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

This is so true. I've worked so hard to get us towards almost 50/50. I still do more but he does far more than he used to.

BUT the mental load remains firmly with me. I have no idea how to get him to step up with that. When I try to drop the rope my kids end up missing dental checkups and going to school without the kit they need etc.

I have often wondered that, yet I still see women catering to their sons as though they are gods, and not holding them to any standards of accountability or responsibility. Everything has to be easy and fun. As though the kids are toys and not future adults.

Why are all you smart women settling for this shite? Buy in additional help if you can afford it or he is made to step up
So Many women are absolute martyrs who will grudgingly do all the heavy lifting whilst their lazy arse partner dosses
Dont settle for this inequality don’t Demonstrate it to your kids

We would also literally never go on holiday or do anything to improve our home (or indeed lives) if I didn't take 100% responsibility for planning and paying for it.

Love this thread, I couldn't have written it better myself. I'm going through a divorce just now and I look back and think WTAF was I entertaining in my marriage.

The majority of my friends are now miserable as they've realised they do everything, including holding down a FT job while they're husbands do the bare minimum. Its sad to watch and listen to; there was no transition for me because I did everything anyway, it's actually easier as im not running about after a man child.

I look around me and there's not a lot of marriages/relationships I envy.

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.

I think modern men have internalized the "women can do everything" too much. We can, but we shouldn't.

This is one of the reasons i chose not to have children. But i realise not all women can make this choice because of the longing for a child.

Yep - I think it’s insane that the women are expected to do most things as well as hold down a job. My husband isn’t the worst in the world but he does seem entitled when he’s been working/hungover. We had a few drinks in the garden last night and he gets to have a lay in and sit around all day whilst I still have to cook, clean, do dishes, play with DS in the garden, make sure everyone has clothes clean for next week etc ….. I sometimes ask him how things would be if I suffered badly from hangovers. Nothing would get done. At all. Us women just carry on regardless.

He also comes home from work constantly moaning how tired he is but that’s all he basically does. Work, eat and sleep. I work but have the evening meals to cook, housework, wash loads …. It’s never ending.

I think OP May be correct, thats why I went old school and gave my husband his jobs and responsibility’s early on in our relationship, and truth be told have kept on adding to them

All Gardening, all car cleaning, window cleaning outside, cooking three times a week, putting his washing in washing basket , emptying the dishwasher, if you get home before me bring in the washing from the line. Putting bins out.

I basically do all the house clean, but I am fussy , I do most the food shopping , but do text him to pop past supermarket if I have forgot something I need. I cook three times a week, we try eat out at least once a week.

But I don’t every have to worry about bill paying he sorts all that , only
bill I need to sort is my Next account. He does all the changing to get the good deals ever year. Sorts out all insurances and even books my car in for it MOT.

I think men need to be told what is expected of them they really are very good at ignoring stuff. So if you tell them what you expect they usually achieve it.

I don’t recognise this at all. I was married for thirty years and have been in a relationship for eight years, and both men are/were my best friends. I’ve never carried all the mental load and chores have been equally divided. I’m not saying there haven’t been occasions when I’ve had to assert myself, but both relationships have been loving and considerate. Same with my friends.
Just don’t put up with any shit.

It's so unfair.

I've only ever known two couples who I consider to be equals.

In every other single one the woman takes the mental and practical load. I have to zip my gob shut when I hear women talk about putting up with their useless partners.

@KateFleming yeh, I'm glad my x was so obviously awful, I left and things were easier not harder. If he'd only been averagely shit though, shudder, i might still be there, 🤯 apologising for the weather trying to keep the peace while I tidied up and cooked to his standards, while watching the baby.

I agree. I am the long term single one in my wider group of friends, most of whom are married or in LTRs.

There honestly isn't any of them that I envy, in fact I often hear the complaints about their boyfriends/ husbands and just why 'why the fuck are you putting up with this shite?'.

The only ones I admire and that I see as equal are a gay (male) couple without children, go figure.

My DH and I are pretty equal- yes I do more organising but he does literally all
of the cooking (including making me hot breakfasts several days a week at the moment cos I have gestational diabetes and live largely on eggs) and school runs, as well as a good share of the cleaning.

What I find awkward is when other women try to bond over this “lol aren’t men shit” shtick. I was talking to some today who were joking about how when “we” (the women) go away for a weekend we leave lists of kids activities, prepped outfits and stocked up freezers etc to help out feckless men, whereas men just up and go. And I was like no, my husband is an adult fully capable of caring for our child on his own for a weekend without me sorting it all in advance for him? It’s not rocket science to dress a child in weather appropriate clothes and make them some pasta for tea jfc.

We were told if we study hard and are in successful careers, we wouldn't end up being slaves to our husbands and children.

By whom exactly? Did I miss the memo/lecture/TV program as I've never, ever heard this from anyone

But none of this is easy. You can't 'just habe a chat and sort it out' with someone who simply cannot/will not see that it matters if the rubbish is unemptied for a month, if no clothes are ever washed, if food rots in the fridge and no more is bought. They simply don't see a problem. Same with risks: the baby didn't die last time they let it roll down the stairs unattended, so it's clearly fine to watch tv and leave it to roll down the hall...

And remember, if the children go to school hungry and in dirty, torn clothes, the mother will be blamed, called by the school, referred to social services even. Rarely is the dad asked to engage.

And as for leaving, on what money? With what support? When things seem ok and the DH is funny and sweet and brings in a wage...?

It was big in the 80s when I was a child. Possibly in girls' schools mostly?

I agree that parents of boys in the 70s/80s didn't necessarily set a good example for them. But I also think you have to be prepared to put up a fight for fairness. My MIL did everything for my DH, and he was absolutely useless round the house. When we moved in together, it quickly became apparent that he wasn't pulling his weight. And so the rows began

But this was 20+ years ago and I have succeeded in getting a pretty even split now. I think it helped that from the start I did nothing that was obviously 'his' - no laundry, no ironing, no buying gifts for his relatives etc.
And he's always been a great cook, so I didn't mind doing some more cleaning up. Hoovering/ bathrooms/ general tidying were always our pain points and were never fully resolved until we got a cleaner tbh.

We did have a big conversation pre-kids where I was 100% clear that I expected him to do 50:50, and as far as childcare he ALWAYS has. Nappies, meals, snacks, gifts, school run, playing with them etc. He's embarrassed a few dads we know by being so obviously hands-on (although we both think he does his fair share and that's it).

Since the kids were small, he gets up with them every morning (I am NOT a morning person) and in return I am happy to make beds and stick laundry on. Fair trade for my extra 45 mins and coffee in bed! We do still have a cleaner and that helps massively.

He's not perfect. He still at the age of 45 has a floor-drobe but overall, it's fine and I'm content. I would not put up with less though, I would make his life hell.

I divorced my shitty ex husband who expected me to do everything for kids and house, and work full time, and complained re not enough sex.

So I’m probably not much help!

If he is willing to put a baby in danger or allow a child to starve, how exactly are things ok?

I think it starts young.

Every thread on here about boys and changing rooms has mums saying that they bring their boys into the ladies beyond their 8th birthday as they can’t manage alone.

I was in there alone in sole charge of younger sister at 6 because my mum wasn’t around and my dad didn’t want to take us into the men’s.

Boys are almost coddled into incompetence by many parents, whereas girls are expected to take on a caring role for others at the same or a younger age.

Why are women still raising boys to be like this?

Did you seriously just go there?

You are in a thread full of women saying they have struggled to raise their children with little support from their husbands, but it’s the women’s fault when the boys turn out the same as their dads?

Do you think the women just didn’t try hard enough?

I think, perhaps, you need to look at your own biases and sexism before you start that PhD! 🤣

Not even "studying hard". Just times changing. I never studied hard, but I still knew I'd work and never thought a man born in 1970 would treat me like a slave. My granddad born in 1902 had the same expectations of his wife my x born 68 years later seemed entitled to have.

Absolutely!!! But somehow we have laws that are supposed to guarantee this. My point being that until we can hold companies/people accountable for not giving us this then we’re not moving forward!!!