I am the main earner but feel like do do more at home compared to hubby

[bluebird2022]

Hello ladies,

This is my first post so excuse me not knowing all the abbreviations!

In a nutshell, I am 8 years older than hubby, we have been married for 5 years and have a child.

I have always earned more than him, partly as I’m older but mostly as I’m in a professional job and he is in management.

I’ve always been the one who does 99% of the cooking and house work. In fairness to him he has been doing 90% of the tidying up and cleaning recently.

I’m particularly annoyed today as he said he would cook and I stayed late at work to catch up. Instead he then messaged me to say he was not feeling well and can we get a pizza from near my work? I reluctantly agreed but have just messaged him to say I’m annoyed as he bought vegetable for the meal 3 days ago and they are aging in the fridge, on top of that I usually cook enough dinner so I can give our child lunch for her morning with the childminder (I don’t like the food at the childminders and neither does the little one). Now I’ve got nothing to give her and all I’ve had from hubby is that he is struggling!

He seems to do this a lot and is on medication so it’s not made up but I still get annoyed as I work 10 hours days having to stay late at the office. I also then come home and cook and he has the nerve to say that I get the baby to bed late, I told him he is welcome to cook and get her to bed at 7pm as I only get back from work at 7pm so by the time I’ve cooked and she has eaten it’s 8:30!

So am I being unreasonable to expect hubby to pull his weight and cook once a week and cook it when he says he will?

I really wish he earned more as I would love to be the one to stay at home and take the baby to classes/groups but instead I had to go back to work when she was 6 weeks old and he gets the fun and only works part-time but is the one who is always stressed.

I’m the one who pays all the bills, mortgage and food and I get we are married so it’s not my money but it is annoying that I’m the one with all the pressure yet he is the one struggling all the time!

ps he works and is also doing some training to change jobs and he uses the money he earns to pay back the debt (mostly his).

Thanks for reading my super long message. X

He is working FT, doing most of the housework and collecting your child from the childminder

just because you earn more I do not think he should be doing more!!

when he gets in from work he looks after the child so it’s only right that you get busy cooking

It does sound like a reverse. The hello ladies opening felt that way too.

I’m sorry OP but your post sounds harsh. Some slack needs to be cut here.

He works part time and he left his child unfed so that you could do it when you got home from work at 7pm???

he gets the fun and only works part-time but is the one who is always stressed.

The OP said he works part time?

OP also says he is doing training on top.

What does it matter how much you earn?! So what. I earn hourly more than my partner but because he is full time and I only do a maximum of 20 hours give a take a week he is a main earner. We still share the chores. Yeah there are things that I am better at like washing and he does thinks like mowing the grass religiously but we share everything else if it needs doing.

but seriously how would it be if a man said this to a woman?!

How can you both do 90 percent, and is he not looking after the baby when you work long hours? What is his illness?

From the OP:

"I’ve always been the one who does 99% of the cooking and house work. In fairness to him he has been doing 90% of the tidying up and cleaning recently"

So its just recently he has picked up more of the tidying, prior to which it was the OP.

OP: whichever of you is home first should start the dinner/bath/bed routine, at least with the child. Both parents should be able to do everything for their children when needed.

How you manage the adult meals may be different.

You also don't say what this training or illness is. Is the training done within his part time hours or in addition to them? What restrictions does the illness cause? Medication can mean routine blood pressure pills or a daily debilitating illness and it makes a difference.

So? Training is often designed to fit around full time work. Mine was. He’s only working part time. I worked full time, had a baby and completed my post grad. It was very doable.

But that aside, I just can’t quite understand why he didn’t take the initiative and feed his child, rather than waiting for his mummy-wife to come home…

I just can’t quite understand why he didn’t take the initiative and feed his child, rather than waiting for his mummy-wife to come home…

He did? He messaged to ask permission to order a pizza for them all as he wasn’t feeling well enough to cook.

Exactly.

This is the post I was looking for!

If a man was saying all of this mumsnet would be way less supportive.

Also you don't have to work long hours and be more stressed to "deserve" mental health issues. You talk like you would accept MH issues if he worked longer hours!

FYI it is long hours if he's looking after your child until you finish cooking. Also you need a discussion about routine and the reasons behind it. Why does he keep child up, maybe to see you and does he know you think he should feed child?

Also pizza is the biggest stress reliever!

Im struggling to differentiate between the 99% housework and 90% tidying and cleaning. How many hours do both of you spend on housework, cooking, admin, etc? And how much of his time is taken up by his training? Will said training result in career progression or is it 'just nice to have'?

If you regularly get home from work at 7 or later, why doesn't he routinely prepare dinner for your child? 7 or later is ridiculously late for a child young enough to go to a childminder. And what's wrong with CM's food? Is it not possible to supplement what the CM provides, eg extra vegetables, salad or fruit (assuming lack of fresh food is the issue).

Finally, when I was a working mum, we always had a couple of pizzas, ready meals and fish, peas and chips in the freezer for days when neither of us had time to cook dinner.

You have to ignore who earns most as you are a team, and look at it in hours worked (bearing in mind being a SAHP is a job) and hours of free time. You also suggest your partner has some disabilities and allowances should be made for that.

However - both parents need to do fun and crap bits of parenting, both need to do fun (are there any?) and crap house chores. Both need roughly equal amounts of down time.

It sounds as if your partner does do more than you acknowledge, but he is getting to do more of the fun, and a bit of open conversation and rebalance is needed.

Keep who earns what out of it, someone will always earn more. Also you always need some emergency pizza.

He asked OP to get pizza from near her work, where she’d been working late.

I think a lot of this depends on what his illness is.

I do 99% cooking and he does 90% of the house work (cleaning etc)

Child is 2.5 years old.

We are moving her to a nursery in September but the nursery we like can’t take her until September. The childminder gives her pasta most days, I don’t think that’s great, otherwise she loves it there.

Child is at nursery 8-1 then has a nap. We do usually have frozen batch food and the reason I got annoyed was I would have taken the batch food out in the morning/ lunchtime if he had told me. It’s the communication or lack of that annoyed me. In the past when I knew he was struggling I would say something like “take the chilli out of the freezer” which by the time I got home would have thawed and we could just heat on the hob or oven, I know you can put frozen stuff in the microwave but it takes longer, hence the pizza which should have been quicker but the takeaway shop was busy so took 40 minutes (I could have cooked in that time).

He gives her snacks before I get back and usually I cook the day before so can just heat and eat when I get in at 7pm.

Re the debts, some are from his crazy spending when he was younger, he is more restrained, he also bought random things in the past like expensive golf clubs he used a few times. They have a lower resale value on eBay so he doesn’t want to part with them. The joint debt was the loan for the house extension which we are paying and he is paying debt for his course which he took a loan for so this isn’t gambling debt or anything sinister.

I think they balance is not far off, but I agree as does he that if he better organised his time we would not fall out as he can get more done then he goes. And yes vegetables are good for a week but are best when eaten sooner. We try to from the farm shops where possible and they don’t last as long.

I resent that I don’t get any down time, as I’m exhausted by the time I cook and get the baby to bed.

Anyway thanks for the input