Will DH ever change? How can I get through to him?

[NewMomma21]

Looking for advice.

Married to DH for 4 years. We have an 18 month old and I’m almost 30 weeks pregnant. DH has a stressful job; he earns a very good salary and works long hours and travels abroad frequently. He is a good provider and great fun socially.

I would have considered myself happily married but recently I am becoming increasingly resentful of DH. Although he provides financially he does nothing to keep the house running. He doesn’t ever put a wash on. He lets the bins run to overflowing. He does absolutely no cleaning or cooking and frequently will leave a mess behind him whenever he is in the house. Often leaves clothes/towels on the floor. I have to ask multiple, multiple times over the course of days to do things I am physically unable to do (for example lifting heavy loads of washing, emptying bins, quick tidy of the garden). I am left to do everything around the house. Although I work FT I am off for the summer, it doesn’t matter if I’m in work or not he still contributes nothing. On the weekends he often plays golf for one day. On the days he is home and off when LO naps he more or often than not gets into bed for two hours for a nap or scroll on his phone. This is time during the day I use to do a tidy, load of washing, hoover etc.

Recently he was away for over a week (longest trip since covid) and it was just me and LO. Life was much easier. There was no mess to clean up. The house was clean and tidy. No picking up his clothes and litter. I found the extent to which it was easier shocking.

I have tried so many times to ask him for help. Begged. Nagged. Gotten angry, gotten upset. Nothing ever gets through to him. He just doesn’t seem to care. I feel increasingly like I am mother to a toddler and messy, selfish teenager.

Has anyone any advice? I don’t know how else to get through to him

YABU- he contributes financially and he is unlikely to ever change
YANBU- he needs to start pulling his weight

Will DH ever change? No.

How do I get through to him? You can't; he likes things the way they are.

Sorry, OP, but I had one of these. I spent years thinking that if I could just explain things properly, he'd see how unfair they were. And I'm an English teacher; words are my thing.

He wasn't interested in changing, because he liked being selfish and being waited on. He was perfectly happy to see me run myself ragged whilst he barely lifted his arse off the sofa at the weekend and watched sport compulsively. He used to use the "if you don't want to do it, don't do it" approach, which taken to its logical conclusion would have meant living in squalor with no clean clothes, no clean dishes, and no food in the house.

I'm sorry to be so negative, but he's an XH for a reason. The only way your DH will change is if he wants to change. In my experience, men don't.

OP I am sorry this is such a tough time. I can’t believe he’s not being supportive while you’re pregnant. This is not acceptable at all.
I just read your update about how he apologised about handling the conversation badly which gives me a small amount of hope that he may be open to changing.
if you do want to save your marriage and think that there is still something in it, I’d suggested like others that counselling is key.
however what you could start with, for a softer start I’d say to him that if he is serious about improving your partnership is to read Fair Play with you by Eve Rodsky. It brings up a lot of the things you discuss and may help him see the bigger picture.
This book is not going to magically solve anything if he’s not open and willing to change his mindset radically though. It sounds like there’s a lot of hurt and resentment on your side, rightly so. And sometimes it’s best for that all to come out in a safe space like a counselling situation otherwise it just simmers and causes more issues.
my story which is a bit different, but I took on way too much during my first maternity leave and was also a micro manager when it came to the baby and the housework. Husband isn’t that messy (about the same as me) and he is very considerate but there were lots of things he didn’t think about like the wash needing to go on, prep the house for the cleaner, what stuff does baby need for nappy bag, what’s the sleep schedule etc. Part of this was me being too controlling so he lost confidence and just let me lead the way. mental load was off the charts for me. I was also house hunting and then sorting a house move and I basically nearly had a breakdown because of all the stress. I discovered Fair Play book and we had a lot of honest and hard conversations where I realised I wasn’t letting go of enough and therefore he wasn’t able to take things off my plate. it was a lot of trial and error (still is) but these days I never do the washing, I rarely do our toddlers meals, the kids bedrooms are prepped for bedtime by him most nights, the list goes on. I just had a second baby and for my second pregnancy I barely lifted a finger because he could see how much I was struggling with the fatigue. He was on top of everything. Night and day compared to those first few months of my first maternity leave. To start with though he’s always been respectful, able to listen to my concerns and does everything he can for us to be in a harmonious relationship. For us it was about changing how we work together and for me to let go and trust him more and communicate better but also for him to step up and take charge of certain things.

Sorry for the long post but in summary I suggest

• focus on your new baby when they arrive for now and get as much extra help as you can for those first few weeks
• before the baby arrives ask him to read fair play and also have a chat about expectations and support needed when the baby is a newborn
• Get some counselling if you can to work through these issues once you’re through the first few weeks with the baby, or maybe before the baby arrives
• set a time limit in your own head for when you’ll make a final decision about your marriage if things don’t change radically. Don’t spend the next few years being unhappy. But definitely give things a shot if you think there’s something worth saving

Marriages might not end over "a bit of hoovering". But families start to fall apart if people leave towels on the floor and then another member of the family slips on them and ends up in A&E. Or they slip on the food on the floor. Would he want to explain those accidents away to the doctors? It surely would flag him up as a safeguarding risk and be put on his children's medical records.

Food on the floor also attracts mice and ants (which he really doesn't want) - surely he can see that?

Marriages most certainly fall apart over completely failure to pull weight particularly when this is minimised to “a bit of hoovering”.

His friends (who are a lovely bunch) and their opinion of him are a considerable priority to him.

This is pretty sad. His friends' opinions of him are more of a priority than your opinion of him. he is more likely to put away a dirty nappy because his buddy from university would think less of him if he didn't than if his wife would think less of him. There is a lot to unpick with your husband, OP. You should be his ultimate priority - not in a roll over and do whatever you want way but if you express a concern or distress then this should really really matter to him. I'm married 30 years. I couldn't have gone through one year of marriage if I didn't think that I was the most important person in the world to dh (and vice versa of course). The one whose opinion he cared most about. The one he wanted to help the most.

OP, I've learned over my life that people take you at your own valuation. Value yourself properly.

Oh OP. He sounds so much like my dh - that utterly rigid inflexible thinking - “if it’s not a problem for me it’s not a problem” combined with the fact the thinking doesn’t correspond with reality (in your case, the fiction that you can just outsource all this stuff). It’s awful, and it doesn’t get better, I can tell you that much.

honestly in your shoes I would get a nanny housekeeper to come every day. This will get way way worse when you have a baby and a toddler - the first year is the absolute worst even at the best of times iyswim. Just hire someone now so your life isn’t utterly dreadful and then you can make more considered decisions when you are out of the baby stage with no 2 - heavily pregnant is not the time to be adding marital breakdown to your to do list.

No, he isn't likely to change, unfortunately. He's showing you who he is, and that is a man who sees you as less than him, expects to be served by you, and is happy for you to have a worse life that he does.

That isn't how someone acts when they love you.

I tried this with my ex and the stench from the bathroom was too much.
The piss on the floor and streak marks in the toilet, the inch deep cake of toothpaste round the basin.

Believe me when I tell you these type of people never change and living in filth doesn’t bother them.

I always thought it was me who couldn’t keep on top of housework, even when we didn’t have children.

Then exh got a job that took him away 3 weeks in every 4.

Suddenly my house was tidy and clean. Dc were in a routine. Life was so much better. Then he returned for a week and chaos descended
Till he went away again.

These people never change and just get worse with age.

Tell him marriages do end over a bit of hoovering. It isn’t just the hoovering though it is the laziness and disrespect. The fact he would put you in danger of slipping on his dropped food when you are pregnant.

This is a person who doesn’t understand consequences
Doesn’t he understand that if you slipped on his crap you could lose the baby

This is a person who doesn’t care

What is he going to do on his annual leave?

When is his annual leave?

Are the food, the towels, his clothes etc going to remain where he dropped them till his annual leave.

I would get rid now. You don’t want the stress of a new born and trying to get him to clean up after himself

Life is so much easier without having to run around tidying up after someone who couldn’t give a toss about you