. the hoovering has to be done before I go out). I think you've actively driven yourself into a role that part of you screaminly resents. I wonder if there is a sense of failure (not that I am saying it would be justified!) at your not doing medicine/finishing your degree, which you have been trying to run away from through the 'career' of multiple motherhood?

You have 8 children? Why?

I would have found it funny, I would have just called my husband a fucking cunt in response, but I get out of the house quite a bit.

YOu need to get a cleaner. And make yourself go out to stuff. Several times a week. Until you find something you enjoy. IT will be a chore at first but once you know some people and are better at whatever it is you decide to take up you can look at taking it further. You want fulfilling interests not time wasting. Certainly take up the musical instrument, maybe join a choir.
Being a SAHM saps your confidence. And you can feel you have an easy life, the one 'swanning' around at home. So owe DH. Nothing is further from the truth. You've worked everyday for forever. You deserve some fun time.

I have literally devoted my life to being a sahp and supporting DH (we’ve had to move a number of times but don’t have to now).

But that was through choice as well. Did you want 8 kids? It certainly seems like it. You chose not to do a final exam because you were expecting your first baby. Why?

You wanted to be a sahm with lots of kids so your dh is supporting you as well as you supporting him. Neither of you could have had 8 children, without the other playing their part. You coildnt have stayed at home if he hadnt have worked and supported you it and he could have had 8 and worked if you were a sahm.

You have made choices to not pursue interests.

I say this, not as a judgment, but because your posts come across as though, you had no I put into where you life is now.it just happened to you and you had no say.

When you realise what you do and where you are in life is down to choices you have made, the you will see how you can choose to change it.