How did I end up in this dynamic

[Truthbomb]

I need to get this out of my head. I want to go to counselling however our current budget just doesn’t allow for this and GP wait times are insane.

I am a woman with two children and my partner (their dad) is driving me to insanity. I feel fucked from having to constantly live in my masculine energy to make up for what he lacks. I make every decision in this house hold and I don’t want to. I beg for his input sometimes and he says ‘I’ll support whatever you want to do’. That’s so fucking unhelpful. Pretty much like Julia’s husband from motherland! I am at a point where I’m starting to loathe him and find him rather pathetic. I meal plan, shop, budget, organise the bills, make every decision regarding our kids, tell him what he needs to do regarding household maintenance etc. He asked me where his work shirts were this morning and I wanted to combust. How privileged is that question? Just living in the knowledge that someone else has organised your life for you. He will ask me if we have butter in the fridge before even LOOKING IN THE FUCKING FRIDGE.

To sum it up, he does nothing except work and when he comes home he makes very basic conversation and childish jokes and I really am beginning to loathe him. He always says to me ‘am I doing enough, how can I help to support you more?’, but I am trying to explain that I can’t teach him to use his eyeballs and see that the washing needs bringing in, or the stairs need hoovering, why an earth do I have to remind him? The problem with ‘asking for help’ means that when I don’t think for him, it inevitably doesn’t get done and then that is still my fault for not telling him what to do.

He always says how grateful he is to me and how I teach him to communicate and be open about his emotions and help him budget better since he is terrible with finances but I can’t think of one thing that he brings to the table to enrich my quality of life other than a second salary.

I am independent but I also would like a balanced relationship where I feel taken care of occasionally but I feel I can never relax, never have my guard down because it’s always at the cost of something slipping. Every evening after dinner he says ‘I’ll do the dishes just leave them for a minute’ but that essentially means he will leave them out including food on the plates until the following morning and I find it so frustrating. We have an open plan house and I don’t want to smell or have dirty dishes in my eyeline when I’m trying to relax. Inevitably I end up doing it because I find it so irritating.

He just seems to have no urgency, no direction, no motivation, no interests. After work he just moans about his team and lives in a victimhood that is soul destroying to listen to.

He is already telling me this year is going to be a difficult year as his suffers from SADs and he can feel it starting already. I know he will expect me to understand and counsel him through this and I just can’t do it anymore. I feel like I may have a breakdown from carrying everyone in our household whilst all my needs are completely unmet.

I cannot go on like this, I fear living with this level of resentment and stress will make me unwell.

I am sorry for rambling, I just need to get these thoughts out of my brain. They are all consuming and so tiring.

I am also aware I’ll probably get slated for putting up with it. I don’t know why I have to be honest. I feel I don’t even know what makes me happy anymore because I have neglected myself for so long.

Could you go away for a week with a friend?

You've married the wrong person.

Urgh I couldn’t put up with that Op, there’s a reason project management is a profession in itself. How does he manage at work? So he CAN do it, he’s choosing not to.

This is beyond counselling. You are with the wrong person. He is not going to change, what would be in it for him? Life is pretty good for him, only having to work and do nothing else!

Yes he manages a team, and comes home moaning about their incompetence and how everything falls on him. Of course I find that feeling awfully familiar.

I do agree that I have settled for the wrong person. I am so fucking angry at myself for accepting this life. I would not want this for my daughter, so I don’t understand why I have allowed it for myself.

Many of my friends have young children and aren’t in a position to go away for a week. I am tempted to book myself a weekend alone somewhere to seriously consider my future.

He needs a kick up the arse and you need a very frank conversation with him about whether or not this marriage can continue.

@Truthbomb

The mental load, it’s so destructive. I’m sure you’ll get many a reply saying ‘just write down everything that needs doing’ or ‘urgh you married a loser, mine does everything (when told to)’.

Honestly? This is my experience, men like this don’t change. They may for a bit, but eventually the expert deliberate incompetence comes back with a vengeance. The lines ‘I just don’t notice thing like you do’, ‘you’re just fussy’, ‘stop nagging me’ will start cropping up once you’ve put out there just how frustrated you are. Your mental well-being doesn’t matter, you exist as a walking diary for the family, a built in household manager.

I left. Yes the household still needs running, but the mental relief of not having to put any brain space into managing the life of a manchild who eventually brought nothing to the table bar leaving the house to go to work every day was worth its weight in gold.

I'm not sure that a week-end away will cure all the OP's problems and turn her dh into a fully engaged 50/50 partner in the long term.

All that will happen is that he will ensure the kids are fed the week-end the OP is away, then revert to type when she comes back.

Send him this. Seriously. Do it.

https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/

Would you show him this thread?It's honest and shows how desperate you are for a better life.

If that doesn't kick him into action, it's time to round up your support network and prepare to end it.

I don’t say this often OP, but LTB.

Life’s too short.

I just couldn’t live like that. I had one incident in my marriage when I felt I was doing the mental load. It was a strange set of circumstances and changing of roles that got us there (I went back to work essentially) and after about 5 weeks when I was rushing around cleaning/washing/cooking dinner/shopping/walking the dog after doing a full time job and commuting 120 miles a day. I lost it, and we sorted it out. This was just for a 5 week period and has not been the same since. I couldn’t imagine being with someone for the rest of my life behaving like that.

This sounds like a difficult situation OP.

It's easy for commenters to tell you to LTB, but realistically you are here because you want a solution and your daughter deserves for you to try anything to keep the family unit together.

Have you thought about getting away for just the two of you and calmly and compassionately really spelling out to him that you need him to step up in the relationship?

It sounds to me that he may be low on confidence. Maybe he has faced some tough situations in life, possibly in the distant past. He's retreated into a comfort zone, in part enabled by your own strength, which allows him to be weak. Over time, this has become his default setting. He may not realise how badly this is affecting you, but browbeating him won't give him confidence, it will push him further into his shell.

Once you really encourage him to step up and really spell out the consequences of not doing so, you may be able to galvanise him into action. It will require a mixture of carrot ("I believe in you being the husband you can be") and stick ("I can't live with things as they are indefinitely and it's up to you to rise to the challenge").

Good luck.

Tell him everything.

Just lose your shit, refuse to have anything to do with his work shirts and ignore dumb questions.
You know you've allowed this.

So to fix the OP being mentally exhausted from carrying her adult husband through life, she has to step up the level of taking on his mental load in a small hope he’ll change his ways in the longterm? Sod that.

And I highly doubt he’s got ‘low confidence’, many men leave their mothers in search of another in the form of a wife. It’s the inset expectation of many men, things still haven’t changed that much. Even the partnerships where it looks like there are men ‘pulling their weight’ from the outside is only because their wives and partners are telling them what needs doing. Yet they think it’s great because the men are actually doing it after ‘only being told once’ 🙄.

You could also show him this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

You have become the parent and he the child. It’s an actual attachment style and hard to change without professional support. I couldn’t enjoy my life either op. It’s all on you and it’s exhausting

You're obviously a strong woman. To answer your question of how you got here... I can't tell you how much I hate to say it, but I think strong women often end up in relationships with useless men. They're strong, so initially at least they feel they can carry what he lacks and I actually think that some of them - not saying you must be one - feel that they somehow wouldn't be as strong if they went with a strong man. It satisfies their need to feel and know they're strong. But like raindrops erode rocks, years of having to be the strong one wear people down, especially when the load increases with children.

I don't know what the solution is. You need to somehow communicate to him that he needs to take initiative at home like he does at work. Threads on here don't reassure me that that can be done easily but if you're to stay married it's the only thing that will work.

I am in exactly the same situation. Although now my DH is on sick leave indefinitely from work so is at home all day - and still does nothing.

I relate so much to the "oh I'll do the dishes" and then leaving them till the next day. And if I start to do them it will be "I was just about to do that" in a hurt tone. As PPs have said - nothing will work with this type of man. Lists, endless conversations, getting upset, just leaving it all until the house is totally chaotic, marriage counselling - I've done it all, and nothing has changed.

I am in constant conflict over whether to stay or leave. Not just this, but other things as well, including lack of respect for what I would like our life to be like - the lack of doing household chores is a symptom of this. But I am so torn about breaking up the family, and for me it would be hard financially.

Also, I still feel like I love him - we do sometimes get on well. It's all so bloody confusing. I've actually bitten the bullet and have booked to see a counsellor this week - it's expensive, but I don't want to live like this anymore, feeling resentful and in conflict.

Sorry I don't really have any advice, as I haven't found anything that works in this situation. But sending you solidarity and I hope you can find a resolution.

@Gerrataere ditto. OP I feel your pain!

The way I see it there's three choices.

Tell him tonight it's over. Pack a bag and one of you goes or you struggle on until you sell the housem. Sounds like he wouldn't fight for 50/50 so you probably will still be doing it all, but at least you won't also be looking after him

Carry on until you combust with rage, have a massive screaming meltdown and then do as above or suffocate him in his sleep.

Change YOUR part in this. Tell him "we both work, you need to do more. Dinner is your responsibility Mon-Wed Inc shopping for it. You need to do your own washing and ironing.

"I'll wash up in a sec". You move seats so you can't see them and you absolutely do not do them
"Do we have butter?" I don't know, have a look.
"Where are my shirts?" Where you left them.

"what's for tea?" It's your night, you tell me. If he doesn't do it, feed you and the kids or take yourselves out for MacDonalds. Leave him to sort himself out.
And I'd precede all of this with "I'm going away for a weekend, I need time to think about our relationship. I'll go straight from work Friday and I'll see you Sunday night. The children's commitments (if there are any) are on the calendar.

Maybe ask what he'd do if someone in his team knew the job description but wouldn't complete any work without being prompted.

Then ask what he'd do if that same person rang him up for guidance on how to get dressed in the morning....

Only men seem to have the luxury of being indulgently useless. If he didn’t have op he would either sink without a trace or learn to swim bloody quickly.

Adulting is not for other people. He should man up or ship out. I could not deal with this nonsense op. I have zero tolerance for pathetic men.