DH 'too busy' for housework

[Terriblyterriblybusy]

DH is still working from home, and is often 'too busy' to clear away any of his lunchtime dishes or unload the dishwasher from the overnight wash.

This means I have to do it when I get home from my (also) very busy day at work.

I wouldn't mind if he was genuinely busy but I came home to a shithole today; DH had been to the supermarket to buy himself lunch and left evidence of it everywhere, while I had actually given up my lunch break in order to do a family shop at the supermarket.

I've now arrived home with the children, and he has hidden away in his office, leaving me to clear up his mess and do all the evening duties while he is 'too busy' and must continue working.

I know I am not BU in hoping that he can at least clear up after himself, but I have no idea how to broach it without basically accusing him of lying. What should I do?

What hours did he use to do in the office? Is it a 9-5 job?

If so I’d be telling him you’re going to start switching the WiFi off at 5pm as you’re not doing all the grunt work while he works for his office unpaid as it’s outwith his hours, and leaves shit at his back all over the house.

And I’d do it too. Change the WiFi password so only you have control

I’d suggest you’ll only have to do this a couple of times before the message gets through.

It will be harder if he is in flexible working and gets hours credited to him for working late. But even so I’d still sit down and discuss the situation with him and give him a deadline to finish work/WiFi switch off time.

If it doesn’t work I’d do as others have suggested. Either leave everything til he does it or poke it up on his desk. I’d warn him first though.

He sounds like a chancer.

That would get the quiet voice of impending danger/death and/or doom from me.

I'd very quietly ask him why he thought I should be doing everything he could have done, and should have done, on top of what I have done to facilitate the smooth running of the household, when he has been home all day. That would be a yawning, spikey death trap, in that question, right there.

I would be telling him to sort his shit the fuck out, because I work too, outside of the home, and thus don't have the opportunity to do these things during the day, and if I ever come home to his shit scattered throughout the house for me to sort out after a hard days' work, again, I'll be dumping it on his side of the bed. All of it.

I'd be telling him, I don't care what Big Important Meetings you have scheduled for tonight, cancel them. Because you are putting the groceries away, cleaning your mess up, doing the dishwasher, cooking the tea, and minding the children while I go calm the fuck down, you egotistical, arrogant, lazy entitled fucking arsehole. Or words to that effect.

I've just explained, but he got angry and said he needed a break during the day, and that he was about to do the tidying.

I've tried explaining several times over the years, but he always gets angry and defensive.

This time I've asked him if I should just leave the stuff for him to do on his own timescale, and he has agreed this would be better. So I'm going to have to learn to leave dirty stuff in a corner of the kitchen and try not to let it bother me.

If the only food your DH is capable of feeding his kids is McDonald's and he's not capable of sending them to bed on time, then maybe he needs to go on a parenting course?

He doesn't get to opt out of parenting and housework because he has a penis.

Explain to him in words of one syllable that if you left him, your life would become considerably easier (50% parenting, rather than 99%, considerably less housework, coming home to a clean & tidy house) but his would become much harder.

Either he shares the load with you, or he does it all for himself and his DC 50% of the week.

Just leave. Life's too short for this crap and for trying to figure out how to make him pull his weight. He just doesn't want to and you can put it on his desk/chair/floor or whatever, but why bother? Getting him to understand all that is just more work for you.

I'd bag it all up and put it in his office!

I'd be telling him, I don't care what Big Important Meetings you have scheduled for tonight, cancel them. Because you are putting the groceries away, cleaning your mess up, doing the dishwasher, cooking the tea, and minding the children while I go calm the fuck down, you egotistical, arrogant, lazy entitled fucking arsehole. Or words to that effect.
On my god I think I love you a bit can you come round here and say that for me please?

@Terriblyterriblybusy

I'd be telling him, I don't care what Big Important Meetings you have scheduled for tonight, cancel them. Because you are putting the groceries away, cleaning your mess up, doing the dishwasher, cooking the tea, and minding the children while I go calm the fuck down, you egotistical, arrogant, lazy entitled fucking arsehole. Or words to that effect. On my god I think I love you a bit can you come round here and say that for me please?

Hold my beer. . . .

As the person who is too busy for housework, I came on here to say that I genuinely don't have time to do housework so sympathise with your DH and told MY DH that the options were either that we get a cleaner or that I will be 100% miserable as I'd have to do housework all weekend when I just need a break....

.... and then I saw that what you really meant is that your DH is a plonker who thinks that he doesn't have to clean up after himself.

I don't clean bathrooms or do the vacuuming while I'm working. And when I'm crazy busy I probably don't unload the dishwasher or put a load of washing on. But if I've got time to make lunch, I've got time to quickly tidy up said lunch afterwards. (and most of the time, I'm not so busy that I can't unload the dishwasher while boiling the kettle or whatever - if I'm SOOO busy that I don't even have time for that, those are also the days I'm too busy to even make a cup of tea and where I land up skipping lunch/eating a bag of crisps because I don't have time).

Well that’s the biggest turn off ever isn’t it? I’d be storing up all his shit and dumping it into his side of the bed or his car. Cheeky twat.

He does do childcare work - he puts them to bed every other evening, and gets them dressed every morning. It could be a lot worse

You just have to leave them, OP. Stop doing it abs he will get the message that you won’t do it.

Just bear the pain for a while, it will sink in!

@Terriblyterriblybusy

He does do childcare work - he puts them to bed every other evening, and gets them dressed every morning. It could be a lot worse

Who cooks for them, feeds them, bathes them etc?

@SparksAndLarks

You buy a big ugly plastic laundry basket with plenty of holes to allow stink and crumbs to escape.

You scrape into it all the dirty dishes, food remnants, used tea bags, used coffee grounds, packaging, partially eaten packets and general mess he has left everywhere.

You then place his dirty clothes on top, of which I suspect he also goes through plenty and leaves them everywhere, before ceremoniously dumping it in front of him and telling him to sort it out or shove it up his arse.

Stand up for yourself and stop serving him like you are his maid.

You are enabling his poor treatment of you.
Stop it, because he sure as hell won't.

Yep, what she said.

@Terriblyterriblybusy

He does do childcare work - he puts them to bed every other evening, and gets them dressed every morning. It could be a lot worse

It couldn't be much worse. That's next to nothing and very much cherrypicking the nicer jobs.

Tell him that he'll be even more busy when he has the DC every other weekend and one night midweek after you've divorced him.

My XH was like this. Too busy and important to bother with menial stuff like wifework. Note that he is an XH. I immediately became so much less angry when he'd gone - sure, I had to do everything, but I'd been doing that anyway and now I didn't have a manchild to look after.

I would chuck it in his office. Probably in a black sack though.

It could be a lot worse

There are some people (married men usually) who are so skilled and adept at doing the absolute sheer minimum that they get praise for anything slightly resembling normal. Reminds me of the men who get rounds of applause and shiny medals for taking their children to the supermarket on their own on weekend mornings to 'let mum have a lie in'.

If he gets angry, then get angry back. It's not fair because you both work full time, but working from home does give that little bit of flexibility that means he could take 5 minutes to at least tidy up after himself. Of course it depends a little on the company and I wouldn't expect him to do a lot of housework but if he has time to go to the shop he has time to tidy up and unload the dishwasher.

He sees you as his maid, his servant, someone who is beneath him. Of course you should do all the housework even if you have been working all day. This is your life now. You either crack on and get on with it or you become the nagging wife.

I'd just leave to be honest. You can nag him and write him to do lists and "go on strike" or whatever all you want but he's never realistically going to change.

I know what he means though. I havent got time to wipe my arse, you should see the state of my pants!

He doesn’t want to not make mess or tidy up after himself in the day.
You don’t want clean up after long day at work when everyone needs feeding.
Why should he get all his own way?
Don’t fall for the “I will clean up in my own time” it’s ploy just make you crack first.
dances around my single persons and clean kitchen with heart felt gratitude

Also, just to add, I find it really disrespectful to make a mess and leave it for someone else to clear up. If you're WFH, then the family should not be negatively impacted any more than if you were working in the office. eg, office worker definitely is NOT doing the washing up or loading the dishwasher but office worker is also NOT adding to the mess that needs to be sorted on return. And to that point, today, I wasn't working at home and had to make kids lunches but was running late. I still found 2 minutes to tidy up the mess from making their lunches because I didn't want DH to come downstairs and have to tidy that up and make the start of his day even more irritating.