To just want to offload?

[Monkeytrousers04]

Here we are, a few weeks into the school term, limping along to half term and yet our mornings are still not running smoothly.

I work from home and start at 7am. I get up at 6am, feed the cats, tidy up and then make packed lunches. Sometimes I’ll put some porridge on so that it’s ready for when the kids get up.

Then I sit down at the kitchen table and start work.

Then one by one the kids & DP get up. He starts work (from home) at 9am so typically does the morning routine and takes them the school. I typically finish work at 3pm so do pick up, make tea, run the kids to their various activities.

In theory, it sounds perfect. But it’s not. This morning for example, DP said he couldn’t find DS’s PE joggers. So I had to down tools to go and look for them because generally speaking DP is inept at looking for things. Turns out they were still in the dirty washing basket as my washer broke a week ago, got fixed on Friday and I’m still catching up. There should be another pair somewhere as I bought a 2 pack but the other pair has seemingly disappeared.

When stuff like this happens it just brings everything that annoys me about DP to a head and I end up losing it. Saying things like, “why didn’t you look for the joggers last night? I could have washed and dried them if I’d have known!”. He also took a couple of loads to his mums last week so I asked if they could have been left there by accident. Once, when our dryer broke, he took some clothes to his mums to dry and I found them months later in the boot of his car, albeit dry so every cloud and all that!

When we were at his mums on Sunday I noticed a sports bra of mine on the radiator in her living room so it’s very possible there is laundry at his mums house which we may never see again.

It’s just things like this that really annoy me. I had to step away from work to go on a jogger hunt, something he could have done last night, knowing it was PE this morning.

I sometimes think it’d be easier if DP wasn’t here because then I’d know it’s all on me and I’d have found the joggers and sorted it last night instead. I think because he is here there is a part of me that thinks, oh I don’t need to worry about that, as he’ll sort it. But then he doesn’t, and I never learn.

My evenings are usually spent tidying up after tea, putting at least one possibly 2 DCs to bed (we have 3 in total), having a shower, and then doing laundry. Sometimes I squeeze in some pilates, if everyone has got off to sleep nicely.

DP will do bath time while I tidy up. Then he will get the kids ready for bed at which point I go up and sort of take over. When I emerge, DP is usually sat on the PC doing whatever he does.

It annoys me as I often think, excuse me for interrupting your leisure time but there are still chores to be done. But then I have my little evening routine now so sometimes forcing him to help out just results in him getting grumpy and/or getting in my way. Over the last few days he has taken to coming down once I’ve gone to bed and do the washing up (things I’ve left in soak or didn’t manage fit in the dishwasher).

I think I’m just tired. I’m fairly sure he has ADHD. He tends to agree but won’t do anything about it. He’s also caring for his mum at the moment so disappears off to her house a couple of nights a week and works from there during the day sometimes. Which I fully support and enable.

This places a lot of the practical stuff on me, but obviously he’s got a lot of emotional stuff to deal with too, as well as his mum’s practical stuff. But, even before his mum got ill it was like this. But I worked PT then, so could always catch up. Now I’m FT as DS has just started school and last week I had a headache for three days out of sheer tiredness I think as there was no other reason for it.

I went to be at 9pm two nights in a row to make sure I got some rest and it worked, but it just meant nothing was done in the evening as DP still played on his PC well into the night. So now I’m catching up.

I don’t know what the point of this post was. I think I just needed to get it off my chest. The joggers example from today is one of many so this hasn’t come out of the blue… he thinks when I moan at him for not doing more that I’m being unreasonable. I think he doesn’t have a clue about the mental load I carry for this family of five and that food just magically appears in cupboards, and clothes are washed by fairies and that activities just randomly appear in diaries.

I woke up this morning at 4:30am realising that I’d not booked the parents evening slots for next week. He will have also got the email from school but won’t have given it a thought. It’s stuff like this that really bugs me. I’ve also arranged all the secondary school tours over the last month as we have to apply this year for DD1. He’s attended them all and is obviously interested and keen to be involved in this decision but has not been involved in any of the planning.

Is this just typically man behaviour as I know I’m not alone? But why must we endure it? What can be done to change and improve it as I do not want my DDs to end up in a situation like this.

It's not purely "man behaviour", it's a behaviour of every person who knows someone else will pick up the slack. You should have let him stress about the jogging bottoms and not get up from your work. What do you mean he is awful at looking for stuff? He isn't. He just knows you will do it. He probably also knows you are likely to know best where things are because you are the one doing the laundry. You set yourself up for this by assuming you have to do things because nobody else will. When you stop filling the fridge with food, he will start because he is not going to go hungry. Moaning won't help, you actually have to stop doing things that you want him to do and ask him to take over. If he won't, then they are not going to get done... for a while... then he will eventually start doing them.

Saying things like, “why didn’t you look for the joggers last night? I could have washed and dried them if I’d have known!”.

Things like this are your problem though, you are constantly undermining yourself and validating this idea that things are your responsibility.
Why would it have been only you to wash them the previous night? Why not him particularly when it was his job to sort out the uniforms.

I do think in any dynamic it is difficult to wfh at that time with young kids running around for another hour or longer.

Is this just typically man behaviour as I know I’m not alone? But why must we endure it?

No it isn't, plenty of men are engaged and contribute to their family life.

Part of the problem is also that you previously worked part time and so there is a precedent of you doing more/ taking over various things automatically without any involvement from him.

You need to sit him down and explain that from 7am you are in work, baring a life or death emergency he needs to sort out the morning and deal with whatever comes up. You simply won't be leaving work to look for something.

Then you need to have a big more of a routine around who does what so you both know what is in your domain. If his job is washing up, wiping down the kitchen then it isn't your concern if it isn't done when you go to bed. He can stay up and do it. You need to let go of things being done on your timelines as long as its getting done.

But you do also need to look at what you are doing in the evening and what your expectations are. If you've been doing things around the house all evening there really shouldn't be so much still left to do that going to bed at 9pm twice in week simply gives you a massive to do list for the rest of the days.