Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Life admin

109 replies

beachbelleorbeachbum · 20/01/2020 22:50

Do you share this with your OH? I didn't work until our DC started school so I did all of the life admin (insurances,
finances, bills, suplliers, filing, kid related stuff etc etc). Then when the youngest started school, I retrained. I now work 35 hour weeks (3 days), have multiple children (2 schools) and apart from the 'banking app', I do everything else. I did ask DH to sort car insurance once-gave him all the details and just asked him to put the info into a price comparison website. He got it all wrong, changed the policy holder and nearly lost NCD. I have to constantly check/remind him to do things and he gets grumpy when I seemingly nag. He also then leaves jobs to the last minute and then gets stressed and expects me to have all the answers/criticises my filing system even though he's never filed anything in his life. He works as a professional with a lot of responsibility. But so do I. AIBU to hand over responsibility for 'house' or 'cars' or 'kids'? I actually feel like my mind is at full capacity but I feel like if I do, I'll still need to check that he's done everything properly and on time.

How does it work for you?

OP posts:
Newmetoday · 26/01/2020 07:55

I don’t get the angst over life admin. I hate that term. All bills are direct debit. Once a year I sort out car insurance and MOT. I sometimes spend an hour once a year booking a holiday. What else is there?

hopeishere · 26/01/2020 08:14

We do our own cars and banking. DH does house insurance. I do stuff related to our rental property. I do kids stuff.

AnnaMariaDreams · 26/01/2020 08:22

Both work, DH full time, me 3 days.
We both do it. DH does more I think. He does things like car stuff- insurance, booking services, reading meters and organising gas and electricity deals.
I do things to do with DS like school fees, booking holiday clubs. I book holidays too Grin
As with everything we work as a team. Marriage is teamwork.

TheReef · 26/01/2020 08:23

Is there anything he could do instead? I do all the life admin for similar reasons. But my dh does all the outdoor stuff, gardening, washing cars, painting fences, sorting bins and recycling, do walking etc. Plus I don't have to ask him to, he just does it. So when I start to get resentful about the life admin I remember what he does do

404sympathynotfound · 26/01/2020 08:25

I do it all. Husband would have no idea who our insurance policies or gas/electricity is with, and wouldn't have a clue what our monthly outgoings are. His salary goes into the joint account and he hasn't even bothered to download the banking app. He's always been disorganised and a "that'll do" type, whereas I'm very organised and a perfectionist. I'd be surprised if he could tell you who even provides our home insurance, whereas I could tell you the premium and renewal date off the top of my head. Along with everything else - life insurance, pet insurance, household bills. It's just the way I'm wired. So rather than force DH into doing something "properly", I find it's easier to just do it myself. Probably not very PC but it causes me a lot less stress in the long run.

It did take years for me to come to the realisation though. Years of nagging and hand-holding - all taking much longer than the task itself would have. Just because I thought DH should do "his share" on principle. Once I accepted that the old adage of "if you want a job done properly, do it yourself", I found things much less stressful.

I tend to 'delegate' things to DH because he would never volunteer to do things. I do the food shopping list, he does the actual shop. I notice we're running low on dog food, I ask him to go and buy it. I book the cars in for their services and MOTs, he takes them. Sometimes I get annoyed at the lack of "proper division" of tasks and the sheer amount of mental admin I do, while he just sits back and waits for his next instruction. But I try to remember it's ME who wants the full food shop where nothing gets missed - DH would happily go to the shop twice a day every day as things ran out. It's ME who doesn't want the dogs to run out of food. DH would happily chuck them a biscuit and leave them stood waiting for their dinner while he went and bought more. I want to get the best price for insurance, TV and broadband etc, DH would just leave everything the way it was and pay the extra. It would not bother him one jot if we missed someone's birthday or ran out of washing powder.

The same goes for cleaning. As a perfectionist I like things clean and tidy, and for things to be done in a certain way and to my standards. DH would be perfectly happy to live in a pig sty, as would DS. Crumbs, spills, hairy floors, dirty bathrooms - it simply doesn't bother him. He is perfectly happy to go out wearing un-ironed clothes, I like everything ironed. So rather than quietly seethe that he never "offers" to clean up or do any ironing, I just do it myself.

For YEARS we had a passive aggressive ongoing situation about hair gel. Every fecking morning I'd go into the bathroom and the stuff would be sitting on the windowsill where he'd just used it and left it for the fairies to put away. I would huff and puff and put it away in the wall cabinet literally two feet away. Next day, there it is again. He saw me do it sometimes, complete with passive aggressive slamming of the cabinet door. After literally years of getting more and more annoyed about it (and possibly had a touch of PMT), one day I snapped and dragged him into the bathroom, pointed at the tube with a shaky finger and spat out through gritted teeth "why the FUCK can't you PUT your pissing hair gel AWAY?". He just looked at me a bit bewildered and sheepishly said "But I keep it on the windowsill, it's where it goes. Every day you move it and I have to get it out the cabinet before I can use it. I thought you were maybe just doing it to annoy me" Confused

Now I realise there are two types of people in this world. People who think everything should be tidied away into cabinets because it's "better". And people who consider it ridiculous to hide things you use every day behind a door, when there's a perfectly good windowsill to clutter up Wink

Langsdestiny · 26/01/2020 09:12

Sorry but that just sounds awful, not the hair gel, everything else.

Phineyj · 26/01/2020 09:43

I do most of this. I'm better at it, but I suspect that's 1. Because I've had a lot of practice and 2. Because I actually care about stuff like people getting presents or not living in a disorganised tip. DH really doesn't. It is disingenuous to pretend this stuff doesn't increase 10 fold with children, unless you are very fortunate with work, childcare and the children's own personalities.

404sympathynotfound · 26/01/2020 10:27

I don't think it's awful, we're just different. Who's worse - me for being so bothered by a coffee ring that I have to clean it straight away, or DH for being so un-bothered by it that he wouldn't think to clean it? I think the answer depends on your own personality - if you like things clean, you'd think I was right and he was lazy. If you were more relaxed, you'd think I was a bit OTT.

As I've got older I've definitely come to realise that just because I think things should be done a certain way, doesn't mean everyone else does. So I can either become a huge nag, or just do it myself. It's not like DH sits around doing nothing while I run around like a 50s housewife. Day to day stuff (admin aside), he pulls his weight. He feeds and walks the dogs, does the cat litter, empties the bins, puts the bins out on collection day, loads the dishwasher every day, makes me and Ds breakfast in the morning, makes DS's packed lunches, and cooks dinner most nights despite working full time. All without being asked to. Then does the shopping, petrol runs, collects the parcels etc etc when I ask him to. Would he think to put a wash on or cut the grass if I didn't mention it? No. But does he get and do it without moaning? Yep. And to be honest I think I have the better part of the deal with shopping - I'd much rather write the list than do the physical shopping. And even if I delegated 'admin' things to him, I wouldn't be able to stop micro-managing it all, so would still be expending mental energy on the task even if I didn't physically do it myself. Then afterwards would probably think he'd not done it right anyway.

The woman I work with has a marriage the exact opposite of ours, total role reversal. Her DH does all the 'admin' and sends her on collection runs for things he's ordered or need bought etc. She does all the shopping and cooking and cleaning and mum stuff. He can't even use the washing machine by the sounds of it, and frequently complains he doesn't like what she's cooked - my DH would never do that. Her DH does all the finances, household bills, holiday booking, checking reviews for things they're buying - the stuff I do. It's so strange to me to hear her say "oh I don't book hotels, I leave all that to X". The control freak in me quietly despairs. But she's happy to let him do it all.

m0therofdragons · 26/01/2020 10:43

I do general banking and food shopping, dh does washing and annual renewal such as gas, electric, phone, his car insurance (I do mine). I hate filling in forms so he also tends to do school forms but I make any payments to school on the app and book school meals.

We both work 37.5 hours Monday to Friday.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.

Swipe left for the next trending thread