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

So does your rubbish go out every week? Or is it overflowing the bins attracting rats? Do the neighbours complain? Do you have mice in your house because you have left out food for weeks? Do you find scummy water in the bath when you want to have one?

If not, then how you live has nothing to do with what would happen to OP if she stopped doing the adult stuff in the house. You don't have to polish the brasses but there are a minimum of things you need to do to live without infection. And I suspect you do all those things - plus you married someone who thinks the same way as you.

My mum told me you should marry a man whose faults you can bear. I think this is good advice. OP, maybe you can bear this fault. Or maybe you can't. If you can't then you need to have one more serious conversation with him to tell him his attitude might be ok in his world, but it will result in him being divorced.

I too think this is good advice.

If he really can’t see that he has to change - even a little - then it would be the lack of compromise and consideration that would eventually spell the end for me.

In the meantime, given you’re heavily pregnant, for now just bag up anything he leaves on the floor in a black bag. He can sort his own laundry by hook or by crook. Leave him alone with the toddler much more. Increase the cleaning lady’s hours.

Pfft. I “hate tidying” but it’s not like it’s a phobia. I’m not excused because I “hate it”.

I don’t agree it’s generally a split up/live alone issue for most adults. It’s a learn to be a bit more considerate issue.

You’re clearly lucky your life partner shares your standards exactly. But for most adult partnerships there’s one person a bit more bothered than the other - and that’s where compromise is needed.

I honestly do not believe there are any adults who ‘don’t see mess’. There are plenty who see ‘mess that is not at a threshold I care about’ though.

Start building up your own savings, at least enough to put a deposit & rent advance if you were to leave him & furnish your home. I had a lazy husband, I was working to keep us as he had to finish work due to ill health, I would come home to rows of ds dirty bottles on the worktop, he couldn't even be bothered to wash them & drop them in the steriliser let alone think about making up enough bottles for the rest of the day, he never put a wash on in the whole nine years of our relationship, like you I would find him in bed when I came home from work but he would be watching porn. I was tearing myself in two trying to work, do school runs, look after our home, cook, shop & clean while he sat all day on his idle backside. The first day I was in my own home as a single parent it was lovely to know I would arrive home & everything was as I had left it & nobody else's filth & rubbish to clear up after.

My sister had one of these creatures, pleasant enough but a total slob. I kid you not when he made himself coffee, the counter would be awash with water, spilt milk, sugar and coffee grounds. Then he would not hold the cup totally upright so it would dribble out of the cup all the way to his office!
Her conditions to marrying him was that he was to bring a full time housekeeper with him. And all through their marriage, even when things were very tight, the housekeeper remained.
He lives on his own now, sadly she died, and his flat is a health hazard, his daughter books herself a hotel room when she visits.

My mother was neglectful, too.

Once I was too big to be in a cot, it was my fault if I sliced my foot open on something on the floor, fell through glass or in other ways got hurt or sick as a result of her liking the house how it was. Made sense later on when we realised she literally nearly killed my older sister because she had horrendous asthma as a result of animal and dust allergies, but always recovered quickly in hospital (well, other than the time her lung collapsed, anyhow), only to relapse the moment she was discharged. It was incredibly offensive in my other's opinion to be told that she needed to clean the house when she'd far rather be watching TV.

I was talking to the op.
But you are right you don’t want to be on your deathbed thinking about how you spent your life cleaning up after someone else.
Which is why she should leave.

She doesn't, she can leave. There are costs associated with being a single parent too though.

What there isn't is a future where her husband stops being messy and helps out without constant reminders.

Outsourcing, put up or leave are the 3 choices here.

Fwiw though I think outsourcing is a perfectly valid option if you can afford it. If the OP was wanting to do it no one would be saying no that's lazy.

If you aren’t planning to leave (and even if you are) then outsource everything, the laundry, get the cleaner in every day if you need to, book a childminder, get a gardener in.

If he says anything you just say well you don’t want to do it so we are paying someone to do your share.

And his DF.

Or his does his full share and has his DC half of every week 24/7.

I could have written this! Same issues here.

Our non negotiable is a cleaner once a week for two hours, and part time hours at work for me so I can keep on top of things.

Also I won't pick up the towels/socks etc - and will ask and keep asking him until he does it.

I give deadlines eg can you put that shelf up by the weekend and I set expectations clearly eg I'm going out can you do these tasks please.

It's not ideal but I've given up tbh. I'd say it has gotten better since we had kids as I've been much firmer.

He’s a failure.

OP you're about to have a toddler and newborn. Chuck money at the problem before you're in the thick of it, otherwise you'll be on your knees in a few months.

Your DH obviously earns well but you have hang ups about using money to lighten the domestic load. Get more cleaner hours, a gardening service, use a laundry service for his clothes (he can bag up), tell him he is only to use his allocated bathroom. Let it all be outsourced to get through the next year.

When you have things in place to make your life easier (physically if not mentally), and you're out of the newborn phase, consider the future. If he won't change, you either accept it and carry on with your domestic help. Or you accept you can't live as his pseudo mother and start the process of separation. You could try relationship counselling and see if he has a light bulb moment.

If he’s off the opinion it can be solved by money why not get a weekly cleaner? And in the weeks which your regular one is off find a replacement one who agrees to fill those weeks in.

I have a friend like this, I always think if I were a guy dating her I’d be massively put off her by her lack of consideration. I stayed with her for a couple of months as I needed to rent a room out short term. The state of the flat was miserable - dishes lying in dirty sink water for days on end. Spices and crumbs and dirty pots lining the worktop and cooker. Dirty microwave. Crumbs and stains all over the leather couch which could have easily have been cleaned. Lots of clutter everywhere. I can be pretty untidy myself but every flatmate I’ve had would tell you that aside from my bedroom which no one else has to deal with - I was always super clean and tidy. The reason is because I have respect and consideration for other people!

I’m with@Wanderingfree32 … find your spaces in the house (ideally a room or rooms of your own that you can keep as you want them), and leave the rest of it to the cleaner and make sure she’s well paid! My XH was a bit like this, not as extreme, but I was absolutely sick to death of tidying up after him just so there was somewhere clean and tidy to relax.

I agree that I probably need to put in place some mechanisms to make life easier and let him pay. A cleaner until our regular lady returns. Put the washing in a laundry service- I will point out that he doesn’t even help with this he will sit around and wait for me to bag everything and lug the clothes while heavily pregnant up and down three flights of stairs and when they return he won’t put away, he will literally pull from the bag leaving socks flung everywhere.

However having read through all the responses I think it’s what’s at the crux of this is what it all represents, which is a lack of respect for me and a total absence of consideration generally. I knew when I married him he had a tendency to be selfish but it’s very upsetting, for example, when I’ve been up numerous times during the night with a sleepless toddler and heavily pregnant for him to take time between his calls to go meet friends for coffee or go for a jog rather than ask what he could for 30 mins that would be helpful. If anything it is that behavior that would ultimately represent a deal breaker and while I agree you either tidy or not I think a person can make an effort to be more helpful and considerate

As per my previous post, you need to tackle this in stages. You have had some good advice on this thread.
Buy in as much help as you can find. You need a house keeper and a cleaner. Outsource all the laundry.
Once you get that in place, start getting your ducks in a row.
Have a look at the relationships board to get information and advice on this.

As you say love it’s the selfishness at the back of this that hurts - he’s behaving like someone single rather than a married father of two. Sadly I think you may have some choices to make at some point, but for now just outsource what you can and enjoy the new arrival when they get here 💜

This isn't just his personality trait. Hr is deliberately acting this way because he believes that it's your job to do all of these things

He has no respect for you. Probably women in general

If you can live with this pig because you have a nice big house, that's your choice

Some people are really untidy and he is one of them. Maybe he sees you as house elf, maybe he isn't thinking about it at all.
I think in your shoes I'd try to rearrange things so that his messiness impacts you less.
So if he leaves toothpaste mess in your bathroom, move his toothbrush to the other bathroom.
If you pick his stuff up off the floor, chuck it somewhere out of the way,like a bin bag that the goes in his cupboard. Don't do his washing, obviously, and when the baby has a nap, your priority should be you having a nap too. You are pregnant, you should be resting.
But the real problem is that you doing everything will make you resentful and unhappy. Is there a quid pro quo, does he do other stuff so that you don't have to?

I think he views the high salary as the quid pro quo. We have a comfortable life largely down to his salary. He is very generous, if DC or I wanted something he would buy it for us no questions asked. He is a hard worker professionally speaking and is great fun. In my 20s I would have viewed these attributes as very desirable and would have overlooked the untidiness. But as time goes on and life changes with a baby they have become less important to me with my priority being having a nice home for our DC to grow up in with DH being good role models in terms of partnership and team work.

OP will MIL or DM come and help when baby arrives? Take all the help you can get even if it's just to take DC1 to the park for an hour. In the mean time put your feet up (doctors orders) and tell DH you are too tired to make dinner, pick his socks up etc

You could also look for a postnatal doula for a month or two following birth. They come as often/little as you want and will do whatever is needed to support you following the birth. If you have got money to throw at this problem it would be a good investment

I think in light of your responses, your best option is to buy in whatever help is needed. And if you worry about it being disrespectful to a female cleaner to have them picking up after him, get a male one. But it isn’t really, if they are being paid by him to clean and tidy, then why would they object? He would be paying them to facilitate his time off, that’s OK.
There’s a bit of a puritanical streak running through a lot of us, but if he works hard, and he can afford to pay for help so that he can take a nap when he feels like it, I don’t think that is morally wrong. From what you’ve said he is not expecting you to step in, in fact you have specifically said that he is willing and able to throw money at this problem, so let him. Don’t feel obliged to do everything that he doesn’t want to do. You are in the very fortunate position of being able to afford choices here.
Just think, if you were to leave him , he would almost certainly be paying someone to do all the jobs he doesn’t want to do, it’s not incumbent on you to fill in the gaps.