DH ‘recharged’ rather than sorted house

[KeepingKeepingOn]

DH on hols last 2 weeks (teacher). Last week at in-laws house with all 3 kids - all catered for, well looked after etc. This week, I took eldest 2 to see my family and he came home with youngest. DC3 went into nursery as usual on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

I sent him a list of things that needed doing round the house - things that he’s known about for months, and had said he’ll do, but has also said are hard to do with 3 kids around. Fair enough. Have just got back to find he’s done 1 thing off the list (oil a table, if you’re interested). He’s done nothing outside because it’s been raining (all week?). He’s not emailed the IFA because he forgot. He’s not sent his grandmother’s birthday present (that I chose and ordered). When I asked what he has done, he’s ‘slept and recharged’, which he says he needed to do after a stressful term, and now feels much better.

We’ve ended up having a row and now aren’t speaking, which is shit as we both missed each other and it should have been lovely to be back together again. He is generally v supportive of me / my career etc, but this comes on the back of an ongoing tension around the ‘mental load’ that I feel I carry for all of us.

interested to hear views:
IABU - teaching is stressful, he was right to take the 3 days for himself and I should give him a break
IANBU - he could have done at least a few things off the list and still had a decent break

Also, some of the things on this list just sound like "him" tasks that I wouldn't be putting on a shared list - present for Gran. Shared list is more like fix cupboard, buy something we need from IKEA and assemble, take stuff from shed to tip etc.

I think he does just sound lazy. The holiday list in our house actually originates from a previous argument where DH did nothing household-y all holiday, and I complained, and then he said next time give me a list at the beginning of the holiday. So now I do.

The handmaidens are out in force today. By golly.

And why do some people think being a teacher is the hardest job in the world?

Why do you pick presents for his grandma and make him all these lists?

You're doing all the leg work for him and treating him like a child. He should sort gifts for his own family and be involved in making lists of things to do, not just passively wait for your instructions.

People are not saying that - they are saying that the intensity of being 'on' all the time means you need some headspace. Little people are very demanding and when in school there is no switching off from that. It really does fill your brain in a different way. I've taught for 20 years and prior to that worked in a really stressful IT sales role ... midnight deadlines etc but the brain tiredness in teaching is like nothing I ever experienced

I don't have to worry about his areas at all, they aren't my domain.

Yes this is great if both people actually take care of their areas. If you know that your partner does not pull their weight, then managing that they do something off their list becomes just another task on your list.

I selected you're not unreasonable.
However, cut him some slack. He's burnt out or unmotivated. Just insist he does them and enjoy each other's company.

I'd definitely pull the kids out of childcare/holiday club for the summer. Save £1k. Book a nice relaxing holiday alone.

I really can't imagine this if roles were reversed - breadwinner dad, teacher mum, dad takes kids to see the family and mum sits on her backside and can't even get a clean uniform ready for the DC?

It's one of the most demanding roles.

People go on about the RF "working hard" even though all they do is socialise and have hundreds of staff ranging from nannies, cooks, press secretaries, personal assistants, butlers, ladies in waiting to chauffeurs etc and endless budgets and funding to make life even easier and more fun.

Yet teachers who have to pay for their own accommodation, transport etc can't even enjoy the public appreciating their efforts.

If you feel someone isn't working hard it's not teachers so please let them be.

😄

Everyone would be suggesting the mum was depressed or neglectful, or saying if they knew someone who did that they'd call social services.

Exactly zero people would say oh well she needs to sit down for 2 weeks.

I didn’t say they don’t work hard, I said I wondered why people thought the job was so hard that it justified the H doing absolutely fuck all towards the shared list he suggested.

Teaching is a thankless role. I’m sure it’s hard. Is it the hardest job in the world? Hardly.

Also, I keep rereading this and I still can’t see why you’ve mentioned the royal family. 😆

I also had a list I didn't do - but I didn't do the stuff like 'strip wallpaper from living room and dining room' because I CBA. However, I managed to send an email, sort out some insurance and do multiple grocery shops.

I work full time and deserve some down time as well, so I gave myself a break on the big jobs. But there's no excuse for the little ones - particularly the ones you can do sitting on your arse in front of the TV!

Arguably there is a range of difficulty levels that doesn't just go from Princess Michael of Kent getting paid thousands to open the occasional extension while having a full staff at one end, to teacher at the other.

Teachers do have an incredibly full on job, few would question that. Does that exempt them from doing jobs for their house and children? Not in the case of the teachers I know. Otherwise teachers married to other teachers would presumably eventually die of filth and starvation as neither of them can make it to the shops, mend a leaky pipe or lift their classroom-enfeebled hands to the hoover.

Me either. I’m a bit shocked at the rampant sexism actually. I’ve been castigated more than once for not sending an email, as if I should have done that on top of everything else I was doing. The answer, for some, appears to be ‘expect nothing, be grateful for anything’. What a horrendous example to set to our children, let alone to actually live within 😖

Honestly you've just got to be glad you're not them, haven't you.

I wish so many girls weren't growing up in the genuine belief that men's responsibilities end at the end of their working day, and everything else is fundamentally their - women's - job.

Yup.

OP: "DH is not pulling his weight around the house"
MN: "Well why can't you do all of it yourself, it's not that hard!"

With teaching, you feel like you are on stage the whole time. You go to the toilet at lunch time and see a kid hit another kid..you want to get back to your lunch but now you're sorting out an incident. A pupil says something rude about you (older pupils) you want to tell them to piss off but you act like a professional and ignore it or reprimand them. Then you feel aggravated because yes, you are plumpIt's relentless some days.i loved teaching but it is more stressful than many jobs. So your husband needed HIS holiday

So teachers shouldn't have to do anything then?

I remember having to change a tampon on the stick room as l didn’t have time to go to the toilet.

So teachers shouldn't have to do anything then?

Male teachers. I'm sure the female ones can't just sit and relax during school holidays.

@BKingso I’m definitely nowhere near LTB - he does share most of the day to day stuff eg we both do the dishwasher, several tons of laundry, bins etc. There was an element of ‘training’ required though, as he’d never done any of this at home because his mother was a SAHM and his dad had a ‘big job’…and you can see even from some of the responses on this thread how deeply embedded some of the behaviours and attitudes are relating to expectations about men’s roles and women’s roles. He’s also a good and active dad, in that we share pickups / drop offs and each do things with the kids individually as well as all together.

I do have an issue that unless I specifically point something out to him that’s not in the daily cycle of eg the dishwasher, he just won’t notice it. That makes me feel like I’m the overall manager, which I don’t enjoy, hence the creation of the list, but that only works if he’s proactive enough to check it and action it…

What slack is he cutting the OP???

My parents were both teachers (and lots of other family too). There's definitely something within teaching "culture" about it being the most demanding, hardest, stressful job in the world and that nobody else could possibly understand.

My parents did work hard but my god, didn't we all know it! And now I'm an adult I wouldn't particularly say their working life seemed harder than mine.

Teaching aside, I know of so many women who've had to go part time to cope with children/housework/life because their partners don't pull their weight. The effect on their careers and finances is horrendous.