SAHP not doing enough and should work harder.

[Hottubby]

AIBU?
I am the main breadwinner, work up to 80 hours/6-7 days a week sometimes. My DH works part time (potential to earn and work more but just doesn’t and hasn’t for many many years) and contributes very little financially.
I am frustrated he isn’t doing enough, but friends think I am being unfair.
I do all the life admin, finances- literally everything, pay for most things including all holidays, meals out etc on top of usual mortgage and most bills.
I do cleaning and some cooking.

He does- dog walks, all washing, takes and collects ironing from ironing service, DIY, occasional food shopping and meals only if brown and goes in the oven or mindful chef, occasional gardening, ferries kids to activities (kids are older).

I think he should do more, either work more and contribute financially or help with cooking and life admin.

AIBU or do we have the balance right? I’m increasingly frustrated with it all.

So you’re telling me that if a woman was a SAHM for school age children, but did no cleaning or house admin because she was too busy spending a maximum of 25 hours a week on an MLM scheme that wasn’t bringing in any money (and sometimes actually lost money) she’d be fully supported on here?! I call bullshit. If her husband was working 80 hours a week AND doing the cleaning, he’d be hailed as a bloody hero.

He's useless OP but he'll clean you out if you divorce him unless you take preventative steps now

@Naunet That's not what I am saying -if a man had posted that about a woman there would be much more outrage about the fact her work at home is exhausting as she does all the child care.

The children are 14 and 16. I don't know how many teenagers you live with but I barely see mine.

They weren't always 14 and 16 though ...

But they haven't always been teenagers

While OP has been working 70-80 hours a week for "years", her DH has been supporting her by doing all the school runs, the holiday care, the sick days, the INSET days...

If you work from home you're not a SAHP.

You're a parent whose office happens to be in their home, rather than on the high street.

You're not going to get any parenting done during your working hours are you?

I disagree. I think the only reason that any reply takes the side of the husband in this scenario is because OP put SAHP in the title so it got lots of peoples back up from the off, so much so that some didn't even read the thread and were banging on about how hard it is to parent toddlers, which is true but not relevant to the OP at all. Posters have then created this narrative (one I assume they use in their own lives) about how this man facilitates the OP to work these hours, hours that she doesn't actually seem to want to work. So one persons 'facilitate' is another persons 'forces' as if this man went and earned some money the OP would not have to work that many hours. Of course maybe she coukd just not work as much anyway and he would prefer to have the DC's schooling disrupted rather than getting a proper job, who knows?

The choice to be a SAHP is a very valid one but lots of people manage to have DC whilst maintaining successful careers and have a spouse that also works, often in their own very successful careers. I would argue that very few people actually need a SAHP in order to facilitate their career.

What does he actually do op? When you say he brings in barely no money do you mean relative to you or literally nothing?

All the couples I know where the man is the one working long hours and the woman is the SAHP, the woman does everything. All the cooking, cleaning, life admin.

This guy doesn't. He does school runs.

I'm imagining the women here who think he's great are the same ones who say their husbands are babysitting when they're looking after their own kids of who fawn all over blokes who turn up to toddler groups.

This

I never said that he's great, but I think dismissing his contribution as "school runs" is grossly unfair.

OP says she works 70-80 hours (6-7 days) a week and has done for years. So, as well as school runs, he'll have been doing all the holiday care, the before and after school care and all the weekend childcare, as well as covering all the sick days, INSET days, bank holidays and picking the DC if they're unwell.

I do think he should be doing life-admin etc. too, but let's be fair, he's hardly sitting around scratching his arse all day if his wife is out of the house as much as she claims to be!

SAHP / M / W / H being mentioned is going to over shadow the advice posters can give . Anything to do with above topic is guaranteed to turn into a total bun fight and end badly .

I get plenty done... by that same standard nobody can get housework done while parenting?

Do you think SAHP sit on their arse and do absoloutly nothing but look at their kids... even the ones without jobs are cleaners, accountants, secrataries, cooks, carers and a whole bunch of other jobs needed to run the house.

Its called multitasking a millions of people do it.

Its not even a new concept, my nana ran a day care out of her house and watched other people kids along side her own way back in the 50s/60s/70s and my aunt ran a laundret service in her spare room along side watching her kids.

Some 'working' mothers really do love to be martyrs about how hard it is to 'go to work' with out realising litrally everyone else (even SAHM) is doing the bloody same we just do it with our kids in toe.

What’s changed since last week? You said he did some cleaning in your post last week. Now you say you do the cleaning.

Mindful Chef may not be “proper cooking” but it’s better than nothing. If he can do those then switch to those 5 or 6 times a week. You can have your 85-quid takeaway the other night.

Stop acting like a martyr. I sense a lot of competitive misery going on where you are trying to prove your life is harder than his. If you really do work 80 hours a week (do you have a problem with time management? Have you asked your boss for more training so that you can work more efficiently? Is the job too hard for you and that’s why it’s taking you so long to complete your work?) then it’s up to you to do something about that. Not make your husband feel inadequate. I imagine you constantly remind him how Very Important your job is and belittle his 25 hours a week. My husband is a SAHP and doesn’t work at all, save a few hours a week volunteering. I still do most of the cooking because I enjoy it and it’s a good stress relief for me. You need to stop the martyr complex. Your husband is doing enough. You need to sort your working patterns out, not make your husband do more.

Don't be ridiculous.

I have back to back meetings for hours most days and no way could I parent kids while I'm doing it.

Do you think I'm going to keep stopping the meetings and muting my mic so I can go and deal with them or the housework? 🙄

He needs to get a job.

Do you work in the entertainment industry OP?

@thelobsterquadrille
But OP isn't complaining that he didn't do all of grunt work of childcare when their kids were little. She's complaining about him now when they have two teenagers.

Her workload has remained the same while his has significantly diminished.

I’m a SAHM of 3 years now doing a small amount of paid freelance work, which I have to do when the kids are asleep or my husband is home at the weekend. No way could I do it at the same time as looking after my kids, it requires focused attention. To be honest I also struggle to get the housework done while looking after a toddler and baby, though I do some. No chance in hell could I do serious cleaning unless they were asleep or someone else was watching them.

I do agree that some people on here are very disdainful towards SAHPs, but insisting that doing paid work from home is functionally exactly the same as not doing paid work from home is a weird overcorrection.

It's about what works for the couple so there's no right and wrong.

What stands out is you consider someone working 25 hours a week to be a SAHP and a kept man.

You shouldn't be doing the lion's share of cleaning, but it also sounds like your place working long hours on a pedestal and then get resentful.

And by doing all that "grunt work", he sacrificed his career for the best part of two decades, while she got to continue with hers without any worries about childcare - not something that should just be dismissed.

I've said I think he should be doing the life admin, but I'm not a fan of the way everyone is dismissing his contributions for the past 16+ years.

@mam0918 accountants? Really? I'm fully supportive of SAHPs if it works for your family but this isn't for the OP's. The man is doing v little and needs to step up or take up paid employment in place of his hobby job that makes a loss

And by doing all that "grunt work", he sacrificed his career for the best part of two decades, while she got to continue with hers without any worries about childcare - not something that should just be dismissed.

This is conjecture as OP has not said what happened when the DC were young and how it hindered/facilitated their respective careers.

Well, it quite clearly didn't hinder hers as she says herself she's been working 70-80 hours a week for "years". She wouldn't have been able to work those hours without a considerable amount of support from her DH unless she's now going to say she paid for a nanny 24/7.