Not taking on the mental load at Christmas - can I hold out?

[SlayDuggee]

Like many women I do most/all of the prep, shopping, hosting, mental load for Christmas. DH is also tight and will easily let me pay for everything without thinking to reimburse me. This year I’ve taken a 15k pay cut so I can’t afford to! I take minimal holiday at Christmas as DH seems to think that him being on holiday means that he doesn’t need lift a finger as he is on holiday forgetting that other people are also on holiday (like me) and would actually like to sit down or have some leisure time as well.

This is meant to be lighthearted. I’m fed up of DHs general laziness and just expecting me to run around non-stop and make things happen.

This year I have -

• done an online Tesco to be delivered on Tuesday but invariably some things will be forgotten/missing so DH will need to go to the supermarket

Not bought lots of Christmas cards - DH normally panics Christmas morning and uses all of mine for his family. He has forgotten he won’t be seeing them so would need to post them as well. Not bought any presents for his side of the family. Normally, I end I buy all the presents for my side of the family and at least 50% for his as I pick up things as I go along. DH has never bought a single present for anyone in my family. DH normally panic buys his presents on Xmas eve for everyone. Bought some presents for DD and DS. DH hasn’t bought anything yet. Previous years he’s said DC don’t need presents at Christmas as they are only young (yet he expect presents in his 40’s) Not spent all weekend getting the house spotlessly clean - considering I do 95% of the childcare and housework I simply don’t have time.

AIBU to inwardly chuckle to myself that I’m going to trot off to work from Monday to Wednesday leaving our two children with DH and his done zero Christmas prep himself. I may also take a leaf out of DHs book and loudly comment on how tired/exhausted I am whilst asking what’s for dinner and demanding to know why the house is a tip as he has been at home all day.

I can't believe you've put up with this nonsense so long, but well done for tackling it now.

Place marking for the great Christmas realisation on DH's part!

I don't get how this is lighthearted. Stopped being that the minute you said you pay for everything

Good for you OP.

I think you should put up a to do list on the fridge.
Make it in bold.
Write this.
Gifts for siblings, parents and others
Cards.
Gift for partner.
Gifts for children.
Put what ever else you can think of, and in big letters this is your reminder.
Take a photo of it.
And don't mention it again.
That way he can't have a go at you for not reminding him.
Yes I know people will say you shouldn't but he will try to say you never told him.
Should he ask you for help, the answer is not my Circus not my monkeys.
Oh and say don't try blaming me.

So far we’ve had
OPs fault for not marrying and adult
OP should write him a list
OP should remind him
Woman reminding woman (MIL)
Woman blaming woman
Blah blah

Imagine if the DH actually got the blame for his incompetence? Imagine is his mother actually showed her disappointment and we didn’t bat an eyelid

Good for you.

If he's capable of holding down a job then he's capable of contributing to the organisation of Christmas.

And as the 'training' him or writing lists ... why should she? Is she his manager?

I didn't even know that buying presents on behalf of blokes was a thing until I was well into adulthood. Why on earth would anyone ever do it? Is it something that iust happens in some relationships? I'm 48 and it's never even crossed my mind.

I'm not sure how people end up in these situations.

The list takes a few mins and covers OP from you didn't remind me.
Sometimes, it's worth doing so he can't pass the buck.
I have a child who always blames me, so now I make a point of a final reminder as proof. It is so worth it too stop being blaimed .

Dont forget to casually what's app all dh family that your working and dh is in charge of Christmas prep and sorting presents mwahahaha

Please hold out & keep us posted!

Annoyingly I have done all Christmas shopping for both sides, but have gone on strike with housework/washing - the only result so far for me is that my home (which I decorated for Christmas) is now in squalor- I appear to be the only one who cares

But yours is a Christmas story I feel like ai am going to enjoy!

I cannot wait to see what happens here. Do keep us posted.
I didn't do anything one year (long after my son left home) literally not one thing. Christmas day turns up and my ex husband said, what's happening today then, is there dinner or anything.
I said I don't know have you cooked anything, bought any gifts?
He looked at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted three heads and spent the day upstairs, doing what I don't know.
We didn't celebrate christmas again until we got divorced. He just was not prepared to make the effort for even one single year.
He came down later that day to cook himself dinner but unfortunately there was no food in the house and all the shops were shut.
Asked me where all the food was. I said I didn't know - did he not think to take a look in the fridge freezer before the day.
He was stunned. I wanted him to understand what an enormous amount of work christmas was for me and he just had not the faintest idea. He hadn't bought me a gift that year as usual, but still had the nerve me if I'd bought him anything, I said no. He's asked me to buy him something that cost £300 and I just thought fuck that, I never get anything from him I'm just not doing it.
That christmas I knew it was over - the gormless look on his face when there was no christmas said it all for me.

"DH is also tight and will easily let me pay for everything without thinking to reimburse me. "

This is what struck me as strange. Or maybe we're unusual. We have two joint bank accounts, husband's pension goes in one, mine in the other. We call them 'yours and mine' for convenient reference but either of us has access to them.
Generally I look after the regular bills wit direct debits from 'my' account and everyday expenses from 'his' account. There's never a case of 'reimbursing' each other. It's all 'ours'. It's been like this since we met and married in the early 70s. Have things changed since then?

Shameless place mark. You’re doing the right thing OP but I agree with others that this isn’t really lighthearted at all

OP, I am soooooo behind you here. Keep us posted! And please do NOT write a to-do list for a grown man or pull back gradually from all the advantage-taking that he has been cultivating. Assuming he is a fully functioning adult he is perfectly able to ask you if you've bought presents or cards and has no right to assume that.

He can experience the consequences himself and decide whether he wants to change his ways or not. My OH, btw, missed his nephews 18th BD. I in no way see that as my fuck-up. Neither does he.

God my last relationship was like this (and related to many other threads on here where DP is useless/treats the OP like shit) and I'm so happy I'm single now and know I will never accept this shit again.

It's important to set these habits early. I've never bought presents or done cards for his side of the family, and so he never expects it.

Good on you OP... Please stick with it.
My DH is getting picker and grumpier with age... I've tried calling him Victor and humming the 'one foot in the grave' theme tune but am now just not doing things he moans about... We both work full time... So no ironing his shirts and no writing of Christmas cards (as I wish everyone a merry Christmas rather than writing out every name in the house) for example. He currently has 3 gifts to buy and no time to buy them...

Brave op, I'd love yo do this as long as dc don't suffer!

You have to decide if you want a divorce or not.
People here encouraging you are not the ones who will not be speaking to their partners on Christmas Day.

@SebastianTheCrab My DH is slowly getting better after a lot of conversations about it but how the fuck are we in this situation at all?

Presumably before you met him, your DH dealt with this stuff? He only doesn’t now, because you do.

IME in the dating stage of a relationship women are very keen to portray themselves as “wife material” and willingly take on the “wifework” in order to prove themselves worthy. A few years and a couple of children later and they start wondering why it is all on them, forgetting that they started it in the first place.

I don’t think it will make a blind bit of difference this year. Too many incompetent man children will just blame COVID.

Why are you even married to this fuckhead?!

I would be checking myself into a hotel, lumping him with the kids and then booking a one-way ticket to Barbados. If they were lucky, they'd be getting a zoom call from me on the 25th. I'd just laugh at the shitshow shambles on the other end, the festivities falling round their ears, as I blithely sipped on a pina colada. Merry Christmas muthafuckaaaaassss!

Ahhh I wish I had read this thread earlier today!

I usually organise everything. This year i organised everything except dp's dad, telling him it was up to him. But I gave in today when he said he would get something on the way home from work on Wednesday and I ended up going and choosing and buying a present for him. I know I should have held out and left it to him

[quote MaskingForIt]**@SebastianTheCrab* My DH is slowly getting better after a lot of conversations about it but how the fuck are we in this situation at all?*

Presumably before you met him, your DH dealt with this stuff? He only doesn’t now, because you do.

IME in the dating stage of a relationship women are very keen to portray themselves as “wife material” and willingly take on the “wifework” in order to prove themselves worthy. A few years and a couple of children later and they start wondering why it is all on them, forgetting that they started it in the first place.[/quote]

Maybe to a certain extent (don't really appreciate having to take the blame for it, since both DH and I are responsible for how the chips have fallen) but it is more complicated than me pretending to be wife material because thanks to DC I now earn pin money and he's the breadwinner (and runs his own business so it is pretty 24/7) so I have to accept that he doesn't have the mental capacity for all of the minutiae either especially given there's a global pandemic and his business has been impacted.

Of course, the reason I'm earning pin money is because I'm trapped by the domestic load and can't find more time to work but then his earning capacity was always going to be higher than mine because of the industries we're in. So it makes more sense for me to take on a higher % of domestic load.

I'm (we're) still trying to figure it out - and at least he has begun to understand where I'm coming from - but the book I mentioned (Fair Play) has been really helpful.

Sorry all I have had a busy day -

I’m not writing DH a list. Surely he is capable of remembering that he has parents, a brother and a sister and his sister has two children (as pre COVID we used to see them every week). It’s hardly a mountain of presents he needs to buy and he has four days off before Christmas to buy and wrap them. He also knows how to order via Amazon as he constantly buys crap from there.

Originally we each bought presents for our own families then more recently I started to buy for his as well. However, due to DH’s general laziness and not getting a word of thanks I stopped doing this last year and told him why.

We have a joint account that covers all normal household expenses and we each our own bank accounts as well. We tend to fund Christmas presents out of our own accounts.

To those wondering if we are going to have Turkey, etc yes we are. Everything has been ordered and will be delivered on Tuesday yes I spent 90 minutes to get an online Christmas delivery slot 4 weeks ago
I don’t feel it is unreasonable for DH to pop to the shop if something doesnt turn up. Normally before Covid we would do the big Christmas food shop together. If the sprouts don’t turn up I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask him to go to the local Tesco Metro 10 minutes walk away or pop to the local supermarket.

Nothing is a surprise. Christmas is the same time every year. For the past month I have been telling him I cannot get any extra time off at Christmas apart from xmas eve. I normally work M-F so I have the weekends off and plus CD, BD and NYD. Today he asked when I am finishing work again. I asked him casually when he was thinking of doing his Christmas shopping over breakfast and he said he didn’t know