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?

I don't hold women responsible for the behaviour of men, but I do hold them responsible for choosing to have kids with shit men, and then endlessly complaining about it.

Would bet anything that if you asked their friends & family, the signs were always there. But so many people want the wedding and babies that they shut their eyes to shrieking warning sirens.

If I don't do stuff then the kids won't get fed, get to bed on time or have clean clothes for school. And I don't mean once. I mean every single week.

And before people says "I bet he's not like that with his own stuff" yes, he is.

It's the boiled frog analogy.

As for "women have show homes" their partners knew they had high standards when THEY married THEM. Why is it up to women to take the responsibility?

And no my ExH showed no markers. He was lovely UNTIL the children came. I was so grateful to have someone who cooked, cleaned and got up with the children. Too grateful. The flags I missed were crafted slowly and carefully until all of us were in boiling hot water.

Abusers are careful and clever not obtuse.

Because it's the children who will suffer and decent parents don't do to that to their kids to make a point with their partner who will more than likely remain oblivious anyway

Oh for fucks sake what a stupid thread. You really can't imagine what would happen if you stopped paying the bills? Are you serious? Or stopped getting the kids a haircut or stopped packing their lunches?

In my case the partner would not step up, he would call me named and scream at me and then tell all his family I'm useless. Then he'd turn to DC and say sadly "mummy doesn't want to make your lunch today sorry buddy" while the children cry. You're much better and stronger than me though, well fucking done.

But surely women let this happen?

oh I didn't read the update and so missed the part where you blame women for their own oppression. I know think this thread is not genuine.

Over on one thread in the last few days we have had posters adamant that single childless women are all selfish and self absorbed.

Or saying its their own fault they are alone because they are "too picky".

On another thread that women shouldn't be able to go it alone with IVF because we shouldn't encourage single parents.

On other threads we get people talking about the falling birth rates and how childfree women/people should be financially penalised for not having children.

We see childfree women being criticised repeatedly for not having children because "my children will pay for your pensions and be your carers".

And on this thread that women shouldn't have children with the wrong man even if it's not obvious until after the children come along that the man will be a useless/selfish/abusive husband/father.

So no stress women. You just have to simultaneously pick the perfect man and predict whether he will be abusive after children or be endlessly criticised for either picking wrong or not picking at all. But it will absolutely be your fault if your husband isn't perfect, or you don't end up with children and you will be blamed for being selfish and too picky.

Others have expressed more eloquently what I wanted to say but it does creep up on you and takes a major event to make you realise. We always shared the chores and even when the DC came along things were relatively equal. I've never been tidy or particularly houseproud, and I don't do ironing.

We had a late baby when the others were teens and everything started to go wrong at that point. All the others were obsessed with daddy but this one was mummy's from the word go and he didn't like it.

We relocated for work when said baby was 2 and I ended up living alone in the new location for 6 months because his work "wouldn't let him go". With hindsight I wish I'd been a bit firmer at that point when I told him if he hadn't joined us in the next few weeks then not to bother, because we'd both have been better off had we called it a day then.

A year later I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and my life was pretty much on hold for the best part of a year. He was zero help and no support at all. In fact, nobody was much help except my middle child. I decided at that point to do as much at home as DH did, which by now was practically nothing. I dropped everything.

As I should have expected he didn't pick it up. We got horribly into debt, the bills didn't get paid, the house descended into chaos. It took years to get back on track. The finances got sorted only just before Covid when I called some debt helplines in tears to see if there was anything I could do and we managed to remortgage all the debt up. From a relationship POV I asked him to leave several times and he always refused. There was no sense in my leaving as we lived 10 minutes walk from my work, and as he said the house was half his so I couldn't force him to go. The debts had eaten up quite a lot of the equity in the house so neither of us would have been able to afford to live even if we'd sold up.

I can see now why a number of our contemporaries divorced as soon as the children left home 😢

The enormous Christmas or people's birthday mental load? Most of it is self-inflicted. If your husband doesn't care about sending a million christmas cards or birthday cards, you are not doing him a favour by doing it for him.

I honestly never realised before I read MN that there are apparently hundreds (thousands?) of women out there buying cards and gifts for all their husband's relatives and seething silently about it. It's never occurred to me to do this. I absolutely would seethe if I had to... but I don't!

eg. not picking up his socks

Also this. Why would I pick up his socks for him?! If he leaves them on the floor, so what? They're his socks!

(The laundry is my job so if they are next to the laundry basket I'll pick them up but if he leaves them on the other side of the bed that's his problem. Though tbh my socks are the ones that are strewn all over the floor. He doesn't have to pick them up. It's a non-issue. If that's your mental load just get rid of it!)

He sounds like an absolute cunt which begs the question, why are you still with him? If you’re doing everything anyway because he won’t, it sounds like the only difference leaving him would make is a calm house with leas verbal abuse.

Is this not a legacy of previous generations which will take time to tackle?

I'm in my mid-forties and my parents are classic boomers in traditional roles. Sure, they are not all like that - but many are. My husband's parents are too. They were used to a hard day's graft and coming home to dinner on the table. Their children watched this and saw it as the norm.

Some of those kids grow up and depending on how they were parented, expect it all to carry on.

Some realise they need to be equal partners with their wives/female partners, until mat leave happens, the wife does more because 'well if you're on mat leave you probably should do a bit more around the house' and the man becomes used to doing less while working fulltime. By the time his partner goes back to work, he thinks 'well why should I work fulltime and start picking up more?'

We're still in a situation where many women go back part-time and again it goes 'well if I'm working less I should do more' and it becomes the expectation.

In my house I'm an argumentative sod and my husband's a decent man and we definitely share the chores load. I do a bit more of the mental load which does annoy me, but we do at least talk about it (and I am one of those part-timers).

The main thing we can do is try to role model for our children - let them see us being equal, and hopefully both of mine (boy and a girl) will grow up with no expectation of anything other than equalness.

I don't think it's as clear cut as the man being shit and the woman doing everything. I know some cases where the man is a complete dick but not always.

Sometimes the woman wants everything done perfectly, to her standard and the man has a different standard. I know if I was in that situation, I would just stand aside and let the other person do it. I had an ex who used to complain about my cleaning and in the end I gave up trying.

Misogynistic tripe. What makes you think it's the woman who has the higher standard? I've known men like your wife, I didn't just stop doing my part. I did it anyway, and then told them that they could redo it. They rarely took me up on it.

This would make sense if the men still cleared up their own mess, and left the bigger jobs to the woman because she likes it her way.

Bit no, they never do. They're often just lazy shits and know the woman will step in. And she won't say anything because it's awkward and she doesn't want to cause an argument.

What a naive or ignorant post. In many of these situations if the woman just stops doing it he will go out for a takeaway wearing his cleanest dirty shirt, the house will look like a squat and the children will be neglected. He will not “step up”. Yet you blame the woman for allowing it to happen. I know someone who left a man like this. She left the marital home. It’s now a neglected heap with filthy curtains and long grass.

Can you really see why someone wouldn't leave in these circumstances? I've left so this isn't a projection but it took me longer than it should because of finances and having to share your precious children with someone who is abusive and you can't protect them.

Nope. Doesn't work like that unfortunately. What tends to happen if you just stop is that the house gets worse and worse, the DCs lunches get forgotten and their activities overlooked. Family members don't get presents and cards for their birthdays and huge sums of money get wasted when they need to be thrown at resolving problems caused by a failure to plan, organise and act.
If your partner refuses to share the load and you want certain standards adhered to, you either have to get on and do it yourself if they compensate in other ways, or leave them if they don't.

🤣 No that doesn't just happen, those that are abusive especially will just leave you in the lurch and you either fall in to a really bad situation or you have to do things, especially with children involved.

Family members don't get presents and cards for their birthdays

Once I again I have to ask... so what? Why is this your problem? They're his family!

She does it to prevent her family from suffering.

I can think of two friends where this dynamic exists because they don’t think their partner does it well enough so they do it themselves. I would give up doing stuff in the house if I was constantly spoken down to about how I fold out wet laundry, etc.

I know that DP doesn't think I fold clothes neatly. I think I fold them neatly enough. His choice was either to accept my standards of folding laundry or to do it himself. He chose the former.

Christ, I wish I'd thought of just putting my foot down and not putting up with it. Never crossed my mind. Sorry op but your post is one of the dumbest I've ever read.

I did it one Christmas decades ago. I quickly realised DH wasn’t bothered if his family got any cards or gifts so I stopped.

Same with family Birthdays on his side and Mother’s Day. He’s not bothered about them getting anything, so nor am I. He might give his nieces and nephews money, if he happens to see them around their Birthdays. He says his family don’t really bother with cards. I’ve seen that they also cannot be bothered with gift wrapping and think the store bag they bought the gift in will do.
I will only buy his family cards and gifts on behalf of our household, if we have been invited to attend a family Birthday party.

I focus on our DC and my side of the family re Christmas. DH knows that I expect cards and gift wrapped gifts from him for Christmas/Birthdays/Mother’s Day, so he makes sure that I get them.

Lucky you, OP, you don't have this problem.
Lots of women do. And some women who don't are able to understand those that do.
Do you generally start threads on problems you don't have?