Should he stay or should he go?

[Howbadistoobad]

My DH is just a bit too clueless on the adulting, parenting and domestic front. Our eldest is 12 and we have a house, two cars, 3 kids and 2 pets so really he should be into the swing of this by now!

Examples of things he can't really do:
Earning - he's literally the brainiest man on earth but has no clue about how to get on at work. Has had three jobs in his life and has been made redundant twice. Currently on a temporary contract. Will be interesting to see if they make him permanent. He is currently saying it is a certainty but I bet they will find plausible excuses and not. As a result I have stepped up my career to be primary earner, which would not be my preference as a mum of three with one still not yet at school tbh.

Cooking - needs to be told what to cook and left a recipe. If it's anything beyond basic he'll get v stressed and shout at the kids while he's doing it so I return home to miserable, stressed children (and increasingly DD12 will have stepped in to rescue him either from the cooking or the younger two but then she will blame me for leaving her to deal with it all)

Shopping - again needs spoon feeding with detailed list. Quicker to just go to supermarket myself. Can't take more than one kid with him because apparently too stressful. ???

Choosing lunch/snack for kids or even himself - I'll arrive home an hour after lunch or after school and they'll have had nothing because he was "waiting for me". They will be climbing the walls or helping themselves. Basically he just doesn't seem to know how to put a bit of lunch out from the fridge. Left to himself he just snacks on weird beige food like Weetabix several times in a day or toast and butter. If I didn't put fruit and veg on his plate I don't think it would occur to him to eat any.

Caring for the kids - Being at home with the kids just seems to make him and them stressed. Youngest one in particular hates being left with dad. At one time, he was our primary carer doing 2 days per week but he got really depressed. I was having to make sure he was awake and up before I could leave for work so had to stop that. I am not actually sure he has ever taken all 3 kids anywhere on his own. He would treat it as a military operation. He doesn't know what to do if the little one (DD) needs the toilet, basics like that.

He's not totally useless at everything btw. He is really v good at hobbies. He's taken a new big team sport up in the last couple of years and is clearly getting pretty good at it. And he has a hobby at home that he is a total perfectionist about, completely self taught. So he can learn when it interests him.

My question is: would my life be easier with this kind of annoying help from Slightly Clueless Husband or as a single parent of 3?

It does sound like he has a lot of ASD and ADHD characteristics. The problem is that the world is set up for NT people. It's very hard to thrive when the world isn't built for you. The secret is to try to change your world so it better suits you. For example, the job /career change and online groceries are a good idea.

To those who say that he should have learned to cope by now: it's really hard to learn to cope if you don't understand what's causing it. Poor chap is probably trying. The problem is that he will expect that he will be able to do things in a NT way. Things then go wrong, and he won't know why, and he thinks "I will just try harder next time" or "this time will work". Things then don't work, because he's ND pretending to be NT.

The other thing that strikes me from your posts is that he does seem to have a lot of strengths. He needs to lean into those. The things like coaching sports and running kids around to structured activities are going to be really important as the kids get into their preteen and teen years.

Another thought - I think you need to adjust your expectations. Who in their right mind chooses to take three kids shopping? Recipe for disaster!

Cooking and entertaining kids at the same time? Another recipe for disaster! One person cooks, the other entertains the kids, if they are young enough to need that. When there is only one parent present, stick to super easy stuff.

@LameBorzoi Agreed. We already have one preteen and I have been known to state my hobbies these days as "Driving other people to their hobbies" 😂

He does a lot of ferrying v willingly. But I often drop and then e.g. head to supermarket in the break before pick up. He wouldn't typically double bank like this. He expects to stay and watch or he might participate in some way, e.g. coaching, refing. (Tbf I can't do any of that as none of the sporty genes came from me!!). Also, I almost always take the youngest with me, whereas he will always assume he isn't and look put upon if I insist he does. This is particularly annoying when he regularly assumes I can keep the toddler with me because I am WFH. Err...no.

@LameBorzoi Huh?? Who doesn't do normal stuff like cooking and shopping with 3 kids if you have 3 kids?? I mean not every time, this isn't Little House on the Prairie!!, but like regularly? I just give them age appropriate jobs to do to help me cook and/or employ a bit of electronic babysitting if their help isn't helping. I certainly don't stick to basic meals only just because all 3 of them are around.

And the issue here is the proportion of meals that fall to him. Since I am primary earner, he would ideally be cooking our main family meal 4 week days per week. That's a lot of just sticking to simple meals imo. In reality, I batch cook on Saturdays to cover at least a couple of those week nights but honestly it bugs me that I have to do this because it's a big old red flag that there's really only one adult in the house at least in the domestic sphere....

Op do you want to separate .

I have ADHD. Married to an autistic man.
I was adult diagnosed and a bit like your DH. The difference is, I wasn't blind to the impact this had on everyone around me.

Also I attracted the ND so had quite a few exes like your husband.

I have no idea how you managed to reproduce not once, but THREE times with this man. However what is clear is the impact on your poor children. Especially your 12 year old. They must be traumatised living in this atmosphere all the time.

As a mother regardless of the reason for his behaviour you must protect your children. He needs to move out and get his act together by getting help at least. But he can't keep damaging your family like this.

@capabilityfrowns No, not like conceptually, I believe that marriage is a commitment bigger than just how I feel iyswim. Practically, I also think being a single mum in my current role would be very, very hard and I have seen others try and fail. I very much doubt I would be a better parent to my kids day to day as a single mum.

But on the other hand, I get to a point sometimes like now, where I'm like "I'm tired and this is never ending and I can't live like this forever or even for the next 15 years until the kids are grown". And I also absolutely accept that this is not modelling a great dynamic, as many posters have said (But then both my mother and mil acted like full time domestic appliances and the men just accepted that as normal then - I think it was pretty normal, no?)

I never take my kids to the supermarket. Why would I do that to myself? Groceries get ordered online and delivered to my door. Yes, it costs money, but I save on impulse buys, parking etc.

This is an example of what I mean by NT expectations for ND people. It's "normal" for NT people to take kids to the supermarket, so ND people assume that it will also work for them. It doesn't.

I get that him expecting you to always have the youngest isn't acceptable, though.

But from what you said. You already a lot like a single mum as he does fuck all. So how's that going to change??
As a parent your commitment to your kids is bigger than your marriage. It's them you have to protect. Your husband is an adult.

I asked because I wouldn't trust anyone on here saying ltb . They aren't living your life . It's so easy to say it . And I think many on here are just out for mischief tbh.

You need to talk and work on his practical skills. I feel he is overwhelmed. He isnt nt.

What comes easy to you may not co e easy to him at all . To you it may be second nature , to him it's insurmountable . He sounds like a decent man . You could try talking to him .

@ArborealArdour Does he do f all though? It sounds like he isn't carrying his weight right now, but that's a huge difference to being a complete manchild / hinderence.

I think it would matter how willing he is to address this. Whether he needs to go to the gp and discuss the possibility that he's nd and isn't approaching things in the same way and is therefore finding it a bit more challenging. Whether he needs to work on his own strategies to manage that. I think you need to sit down together and work out a list of responsibilities and how they can be better divided. Maybe using something visual and more structured. For example if you have a set meal plan for the week written down then there's no need for anyone in the house to question what's for lunch on a given day. If he didn't like going out for the shopping can he arrange and collect a click and collect order. I think you need to list your tasks and then break them down and who is taking the lead on them and when. Include the kids in it as well.

I think you need to be very clear with him how this is impacting on you and that an unequal divide of labour in the home is a misogynistic outworking that needs to change. Then see what happens and if he sticks to it.

Are we even reading the same thread?
The man has never taken care of his children by himself. OP feels like the only 'adult in the house' and has to batch cook as he can't handle it. He cannot even follow a simple recipe and his daughter, a child has to step in and do it for him.

Oh, and also... if the OP passed... he wouldn't be able to 'cope with the kids' on his own. Also, he cannot look after his own kids for a weekend without a 12 year old stepping to help him.

No idea how you have gotten the impression that he is NOT a complete hindrance. He does 'man tasks' but these are just one-offs and not running the household like OP does.

OP, this is probably outing and painful for me to say but I inherited my ADHD from my father. He was also possible autistic judging by a lot of his behaviour but of course, no diagnosis. Wasn't done back in the day.

The screaming, stress and inability to do simple things.. I can relate to all of it. My mother worked FT and if my grandparents had not stepped in to help with certain things , she wouldn't have coped.

Your children are being failed. I am the adult they will become twenty years ago and my own ND aside it's not pretty. The one good thing is that I swore never to marry a man like my dad and DH is the complete opposite.

Could my father have shaped up had he help? Who knows. but he was stubborn and never refused to accept that anything was wrong. My DH although autistic has been helped tremendously, diagnosed as a child and is aware when things aren't ideal. He wouldn't leave all the shitwork to me.

OP, how does he react to you being these things up with him (when you are both calm, not during a stressful moment)?

When living with someone has ASD traits, you need to actually say what you are thinking. No pussyfooting around, no implying things, etc, etc.

Equality in household tasks does not mean that you both do the same things, or do them in the same way. You both need to work to your strengths. With the cooking - if you sat down and asked him to do a weekly meal plan, order online, etc, would he engage?

It's not fair that this mental load falls to you. However, the way your parents functioned and the way you function as a couple is completely different. Within a generation, you are completely rewriting your day to day life, and that takes a lot of thinking, planning, and discussion.

@LameBorzoi Agreed, my DH thinks (correctly) that he does a lot domestically compared to his dad because he does a day a week of childcare, some of the cooking most of the meal clearing up and "helps me" (grrrr) with other housework.

Even now, mil is a dragon and her kitchen is her lair. She is a shit cook who hates eating but poor old fil only gets to cook the one night a week she is out at mass!!

@ArborealArdour But OP has stated that things would be much harder without him, so he must be stepping up somewhere.

Oh he's intelligent all right. He's mastered the fine art of weaponised incompetence.

Get rid of this deadweight, OP.

Exactly - OP is a single parent to four children. One of them lacks the justification of being an actual child (and does less than his own daughter).

@LameBorzoi @ArborealArdour I said that I am afraid it might be harder on my own. And it isn't feeling like a walk in the park where I'm at now....so that gives me pause.

To rephrase the question: do people think the level of help he provides with kids/domestics now is more or less than the work I currently put into supporting him/the marriage? (Net of any ongoing support I would have to continue to provide to him even if we split as part of successful co-parenting)

Neither side of that equation are currently zero to be clear.

well definitely less!
Your list of his 'chores' are all one-offs/not daily
E.g. e looks after the kitchen in the evenings (wtf does this even mean why does a kitchen need 'looking after') , does all ironing plus typical man tasks like bin, car, garden. He can also do quite a wide range of DIY.

Nothing is going to happen if your garden is messy, am sure you can outsource the ironing (how do you have so much ironing anyway)... but...

The biggest issue though is that he can't parent. He is a father. Yet doesn't know when his own child needs the toilet going out, doesn't feed them, is stressed when left alone with them.

What sort of father does that make him?

They will be picking up on it and while you are concerned about being fair to him and rationally weighing up all he does this is a damaging atmosphere for your children. You're already parentifying your 12 year old. Not sure why you're not concerned about this.

If you want proof get him to move out for a week or two... tell kids daddy is away on a business trip or something. You can see the difference it makes for yourself.

He sounds kind of lame, but tbh he'd probs get away with being charming and intelligent if he wasn't a bloke and expected to make the moolah. 🤣

He's not being expected to make money because he has a penis. It's because women who don't make the money run the household but he's incapable of that. hence this thread. LOL

If you want proof get him to move out for a week or two... tell kids daddy is away on a business trip or something. You can see the difference it makes for yourself

Wow. Just imagine the reverse...

If you don't mind, darling, I'd like you to move out for a fortnight so I can see if I'm better off without you. If I struggle with the chores though I'll probs let you move back in." 😂😂😂

He sounds like a great friend, fun and interesting to talk to, but a mediocre parent.

The parenting nitty-gritty won’t go on forever, of course, so I think the question is whether you’ll still want to be with him in 10 years, when your eldest had flown the nest and the younger two don’t need so much supervision? Will you want to spend time with him or will you be thoroughly sick of carrying the household load?