Are you responsible for having your husband's work clothes ready and get told off if he can't find stuff ??

[fussytodd]

I'm guessing a lot of people will say NO.

It's really grating on me.

Not a chance! I work from home a lot so I do the laundry but I also work 80 hours a week so he irons it all and does all the cleaning. I am not his mum or his maid, and despite my hectic schedule where I also do the school runs and all the clubs etc I would never expect him to get my clothes ready for me either as I am not 5.

Nope! and even if I did do it regularly he would never tell me off for not doing it.
In fact, in this house, DP does the majority of the washing and all of the ironing (which with 3 secondary schoolers and DP being office-based is a lot of white shirts each week!
DP has always done his own washing and ironing since he left uni and so has just continued and now does the whole family's stuff too, all we do is put dirty stuff in the either the dark, light or special pile for him to easily do different loads. The only thing he isn't good at is putting away clean stuff but the kids do their own and I dom his and mine.
It really isn't normal for him to get narky and tell you off though! Tell him to grow the hell up and look after himself!

I basically do all the laundry, but DH will do it as well. I just wfh so it's easy to stick a wash on between calls.

But no chance DH will ever have a go at me ir tell me off. He might say "Nidan, have you seen xxx?" If I have I tell him where it is, if I havent I tell him no & help him look.

Incidentally, DH has to get up really early in the morning for work so he gets his stuff ready the night before and therefore doesnt wake me up. Is there a reason why your DH can't do this?

falls on the floor laughing uncontrollably

‘Told off’

What??

No way! In fact I have stopped putting his clothes away now too (I work p/t so have time to sort laundry etc but now I leave his stuff in his side of the bed). I do occasionally iron his shirts though if I have time.

Waking someone from sleep at any time, but particularly 5 am, to verbally abuse them, is abusive in the extreme.

Apologizing and then doing it again - more abuse.

You don't have a husband here. You have a wannabe overlord. What he's doing is called coercive control. It will destroy you if you let him keep doing it.

Put an end to this nonsense. Stop doing all the adulting he should be doing for himself. Coming home to eat and sleep and chastise you - don't let him get away with that any more.

Depending on his reaction to you bringing all of this to a screeching halt, and how you feel about him, make plans to leave him.

Nope !!!

Literally the only thing I do is wash and iron his shirts and that's only because he works full time and I don't do paid work. I loath ironing shirts and moan about it every week. My husband would iron his own shirts because he knows how much I hate it, but that doesn't seem fair when he works so hard anyway. He isn't an arse and more than justifies his existence.

Apart from that, suits dry cleaned etc and all work related stuff is totally down to him and he wouldn't dream of making any of it my responsibility.

No. I wash his clothes, he does everything else.

@Cheeseplantboots

I do because I don’t work. I’ve got to sort out school uniform in Sundayvso it would be childish not to do his stuff too. If I worked then no I wouldn’t see it as my job. Equally in the summer I spend a lot of weekends on my own and usually don’t come back until Tuesday so obviously he does it then. It’s about give and take.

TBH, when I see posts like this, it makes me glad and angry in equal measure

Glad that I work and have an equal relationship with a DH who doesn't expect me to look out clothes for him

Angry that other women are expected to perform basic tasks for their DH

In public, I'd probably support your right to live as you choose. Privately, it makes me feel so disappointed about gender equality

@fussytodd

It's very frustrating. I'm just at home more, because I work from home and he has a very hectic schedule outside of the home, so he comes home and just crashes.

That really isn't your problem he needs to organise himself

If someone woke me up at 5am to complain about their clothing being clean and put away I would want to rip their head off. I would make the biggest fuss of all time. It is completely and utterly unacceptable. Absolute BS.

I do all my husbands laundry/ironing, have done for years. Not the best set of tasks, I also do all of the housework - boring an monotonous.

I am a stay at home mum and drop and collect the kids from school most days, he stands in when needed.

I sort out the bills and most of the domestics.

Here's the balance.

He works hard in a stressful role - he's built a good career and we have he has built up a really healthy financial situation for the past 20 years.
I have no budget, just one account that everything goes to and i have full joint control. He never questions what i spend, i never have to ask, its not expected. He spends next to no money as i take care of everything but spends his time with the kids every night educating them. If he's not educating them he's taking them to sports or outside activities.

I work in the house while he works in the garden at the weekends. He's a dab hand with electrics/building/plumbing etc and has built an extension to the house pretty much himself. a more generous loyal man you could not meet and a wonderful dad.

I know it seems very old fashioned but i have to say it works. I do what i want when i want and really enjoy seeing our kids getting the benefit of both our hard work.
The laundry = well every role has bits you don't like. I wouldn't dream of asking him to press a shirt.

I don't think the problem is laundry, i think the problem is a lack of traditional men who are prepared to do the full traditional dad role.

Would you do the laundry given all the benefits to your family of having such a husband?

What the heck?! No, because I'm not his mum 😂 I don't even work and there's no way I'd be getting his clothes ready for him, for my youngest primary age children I make sure they have clean uniforms ready, but for a grown man, erm, no 😂

Have you pointed out to him that the manchild look is not an attractive one

I don't think the problem is laundry, i think the problem is a lack of traditional men who are prepared to do the full traditional dad role. again, what the heck!?! "full traditional dad role" what on earth is this sexist timewarp I've fallen into where grown men can't sort out their own laundry?!

No. I'm a SAHM but I'm not his mum. He managed to choose and sort his own clothes before I came along, no need for regression.

Nope.

DP does all his own laundry (and some of mine) because a) I'm terrible at folding and he hates my drawer stuffing and b) he is a grown ass 36 year old man who is perfectly capable of dressing himself. He'd never expect me to do that for him as he isn't a child!

Some people's attitudes are crazy though. XP came home from work 15 years or so ago totally bemused because people on his office were shocked that he did his own ironing. For all his faults (and there are a lot) one thing he wasn't was a misogynist. He explained that he had lived aline for a good 5 years before I moved in and was perfectly capable of doing his own ironing and that if he expected me to take over I'd have something to say about it. This apparently was met with further bafflement.

This was only 2008/9. Not 1959. And the main questioner was a 24 year old woman!!

Ugh.

You clearly have a good set up that works for you @Zugs - which is great.

But it doesn’t really respond to the OP’s situation, or the question in her thread title.

I’m sure your husband doesn’t tell you off if something is amiss, because you have the infinitesimally rare case of a man who actually respects his SAHW.

Most men with SAHWs seem to gradually lose respect for them, and the fall out of that is that not only do they treat them like skivvies, they think it’s OK - and conducive to the relationship - to treat them like skivvies and then wonder why the sex has completely and utterly dried up.

Good for you that you’ve achieved what few SAHMs manage. It’s not easily replicated, though.

I don't see what is childish about doing or not doing laundry.

This is about division of labour.

I don't like gardening (hay fever, bugs etc) - i'd much rather he spent his time doing gardening/decorating/maintenance jobs on the Victorian house.

It would be childish if i washed and launder the families clothes but put his to one side for him to do.

Unfortunately I have to say yes, I married when I was just 21 and were living together in our first bought home from the age of 18 and my husband was 31 years.
Can I give you some advice DON’T do it. Your his wife NOT his mother. Carrying your husband around will just totally wear you out. He needs to grow up and take responsibility for a simple thing like his work clothes. How will he manage in a crisis and your not around? Doing these simple things is important for him to be independent.
My husbands believe was I should carry him around while working full time plus raising a family and paying all the bills and running a house. But one day I had a serious accident and I needed him to look after our family he let me down. He said 5 hrs after complex spinal surgery if I didn’t come home that day (this was at 5 am ) that he’d put our 6 week new born into care by ringing social services. I obviously freaked out and going against advice I signed myself out of neurosurgery and was so embarrassed told nobody the real reason I had to leave, I wanted everyone to believe I had a perfect partner and kept everything hidden the control and a few years later the physical abuse.. When I got home I was expected to carry on as normal and made myself so much worse.
The reason why I say you stand firm and say No to doing this task is because you’ll end up carrying him around for the rest of your life and he’ll always be totally dependent on you. Trust me you don’t want that. You want a man to be strong independent and caring and by him sorting his own clothes it’s a step in the right direction. Have you ever asked him to sort your workwear out? I’m guessing no? so why should you sort his out?.
Be very careful because it could be a sign of control. I know in my case it was, after he did that to me I knew I could never depend on him and I had to get away. If I’d had made him grow up and take responsibility for our home and me in the early days I honestly believe he’d had handled our crisis so much better. When I did leave him he was 48 and I left and he moved his mother in who was 75 to look after him and run the house while we were in a hostel for domestic abuse.
Any relationship should be equal right from day one. Long gone are the days were the wife’s place is purely in the house. In them days all we had to focus on was raising our families and looking after our husbands and our homes. Thing’s have changed for women we are expected to be the perfect housewife, mother, maid, lover and work full time too yet while making fancy dress and school projects into the early hours in the morning. Yet these men who can’t look after themselves only have one thing to focus on and that’s work.
No wonder we get burnt out and exhausted and feel worthless and become depressed.
Don’t end up like me please stand your ground.
Couples need to be equal now a days more then ever.
After my accident I found out that my husband was trying to replace me because I couldn’t do what I once could, because of my disabilities. That is when everything fell apart for me, when you love someone you love them no matter what and don’t try to replace them because your not useful anymore he also became very violent.
Please if he is ever controlling or abusive don’t hide it , don’t feel embarrassed it’s not your fault leave. Your worth so much more.
If he refuses tell me to move back home and let his mummy take care of him, because your his wife.
Sorry for long reply but your question was one of the first red flags in my marriage. I hope I am wrong but normally when a man’s been used to been carried around by his mummy it can lead to issues. Your now his new mummy and not his wife and he expects you to take care of his every whim. Time to make him independent.
Good luck and stand firm

@PanicStationsAhh

Have you pointed out to him that the manchild look is not an attractive one

That man child you refer - son of a coal miner - paid off the mortgage in our early forties and ensures we want for nothing. I don't expect him to be doing domestic chores that i can do. He spent most of the summer with my sons rebuilding the outbuilding roofs that we were quoted 60k for - he did it for less than 5k. How's your man child - ironing?

You're not his indentured servant.

I would have told him to fuck off for himself, long before now.

Not unless he is also responsible for your work clothes.