Fed up of my exhausting stressful life

[winemedown]

Apologies, I know I am lucky in many, many ways but I just need to rage!
Surely there's got to be easier ways to live than this!
I'm a FT working mostly out of the house mum of a 7 and 5 year old. I work in the healthcare sector in a stressful clinical role. My DP is mostly an arse. We are trying to move house from a 3 bed to another 3 bed in the same area (don't ask). My DP has no idea or plan of how this is going to work (financially, logically etc) he just keeps throwing about melodramatic sayings like 'I will never be happy here, but if you want to stay then it's up to you '
FWIW I want to move but I am resisting doing everything as I did last time. I am NOT making all of the arrangements. I am not staying up until 2am putting things in boxes, I am not looking into and renting a garage and spending all my Sundays ferrying stuff there (he doesn't drive). I am trying to put the ball in his court but there is always an excuse 'anxiety, bad signal, short lunch break etc'.
My life is wake up, get kids ready, school drop off, work, home, cook, wash up, homework, bed. Oh except two days a week when I get to do school pick up and then shout 'kids please I'm trying to work' for two hours before the same routine as the other three days starts.
My weekends are a merry go round of kids birthday parties, family visits, taking DC's for activities and the minimal amount of housework needed to keep us from getting vermin. There is no child free time. DP doesn't take both children out due to not driving and the usual 'anxiety' so most weekends I take the kids out to come home to the house basically looking the same except he's wiped the surfaces.
If I left him to pack the house up he would do the bare minimum, so throw everything in boxes but not sort, give away, chuck. Or he would just chuck everything and we'd have to buy it again.
We're skint too so no money to throw at anything. No money for a cleaner or someone to move us. No money for extra childcare- nothing.
The whole thing just makes me want to hide. How do people manage it?

It's such a stressful time, working, with children, and moving with little time and energy or outside help.
This won't help now, but I resolved to minimise possessions and do anything else I could once I had moved, to make any future move easier.
It's a long slog, but keep chipping away, keep the pressure on dh to maximise the amount he contributes, and you will get there.
Good luck.

@FindingMeno doesn't help me now that my house is crammed full of tat

He needs to take ownership of his issues, but unfortunately it sounds like you have supported him so much in the past that he has come to expect this of you from now on. No judgement, lots of people get into this pattern.

First line of attack: try to contain your anger and just ask him to do specific tasks, like "while I'm putting the kids to bed please can you box up those books?". Some men people really have no ability to take the initiative it seems (not always their fault, if they've had mums doing everything for them too, why would they bother?) and maybe he needs a clear task/ list to work from. Worth a try. If it works, give praise/ copious thanks to make it more likely he'll do it again in future.

If he doesn't respond to that you will have to be firmer with him about your expectations, and keep it up. He will likely put up resistance. Don't back down, stay strong, because he has to take time to adjust to you wanting something different from him than the cushty life he's had until now. Part of this might involve him seeking support for his anxiety through your local IAPT service (search online).

And moderate your expectations, it might be that you still have to do 75% but not 100% of the packing for example. If you see it as training him for the future any change might pay dividends.

Also we split childcare this way: I get up early in the morning with LO and let DH sleep in. He takes her after work, whilst I'm commuting back, and often sorts dinner. We all eat dinner together, then I do her bath, he does bedtime. I can't say how lovely it was to hear you're in the same boat with housework, we have rooms we don't allow guests in for this reason!

Good luck! Courage!

Pull all your financials and go see a solicitor and plan a divorce. Not moving will safe some money, but mainly loosing the mental load will be huge. He’s only going to get worse.

@Fulbe he will do things if I ask but it's having to ask all the time that annoys me. Plus it's not even as if he takes ownership of other things (money, decorating, child raising, gardening) I have to delegate everything. It doesn't feel like a partnership.

Bloody hell, just reading about him has really annoyed me.

You should be judging what's fair by how much downtown you each get. He faffs on his phone for 45min every night? Where's your me time equivalent?

Or would he claim he's doing household admin like sorting insurance, paying bills, etc... In which case you should see the productivity output from it. But he isn't.

Life is much LESS stressful without a partner weighing you down OP. You'll wonder why on earth you accepted this as normal for so long once you've got out.

Oh I've just seen your update about having to do all the mental work, as if he's incapable - he isn't, you've just been trained to step in because he'd let something important drop I'm guessing, like taking a kid to the dentist and stuff you feel you need to intervene on (because not to would punish the whole household). Yet he's happy for you to lug the weight of it all.

Fuck that. Would you want this setup for your son, your daughter with their partner?!

Sounds very similar to my situation 3 years ago, I've now been divorced from the useless piece of shit for 12 months.

He said he couldnt live any longer in the house we were in, it was making him depressed etc.( It was a 3 bed new build less then 4 years old).
Kids were 6 and 6 months old I said no way was I spending the last few months of maternity leave dealing with a house move, he'd have to do it. (I ended up doing it as he had to work to pay for the massive house he picked for us to move to that needed loads of work and doubled our mortgage)

Long story short, 3 months after moving in, he moved out and hasn't lived here since

Do you love him? Does he make you happy in any way?

These things are notably absent from your OP

Who is the main earner? Have you checked what you'd be entitled to without his income.

If you need to move, now is the time to decide if it's together.

My OH wasn't massively proactive with mental load but really isn't lazy and does a lot of the physical stuff.

Things that have improved our (my) life are adding him to my Amazon prime (with his own payment). He is now much more likely to order the kids new shoes, a sun hat, the things that mean I don't have a crying child that can't do PE!

And as he worked out of house during lockdown (and we were banned in Scotland from crossing the county boundary that would have meant a 50 mile round trip for me but he was already over the border in our nearest town) he took over the food shopping. He's kept it since and is now the one with a better idea what's in the cupboards.

If you are not going to leave him, assign him specific tasks

Anyone else hearing the alesha Dixon song here 😂

Divorce him and life your own life on your terms.

"I will never be happy here" when coupled with all else you've said should be met with a breezy "well off you fuck then!" with a shooing hand motion. Imho.

Trust me it will be a million times better if you dump him.

I had the exact same dilemma as you with my ex -- I thought having everything on my shoulders would be unbearable.

Turns out its far, far easier. I still have the same amount of juggling and stress but without the moaning, melodrama, self-importance, self-destructiveness etc. Oh, and you'll still be doing everything but you'll be doing it for yourself and your kids, not feeling endlessly resentful about doing it for a grown man who won't do his share.

I think a lot of men mentioned on here use anxiety as a way to get out of housework and childcare, and apparently, even driving. Your post makes me angry. Women never get to do nothing because of anxiety.

You'll have less to do without him there. You'll probs move to a smaller home = less housework. Less washing less food to buy less mess to clear up etc.

He will probs have the kids for a night or 2 per week- some time for YOU.

Plus you won't have the mental strain of dealing with his moods, emotions and demands.

You can run your home how you like and live in peace. Far preferable.

Don’t procreate with a moron and / or don’t procreate at all

Start decluttering. Begin with him 😏

@winemedown
for context - both work FT here; 2 kids ages 6 and 2.
DH hoovers round before dinner, while I cook he plays with the kids and reads with the oldest (he hates cooking)
after dinner I get my time with them, usually 20 mins of downtime before bath and bed starts. While I do these he tidies away all of the toys and sorts the kitchen. Gets everyone’s water bottles ready for the next day and the book bag/nursery bag.

I do bathtime and then we take one each for bedtime story.
we sit down together at 9:30 for an hour then we go to bed ourselves. Both up at 6:30, rinse and repeat.
he takes them for haircuts, to the park, does schoolpickup if he’s home early instead of the childminder.