To say I can't fucking do this

[countingallthseconds]

DH is freelance creative. Competitive industry. Subject to periods of long hours and working away. Then tumbleweed for weeks or months. Then activity again.

Because of the spontaneous nature of his work, the fact that's it's ten times more lucrative than my previous career, and the additional fact that we have an 8yo with considerable additional needs (multiple diagnoses and delays including ASD, attends special school, has a social worker and PA hours) and a younger child I am the one who stays home and does all the domestic stuff. All of it. All the admin for school. Drs. Dentists. After school clubs. Pick ups, drop offs. Dinners. Bed times. All of it. All the time.

That's how DH is able to have his successful career and a family, because I am here doing the drudge work. And I could accept that if DH weren't constantly behind with all his other contracts and has spent the last three weekends frowning at his laptop while I continue to entertain, feed, bathe, clothe, enrich the lives of our kids. He has appalling time management, spending hours paralysed with indecision in the bath or reading about nonsense on the internet followed by intense bursts where nobody is allowed to approach him because he is having his big important creative thoughts.

And next week he starts a two month contract that will take him away from the home for half a week every week. This, again, would be impossible for him if I had a job. He wouldn't be able to pick up any of the slack or childcare because sometimes he might get a call at 9pm saying 'We need you in London tomorrow at 8am' and he has to just go.

AIBU to say 'please no more weekend work'. I can cope with the nature of his work if he doesn't work 365 days a year. But I absolutely need a wingman and someone to talk to at weekends. I am so tired of him sneaking off with his laptop to 'just finish' some work he told me he'd finished a month ago, while I am stuck with the kids. Again.

We are ok for money. We have more than enough. We live modest lives, run one family car and have one cheap uk holiday a year. I have absolutely no expensive hobbies or pursuits because I have no time! He has a moderately expensive hobby, which he somehow manages to fit into his days.

Can you ever convince a person like this to be part of the family?

But I do feel the only way forward is to actually talk to him, he can’t read your mind, so tell him you’ve had enough and need him to spend time with you all and take some of the load…
Hed suddenly make time fortnightly or whatever if you split, which often does ex wives heads in

It would have to be 9.30 - 2.30 here. And infinite time off for kids.

My Dad worked offshore when we were kids and this was at the height of the oil before H&S was a thing as such. He could be any for 25-28 days a month. Every single time he came home, he had a drink with my Mum the first night and they he took over the child care, a whack of the housework, the shopping and he often made the supper and tidied the kitchen behind him. There is no excuse for you man not to step up and do his fair share or even take over and give you some me time at weekends.

Are you working or at home with the bin lids though?
I see hella women complaining about their hubby’s having a few hours golfing or working away from the home (usually for better money so that Mum can be a SAHM)
yet I see their contribution to the family finances as being a SAHM.
You can’t have it both ways…

He’s contributing in the financial way, he has all the monetary stress on his shoulders.
If he’s a freelance creative in the fallow periods he’s most likely lining up his next job or doing the final finances on his last job. It’s not easy, it’s incredibly stressful,
It’s all on him, mortgage, bills, groceries, holidays, school uniforms, school dinners, car payments etc etc etc.
Women in this situation have no
idea how lucky they are.
yet here they always are; bemoaning the life that they chose and being entirely unaware of how lucky they are in this day and age, smdh.

You’re joking right?? Seriously, please tell me that you are.

This is the sort of response I refuse to dignify with an answer. Pure spite and zero empathy.

Someone asked upthread about how mums with ADHD manage.

It isn't hard.

Small children are an absolute blast because you can just focus on them and ignore all the other stuff. I neither cleaned nor tidied, ever, while my DC were small. Because the immediate need was to be doing stuff with them. So the house looked like a bomb site because there is no deadline involved with tidying or cleaning. Unless MIL comes to visit, in which case it's a frantic once-every-six-months scramble to shove stuff in cupboards.
School is a deadline, so there's no problem with that, because my ADHD brain only responds to deadlines.
School pick-up is a deadline, ditto.
Homework and music practice, ditto.

I imagine that's how someone with a job and ADHD manages.

@countingallthseconds

You clearly don't think you're being unreasonable.

You think, despite the undiagnosed adhd, he should be able to care for the kids as much as you do.

But you haven't answered why he doesn't do it when he's not busy at work or working away.

And you haven't answered what you expect to achieve from telling him he can't work weekends

This is not a new problem. Neither of your children are babies. You chose to have kids together. So you've obviously some where along the line accepted things as they are.

Only you can change that.

@Traniel

It was me who asked.

Because pp was talking about neural pathways and ND presenting diffently in men and women

So I was asking why would women be able to cope when men (or supposedly this man) can't.

Fair question. I think that I couldn't have coped with a job and children. I would have spent the tumbleweed time dicking around and thinking about work that might one day materialise, because work would have been my function. As it was, children were my job. I don't think it's a man/woman thing; I think it's a question of what your brain is focussed on. A woman with ADHD and a freelance job could quite easily spend days procrastinating in the name of work, so long as someone else was dealing with the children.

@Traniel

I dont think thats acceptable, as a parent.

And there are clearly women with adhd who work and parent their kids.

I'm sure there are men who do too.

Who knows how much of this man's parental neglect is disability or selfishness/laziness

On a practical note, are you able to.use your PA hours? I think a cleaner is a must if you can afford it. What would happen if you went out and left him with the children? Is he interested in your life? The tribunals, the daily grind, any of it?

But you did, there was nothing spiteful about my response.

To be a SAHM is the dream life for some women.

Do you know what it’s like bearing the weight as the only breadwinner in the house?

Do you even know how lucky any woman is to be a SAHM with no worries about finances?

He is procrastinating and being lazy about home stuff because you do it. I am a lazy procrastinator and that is 100% what he is doing. It reminds me of my DD who will faff around for hours then the minute you ask her to do something she has urgent geography homework to do.

DP is much like your DH, except he is not freelance or a creative. I feel like I am subsidizing his company because he never has time to get involved in family chores because he says he has to work.

One day, I told my GP about DP's behaviour - he regularly shouts at me. She told me it was domestic abuse. I was shocked. She put me in touch with Women's Aid.

I do feel a bit happier now because at least I understand his behavior- everything, the endless working, the shouting and everything else is all about proving be is a step above the rest of us, in particular me. He is obviously far too important to get his hands dirty with any mundane domestic work.

He needs to find a more family friendly job and you can also go back to work. Make everybody 50/50 just the way you want it!

What a joke! He's be doing the same thing with or without a family. He works for himself first. Working a job isn't special.

He's still be paying for a mortgage and everything else for himself except he'd have to do his own laundry, cleaning, cooking for himself.

Indeed he would.
However though, in this situation he isn’t just paying for himself.
His wages from his job pay for everything in the house including holidays.

The husband shoulders the financial burden so that his wife can be a SAHM.

I know many women who’d cut their right arm off to be in this situation.

Why shouldn’t he come home to all the jobs done, kids sorted and his tea ready and have some time for golfing or whatever?

If the OP was also working and it was a 50/50 situation then I could understand OP’s point.
This is not the case here and the OP and her husband clearly have a comfortable life (due to the husband’s career)

He has the stress of being a freelancer who brings home the bacon so that the the wife can stay at home with the children with zero financial worry.
That’s a huge responsibility in this day and age and not many families are able to do this whilst also having holidays etc etc.
The OP is in a great situation that not many other Mums have the privilege of.

I’d be counting my blessings if I were her. She has a lot to be grateful for.

The suggestions that the husband is ND or has ADHD are wild.

I don’t agree. that’s not comparing like with like. Single and no dependents? Much simpler household and domestic needs and obligations. Can down scale career, dip in and out, lesser housing needs, grocery and utilities than supporting a families needs. He needs to step up in his non working time that’s for sure but I do not hold with this ‘he would be doing it anyway’ argument.

I worked as a nanny many years ago. The mother of the children had a PT job and divided her time outside of the house equally divided between her job, her gym regimen, and hair and beauty treatments.

It is really easy to spend your days faffing around when someone else is in charge of the children.

It's also true that any given piece of work will take the exact amount of time you're prepared to give it.

You don't need to have ADHD to faff for weeks. You just need to be blithely indifferent to the needs of your family members.

There is no acceptable reason any parent should have to do a 24/7 job of it while another sits around thinking all weekend. Especially not one with a child who is in a special school, has a social worker etc. I think you are shit stirring so I won’t say any more.

Well the old old story. Childcare women’s lot then their kids grow up and they discover hubby has been having an affair(he’s finishing something off which he’s said is finished?) and they’ve been unable to grow an independent set up for themselves. Sorry I hope I’m wrong just been there myself and it’s all too common. I just hope you have finances properly sorted between you. On the plus side you’ve got the kids which is always the best thing.

OP interesting response. Why was that needed? The amount is not relevant it was being used as a generalisation.

@emptythelitterbox
If the wife is carrying an equal or heavier load, the husband should reasonably say that he will quit his job and assume all of the functions that the wife is undertaking ,and she must in turn find employment and bring in , at a minimum , income equal to that which he was generating. That would be an exactly equal reversal of the situation, and in that situation no one should feel put upon. The husband would do all of the life management and the wife would generate an income sufficient to support their current life style.