Christmas Labour Division

[CaputApriDefero]

Every year I ask for help. Every year I say what needs to be done. Yet, every year-

I end up planning, buying, preparing and cleaning up from Christmas dinner

I buy 95% of the children's gifts, wrap and label them.

I buy everyone else's gifts, including his parents and I write all the cards.

I decorate the tree with the kids.

I make sure everyone has Christmas Eve boxes and stockings and advent calendars and Christmas jumpers that fit

He buys my presents.

I've told him this morning that I'm fed up with the poor labour division and that I've had enough of being the one with all the weight on their shoulders. I'm the stay at home parent because one of our kids has care needs that are pretty high and she spends a lot of time out of school. He's gone off in a sulk because apparently I said it meanly and he's worked hard to fit a kitchen tap over the past two days and I'm just dismissing it. Never mind that the tap has been waiting to be fitted since October. He said I get excited about Christmas and he has to think about all the other stuff. Ok, let's look at that other stuff.
Going to work? Yes. He has to think about that. On a 4-4 shift rotation.

Cooking dinner? No. He does not.

Caring for our oldest child's high needs? No, he doesn't need to think about that on a daily basis, I do.

Housework? No. He doesn't do that unless I lose my absolute shit over things and then I'm the unreasonable one.

Laundry? Lol.

Shopping? He does do this from time to time, but buys bags and bags of unnecessary stuff because it looked good.

All the school admin and meetings (there's a lot of it when you have kids with additional needs in settings that aren't supporting them 😡) ? No. He does not.

All the medical stuff for DD? No. He does not.

DIY? Yes. He does this and we have been renovating the house, but it takes him months to get round to/finish anything at all and HE DOESN'T EVEN PUT HIS FUCKING TOOLS AWAY!!!

But no, sure. HE'S the one overworked and under-appreciated. He works a ten hour shift and comes home and considers himself clocked off of all responsibility, including during his 4 off. Seriously, the outrage on his face sometimes when I ask him to do things, which he will then tackle with all the enthusiasm and dramatics of a teenager. Yet my day starts at 6:30am, ends at around midnight if I'm lucky and I'm drowning in housework, building mess, fucking TOOLS and all the Christmas labour!!

Was IBU to bring up the unfairness of Christmas, given that we both know very well who does every fucking thing around here? Or was it, as he seems to have taken it, a really unfair and bitchy thing to have said to him?

@Theremoresefulday

So then stop some of the rest of it.

Stop the Christmas Eve boxes. The kids are surely old enough to understand that they don’t get a gift when it’s someone else’s birthday. If not, this is the time to start teaching them.

From other posts it’s the OP’s birthday on Xmas Eve. High time your husband started putting you first, OP.

I stopped buying anything for anyone I wasn’t blood related or married to about 10 years ago - ie if DH doesn’t do it his family don’t get anything and it’s 100% on him. Gift shopping doesn’t require a vagina so no reason he can’t do it. Ditto getting advent calendars, booking time off work and sourcing various Xmas school things (costumes/jumpers etc). He washes his/DD’s clothes, cooks his/DD’s own food etc. During lockdown he did more homeschooling than I did (I was working out of the home).

You are doing far too much OP and have to let go of some things for your own sanity. If your DP doesn’t pick them up, and they don’t happen so be it. Sounds like your kids are old enough to understand that. As for the relatives that would be alone, you mention siblings and a mum elsewhere - let them have them.

The older I get, the less Christmas I do. I used to do it all, all the stuff for the kids (now adults), the meal planning, the cards, the decorations. I now take the view that if anyone wants Christmas to happen they can sort it out. I have bought three presents and sent five cards. If nobody else sorts the tree, the wreath, the food, it won't happen. And do you know what? The world will still be turning on Boxing Day. Please remember: Christmas is not compulsory and should never fall to one (usually female) person to organise.

The lack of support and practical advice here is mental. Don’t attack OP when she’s asking for ideas of how to get her (useless) DH to pull his finger out. He’s ND and a man child.

@CaputApriDefero you are not alone. I’m now at the point where I do for the kids. That’s it. If DP can’t be arsed to get gifts for his side then tough. I’m a the baddie, a terrible P and DIL but fuck it, I’m not doing it all any,ore.

Good luck!

There’s plenty of practical advice! Summarised as:

• stop doing stuff for him
• stop doing more stuff than you have time for yourself

It’s all very well saying that Xmas Eve boxes don’t shop for themselves, but they’re also not that hard or time consuming to put together. Unless you want them to be. How hard isn’t it to add a fancy hot chocolate spoon - or whatever floats your boat - to an Amazon order?

Which is also something he could be doing. And no doubt does manage to buy things despite his executive dysfunction when he wants them!

I still can’t work out how the family member (which appears to be OP) having a birthday on Xmas Eve means that all the kids need a Xmas box though!

I bet any fucking money if the stakes were like "if it's not done, your car will be crushed" instead of "your wife will be the one left struggling with everything" his minor task would be accomplished, polished and submitted ahead of the deadline

From your other posts, you sound very angry, resentful and upset, and justifiably so.

Overall, I'm getting the impression that you have a lot of people in your family who have a hard time with managing their emotions (by which I mean getting upset if they feel 'left out' without being able to take into account the amount of work you have to do to accommodate them) and their executive function, so you're expected to carry the load on their behalf. I also sense you may have issues with perfectionism and feeling like a failure if you can't keep everyone else perfectly happy all the time, even if you have to run yourself into the ground in order to do so.

What I think you need to accept is that you are genuinely doing too much for one person and you are at a point where you need to put your own oxygen mask on. Other people may have feelings about that, but they will have to deal with their feelings because you are too busy saving your own life to worry about whether they feel a bit lonely while you are doing so.

You said above that if the stakes were higher for your husband, you bet he'd get his ass into shape. What if the stakes were divorce? I'm guessing the thought of this puts you into a panic because you have kids with special needs to manage and no income so this seems like an impossible option. It is an option though, and you will get closer and closer to it as your kids get older and more capable of managing themselves. Your husband does need to understand the path you're heading down, and the implications for him if he cannot find it within himself to support his wife a little more.

He'd be the first to complain and mourn the lack of anything I discarded from that list.

Maybe this is a place to start, in advance. Choose a small number of things that if you didn't have to do them, you would feel just a bit calmer and more okay, and you, personally, could live without them. Sit your husband down and tell him you're overwhelmed and cannot do everything. These are the things you can live without this Christmas. If he can't live without them, he should find time to take care of them. All complaints about their absence on Christmas day, including his own, will be referred back to him.

The imbalance in your household isn't going to be remedied overnight, it's obviously built up into a big deal, and it needs to be tackled bit by bit. Start with easing the pressure just a little. You might even find that the outcome isn't as bad as you're imagining. Your husband might complain that something isn't done (or he might not), but if he does you will recognise that his complaint isn't a crisis, and just shrug cheerfully and say, "Well, honey, I did give you fair warning I wasn't going to do it. If you didn't have time, I guess nobody had time." Allow him to have his little sulk without investing any time castigating yourself about being inadequate.

Hi Op

Its shit that he doesnt do more. 3specially with his shifts. If he does a bit of DIY, what's he doing with his 3.5 out of 4 days off every 4 days.

How does he think that's fair that he has x hours of leisure time against your zero? Is there anything you can do to cut down on the stuff you do that benefits just him, such as washing his clothes, since he has plenty of time to do it himself? Caring is a 24/7 job and it's not fair that you work all the time and he does half the time.

As for all the Christmas stuff. I dont think people are being mean or trying to wind you up. Just with a child that needs care, and two other ND children, people can see you're going above and beyond the minimum and spending energy and making yourself miserable, on things that just dont really matter. Because you matter. I know people have traditions but these can change as children grow.

Things like Christmas eve boxes, really when your kids are older you can probably just get away with a film, hot choc and popcorn and bin off the boxes. Labelling presents just wrap in different paper per child, dont wrap stocking presents, or write directly on them. You sound like a perfectionist and I know it's hard not to do things to the standards you are capable of, but sometimes bare minimum is good enough and the extra effort and its effect on you just isnf worth it

Also can you ask other people to help? Being a side dish to xmas, peel some potatoes, prep some veg?

I am making loads of stuff in advance this year and freezing it as I go, it wont be as quite as nice as fresh but it will mean I enjoy the day so much more

Two separate issues

1. the general split of responsibility and the mental load of caring for a disabled child. You need to sit down and discuss how to do things going forward.

2. Christmas. You have a choice. Do everything you normally do and be cross or cut everything back. Everything you have mentioned is completely optional and doesn't have to be done. Unless you have ten children then you don't need 12 for lunch. Just say it's too much and you can't do it this year. Or get someone else to cook, or everyone bring a dish.

But you have to recognise that absolutely everything about Christmas is optional

@MrsWobbleTheWaitressIsTired
@CheekyHobson
@DrinkFeckArseBrick
@Dishwashersaurous

Thanks very much for trying to understand where I'm coming from! I'm at the end of a particularly challenging run of days with DD, she has a cold and it seems to have pushed all her other symptoms into overdrive. It's hard to even leave the room when she's like this. I can be sitting down to quickly swallow some cold coffee and hear a wail of distress or a crash or a rhythmic thumping and sharp whining sound and her thrashing limbs have gone mad or she's dropped to the floor or been repeatedly punched in the face by her own violently tremoring arm and locked fist. I honestly do not get much time at all. Even writing this, she's on the sofa next to me breathing like she's just run a 500 metre sprint because her limbs have been nonstop for two hours.

It's more than just simple chores when you've got to have eyes in the back of your head, the hearing of a bat, and the reflexes of a ninja!

And @Cocomarine, thanks for also being helpful and thoughtful- but I will answer your question about the Christmas Eve boxes. It started about a decade ago when the older two children were small and very hyped up about Santa. They just didn't understand why mummy was getting presents when they'd been so good, and they were genuinely heartbroken thinking Santa had forgotten them. Even telling them it was mummy's birthday didn't seem to be sinking in- they were only three and four. They thought Santa had brought me early presents (not helped by everyone's wrapping mine in Xmas paper) and not them. Their little faces were just full of confusion and sadness. I quickly put some of their more minor gifts and the pyjamas I had been planning to put them in that night into a shoebox and left it under the tree for them and said Santa had left it for them. They were overjoyed and I thought crisis averted and children happy. Won't do to have sad little ones on Christmas Eve! Except they remembered it the next year and by that point, the youngest was showing a lot of his ND traits and I could not get him to accept or understand it had been a one time thing. The following year, everyone was doing Xmas Eve boxes and there was an expectation for them in their primary school classes and a real time excitement built up around them. They even did a Xmas Eve box themed assembly. 🤦🏼‍♀️
So it became impossible to drop the practice without causing heartbreak. And by the time they were old enough and emotionally mature enough for me to call it a day, their youngest sibling was at the age where he was very much excited by Xmas Eve boxes and confused by mummy's birthday. He is also ND and 6 and I would struggle to get him to understand why he suddenly wasn't getting one! I don't go mad on them but they have very particular preferences/needs and I can't just go and grab any old generic thing.

1. You need to just somehow get through Christmas. Doing what you can, not what you think you have to do.

1. In the New year you need to sit down and calmly discuss that you can't continue with the current set up and you are broken. Therefore something has to change. Paying for more professional support. Not doing stuff. Him taking on more. You need to come up with solutions together. But you can't rationality have that conversation now.