All women I know are in my situation

[growli]

Pretty useless DH. They're left to look after the kids. Called nags if they complain.

It mostly falls on them. The marriages are pretty rubbish.

I've posted here so many times about my issues with my H and my lifestyle with small kids.

I always get told I need to divorce. I get told that there are other men out there who aren't as useless with their children.

In real life, every woman I know, faces something similar. Mainly responsible for everything to do with kids and house, works full time most of the time too.

Husband works hard, but doesn't contribute to looking after the kids or household. Complains of not enough sex.

The women I know are highly educated and in successful careers. We all feel stitched up. We were told if we study hard and are in successful careers, we wouldn't end up being slaves to our husbands and children.

What happened to the men our parents raised ? For them to expect women to still be like their mothers ? Doing everything for kids and family.

Mothers and mothers in law in general ( even though they raised us to be successful career women with choices ) don't have a whole lot of sympathy as it seems a raise to the bottom and ' how much harder ' it was for them.

I realise I'm generalising

I want kids and I know he will be a completely dedicated father devoted to his kids, as was my father who was also perfectly useless around the house

You say this and then go on to say:

Our compromise is that I do the mental load while he takes on the bulk of the physical load (he cooks, washes up, does shopping, cleans out cat litter etc).

You're dreaming if you think someone who is useless around the house and is happy for you carry the entire mental load will be a decent father. This is what I was saying earlier in the thread about women actively choosing to have children with men like this and then no doubt complaining down the line that they haven't magically changed. Its not even just about being a good father but also about being a good life partner.

It also promotes the gender stereotypes most people are complaining about on this very thread.

When people talk about “sharing” the mental load, what do they mean? Reducing it by taking half the tasks each (is this possible?), or both carrying it, so that they both always know and agree exactly what needs doing, organising or paying for, at all times, but never accidentally duplicate each other’s efforts, or accidentally both ignore the same thing? Does anyone ever sit down with their other half and insist they read through school communications and discuss contents of lunchboxes and PE bags, together, and agree week by week who is replying to or organising what, and then trust each other to do as discussed and not stray into the other’s agreed territory or do anything ad hoc?

We might have been raised to be modern working women who expect equality. But our husbands grew up watching their mums do all of the domestic stuff while their dads worked. In many cases they saw their mums sacrificing their careers to raise kids. Their role model of mums and dads is flawed. They’re better than their dads were but when it comes down to it they still think that kids are the mum’s responsibility, because they were raised by their mums. That’s what we’re fighting against. It will probably take generations to see gradual improvements, it isn’t going to happen in a generation.

I agree with your post but I’m sure men could make generalised complaints about their wives too. I think it would look something like, we always moan, not as fun as we used to be, not enough sex, don’t appreciate them, treat them like children so and and so forth.

I do think a lot of men are pretty lazy but I also think they do not prioritise the things some women do and think we are just moaning for sake of it.

I believe this is why a women and man together can be a brilliant thing, but only if they both learn to adjust expectations and encourage strengths. It’s hard bloody work!

I don't think it matters what the split is as long as both partners are happy with it.

But if one party assumes or dictates and the other can't speak up or isn't listened to, then it's a problem

Totally agree. My kids are still really small. I don't have the strength to leave.

I don't know how I'll feel once my kids can understand it and see it for themselves. I have a daughter and a son. I don't want her to grow up like me and be as unhappy as I am. I also don't want my son's wife to be this unhappy either.

My husband was fantastic with our DC he did the school runs, sports days, after school clubs, played with them on weekends and on holidays etc etc .
I do most but not all house stuff. He does all garden stuff. DC are grown up now and we have a balanced partnership. There are good men in the world really

The problem is, women themselves are the first to devalue stay at home mums.

No they're not. This is the "women are their own worst enemies" tosh.

The first to devalue SAHMs are those husbands who have them and think that makes them household appliances who owe the husbands everything and don't ever deserve a break or some appreciation.

Well if women are doing all the child-rearing and men are still all like this then I guess it's genetic.

My Dp since day one of Dd being born has done 50/50 parenting. For a while I was working full time and he would be finished by school time so he did a lot more parenting. Now we both work full time and are back to 50/50. He's more than capable of house work and cooking etc. From the sample of women I work with he is unusual. My work friends have to go home and cook and clean. I'll have a meal cooked for me. They have to set the school clothes out and pack their bags. My friends are a bit mixed.

Yes we genuinely do share it. We check in to find out who has filled what form in, we work as a team to remember which day is swimming kit etc. I’m sure most of these “useless” husbands would manage to engage if they were at work. Find a man who treats you as your equal and isn’t threatened if you earn more.

When people talk about “sharing” the mental load, what do they mean?

^

Getting both parents to not only realise stuff needs doing but to actually do it.

This would include packing the kids lunches, buying gifts why they're invited to a party, supermarket shopping, deciding what to eat, cooking etc etc.

Ad nauseuam.

The women I know who have m0re 50/50 partnerships have all prioritised their own needs quite unashamedly and consciously. I include myself in this group. Most married/LTR men I know are quite passive really. They'll default into traditional roles quite easily amd give it very little thought, but if given no choice they will fall in line with what their partner drives them towards. Obviously it shouldn't be like this, men should be taking responsibility for creating equal partnerships. But given the way men and women are socialised for one to be somewhat self serving and the other to be the opposite it's not surprising.

Most of my friends are married to nice men who do not do their fair share with kids or home. We were all SAHMs initially. I was judged for sharing out equally our home and child tasks despite not in paid work (and probably would have been on supposedly feminist mumsnet too!). But I’ve since gone back to work and none of my friends have been able to because their DH are used to being able to work without much concern for their kids or home.

I think women often end up in a trap of either staying at home and being dissatisfied but knowing their children are well cared for or going out to work but doing everything they can themselves because their husbands can’t be trusted.

Its still horribly regressive. I don’t claim to have it all perfectly equal, but I think we are a lot nearer to it than many purely because I never started doing it all in the first place.

LOOK EVERYONE
IT'S A SURRENDERED WIFE
😂😂😂

Is it?

hold your nerve OP, smile & pretend while making a solid plan to leave him to his inevitable fate as soon as the time is right

It's a bloke trolling the thread.

They're ten-a-penny on this site.

• *Explained to my DH how to pay electricity bill due today
• reminded him that the cats need sitting next week when he joins me, suggested a friend to ask to cats sit, and two backups, and given him a word by word script of what to instruct them
• Walked him through checking if the plants need to be watered and how to do it
• reminded him that the cleaning lady needs to be paid tomorrow and sent him a list of instructions for her to do when away
• noticed on my work phone that one of my reportees is chasing a payment that we no longer have budget for so texted my strategically incompetent male boss to actually inform the poor woman about the budget cut that came through 3 days ago.*

But are they not kind of unusual circumstances? Are they not things that are normally done either together or one person does all of the time (most of our bills are dd but some use his email and some use mine so it depends who would know how to do it all of the time. It's not like you're telling him how to do washing of clothes or cleaning or what time the kids go to bed at etc etc

What about bricklayers and carpenters and builders tradwife? Aren't they making homes too?

I wouldn't be so sure.

There's a huge tradwife community on TikTok and Instagram - it wouldn't surprise me if they were on here too.

This is absolute bullshit.

Women with jobs, careers, professions are not suiting their own needs FFS.

They're in a equal partnership. Contribution to the household and raising children together.

Holy fuck.

I'm a housewife, SAHM to 4 kids under 5. I didn't let myself become a mother to my husband, and didn't let him not be a father. I don't nag him, I rarely have to ask him to do his alotted tasks (bins, finances, etc). We argue about serious issues maybe twice a year. And then we deal with them and can move on.

I just do not understand why women are treated badly/let themselves be treated badly and do nothing about it but complain. Either fix it or leave.

A young professional couple, both earning good money, doesn't have a care in the world. Their free time is their own, they eat out a lot, can pay someone else to take care of the cleaning and ironing. If they've had a rough week they spend the weekend sleeping it off. There's literally fuck all to worry about or argue about.

You can't possibly anticipate how that relationship will look when their income is halved, there's a baby screaming all night and endless chores needing doing.