To be sick of seeing 'I carry all the load' posts

[ijustdontunderstanditall]

Can't do a poll as on the app

It feels every other post atm is a woman being annoyed because they do everything, and their partner just goes to work, doesn't help with kids/house/life admin etc

Maybe I am just lucky that I don't have this issue, but I just don't understand why people don't just put their foot down and stop doing it all? Surely when the dinner isn't cooked/ hoover put round/ bill paid the other person will man up and help?

The people in happy, equal relationships are not starting threads!

Relationships don't always start off unequal, it often comes when women are on maternity leave and they start to do more at home. Then add in societal expectations after 3000 years of patriarchy and there we are!

My DH will cook and do washing, but he doesn’t clean. He says he can’t see it.
The one time I asked him to dust and hoover the lounge, I could see a layer of dust on the TV stand. I assume he just hoovered where he could see.

If it just as simple as stop doing it and he will pick up the slack all these problems would have been solved long ago.

Women are allowed an outlet to moan. Women's language and behaviour is policed enough as it is.

But surely women let this happen?

I get it to a certain extent if you are a SAHP, which i was when the kids were small, I did most of the kid stuff then, BUT DH has always done his share of house/garden/ life stuff

If you're sick of seeing the posts, then don't read them. Clearly the dynamics in many relationships are more complex than it being a case of someone just stopping doing stuff. People are posting for advice. If you can't give any, then just walk on by and be grateful that you do not face such problems in your own life.

So you’re blaming it on females? Why should they live in a shit hole just because the man won’t lift a finger, you do it for yourself.

I think there is a lot of selective thinking in these posts. It's easy to focus on how much we do when we are knackered and undermine what the other does to justify our feelings.

Ultimately, nowadays' life is very tiring. Some of it is self inflicted, some is just the world moves so quick and puts us all under increasing pressure.

Woman blames women for men's bad behaviour.

More at 6.

And why ‘man up’?

Why are you blaming women for men's behaviour? Why is it that "women let this happen" and not "men let this happen"?

It happens over a variety of ways

Maybe the split is roughly 50/50 u till they have kids and then she's at home on maternity so it makes sense for her to do everything. Except when she goes back to work the dynamic is set and all of a sudden she is the default cook, cleaner, PA and parents well as having a full time job and it's a struggle to get the man back to 50/50

Or maybe it wasn't equal before kids because the man "doesn't see mess" but the load is less. But throw kids in and suddenly the man is sailing through life barely unchanged and the woman who was happy to do it all before suddenly finds that all + kids is way too much

It's more for consistently tolerating that behaviour though.
It's like still never locking a house after you were burglered via front door 10 times in last year already.
Burglar is the wrong one obviously, but the house owner also has to take some responsibility there for their part...

Leave their clothes and their food. No clean clothes, their problem. They can make their own dinner too. I'd do all my own and leave theirs.

I stopped doing (some stuff). It was eight months before he noticed his bathroom hadn't been cleaned.

If I didn't cook he just ordered takeaway (only for him as he was usually back late).

If someone is not in the mentality of we're a family and the kids are my responsibility too then just stopping doing stuff doesn't get them into that mentality.

It does mean you do a bit less though, and it makes it clear to you they don't think if themselves as a parent or even a couple.

And many women choose to consistently tolerate the behaviour because they'd be far worse off if they did choose to leave.

Contrary to what Mumsnet is desperate to believe, it's really not as simple as LTB for a lot of women.

I think you're being extremely ignorant.

I'm lucky that my partner is great and does his share however I understand some womens circumstances are different and it's not always a simple "just stop doing it or leave".

It doesn't annoy me seeing them. I just wonder why still, in this day and age, women 'audition' for a wife role. Namely, doing everything for a man so as to appear the perfect partner in his eyes. Then expecting that miraculously after marriage and children he will suddenly become a great help around the house, when said woman has been doing his cooking cleaning washing for years/in the lead up. Pampered men don't really change whether their pampering started from their parental home, or via a woman encouraging ineffectiveness. I guess the thought is they SHOULD change. Yes, they should. But real life isnt a story book. Better to take off the love goggles in the 1st place and see a man for who he truly is. If he's never seen to cook and tidy up, can't cook, doesn't care about living in chaos etc, then he's to be avoided unless one wants to create a life of stress and mess.

This reminds me of a post I have quoted before that someone else put up on MN ages ago and stuck with me:

*Household chore inequity and child care inequality is a form of domestic abuse. It forces women to work themselves into exhaustion and illness, whilst men buy their free time with female exhaustion.

No one wants to see themselves as being in an abusive relationship. It means acknowledging that someone you love, someone you married or committed to, someone you chose to have children with is taking advantage of you and that hurts on so many levels.

it's heartbreaking to acknowledge, but acknowledge it we must.

If your husband or partner is capable of working at their job without being micromanaged and given extremely explicit instructions, then they are capable of contributing fairly at home without being given extremely explicit instructions and micromanaged. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.

If they were capable of living independently without living in a rat-infested pigsty without any clean clothes and living off pizza, then they are capable of ensuring children are fed and clothed, groceries are done, and household chores are shared equally. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.

If they claim they love you and yet your health comes secondary to their leisure, they're gaslighting you.

If they claim they can't possibly function and it would be unsafe for them to work with broken sleep, but it's totally fine for you to have to work, drive and do all the household chores and childcare on broken sleep, they're taking advantage of you.

If they say they are going to get up in the night and help but when the time comes the pretend to be asleep/complain, they're gaslighting you.

If they don't even actually try to settle the baby and had bub back almost immediately with "they just want you:", they're gaslighting you.

If your health, sanity, sleep, work, or self-esteem are suffering because you are the one doing everything, whilst they leverage your exhaustion into their free time, they're abusing you.
Like other forms of abuse, it will not get better on its own. It's not an accident.*

When you blame women for men's abuse you make it a woman's fault for not fixing it. The blame should be with the abuser not the victim

(and before someone jumps out and points put this happens to men too, I know, but the OPs post seems to be specifically about women in this situation so thats what I'm responding to)

For centuries, men have been leaving all the household stuff, drudgery and child rearing to women.

This hasn't entirely changed, obviously. A lot of men would just clear off and find someone else to look after them and put up with their entitled laziness if challenged.

I do agree with you up to a point - obviously women are not responsible for men’s shitty behaviour, but we do have to take some responsibility for tolerating and allowing it. In that respect yes I do think there is truth in saying many women allow this to happen to themselves by not laying down firm boundaries sooner. But it’s also a lot bigger than that.

Society is still structured to encourage this, and many people on here have explained their upbringings modelled it and they subconsciously absorbed it. The values you’re taught by your parents, your self esteem, your financial power, your culture, education level all have an impact on your ability to challenge inequality. Many cultures that aren’t white British for example still have much more defined gender roles so women of different ethnicities may feel pressure to conform to that dynamic differently to white women.

So while on a basic level I do agree that women should have good strong boundaries and expect more from the men in their lives (or not get involved with feckless twats in the first place) it isn’t that simple. A lot of women also have said that their male partners did share all this until children came along and unexpectedly reverted to sexist pigs once they became fathers, which I can understand as it’s still not the norm for men to do 50/50 parenting (which is should be) so these men might have felt pushback from their work, social circle etc. not that that’s an excuse of course. But as well as women looking after themselves it would be nice to see men speaking out about the need for them to partake equally in domestic work. I actually know a couple of SAHDs who do this but there’s no organised campaigns on it like there is about feminist issues.

Tbf you have to massively lower your standards if you expect the men to do it just coz you've stopped doing it. They won't. There are some very clean house proud men out there sure.. but they are rare. I swear most men will literally live doing the bare minimum and won't even care it won't even register on them.
And then you enter the world of having to ask and feeling like a nag and like the most boring person in the world.
Or you just end up living in a filthy home that you are embarrassed to bring anyone back to because guess who will get judged for it? Not the man.

YANBU OP.

To a certain extent - some women DO let it happen.

I am not one of those women.

I am not saying that the men in these relationships aren't to blame - they are. But for some reason the women stay with them and continue to do everything for them. Why? Where are we going wrong with raising our sons/daughters that this keeps happening?

You're right @ijustdontunderstanditall Women (many women) are their own worst enemy. I'm the same. Always pretty much done everything - domestic duties, childcare, shopping, cooking, home admin. Done it since the kids were little, and I was part time and DH was full time.

Kids are grown now, and I just can't make myself stop it, and I annoy myself. Many girls are conditioned to be polite and helpful, and women are expected to be the main child nurturer, and many women fall into the trap of 'carrying all the load.'

So YANBU.

@ijustdontunderstanditall Life isn’t always as simple as putting your food down, people carry all sorts of behavioural baggage into relationships, and once they are in them all sorts of complex power balances come into play, and all sorts of reasons why it’s hard to push back. If you haven’t understood that out by now, there’s nothing useful anyone can say to you.

But what is simple is not opening a thread that you know will annoy you, so why don’t you just do that?

I tried not doing stuff. End result was stuff didn't get done, there were constant arguments and the dcs suffered. It took me 20 years to recognise it was because it was an extremely abusive relationship, and a further 2 years of counselling to find the strength to leave.

If you haven't been in that position, you can't imagine how hard it is.

On MN, I'm more concerned at the amount of couples who don't communicate openly. The amount of posts that have "DH did/does/said this, how do I ask him to.." Most of them would be easily solved if they would just talk to their DH or react to the thing at the time. I've never hesitated to have a conversation or react to something with my DH.
It leads me to believe that lots of these women are either in an abusive relationship or they are just severely lacking in self worth and have no confidence. Either way, it's not a good relationship if you can't communicate with your other half openly.