I am losing it with DH!

[LosingIt23]

Sorry, this will be long... I apologise in advance.

DH and I have been married for 11y. We have one DC (3yo). We both work FT and we have separate finances - I pay mortgage, childcare, house/garden maintenance and food/shopping. He pays for the car (I don't drive), utilities and a cleaner 1x week (5h). In case it is relevant, I make 4x his salary so I naturally cover 4x more in terms of costs.

I am a high earner and we can comfortably live without his income but I respect that he wants a career and have, 2 years ago, accepted to move away from my parents/friendship circle to live close to his parents as he had a career opportunity there. I have, in the past, offered him an option to be SAHP but he refused and I can fully understand that - SAHP wouldn't suit me either. DC adores him and he adores DC. The two of us can still laugh together, sex is good and I am not interested in other men.

However, and this is a big HOWEVER - I carry the entire mental load. All the appointments, all orders for the house, maintenance, pets, his own as well as DCs and mine health/social engagements - pretty much anything that comes to mind, it's down to me...

I WFH and have a very intense job which means that a week can pass and I won't step a foot outside of the house. He works in an office and gets up, showers, puts his suit/tie on and off he goes with a book to read during the commute. In the meanwhile, I wake up before him - feed the pets, start cooking (so that DC would have a healthy, cooked from scratch meal for dinner), check in on both sets of parents, get DC ready for nursery (he does drop offs and pick ups)... once they're out of the door, I clean, tidy and then start working. If work allows, I spend lunch break dealing with said appointments, orders...

And then we come to today. Last three weeks have been very difficult for me. I had a business trip which was cut short when a close family member of mine died. I flew to my home country to organise funeral, be support to my mother (ill and on her own) etc. Came back Sunday evening to a house that was a complete pit. It turns out he forgot the vet appointment for neutering our kitten, which started spraying... on top of that he decided to fire our cleaner as he 'realized he could save so much if he just did it himself' - but of course he didn't. His clothes and dirty socks were all over our en suite and dressing room.

I didn't even get a chance to recover/address this when I got plunged into a work-related crisis that got me working late 2 days in a row. He offered a 'poor you' speech but made sure to mention DC said how 'Mummy always works'. This morning he forgot to take something that had to be posted and I had to walk 25mins (one way) to do it myself. On top of that - even though I asked him 3x -he forgot to take my raincoat from the car and drove off with it and it was pouring outside. Finally - I discovered that he still didn't repair (or order parts) for a tool he was promising to fix since we moved here.

So, wise Mumsnetters - AIBU to lose it at him or not? What do I do? How do I make him see this kind of life will send me to a hospital or worse?

There's a lot of learned helplessness with some men, they know it will be done regardless and no amount of reminding coaxing, arguing etc will make any difference. I don't know what the answer is but I know from experience what won't work. My friend has just returned from renovating her holiday home in France, and on her return house was a tip, piles of ironing, weeds up to the window and her DH had missed the MOT on his car. You have my utmost sympathy xx

Rehire the cleaner and leave for a week go on hols somewhere last minute and tell him to sort the house out and take a long hard look himself.

You want a life partner not a freeloader...

What's the attraction? Why do you still want to have sex with that?

Is there a man alive who has taken a day’s holiday from their c suite level job to do cleaning? I’m not sure there is.

OP you are taking better care of your husband’s ego than he deserves - rehire the cleaner that’s a must.

You are important here too - not just him. You are giving his feelings more consideration than they deserve and you will fry yourself if you keep on like this.

You have a good salary, en suite, dressing room, cleaner, 2 incomes, and you have very little time. So why only one car? Couldn’t you drive to PO? Or Taxi? Or book a Hermes collection? It doesn’t add up. Do you only have 1 raincoat? Why do you clean up every morning when you had a cleaner?

Also - another reading idea - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drop-Ball-Achieving-More-Doing/dp/1250071739

A therapist might ask you what he has done for your last 11 birthdays - has he remembered? Planned anything for you?
I bet you remembered his.

You have a lot more birthdays to go.

How the hell do you cope with a grown up child; he’s a lazy twat; he’s got you running ragged whilst he just watches, & he doesn’t give a shit; you need to spend your lunch break splitting house chores 50/50 & give him the ultimatum he needs to pull his weight & be more thoughtful to your needs or your going to have to take some time out from your career, which will mean a whole lifestyle change for everyone.

Just accept him for what he is. I am like you and have had to do the same. Not everyone can manage the parallel processing and the organisation. That's your skill - make the most if it, may be get some help.

My partner is a great dad, we both work full time. But he just didn’t ( and doesn’t ) see the mental load. So a couple of years ago I was about to flip and I wrote down every thought I had during the day ‘ book swimming, do the washing, take cat to vets, , new school shoes, food shopping, pay nursery fees etc et ‘ it covered about 4 sides of A4. And I showed it to him and asked him what he had thought about in relation to the kids, the house and all that. He was very surprised. I don’t know if there is a switch turned off in some people or something but he had no idea. So I delegated some to him and he agreed, he still doesn’t have the mental load, but I know that he deals with childcare and the other stuff that is on his listI don’t have to worry about it anymore. They say this is common in a heterosexual relationship with kids, I don’t know if it is or not. But my partner really has no clue sometimes!!

I want to start by saying that some years ago I was in an abusive relationship. Domestic violence level and I was educated, smart and a professional. When I eventually walked away I asked him why he had behaved in this way and he told ot was because I had let him. It was that simple.
So stop letting DH walk all over you or leave the relationship. Read back your post. Is this how you want your life to turn out. Only you can change it. His life is hunky dory.

So having to keep a household calendar overwhelms him? Hey I'm sorry but you need to indicate to him that you are overwhelmed now. To the point of making a major change. Especially since you are now also the maid.

He’s quite a laid back person and sadly, it’s a personality trait that cannot be changed.

I think you need more than a cleaner - you need a nanny housekeeper. You might even need two separate people.

This is an absolute must.

If you don’t want to get rid of him, you need someone to pick up all these tasks. They can’t just sit undone, and you definitely don’t have the time.

I predict that one day you will end up absolutely hating this man

I realised that my DH cannot organise things. Even though he earns less, I gave up work to run and organise everything.

We did try again with him as a SAHP. My house is now a candidate for Life of Grime and he couldn't cope with everything. I'm hoping to get my house sorted by Christmas and maybe get a job for a few days a week instead.

You really can't make him into something he isn't.

If you don’t want to get rid of him, you need someone to pick up all these tasks. They can’t just sit undone, and you definitely don’t have the time.

OP, if you’re still reading, I think this is a very solid starting point for a discussion with him.

You don't want to undermine him 😳

Holy fuck OP - undermine him??? Why are you walking on eggshells around this lazy fucker's precious fragile ego? In the gentlest way - stop being a doormat, and undermine the fuck out him! He needs a bloody wake-up call to reality!

I can't see a way around it. My DH is like this. He's just never seen any of it as his responsibility. I am the default everything "family" and he is the default for nothing.

He does however look after maintenance and the garden.

He even seems to have stopped eating meals that I cook because he doesn't want to feel obliged to reciprocate.

I do love him. In order to rebalance things I've dropped to 2 or 3 days a week. In those days I earn as much as he does for 5. He moans about it as if I'm shirking, but in all honesty when both our kids got serious mental illnesses someone had to step up. It had to be me because he's not capable.

Male blindness?

Both my daughters are thankfully lesbians so I'm hoping they will break the cycle. Its a shame that the only way a woman can live an equal life is by being gay.

I won't leave but after years close to breakdown I found my own way of rebalancing the scales.

Stop doing any of his calendar crap. Do not schedule his appointments, keep track of his family and friends' birthdays, buy their presents. Just stop.

Rehire the cleaner. Get some more help in. Do not take any more crap about him being able to do it because he's proved he isn't.

"Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?"

I hope you have found some way to have happiness because this is no way to live. He won't eat your meals because he might be expected to return the favour? That is so sad.

I am in a similar situation. We earn about the same but I wfh and do everything kid like including after school clubs and he merrily trots off to work and keeps to his own schedule.

I have lost my shizz at him several times because I am utterly exhausted dealing with work crisis after crisis, school stuff (am chair of governors) all the kid stuff, all the housework and life admin.

so now he gets a list of what he has to do and if he doesn’t do it, that’s on him because I’m not doing it either.

give him a list and tell him to pull his weight and DO NOT DO IT IF HE DOESNT!

YNBU but I don’t know what the answer is either I’m afraid. My husband is amazing in a lot of ways but the mental load is down to me. Neither of us get that much of a break as we have two DC under 3 (one with a disability) but he always ends up with more of a break somehow. I’m considering divorce too.

This