SAHM- DH wanting to give me ‘routines’ and ‘duties’

[SummerDuck]

So I’m a SAHM with DS1 (15), DS2 (9) and DD (3). DH works full time. He has recently started moaning about how I’m not doing enough around the house.

DD is at home full time other than being at nursery one day a week. I do most of the cooking, cleaning and general household admin. However, DH has said there is no not enough ‘output’. He therefore wants to introduce ‘routines’ and ‘duties’ whereby he will set out what needs to be done on a particular day and carry out checks upon returning from work.

So Monday will be garden day for example and the lawn will need to be mowed and leaves sweeped. Tuesday will be bathroom cleaning day and so on.

Is this level of micromanagement normal for SAHPs and should I just be grateful?

Obviously not normal or ok.

Can you go back to work?

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

I wouldn't be able to cope with this. Is there any chance you could go back to work? I think you need your independence.

That’s frankly not up to him. Duties on certain days? Tell him to jog on! Utterly weird!

Er, no. Just no. I’d go back to work

This must be a joke !

He's being ridiculous. He's treating you like a child.

When will your 3 year old be eligible for her 15 hours of nursery funding? Are you planning for her to do more than 1 day per week?

I did this only when i was aupair LOL. No way as a wife. I actually give him chores now

There's about to be some irony on this thread. You will be told, quite rightly, that this is no way to treat someone who is your life partner.

However, my DH was a SAHD for a while, and at one point a Mumsnet thread advised me very strongly to insist on this sort of process because he wasn't doing as much domestic stuff as I thought was fair. Turned out he was having massive mental health struggles, subsequently resolved with medication, love and therapy, rather than producing a timetable and me wielding a clipboard.

You what????

You are his wife and the mother of your children not a bloody employee, tell him to stick his output, routines and duties and checks up his arse.

What is this, 1950?

Gosh - don't think I've ever had a work boss talk about 'output' let alone my husband. I think my sex output would be zero if my husband started talking like yours. I'd find it hard to not take the piss out of him at every opportunity to be honest.

The words fuck off come to mind like...

SAHP is to look after your joint child(ren). Tell him he needs to parent his own child(ren) 50% outside his working hours AND 50% of the household chores. Thats the minimum.

I wonder if he will agree to that 🤔

He could get to fuck with that sort of idea

This is completely unacceptable behaviour IMO, you are a SAHP, he is your partner not your bloody boss.

Have you tried telling him to fuck off?

Jeez what did I just read? That's nuts. Yanbu to find it weird as it is very weird

I would return to work full time and hire a cleaner, gardener, cook, nanny and anyone else you need. Leave your DH to complain about the unnecessary costs and enjoy the peace and quiet in the evenings whilst he is busy inspecting their work and sending them performance improvement plans.

If my oh was a sahp damn right I'd expect everything done.

Otherwise what's the point in having 1?

Of course if I was a sahm there's no way I'd tolerate my oh telling me what to do.

Thats why neither of us are sahp.

I’m a SAHM of two children at school all day and I absolutely wouldn’t tolerate that. DH knows I do my best, mostly doing things he has no desire to do (housework, dealing with school re SN of DC2) and that the alternative to me being home running things as I see fit is I go back to work and he does 50% of the drudge/school runs/sick days/school phone calls, which funnily enough he doesn’t want.

But then he’s not a total arse, and he’s had sole charge of our children enough that he knows nothing much is possible with a three year old around beyond the ordinary day to day stuff sod lawncare. When’s your DH last had a preschooler all day and produced “output”?

Go back to work OP.

I know a lot of women who give their husbands a to do list for the weekends so it isn't really that unheard of.

I think both are ridiculous - husbands giving their wives to do list and wives giving their husbands to do lists.

If you are a SAHM and not contributing in any way to the expenses of having a family and the pressures of ensuring all your family's basic needs are met or any of the financial responsiblities for any of you....then both of you need to be on board with that. If he is taking on 100% of all financial responsiblity for everyone and all the pressures of being the only income, then of course there should be a balance where you are then taking on similar levels of responsibilities and pressures. One adult not taking on any financial responsibility for themselves or the children they had only works if both parties are fully on board and both still feel that the responsiblities all together are being fairly shared.

Rather than drawing up lists, you need to go back to the drawing board about whether or not a SAHP and a working parent is going to really work for both of you.

Have you not come back to reply because you are still laughing in his face?
What a total dick 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think even the fact that you're not sure if he's being unreasonable shows that this behaviour is normal for him and he's been treating you somewhat like this for some time. You're in a controlling relationship with a power-mad man. None of my male (or female!) friends would dream of treating their partners like this.

It's not normal.

He can fuck right off to the far side of fuckity fuck and then fuck off some more.

It’s a no from me 😡

It has left weird way behind and has slithered over into Very Not OK. He can put together a routine for fucking right off.