Would life really be harder with a divorce?

[anomies]

Fairly typical scenario

1 toddler DC. I work 3.5 days (~35hours), DH works 5 days (~45 hours).

I do >90% night wakings, 90% housework, earn 60% of our total income.

DH does the early wakeups with DC about 4 mornings out of 7, and does bathtime when he’s home (again maybe 4 nights out of 7)

We‘re pretty 50:50 with the end-of-day quick kitchen clean and tidy, floor sweep etc, but all other housework falls to me. All laundry, all shopping, all cooking, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, hoovering, sweeping, cleaning the bins etc etc etc

All DC appts etc are me

Which all makes sense because I work fewer hours. and yet somehow I just feel responsible for everything. Including our financial security, because I’m the higher earner. I know this is absolutely bog standard for any working mum and most women on here are doing much more.

anyway DH and me are not getting on very well at the moment I keep fantasising about divorce and then thinking no, it’s too hard with a young DC. But then I thought, if we split, DH would take DC several days a week. I’d be doing the same amount of work and housework and mental load stuff but I’d have some genuine free time. The only headache would be downsizing and we’d struggle to afford separate households in the SE atm. But otherwise, divorce seems like the more advantageous option.

what am I missing? I can be quite naive and I often don’t intuitively understand the world. Divorce couldn’t actually be the best option lifestyle wise for me, could it? Obviously I’m not saying I’d do it just for a better lifestyle, DC lifestyle comes first. But am I unrealistic to imagine it would be easier?

It’s a balance between lifestyle and happiness. Only you can decide which matters more.

Well hopefully you would be missing your partner and father of your child? There is still some love there? There's a difference between "we're not getting on atm" and "I'm out of love with him and genuinely want him out of my life" and of course only you know if that's the case but one would hope your partner's benefits to your life are more than just the semantics, especially as I imagine you must have loved him at some point to decide to have a family with him?

You're making an assumption that your DH would have the DC several days a week.

Doing everything, even part of the time, is tough mentally, emotionally and physically. It can be much improved by good co-parenting but it depends on how amicable you are able to be, how willing you both are to bite your tongue, how involved friends, family and new partners get to stirring up trouble and whether or not you are able to agree on the big stuff like schools. It doesn’t take much for it to go tits up. Big time. And of course, you are assuming he will want to co-parent rather than do every other weekend.

If you are not quite there yet, a full and frank discussion with your husband, a commitment from both of you to make things better including getting professional help like Relate would be better for all concerned than divorce.

One of the best pieces of advice I see repeatedly on MN is that couples should share the domestic load in such a way that they each have equal free time regardless of earning level.

working fewer hours, as you do, means that it’s fair for you to do a little more. It sounds like you feel you do WAAAY more though? What does your DH think of the arrangements?