Or is DH?

[StrawberryCrunch]

DH owns his own business and works very long hours. He leaves at 6am and comes home around 7pm most nights, sometimes later dependant on what he has on.

I work 9-5 Mon-Fri in an office job which can be and often is high stress (solicitors).

We had an argument last night because I feel like he doesn't do anything around the house. The house is a bit of a tip at the moment I admit.

I do all the 'basic' stuff, cook tea every night, do all the laundry and washing up, general tidying, hoovering etc... I could do more in terms of cleaning but I feel like I get no help whatsoever and so it takes me twice as long to properly clean which I don't particularly want to do on my own after a shit week at work.

H said last night he thinks it's fair that I do all of the stuff in the house because he works more than me and because his job is manual he's more tired after work. He doesn't want to use his weekend to clean because it's the only time he gets (erm... Me too?!).

I've said I don't mind doing most stuff, which I already do because realistically I am there more than he is but AIBU to think that considering I am working full time, it shouldn't be left to me completely.

I was so mad last night, it's like every time the house is a bit of a mess it's implied that it's my fault even though he does fuck all in there. It's suggested that I get up earlier like he does so I can do a bit in the morning etc...

I could do more, I'm not the cleanest person in the world for sure but I hate that it's supposedly all down to me and I'm the reason we don't have s nice clean house all the time.

This is the first time he's ever made me feel like a 1950s house wife and I told him that's how it felt but he says it's nothing to do with that. He works more so should do less which I said fine, less but not none surely?!

The kids notice as well to be honest.

The other week one of them said something about how daddy looks after them and the other one said 'no Strawberry does'.

Housework is WORK - it's drudge and manual labour and unrewarding because it's all still there in a day or two.
I would happily do an extra hour at work every day if I had someone doing housework for that hour at home, I'd take that deal in a heartbeat.

Plus things like commuting aren't work - they're not nice but sitting on your bottom in traffic or on a train for an hour listening to the radio is not the same as scrubbing down a kitchen.

I think my income is a lot less than your combined income with your DH, but I have a cleaner come for 3 hours every 2 weeks. Why? Because I work long hours, don't enjoy cleaning and don't want to do it on my one day off per week.
I keep on top of it between her visits. It's so good for a person's MH to come home to a completely clean home with fresh linen on the beds.
Why you haven't realised that you could both have enjoyable, housework free weekends by paying £30-40 per week for a cleaner is beyond me.
I don't cut my own hair. It would be cheaper if I did.
You don't neuter your own cats... it would be cheaper if you didn't have to pay a vet/insurance. Choices... Don't ask him, tell him.

Holy crap op. And you are starting to feel the pregnancy. I know you say he has good points but I could be a really fun person to know if my house was run by my personal slave too. They aren’t your kids even. You need to sort this well before baby. We both work and we have to batch cook. He can provide minimum one meal a week for the family: if he doesn’t no more food for him. That’s cooking a couple times a month. Do not pick up anything of his except to throw it on his side of the bed. Put s tray in the kitchen or allocate benches for his dirty dishes. Sweetly tell the children daddy’s practicing his grown up skills if they ask. And budget - you’re both having a baby, you don’t pay him for the privilege. Don’t spend your savings so he can keep his unchanged budget.

The first trimester is exhausting even if you don’t feel sick - remember to tell him you’re growing a baby 24 hours a day in addition to working in these discussions and he should be doing most if not all the cleaning for the next few months so just as well it came up! We work full time, busy jobs and my husband did everything in early pregnancy as I was unwell.

I know you say he’s nice but he sounds like a shitbag.

I would genuinely have a week off where you do NOTHING for anyone except yourself and the basics that have to be done such as making food for the children. Leave the sugar spills, the towels on the floor, the messy rooms and the laundry thrown on the floor. Tell them all you’ll be doing it. Then let them see exactly how it looks at the end of it all.

After that, draw up a list of responsibilities (perhaps use this list to help: www.selclenesoutheast.co.uk/deep-cleaning-checklist/) and allocate jobs.

In the current situation, he is taking the absolute piss.

Sweetly tell the children daddy’s practicing his grown up skills if they ask

Genius, @timeisnotaline! (hearting your username too ...)
OP - PLEASE use this one!

Holy shit! They aren’t your kids and yet he feels he can work the long hours he does?!?! Fuck that for a joke. He needs to work less hours and take on HIS share of responsibility. FFS he is pulling the piss. I’d be having words

I know you say that you love him. Do you respect him, is he a decent human being ?

Let's review the evidence:

• you each work full time and contribute similar amounts to the family costs

• he is out of the house for longer than you

• he expects you to do all housework,

cooking, cleaning, food shopping for him and his two children (around half time )

• he does nothing towards the regular housework, childcare and care of animals, two cats and his dog

• he does not expect his two boy children to do anything around the house

• he complains that you do not keep the house to his standards

• he does not thank you or appreciate you

• he sometimes even stops you getting on with things because he wants your company (but still expects you to keep the house to his standards with no contribution from him

How would you feel if a friend or daughter told you this about the man she loved?

How would anyone feel after twenty, thirty plus years of this treatment ?

At seven and a half weeks, you still have choices. All the best

Gosh this sounds awful, and when you have a new baby the amount to do it’s going to increase.

Someone said you should move out and make him see how much you do. I really think this is a good idea, even if just for a few weeks. Honestly, you are going to be exhausted when you add a baby into the mix. Your partner sounds awful.

My husband is exactly the same. And the more he earned as his career progressed, the more entitled he became. Once babies came along, it was all too much for me. Tried everything for years and years and years to make him see how disrespectful he was being. 15 years I put up with the bullshit and now I’m leaving. He is stunned. Has literally no idea why I’m leaving, still doesn’t get it. Good luck, OP!

Dear God, you're a mug!

I'm nearly 70 and would never, and did never accept this rubbish.

My DH is nearly 80 and always more than pulled his weight as a husband and father.

So why, in this day and age, do women accept this crap and then expect their OH to change? (Always when it's too late and they're pregnant).

OP, as a matter of interest, whose house is it? What financial safeguards are in place for you? After all, he's self-employed so very easy to screw you over.

Oh OP, definitely stop doing leg work that you don't need too. For years me and DH had disagreements because his mum did absolutely everything growing up for them and will still try now. He would leave his socks and pants NEXT to the washing basket or on top of the lid. How hard is it to lift a bloody lid?
Take plates into the kitchen with crusts etc on and leave them next to the sink, but he would have to walk past the kitchen bin to get there. He worked dodgy hours when our kids were babies so would cook himself food not offer me any despite the fact I was feeding two babies and exhausted as I did all the night feeds. Then leave all the washing up for me as well.

It took a couple of years, but he is really good in the house now. He still works bloody hard but his shifts are regular now and I have found that helps. I'm a stay at home carer for our disabled DD, so don't go out the house to work but I do have a small side business I run from home sewing for others although it's quite sporadic.

Today before his shift he washed the breakfast pots, and hung a load of washing out. He stuck the kids in the shower too!

It really is possible, but try and have the next conversation about this without arguing as I found this never helps the situation. A cleaner is a brilliant idea and if you went halves it would cost £15 each, you could have one once a month just for a deep clean. Also ban food/drink in the boys room as that cuts down on alot of mess. My kids always have a drink available on the kitchen table, then when it comes to washing up in the evening I only have to grab the bottles off the table and pop them in the sink. I also find wiping the worktops straight after making a cuppa helps as the tea stains dont become sticky and it takes seconds whilst you wait for your tea to cool.

Best wishes for your pregnancy, you guys can do this

Housework strike! And stop cooking. Take the kids out for dinner every night.

I despair! We'll never have equality while these men keep finding women to marry/live with, who put up with all this shit, and carry on doing do all the work. And then these women go and have children with them, perpetuating the cycle in the future generations.

Unless/until ALL women kick these men to the kerb, it's going to carry on. Moaning about it, arguing, and going on strike, won't change these men. The only options are to live with it for the rest of your life, or dump the bastards.

You're deluded if you think this man is kind and caring, and loves you. His actions and his words, are not those of someone who loves and cares about you. He just doesn't want to do this stuff himself, so you're useful to him.

He can't even be arsed to make you a cup of tea!

Are you sure you want to bring a child into this? Things feel bad now, but they're going to be 100x worse when the baby's born. You will be expected to carry on doing all the housework, work full time, and look after the baby, even if you've only had a couple of hours sleep for weeks. It will be YOU who has to take time off work when your child is sick, because he couldn't possibly have the day off. And when you're on maternity leave, he'll say that you're sitting around on your arse all day, watching TV. All these men think that's what looking after a baby involves.

LTB.

I don’t see why you should be cleaning HIS children’s rooms when he does f all around the house. What a pig.

So why, in this day and age, do women accept this crap and then expect their OH to change? (Always when it's too late and they're pregnant).

@Nanny0gg you truly live up to your namesake :) so heart your common sense & would love to share a flagon of Ankh Morpork's finest with you while you put the world to rights ...
I genuinely despair that we are "still protesting this shit" & that many young women seem not to have benefitted a jot from over a century of activism.

OP - this isn't meant as a kick in your teeth. But really - get your partner to wise up to 2019. Also, take note of NannyOgg's stern advice upthread & ensure that YOUR interests are as well protected as I have no doubt your business-owning partner's are.

"Unless ALL women kick these men to the kerb" -
ha, @mokoto! - "there is nothing new under the sun" & this may amuse you x
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata

I can't believe you got pregnant with this man-child.

Did that fact that he barely shows up to look after his kids, let alone cook or clean for them not make you think "he's a shit father, thank God I don't have children with him"?

Parenting isn't just brushing their teeth at night and tucking them into bed. It's buying food for them that's healthy, cooking that food & making meals, packing lunches, cleaning up after the children, after the cooking & after they've used the toilet.

Those are very basic parts of parenting and if he can't be bothered to do that for his existing DC, why in earth do you think he'd do it for future ones?

Move out. Let him do the childcare, the cooking and cleaning and running around and you can just put your feet up after work in your lovely own place that only has your laundry & food to sort out (not yours plus 3 other people's).

Seriously, you on your own plus a baby will be SO much easier than you, plus man-child, plus 2 small DC, plus baby.

Why does he want his dc half the week at his if he's never around to parent them? Is this a ploy to get out of paying CM?

Haha @mussolini9, I'd forgotten about that!

Oh god, how depressing that nothing's changed in all those years.

Why does he want his dc half the week at his if he's never around to parent them? Is this a ploy to get out of paying CM?

I have seen a couple of men do this - they shack up with anyone stupid enough to take care of their DC just so they don't have to pay maintenance. Obviously not saying this is the case with you OP but I do think he is majorly taking the piss.

He's just plain lazy. With a hint of misogyny. He's choosing not to do any of the chores or childcare, because he's found a woman to do it for him.

It's quite impressive how these men on MN manage to find women who will do all their housework/childcare for them. When they're in a couple, the woman ends up going PT or SAHM because his 'job is so important'. Even when the couple breaks up, the man still don't have to do any of it because the new step-Mum ends up doing it all. (And while he's looking for a new step-Mum, Mummy dearest does it.) God forbid these men take a hit to their careers, or work slightly fewer hours in the office!

It's interesting how OP DH's(self-selected) hours aren't utterly unreasonable... just enough to get him out of doing any housework or childcare. I wonder if he's actually working all those hours, or waiting it out at work in the evenings to avoid coming home any earlier?

OP, what would happen if you have to stay late in the office one evening? Would he come home early to get the kids their food?

I think I would be inclined to start doing the same hours as him, just for a few months to establish a new 50:50 split of chores. You can always take a book to read in the office for a few hours at the start/end of the day. Eventually you can relax back into your normal work hours, and graciously accept back some of the chores he had taken over.

(But £50 says that, if your working hours increased, he would suddenly find a reason to increase his more than yours...)

Incidentally, have you spoken about childcare for the new baby? Even though he's self-employed (and should have flexibility), I bet he's assuming you'll figure it all out and he can carry on working like he does now. Afterall, he's already had two kids and managed to not have to change anything about his life, so why should this one be any different?

You'll be the one who has to sort out drop-offs and pick-ups at nursery (and arrange a nursery), take sick days with the tiny one, and do all the childcare admin. Oh, and all the night shifts, obv.

What an arse.