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

For those saying that it depends on what he was like before you had kids, there was a post on this board quite recently from a woman in that position who was upset that she was doing it all and was told by so many women on here that she should buck up because she wouldn’t know what busy was unless/until she had kids.

I wonder how many women do do more at home but until they have kids are told by the women around them that they should be grateful because they have it easy and then they still with these shit men.

im a firm believer that it isn’t about how much you actually do, but how things are split within the home. If one of you is running yourself ragged (whether it be housework, employment or kids or a combination) and the other is sitting back relaxing something isn’t right

This is controversial BUT for people on here who are happily child free...could I suggest they don't know the realities of what OP and others are setting out?

Before kids, DH and I were fine. Maybe he was a little lazier than me but we only had ourselves to look after. Limited mess and barely any admin. No arguments, no resentment.

Pre school and primary school kids...the laundry, the admin, the mess, the chaos, and also the emotional strain of dealing with arguing small children or crying babies...and then your partner starts to take a back seat.

And also guess what? Sticking up for yourself is harder to. Because I don't want an argument in front of my kids. And leaving..yep, that's harder too because its not just your future your determining anymore.

I actually agree with so much of what you say @gannett but the scenarios have pretty major differences

I agree with you. Before we married and only lived together,, my husband (then boyfriend) did almost everything. I was the messy and disorganised one. I would also never find a man who lived with their parents attractive enough to marry in the first place. It's not to my taste.

After marrying there was no way I would have had a child unless I was sure that my husband would do as much as he can to help. No babies for you if you are a baby yourself.

My husband also agrees with me on the above and thinks that the men who don't want to help as much as they are able with childcare shouldn't have had children in the first place.

@Emotionalstorm
After marrying there was no way I would have had a child unless I was sure that my husband would do as much as he can to help. No babies for you if you are a baby yourself.

It would also be helpful if women stopped calling a "help", implying its their job by default. Its doing their share, working as a team.

Yes I agree. And I don't care if they have a full time job. They should want to take care of and spend time with their child even if they're exhausted. That should be what they want to do with their free time. Any child I have deserves a father like that. I wouldn't agree to have kids for anything less. I wouldn't stop taking care of my child just because I'm tired so that excuse just doesn't fly.

Side note my husband has been begging me for a second one for three years. He has offered to do everything or hire nannies where he can't. I know he has a demanding job so he wouldn't be able to meet his promise. I don't want my kids to be mostly raised by nannies. One kid fits into our lives very well right now so I have said no. I know that if I agreed he would be over the moon and such a doting dad. So yes I would rather not have kids or say no to more kids if it wasn't going well. If your husband is useless and you keep having them, you can't be surprised you keep seeing the same result.

Also even if you are desperate and willing to settle. Think about your kid and how they will grow up with a dad that isn't all in.

Agree re it not ‘helping’, we both do our ‘share’.

I also think it’s a bit patronising to say the childfree don’t understand, yes children are more work but in an equal household there’s no serious imbalance which is the core issue.

I don’t think it’s luck either. My ex used to do all the housework - he enjoyed it. But he was also a narc. I recognised I wasn’t happy and he wouldn’t be supportive in the bad times. I didn’t want to have DC in that environment, he was fun, I loved him but nah.

When DH and I moved in, he wasn’t the greatest cook - maybe 4 meals in his bag. He would get take out/ready meals to do his share.
He then started asking questions and searching recipes and worked on his cooking to benefit us both, an indicator of his future attitude.
He’s made me tidier than I was.

@putthatdownsteve Years back I would have said you were telling porkies, as above I now know different.

I still cannot believe men happily live like this tbh. Don’t they love their DC? I was an anxious FTM, DH actively pushed his way to do his bit when DC was newborn this setting the trend.

I can (and have for medical reasons) leave my house for a week and come back to it as it was left and nothing not done.

That should be standard. Too many men are coasting and I hate to denigrate women but some of us encourage/allow it - those who uphold the patriarchy.

Right, I know MN and many posters like to paint men as a degenerate, alcoholic, drug abusing, lazy, adulterous thug sub species but that isn’t my experience and I think it’s a wildly skewed view.

For SOME men though I think a major issue is they’re taught from the second their DD or DS is born that it’s mum who cares for baby and they don’t get out of that mindset. If you think about the logic of maternity wards - staff tend to ignore the dad, the dad has to leave and can’t stay, he can only see his child at appointed times etc etc. Now, I know there’s reasons for some of those things but changing that will go a long way to changing the early mindset of dads.

Various circumstances meant for DH that mindset didn’t happen (he’s not a degenerate, alcoholic, drug abusing, lazy, adulterous thug for a start), including him having DS at a week old for 2 nights as I went back into hospital so maybe I’m lucky. Even in that scenario though a relative said along the lines of “oh you did so well having the baby” and he responded “I’m his dad and brunettemic was ill in hospital so of course he was with me”. The implication there that society and many women (particularly older women, many of which will have shaped upbringing) also view men as “babysitting” their own children. DH’s mum used to regularly say how “good it was” he changed nappies, did feeds etc.

There’s been a lot of mentions of maternity/paternity leave and I’m a firm believer these should be equal. The way it is now just sets the dad up to be a helper rather than a parent to his own children. That entire process needs to change. The view of “well they can come in and do the cooking/cleaning/witching hour” just reinforces that. How do you expect someone to be a full part of things if they get all the jobs that are just helping out, by definition their role becomes less important and some (not all) will slip into that and resent it, causing the views many have as they gradually do less.

Yes I'm certainly not saying my child-free experience is anything similar.

But something I don't really understand is that I spent a lot of time thinking very carefully about DP as a life partner. And I didn't even have to consider him as a father, nor did I want to get married.

My friends called me a commitment-phobe in my 20s because so few of my flings and dates went anywhere. But that's because there was always an incompatibility that would obviously be an issue long-term, or I could tell they'd be selfish or uncaring in some way. And to be fair, I suspect a fair few men didn't see a future with me because I was so obviously not cut out to look after them or be a domestic goddess.

It took me years to properly commit to DP, even in my own head. I spent a lot of time thinking about our similarities and differences and weighing up his positives and negatives. Also spent a lot of time thinking about whether I even wanted to settle down myself. And that's with nothing really at stake. Blows my mind that any woman could choose a father for her child without being similarly rigorous.

@gannett You know what - it blows my mind too. But it's more complicated than lack of rigour.

I guess my DH made me feel loved, I enjoyed his company a great deal - we had such a laugh together over the years and he was supportive. But the pressure was off for us in our twenties to a certain extent. Now the pressure of kids and mortgages and work is there it's become apparent he is very selfish and has also slipped into habits he observed as a kid (lazy dad). And I have too - my father was very entitled, angry man, and I was pretty unloved as a child, my mother put up with a lot.

Maybe that's all in the mix. Maybe I grabbed hold of the first bloke who seemed reliable, loving, etc and just overlooked picking up his socks. I dont' know. I wish I knew because it blows my mind too that I can be managing a team of 20, earning nearly 6 figures and yet am scrubbing the toilet at 10pm while he games.

I don't know. But i think sometimes women not in this position make it sound as if women like me just didn't bother to think about it, or just aren't smart enough to stick up for themselves. It's more complex than that - and the behaviuor isn't sudden - they don't suddenly become selfish pigs, it's drip drip drip until you realise you've become you're mother.

I commend you for knowing your worth so early on.

Possibly luck as well. I consider wanting to be child-free a massive stroke of luck because it meant I was never under time pressure to find a partner (or any pressure to find a man, really). I had the luxury of thinking about it for five years (and luckily a patient DP who waited that long).

I really am also slatternly to the extent that no man could have ever imagined I'd pick up their socks or scrub their toilets. If anything it's DP who's nagged me into raising my domestic game to be acceptable.

But I do wonder why I don't see this pattern among my married-with-kids friends. I'm not friends with any traditional alpha male types, because I just don't enjoy their company as friends, let alone partners. I'm also not friends with any women who swoon over that type. And a good bulk of our friends are LGBT anyway. So as an adult I've consciously built a social circle of men and women who have very little time for traditional gender roles, or at least the self-awareness to know when they're falling into them and how to counterbalance it.

That bit wasn't about finding a partner - that was about finding people with similar values to me to be friends with as an adult.

DH accepts things ought to be 50/50 and was very hands on with sharing responsibility for picking up from childcare when they were little, and doesn't pull the "My job is more important" schtick. I do earn about 40% more than him now, FWIW.

He has also always been great about looking after DDs so I can have time away or work away or go to the gym, go for a run etc. Never any issue there.

With housework though he has always needed reminding about things needing doing and often needs asking directly to help with something. Which he then will, but after 20+ years together this is not going to change.

My DF was not like that and always did things 50/50 round the house with DM, who always worked and had a decent job, but DF grew up in a household where he had to do a lot as the eldest sibling after his DM died quite young, so he just found it normal.

Whereas DH grew up in a house where DFIL did bugger all, and DMIL ran herself ragged and gave up her professional job. So it was a bit of a culture shift for him.

Is he remembering to do that without prompting? All the time? If so, keep the hard work , the main load women carry is not about doing the chores and being caters, it is the mental load of reminding everything and everyone about what needs to be done.

This is why I believe maternity leave is a major factor. So many couples say that the husband pulled his weight 50/50 pre kids.

Then maternity leave comes along and he enjoys having a housewife and gets used to it.

I can speak for my DH - no I don’t need to remind him, he has eyes a brain and knows how to look after his child and home.

As for buying the stuff and whatnot - we discuss these things, eg we both add to online shopping list throughout the week and check in with other before ordering.

I do all the washing, that’s not negotiable. We both hang to dry, he does most ironing but I’m banned from folding/putting away - non- negotiable (my standards aren’t good enough apparently, I fecking hate folding/drawer replacement).

He did have to ask yest where DC nursery uniform for ironing was, but that’s because I had already done it (20/80 spilt to him with that chore).

I have never met any woman (or man) who could possibly conceive of the unbelievable amount of work,, emotional strain, physical and mental exhaustion, lack of time (not 'no time to go to a hobby' but no actual time to go to the loo, always having to carry spare knickers everywhere you go: that extreme lack of time), etc. having children creates.

So there is absolutely no possibility of guessing that a decent, feminist man who does cook and tidy up would shrivel into something else once the baby is born.

Plus the unconscious, Oedipal shit emerges post-baby, not before.

So stop implying women aren't responsible enough!

Why does 50:50 stop during Mat leave?

Theres more work! Surely it’s shared evening/weekend?

TBF, I was out a lot but did maybe 60:40? Often chucked baby at DH when he got home to cook/tidy/sit in kitchen alone, he still does most baths.

I BF a poor sleeper. I went to bed early (8/9) DH had baby til 12 feed.
I took over from then.
Morning DH often changed nappy and talked to baby while getting ready for work/I slept.

Im 6 months preg with 2nd, we are already discussing who does what so we can prepare our preschooler for changes.

There is a big difference between believing it has to stop (which is not what the other poster has implied) AND 50/50 going out of track because mum is getting in charge or familiar with new tasks during maternity leave and these do not automatically revert to the man at the end of it.

@gannett I think having that clear-headedness about not having children is definitely a position of strength. And honstly, I feel envy for women like youy who know their owns mind and have been so intentional with their futures. I wish I had been.

I definitely don't think it's just about trad gender roles outwardly though. On paper and socially - I am the alpha wife. I earn much more, I am more confident socially, I drink more, and louder, more assertive in my life in general. DH is quieter, less driven, he doesn't drink - I would say he's has slotted into the role of lazy, teenage boy who wants to be mothered. It's not an attractive or healthy dynamic for either of us.

I think our outward personalities and what happens behind closed doors are v different. People saying they don't know anyone like this is the same as when people say they don't know anyone in an abusive relationship - you just aren't having those conversations, it isn't that it doesn't exist.

Lazy, entitled arsehole men aren't parading about being lazy, entitled arsehole men - chugging beer and grabbing bottoms - that would be far easier to spot and avoid. Instead, it's often about 'good' men starting to get into bad habits and 'good' women like me responding to that just as our mothers did - not making a fuss, teasing them, making light...and then the resentment builds. And here we are - on mumnset trying to work out what the fuck to do about it.

Who makes it go out of track?

Why do they have to revert to the man at the end? Why wasn’t he doing it during mat leave?

DW might be home more but there’s a baby to look after? The washing, cooking, cleaning, life admin can be done as it was before - evenings and weekends. There’s more of it not less.

What’s DH doing during Mat leave? Coming home and sitting on the sofa? Not supporting his wife/engaging with his child?

I’m not blaming the women but I’ve seen where women seem to expect that they do more and I don’t understand why.

I’m disgusted by these men and the patriarchal structure that allows such men to exist.
I rem my DH being disgusted when a similar age male relative was shocked to learn he bathed our DC and had done since newborn.

Of course he is. What hard work? I didn’t do anything. I’d expect to prompt a child but I would not and will not prompt a grown adult.

In my circle of friends, many, not all, when the first baby came along the mums were very possessive and wrapped up in a little baby bubble, which often excluded the DHs. When they did try to get involved the mums were critical or took over, thinking they were doing it wrong. I can see how this develops and why. Then it's hard to come back from that when the baby gets older.

We had twins so there was really no choice but for DH to roll his sleeves up and muck in (although I do know fathers of twins who didn't!).

He did 4 long days so he could have a day off in the week (when I went back to work part time), to reduce childcare. This was nearly 22 years ago, and the amount of people in our family who lavished him with praise for doing such a thing was unreal. His mum still goes on about it.

Yes he can be untidy and doesn't notice mess as much as I do, but maybe that's a good balance as I can be too uptight about the house.

@NagHag you are exactly right about so many lazy entitled men not having that kind of outward face - and as I said below it's not always that they are lazy per se- just domestically lazy.

And it isnt as simple as spotting how they were on their own. My H had a tidy and clean flat on his own and cooked (albeit nothing fancy) and was at the laundrette every week religiously. It's something that crept in over the years - probably because I'm a very 'keep things ticking over in a peaceful way' kind of person and he is naturally not a calm person , very easily agitated. Now because we've been married 27 years if I do comment it's taken as 'a criticism/nag' - he does however work far harder than i do and the bulk of 'earning' is on him and I've taken that into account

Au contraire!
The men are extremely bright and talented, they are expert at feigning incompetence and manipulating women into doing the work for them