AIBU about DH, lazy in the mornings?

[Calmoutside]

DH wfh, when our DS wakes I go to him and just chill with CBeebies for a while until I shower and dress and get ready, then get DS washed and ready. We leave the house at just gone 7.

DH is generally in bed until about 645, he will sit with DS while I dry my hair if it’s a hair wash day.

He then gets nearly two hours to chill as work doesn’t start till 9.

Its clearly really unfair but not sure how to improve it without being petty and ‘well I’m up so you have to be up to’ territory.

Literally no one has said that you are wrong though!
You posted that you were annoyed your DH was being lazy, you ran around stressed in the mornings getting yourself and DS ready for the day and out the door at 7.
Everyone then pretty much said he should help, and probably drive DS to nursery.
Then you offered up that nursery was near your work and you didn’t want to waste the petrol for 2 journeys. Fine, you could have included that in the OP but fine.
Then posters asked about the rest of the week, does it balance out considering evenings, weekends or the other 2 weekday mornings or is your DH just lazy all the time?

For some reason you have refused to answer that and have now decided everyone has been mean to you and you’re always wrong.

If you just wanted to rant fine, otherwise if you don’t want to do everything all the time and you feel like you are there have been some helpful suggestions throughout the thread if you want to take it on board.

I don’t think (to my memory) I said I was annoyed at it. I was asking how we could perhaps make it a little more fair.

The votes do show I’m being unreasonable.

I think NoSquirrels hit the nail on the head. But also if you don’t think anything needs to change necessarily then it’s just a case of trying to get your DH to help out when he can. In my situation at home my partner has a lie in every morning and it is incredibly frustrating, but I know that before long my youngest will be older and situations will change, so for me it’s just a grit your teeth and bear it sort of thing at the moment. He takes on a lot of family responsibilities in the afternoon, especially regarding my eldest, so it balances itself out. Life with a small child generally seems to be stressful unfortunately, but after the early years things do become easier (well, they did for me with my first) so hang on in there.

You could just…answer the questions about the breakdown of responsibilities during the rest of the day? They aren’t hard questions.

Why would you spend half a dozen posts talking about being called obtuse and wallowing in how awful you instead of just doing that? What’s the thought process?

@Tsort the thread has moved on. And to be honest I sense that even though I have answered the questions people will keep saying I haven’t.

She needs to pull herself together, so I do think it’s helpful.

If you have other methods of helping OP, go for it. Best of luck to you.

Deluded.

Posts calling her obtuse and responding to each other’s quips laughing about irony and how ‘she still hasn’t answered the question’.

If you don’t see it, you’re part of it.

OP, honestly, nothing you're saying here is accurate, the thread hasn't shown those things at all, you're being judged very harshly for no reason. The problem is not with you, look at it objectively. Life needs to be fair when it can be. Talk to your husband, explain he gets those two hours and could it be evened out so he helps you until you leave, does housework when you go, does the evening routine or gives you more free time at the weekends, there's loads of options... Just talk to him, communicate, ask him to see through your eyes and what would he do, suggest.. Please don't reframe this whole thread as you have, it's very worrying you so easily changed your whole perception to fit a few posters' claims..

Well I’d be expecting my husband to use the 2 hours productively. He could do a supermarket shop in that time, get through two loads of laundry, prep dinner etc. It’s only fair.

I mean you literally haven’t but whatever!

I generally get in around 4, try to keep DS entertained until 6 when DH finishes work. Then he has bath at 630, bed at 7.

Is this where you think you’ve answered? Because this doesn’t tell us anything about what your DH does during the rest of the day/ week. Like it doesn’t answer in the slightest!! Very strange that you think it does .

It really hasn’t moved on. And, no, you have not answered the questions. Read your posts.

You really should either answer them and get some useful advice, or hide the thread and go about your day. Hanging about moaning about how awful you are, whilst being seemingly incapable of engaging with anything that’s been said to you, will achieve exactly nothing except general irritation.

But if you feel it is unfair, that must be annoying, right? Annoying enough to start a thread where you call your DH lazy?

People are finding this weird, that you say you have a problem but don’t want a solution, or that you do want solutions to make it a bit more fair, but actually you haven’t commented on those solutions (because they all involve either info about a more general parenting split, or splitting the other mornings.)

You shouldn’t feel that “everything you say is wrong” - that’s not it. It’s more that people are confused by the nature of whether it is a problem that requires a solution at all - and if it is, why you don’t want to chat about the other stuff that might lead to a solution.

It’s all a bit circular, anyway. Tricky.

Oak @Tsort

HI OP, I'm the 'late start' partner in our house. DH and DS both leave home for school/work at 7.30ish. I WFH and start at 9. However we all get up together. I use the time after they've left and before I start to do house work. That's what you should be able to expect from your DH.

OK - final post. I really am sorry that this has gone the way it has.

I am asking specifically about the morning. I get some of you want to know about the evening but that’s not what I’m asking about.

If I say ‘well DH has him from 6 till 7 every night’ that still doesn’t answer my question, which is about the morning. I realise some people feel it’s relevant, but it honestly is not. It’s particularly irrelevant as the consensus is I am BU anyway, so things wil stay as they are.

I am feeling ganged up on, got at, sneered at, laughed at, orders barked at - I feel like I’m on trial tbh. Maybe that’s not peoples intention but it is.

I’m trying to understand why it went that way. Because I didn’t answer a question? Anyway no matter.

Would it be crazy to move your dc to a nursery closer to your home, so your dh could drop him round?

(Sorry if this is already been suggested, this thread has been so bogged down I couldn't be arsed to read every post)

I think maybe your DP can get up and help get your DS ready - after all your getting ready too so must be stressful. Even if it just dressing him whilst your showering and giving him breakfast. He can then go back to bed with the extra time he has. I do not that that is unreasonable to ask from him, especially as you mentioned by the time he gets home he doesn't have much time with him before he goes to sleep.

I feel like you already answered that your DH does have him 6-7 every night, because when describing your day, you said you entertain DS ‘until 6 when DH finishes’. This indicates to me that after 6, you are no longer doing the entertaining.
Personally, I’d be annoyed if my partner made me get up and do things just because he was up, when I did my fair share in the evening.
I’d hate the idea that everything has to be split, particularly when it wouldn’t be logical for me.

Theres no right or wrong, there’s obviously a difference of opinion on this thread, but I’d be annoyed if I was made to get up early and do things I could do later in the day just because my partner had to get up

I suppose then you’d have the possibility of another thread.
‘AIBU that when I get home my DP leaves me to do the bath and bedtime routine alone’ without mentioning that he’d been up and got the DC washed dressed and breakfasted in the morning.
This is why the whole day view is important.

Your routine makes perfect sense to me so not sure why you’re getting a hard time. Your DH either needs to get up with you every other day so you can have a leisurely breakfast/shower etc and hopefully he’s already doing his share with the weekend wake ups? If not, he does both weekend mornings. It isn’t petty at all, you both deserve time to take things slower.

My last post too.

If I say ‘well DH has him from 6 till 7 every night’ that still doesn’t answer my question, which is about the morning. I realise some people feel it’s relevant, but it honestly is not.

OK, your question about the morning was (I think?): Is this fair, because it feels unfair to me?

People responded to get more information about the whole day/week & whether that’s fair overall, and your nursery-commute etc. They felt they couldn’t answer ‘Is this fair?’ without that information.

You gave some information that changed the answers you were getting - you explained the nursery & commute so you stopped getting the ‘just get DH to drop him to nursery’ answers. The new information was helpful.

You didn’t give any extra information about the rest of your day/week and the parenting split, as you personally felt it was irrelevant to the question. However, posters wanted to answer ‘Is it fair?’ with either a reframing of your feelings answer (Yes, it might feel unfair but if you are content DH is pulling his weight elsewhere perhaps you can reframe your feelings?) or with a practical solutions answer that might not directly solve a 6am wake-up and DH snoring situation but might make things more fair thus allowing you to reframe your feelings…

Then you decided no one could help anyway and perhaps it was you in the wrong all along.

I’m trying to understand why it went that way. Because I didn’t answer a question? Anyway no matter.

Did that help? If not, no matter! It’s only MN, OP.

Do you feel your DH understands that he's very fortunate in having 2 free hours of quiet time at home in the morning before he even starts work? And would therefore be willing to switch things around in the future?

I wonder if it's less about rebalancing in the short term (changing half your mornings NOW) and more about the long term (doing something different next year, or when the school run starts, or whatever).

Obviously the danger is that it's easy to forget and to take someone else's effort for granted, so I think the most important thing is that the two of you need to communicate about this very openly and communicate LOTS. Maybe you can agree that the current schedule makes sense given traffic, fuel, etc., but get home the point that he's getting a nice quiet time bonus that you aren't getting, and how would the two of you swap that round in the future?

What would happen if you started WFH too? Is the key issue really that you have to take time to commute to work while he doesn't?

I also agree with the suggestions of him spending at least part of that 2H doing something useful around the house. He should be able to get lots done in terms of meal prep and tidying up--does he do this already, or does he just go back to sleep?

AIBU is a weird environment these days so try to ignore the aggression.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me the poor OP is intimidated being questioned about what she wants by both her husband and Mumsnet. She is unsure of what she wants, or rather more accurately, is allowed to want, and is fearful of voicing such needs.

(AIBU can be quite harsh, OP, you might do better and receive gentler support requesting that your thread be moved to Relationships or Chat)

He needs to take half the mornings staying up with and preparing HIS child that he is held responsible for legally and morally, since he does nothing for his child weekday evenings.

What does he do for his child or the household in general on the weekends?

Don’t be afraid to answer, we are trying to help you. Just ignore the posters you feel are being too harsh. Many of them do/have done doormat things they would never admit to at some point in their lives.

OP I’m not sure how you can’t see that the mornings can’t be judged in isolation. People are asking for a whole picture. This is my genuine situation to illustrate:

I WFH and do hardly anything in the morning. I’m not a morning person and my DH is. He’s up early, unloads the dishwasher, does the kids breakfasts, tidies the kitchen and takes them to school. I get myself ready and only appear at the last minute to do ponytails etc.

How would you judge that, am I lazy and is this arrangement fair on my DH?

What about if I added that he’s not working and I’m FT? That he has pretty much 30hours free time per week, that yes he does all pickups too, but I still do all groceries and most if not all dinners, and still do at least half of the housework, and do bedtimes every night? Am I lazy now, is this fair?