AIBU to ask my working husband to contribute/respect the work around the house?

[Sasha91]

I’m a stay-at-home mum with 2 kids. I’ve been at home since my youngest was born, almost 6 years. I was working before his birth and will be returning to work in the near future.

We are not the tidiest of people but as part of being the stay-at-home parent I took on most of the home duties. One of the frustrations I have faced is that I have asked him to help me by facilitating me to make chores easier.

One example (of quite a few) is the washing up. He will pile (and occasionally do a load of washing up) everything in the sink and the mountain of items will be as high as the taps. To access the plug, you must navigate this pile and sometimes he will have left a load “soaking” and the next day you have congealed grease/sauces/oil to wade into to pull the plug. My request is to use the side to pile dishes (a few in the sink is fine but if you have reached the point of dish Tetris to fit it in then it is time to do the load yourself or stack on the side). I have repeated this request, I have stressed how upsetting/heart-sinking it is for me to encounter the full sink. My requests are usually dismissed or diminished. He will invariably counter with a complaint that is more important or a number of “smaller” issues that would ultimately be more significant in his eyes.

I feel ignored, disrespected, and minimised. It feels as if he thinks as the sole bread-winner that my contribution is not worthy of respect and my opinion on how I want dishes stacked, clothes hung up on a hook, shoes put away when you get home or dirty clothes put into a hamper (when they are dumped on the floor literally next to the hamper) is a trivial nothing and the continued ignorance of these issues and also I have enough time to complete these tasks and others and there is no reason our house couldn’t be tidier.

I agree it could be tidier (and I could do it better) but I don’t believe that it is all a 1-person role. I see the children dump their clothes and shoes and worry that they use his example as a reason not tidy up. I worry that they think less of me as they see Daddy going to work and providing for us. I worry that when I return to work, I will still be doing everything I do now.

He works hard and is the sole breadwinner and I think he feels that pressure, particularly as there have been some difficult and stressful work situations, including losing jobs that he enjoyed. I’ve listened, supported, and comforted through these discussions and any time I’ve brought up my issues he doesn’t want to listen, and I feel he thinks he is being attacked.

I have tried different methods of approaching it and it always ends up with him minimising or outright dismissing my concerns and highlighting what I haven’t done or how he has been affected (by the issue at hand or something completely different). It also often ends up with a conditional situation (If you do this then I’ll do that) but never any acknowledgement that I have a valid concern. I frequently comment to him that I appreciate all his hard work, but I don’t feel he respects mine.

He’s a great, hands-on Dad and we share bed/bath times equally and I don’t doubt his love or commitment to the kids. He spends a lot of time with the kids and doesn’t do nothing around the house, he also often gets the shopping on the weekend.

He does have a poor memory and uses it as a reason he forgot to do these things I have asked but I’ve never seen any attempts to mitigate this poor memory or acknowledge any wrongdoing at all.

I don’t like confrontation and after all this time I don’t even bring it up anymore, but I know each time I’ve picked the same pair of socks from the floor for the 50th time, hung up that wet dressing gown, unplugged a greasy full sink a part of me realises that my contributions are not respected and my opinions on other parts of our relationship and parenting are not given an equal weight. I feel unappreciated and unmotivated.

I often think I am over-reacting and need to move on from it but something about it stops me, so AIBU to expect my working husband to respect my house duties and assist me?

Thank you for reading this long one!

Where is your dishwasher?
Why are you hand-wash ing pots ?

For the shoes and clothes, work on the kids first. Again, a hard and fast rule: if they dump and run they come back every time you call them to do it right.

For me, the challenge is that whilst I would like shoes put away etc I am often guilty of getting in and letting them get away with kicking stuff off/not putting away properly. But if you want to sort it you must be steadfast and ruthlessly consistent.

Washing not in baskets doesn’t get washed. By all means pick it up if you find items if your husband’s clothes elsewhere but put it in a black bag and forget about it. If he wants it washed he can root through the bag to find and do himself. For the kids, as per the shoes you must call them every time to come back and pick up properly. You need to make not doing it right first time much more hassle than just taking the time in the first place. Expect drama, be implacable.

Tell him you are hiring a nanny because that's what he wants. Someone to tell him what to do and tell him what a good boy he is if he manages to not pile the dishes.

I had a very old English teacher and you would NEVER forget things for her class because she said forgetting is, "Not being bothered to remember"

Stop doing the dishes.

Buy yourself paper plates and plastic cutlery. Hide ready meals at the back of the freezer for you, and let him sort out the kids.

You say your DH has a poor memory. Is his memory poor about his work? Has he been pulled up at work for forgetting things?

sometimes they just can't do what they are asked to do.

Erm..have we time travelled to Stepford Town 1954??

@Embracelife

Where is your dishwasher? Why are you hand-wash ing pots ?

What a silly post. Do you really fail to comprehend not everyone has a dishwasher?? What a privileged horrible post.

I feel your pain. The poor memory excuse is particularly galling, it translates to I can't be bothered to remember.

I once filled in a timesheet in 15min slots of everything I did. I completed it for a week and then pointed out that he did 9am - 5pm, came home and sat down but I had started at 7am and was still doing jobs at 10pm. I then mentioned the number of night feeds I'd also done.
You could add details, such as the time wasted emptying the sink and cleaning it before you could wash up.

I had a friend who got a large linen basket (cardboard box would do) and put everything that was left laying around, wet clothes, coins, mobile phone, car keys, work papers etc, into it. (She may jave made sure that wet things went on top of things that shouldn't really get wet. 😉🤣) Not sure how effective it was but at least the floor was clear.

OMG this was one of the reasons I got divorced. I could beg, explain, nag or make a joke out of it but he simply wouldn’t amend the way he did things in order to make my life a bit easier/household run a bit smoother. Then I went back to work and life just got harder.

I also sent my DH an email resigning from the post of wife and mother, effective immediately. It said you need to arrange school pick up at 3pm as well as transport to dance (youngest) and school netball which involved driving to next town dropping at dance class, returning to home town, collecting eldest and then returning to collect from dance, coming home and getting dinner. it may have also been the day I dropped youngest at school at 9am and walked through the school gates thinking I could really do with a glass of wine. 😱

hmm. agree it's disrespectful and lazy. I suspect he's not like this at work. And I don't buy the crap memory excuse.

I don't know what the answer is, but its at times like this I'm glad I'm divorced.

My STBX husband is like this . Just can't be arsed . The lack of respect for the home , dislike of maintenance was so annoying. He would never voluntarily do a chore unless asked , then forget and then I am a nag .My third child.

When I made him go into a separate room and use a seperate bathroom , it was like living with a very messy teenager . Lazy bastard.
Now he is gone , the place has never looked better . Windows cleaned, garden sorted , painting done. By me.
Obviously , divorcing your DH is a bit drastic .But the disrespect for you and your work in the home , that he wants to live in , can really build up resentment. I would point this out to him.

He must be struggling to hold down his job if his memory’s that poor.

He’s not though, is he? Because he can remember things that matter.

It’s so so rude to just drop things on the floor. It’s the same as walking around the house to find to you and then asking you to put his clothes in the hamper.

I guarantee I work more hours in a more difficult job than your husband. I don’t treat our home like a tip and my family like my servants because that’s unacceptable. In an adult it’s frankly embarrassing.

What a dick.

Oh - and good parents don’t treat the other parent like staff and don’t teach their children that walking away from a mess you’ve created
Is fine because someone you think is less important will clean it up.

Could you place the washing up bowl on the worktop beside the sink and tell him to put his pots in there (if the poor lamb is too tired to wash up his own crockery).

Honestly though, OP, it sounds to me like you have been very patient. I would be very cross and very vocal about this. It’s lack of respect.

Dump his wet dressing gown on his side of the bed - no excuse for that.

Stick an enormous note above the sink.

Get mad - this is rubbish behaviour.

Strategic incompetence. What an idiot! It feels worse as your home is also effectively your workplace, for want of a better expression, during the day when he is not around. For him to come home and mess it up must be extremely galling.

Yes this is really annoying. You are not even asking him to do more, just do things slightly differently to make your life a little easier

On another note though, you are making so much work for yourselves by the way that you wash up. I would hate to wash up a whole stack of dirty pots and plates. Before I had a dishwasher, i would wash my pans and cooking stuff immediately as I finished with it and put it away before eating. We then only had plates and cutlery to deal with after the meal which is more manageable.

Why is he stacking dishes and not just washing the bloody things up?!

My DH worked long hours when our kids were growing up and I was a SAHM but he still managed to wash up.

My other half is like this even though I also work 20 hours a week but, in his eyes, he still works harder/does more than me. I don't think it's about work,I think it's about him feeling like it's not his job. In his eyes, it's my job to skivvy after him.

So, I just stopped doing things for him. It's horrible but I just sort out me and the kids. If he's lucky, he might get an occasional meal but I leave him to do his own washing, cooking etc

If he leaves his shit around the place, it gets put in bin bags and dumped down his side of the bed. If I'm continually tidying the same items into bin bags, then they go in the bin.

It's complete lack of respect for another human being. It wouldn't happen in his job.

I would use disposal plates for the times when the dishes are piled up in the wrong way.

Hmm so the person you’ve committed your life to doesn’t believe you when you say their behaviour is hurting you.
He doesn’t believe you when you say it matters to you and when you raise a problem or issue (no matter how small) he counters this with something he believes you’ve done wrong.

So you can never raise a genuine concern with him because he will always counter it. He will always dismiss you.

Your thoughts, needs and mental welfare don’t matter to him.

What would I personally do - give him an ultimatum. He stops minimising and playing tit for tat, stops being a defensive little prick or he leaves.

I would not spend my life picking up after a disrespectful misogynist. I did not get to this age through all the battles of being a woman to be belittled and disrespected and ignored in my own home.

He changes or I change it for him.

It’s not the fact that he’s leaving you to do the washing up (although this is going to become more of an issue when you go back to work), it’s the fact that he’s treating you like a skivvy and expects you to compensate for his lazy choices in where he leaves dishes, laundry etc.

I’m afraid this would really chip away at the respect I had for a partner, and in turn the love.

Leave big stickers around the house. "Dirty plates here, not in sink!". "Clothes in laundry basket, not on floor!" If he wants to be treated like a child, tell him how unsexy you feel acting like his mother.

@Sasha91

I’m a stay-at-home mum with 2 kids. I’ve been at home since my youngest was born, almost 6 years. I was working before his birth and will be returning to work in the near future.

We are not the tidiest of people but as part of being the stay-at-home parent I took on most of the home duties. One of the frustrations I have faced is that I have asked him to help me by facilitating me to make chores easier.

One example (of quite a few) is the washing up. He will pile (and occasionally do a load of washing up) everything in the sink and the mountain of items will be as high as the taps. To access the plug, you must navigate this pile and sometimes he will have left a load “soaking” and the next day you have congealed grease/sauces/oil to wade into to pull the plug. My request is to use the side to pile dishes (a few in the sink is fine but if you have reached the point of dish Tetris to fit it in then it is time to do the load yourself or stack on the side). I have repeated this request, I have stressed how upsetting/heart-sinking it is for me to encounter the full sink. My requests are usually dismissed or diminished. He will invariably counter with a complaint that is more important or a number of “smaller” issues that would ultimately be more significant in his eyes.

I feel ignored, disrespected, and minimised. It feels as if he thinks as the sole bread-winner that my contribution is not worthy of respect and my opinion on how I want dishes stacked, clothes hung up on a hook, shoes put away when you get home or dirty clothes put into a hamper (when they are dumped on the floor literally next to the hamper) is a trivial nothing and the continued ignorance of these issues and also I have enough time to complete these tasks and others and there is no reason our house couldn’t be tidier.

I agree it could be tidier (and I could do it better) but I don’t believe that it is all a 1-person role. I see the children dump their clothes and shoes and worry that they use his example as a reason not tidy up. I worry that they think less of me as they see Daddy going to work and providing for us. I worry that when I return to work, I will still be doing everything I do now.

He works hard and is the sole breadwinner and I think he feels that pressure, particularly as there have been some difficult and stressful work situations, including losing jobs that he enjoyed. I’ve listened, supported, and comforted through these discussions and any time I’ve brought up my issues he doesn’t want to listen, and I feel he thinks he is being attacked.

I have tried different methods of approaching it and it always ends up with him minimising or outright dismissing my concerns and highlighting what I haven’t done or how he has been affected (by the issue at hand or something completely different). It also often ends up with a conditional situation (If you do this then I’ll do that) but never any acknowledgement that I have a valid concern. I frequently comment to him that I appreciate all his hard work, but I don’t feel he respects mine.

He’s a great, hands-on Dad and we share bed/bath times equally and I don’t doubt his love or commitment to the kids. He spends a lot of time with the kids and doesn’t do nothing around the house, he also often gets the shopping on the weekend.

He does have a poor memory and uses it as a reason he forgot to do these things I have asked but I’ve never seen any attempts to mitigate this poor memory or acknowledge any wrongdoing at all.

I don’t like confrontation and after all this time I don’t even bring it up anymore, but I know each time I’ve picked the same pair of socks from the floor for the 50th time, hung up that wet dressing gown, unplugged a greasy full sink a part of me realises that my contributions are not respected and my opinions on other parts of our relationship and parenting are not given an equal weight. I feel unappreciated and unmotivated.

I often think I am over-reacting and need to move on from it but something about it stops me, so AIBU to expect my working husband to respect my house duties and assist me?

Thank you for reading this long one!

Sorry, but why don't both of you do the washing up before it gets too much to cope with?

How is he managing to fill the sink that high with dirty dishes each day if he's out at work? Are you sure none of the things in the sink are from during the day with you/the kids at home?

This link is not quite as apposite as the one posted by the PP earlier, but see if you can relate to it.

www.workingmother.com/this-comic-perfectly-explains-mental-load-working-mothers-bear

I think you're quite right and these things can be hard to articulate. You need a good talk and to be open to his solutions - if he responds to your asking him to leave the sink clear with "well I can't bear them piled up by the sink" then agree a different solution.

Day to day wrangles about stuff like how to stack the dishwasher are part and parcel of living with someone else, but the measure is whether you both treat each other with respect, both day to day and when there's conflict.