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?

I’d be straight back to work and taking him up on the offer to micromanage your totally split chores with zeal.

Are you getting a contract and paid holidays

Time to return to work.

Law firm experience here and I have never heard of husbands (partners or otherwise) giving their wives lists of chores - there would be horrified silence and then quite a lot of comments challenging that view!

Well he can fuck right off. I'd be asking him If he is employing me how much an hour he is going to pay me.

This. Literally tell him to fuck off. Unless he states paying you a wage he doesn't get to dictate what the 'output' is

On a slight but not entirely unrelated tangent, a thread has just been started about population decline.

In the US I recently read that some of the higher ranking executive families, particularly in Silicon Valley, are purposely having larger families to address this issue by producing the "right sort of offspring" as they are genetically and financially best placed to do so.

There seems to be a whole bunch of weird stuff going on at the moment, all going back to the idea of nuclear families and traditional roles.

I suspect it's a slow burn nudge campaign that will ultimately increase societal division and inequality.

It all smacks of keeping women in their place, challenging perceived emasculation and perhaps paving the way for increased automation and the influence of AI. And is mostly about economics.

It's all very complicated.....

I suggest a patio might need updating. Turn it back on him and give him a list of parenting that he needs to do.

She also has a 3 year old too, not at nursery, or did you miss that bit?

Of course you know you’re not being unreasonable but at the same time did you not know who you married? If my husband said something like this to me it would either be a joke or an indication that he was having a psychotic break.

This. This in spades. I'd book mine in for a check-up if he said this.

There must have been previous form.

And as always reading some of the replies on here "he already pays for her" I think of my grandparents and my parents and how much respect each had for the other and what they contributed to the family. My grandparents were born in the late 19th century. It would have been inconceivable that my grandfather spoke to her like that. Ditto my mum and dad (early 1930s babies).

Basically, OP, you are in a crap relationship. sorry.

She should soon be eligible for 30 hours, income depending

Depends when we're talking about but you're making sweeping generalisations about people whose work you weren't qualified to do. It just sounds snarky and ill informed.

Ten your DH and his colleagues are all utter cocks!

I am a lawyer and have worked in similar firms, so sadly can believe it

I didn’t say she was “earning more” I suggested that her contribution was larger than half a mortgage, half the childcare and half the groceries(cleaning/admin/driving). By your reckoning the childcare alone could be £33K.

Go back to work take some control back

I think I should try this with DP on his rest days 🤣

Hah. Give him a spreadsheet of everything you’d like completing at weekends! Garden, maintenance, childcare et al

I’d be telling him to pick the tree he wanted to be buried under if my other half ever came out with shite like that. My good god….

@Pallisers

People are saying he already does pay in response to others suggesting he makes zero contribution

People often completely overstate the contribution of the non working parent while completely diminishing the contribution of the working parent

If you want respect it needs to go both ways

This sounds to me like something people who are followers of domestic discipline might enjoy (Google this if you don't know what I'm talking about). If you don't enjoy this tell him to fuck off.

I’m so sorry. You are married to someone who needs control. This is going to become unbearable and he will break you if you stay. You need to get out of this relationship.

Nonsense. You don’t have to be qualified as anything to see when people are being tossers or lazy. This statement is ridiculous but I do hear this sort of thing from my own colleagues who don’t like anyone criticising them in any way.

@Okshacky

The problem with that is that we don't pay people just to exist

Parenting isn't a job. Neither is doing your own shopping etc

And what you said was getting domestic help is expensive.

It can be. But paying for help isn't whats happening here

It's unlikely the op is genuine anyway

If their jobs allow them to take a lot of days off for caring for ill children, early collection times, etc., which isn't common in city firms (so far from essential as to be damaging, usually, to society and the environment — essential jobs are ones that are needed and do good).