Aibu or am I jealous??

[Cissa93]

Title doesn’t do much so let me explain further. I feel that dp is very materialistic which puts me off. Am I lazy / disorganised? Let me explain….

i seem to spend my days constantly busy not actually doing much. Dp is self employed and works 7 days per week (his choice, financially not needed). He usually only has Monday or Friday evenings off to spend with us. I only work 10h per week from home, practically nothing and I have just started an online course to get back to work full time soon. We have 2 dc who are now finally in full time school.

this past weekend I dedicated to clearing out our entire home, sorting dcs bedroom ready for Xmas, decluttering and cleaning before they break up from school so that we can spend time together properly over the holidays. This morning I am up with dc, getting us all ready, packing 2 backpacks, 2 PE kits, 2 bags of clothes (dc have class parties at school today), another bag full of cakes/snacks etc for school party, packed my work bag, all the usual morning routine then rushed to get them into school and rushed off to meet my boss at work directly after. Had a 2 hour meeting with my boss (who semi-scolded me telling me she noticed I am not good at asking people for help and she has noticed that in my personal life with family and help with childcare etc. She then had To stop herself as she knew it wasn’t appropriate to talk about).

I then rushed home after the meeting to cook early dinner as I’m taking the dc straight from school to their sports clubs and need to take food on the go for them as we went be back until 7pm. I do this 4 weekdays a week (not including weekend clubs that we do) and dp will usually come along on a Monday or Friday evening to ‘help out’ although I still do all the actual work he just drives us there/back etc. after cooking I then rushed to do some more work on my laptop, I’m extremely behind on my course etc

then dp comes home from work (finished at 12pm as it’s Monday). He strolls in with a huge Gucci gift bag (a gift that a clients bought him). As Xmas is coming up it’s been non stop him reviving gifts every day, Louis Vuitton gift bags etc etc not just a box of chocolates, £300 perfumes etc. he then proceeds to tell me that I am unorganised and ‘don’t do much’. This has really triggered me. He would never be able to handle all the things I do. Being ontop of the kids schedules 24/7 etc.

i can then hear him opening his gift, in such a great mood so happy talking to himself about whoever bought him it etc and absolutely raving. It irritates me so much as I am the complete opposite and not materialistic at all. He loves to show off these expensive gifts to me. I bought him a ‘couples card game’ on Valentine’s Day for us to play as a joke and he never touched it and ‘regifted’ it to a client … I don’t have much money but I believe it’s the thought that counts and it makes me feel rubbish.

long story short, am I lazy or unorganised? Am I being unreasonable to be annoyed? Am I ‘jealous’? I don’t think I’m jealous

Hi OP. I am not sure from what you have written that DH has done anything wrong. He seems to have done a good job and got a "goody bag" as a reward. Are you sure you are not doing too much? From the outside it sounds like you do not think much of what you are doing- I only work 10 hours, I do not do anything much etc... you are at home with the children and you are a valid person in your own right. Questions-do you need more me time where you can do your own stuff away from DH and DCs? Lovely as it is with DCs would you better working more hours for the impact this has on how you feel about yourself?

Why don’t you have much money if he's working 7 days a week?

i would love to work full time but I’m not sure logistically how that will pan out as I do everything with dc by myself and housework too etc.

I know I do a lot and much more than dp who technically works, if housework/mom life was a job I’d be doing way more hours than him. But he doesn’t see it that way, he believes like I do nothing and if I don’t have time to do even 1 thing he will put it down to me being ‘unorganised’ when simply I just don’t have the time for it all.

the gift situation is not a goody bag, £300 perfumes, Gucci Louis Vuitton etc etc EVERY day for the past week… showing off to a ridiculous level, bragging etc it just puts me off. While I’m here rushing around like a lunatic with dc and no help.

he’s now having a ‘nap’ in the bedroom, I went in to get my bag/shoes etc as I need to get dc from school and he tells me again that I am ‘unorganised’ and I should have taken my bag and shoes out of the room earlier. That I’m disturbing his nap and gets annoyed at me..

he then proceeds to tell me that I am unorganised and ‘don’t do much’

he’s now having a ‘nap’ in the bedroom, I went in to get my bag/shoes etc as I need to get dc from school and he tells me again that I am ‘unorganised’ and I should have taken my bag and shoes out of the room earlier. That I’m disturbing his nap and gets annoyed at me

He sounds utterly horrible and a bit of a bully.

He sounds horrid but I am intrigued as to a job that gets so many gifts! I bet his is a PT

I bet he is a PT rather

Did you miss the part where the OP's husband told her she 'doesn't do much'?

The OP isn't the one saying she doesn't do enough. Her husband - while waving his designer gift bags at her - basically told her she's lazy and disorganised.

He's not very nice to you really is he OP? Such contempt for you and you're second guessing yourself?

If you're not married, do not put yourself at financial risk by not working much. You have zero protection if you split. I'd suggest get married or work full time.

Absolutely this. So you're taking dc to and from school and after school clubs, then the 3? Days you don't work, you're doing housework? Sounds fairly standard so what else does he think you should be doing? You could always pay for bfast and after school clubs and look for ft hours?

I would be coming down with the flu, if will take at least a week to recover so he will have to do it all his self

I don’t really think the issue is the gifts. He’s been gifted them and he can be happy to have them.

He shouldn’t be calling you disorganised though and that is disrespectful given how much you do.

Your DP doesn't sound great, working 7 days a week and not helping out at home, although the present issue wouldn't be a problem for me. However it does sound you're not as productive with your time as you could be, all this rushing around, considering you only work 10 hrs and your children are at school full time. All the school bags could have been packed the night before, batch cook for the nights they have activities etc.

If, as a couple, you have sat down and agreed together that he will do all out of the house work to earn money and you will do all the in house work and child rearing to facilitate that then fine but 1) you should have equal access to money 2) ideally you'd be married 3) he needs to appreciate what you do and 4) you need to spend quality time as a family and as a couple.

If you have just stumbled into this arrangement then think about what you really want - a career, he does a share of house work/child rearing? Out-sourcing jobs you both hate?

It doesn't sound like you are a team and I think you feel taken advantage of and unappreciated.

Personally I think this could be a classic case of neither of you actually realising how hard the other works- just in different ways.

He is clearly working long hours at ( I assume ) some kind of high pressure/client facing job to be receiving Gucci presents. So he is working hard.

But equally you are keeping the home running, doing the organising and tidying and family life admin which allows him to work those hours without having to worry about sorting house/kids etc. So you are working hard.

It’s just that your “hard” and his “hard” look different, your “doing lots” and his “doing lots” look different. From his perspective when he is working every hour God send’s, he imagines you sitting at home with your feet up and a coffee in hand after your 10 hour working week just relaxing. He doesn’t appreciate the cooking, cleaning, organising, child care, clubs etc because he doesn’t ever have to deal with that. Could you suggest swapping for a day? Or even just suggest he joins you for a day to see actually how time consuming it is!

Sorry - but he obviously fails to appreciate how much is involved in raising your children. This may be because he is a total dick, or it may be he simply doesn't understand.

My husband was once the same until I mentioned in front of his parents that he needed to get life insurance to cover my contribution to the home should anything happen to me. He scoffed. So I listed the costs: 2x a nanny (nannies do 35-40 hour weeks, your partner works longer than that, so you’d need 2, possible a third as both are entitled to 4-6 weeks annual and sick leave); subscription to a nanny/domestic service because nannies fall sick/leave suddenly/go on maternity leave and the second nanny is restricted by law from filling in beyond contracted hours for child safeguarding reasons; allow for the fact that the nanny would need to drive so (again as set out in law) they would need to be over 25 and on a higher grade of base pay/benefits; that nannies do not do housework, though they may be willing to do essential laundry exclusively for their charges, they should never be required to do it for the adult family members so a cleaner would be needed.

I costed up the fact that, in order to facilitate his being a father whilst maintaining his career, it would cost my husband in the region of £100-120k pa for him to hire the staff required to do everything I did and thus support his career/business. This was without the interior design, project management of household renovations/landscaping (which in my case and tripled the value of our shared assets - our home) and overnight care of sick children (also not the nannies’ remit, unless they are live-in and get time off in lieu). My husband was stunned as he realised he would not be able to continue to work if I died.

He took out insurance, but has never questioned ‘what I do’ ever since, and I feel no guilt in treating myself to a spa day or high end make-up… he is now my champion and actively supports me in my postgrad studies as my children are now teens. I can really recommend the quantifying your input in terms of how much it would cost him to get someone else to do it…

Stick a piece of paper on your fridge with your names at the top of it and the title tasks completed outside of dp’s working hours. Write every meal you make, every bedtime you do, every thing you tidy etc, and do the same for him. By the end of the week you can ask him to review his assessment of you as lazy.

Sounds like you could do with a few days away and let him see exactly what's involved in looking after the children. I'd also not be prepping anything for being away either, like food, after school stuff, school clothes etc. He needs to get a reality check of what you actually do and the mental load associated with doing everything. He sounds like a shit husband to be honest

I’m not sure op, yoh make packing bags sound like some form of extreme effort. When most folks just do that, then you went for a two hour meeting and had to come home and cook dinner. That would be mid day for most folks.

im not sure what he does wrong or what is wrong with liking his present. But you do make a fairly minor activities sound like you climbed Mount Everest this morning, before running the local food bank single handedly.

Seriously? He believed it would cost up to a 120 grand to get a live in au pair or similar home help?

NANNIES!!! Au pairs cannot be left in sole charge of children in the absence of parents - eg if they travel which mine does. They are required to attend language classes etc and are ltd no of hours they are allowed to work each day. They also are limited in the number of weeks/months they are allowed to work for you (they are on short term working visas) so you would be rehiring every 6-9m until they left school, which is deeply traumatic for young kids who - in the scenario we costed out - would have lost a parent.

If leaving children in the care of another adult 10-24hrs a day (because travelling, business dinners, conferences) you need a qualified nanny, especially if the children are not in school full time [mine were not at the time]. The set salary for an experienced nanny over 25 (so that they are legally allowed to drive) is £30-40k; x 2-3 given the hours in consideration; plus a cleaner/gardener and on-call nanny service for accidents/emergencies etc for which you usually have to pay a subscription and then the actual fees.

No idea what level of care you expect for your kids, but with my husband’s job YES we calculated it would cost him £100k at the time to replace me and enable him to continue working full time in his career as a global head of function at a FTSE100 company. The OP’s husband owns his own business and is only ‘home’ a couple of evenings a week, allowing for his perhaps taking responsibility for the 7hrs he is when and in bed at night, that is 120hrs of childcare (3 nannies).

So yes, this is why many of my professional friends gave up their legal/finance jobs because even if they were earning 100k a year, the childcare costs and the stress involved in managing nannies who leave at short notice or who are sick, meant it was not financially worth their while any more.

But, please, you feel free to break labour laws, exploit a young foreign student, and dump your kids with an inexperienced young adult with no first aid qualifications etc. oh, and fuck the fact that you have just eroded the function of a mother and a childcare professional to ‘just get an au pair’.

Honestly. I take my hat off to you! But many of us are parents here, mums in fact, we know the score . But honestly, fair play.😂

Honestly?

I think you should ask your boss about increasing your hours, maybe not to full time, but tell your husband it is full time. Tell him that his comments about your 'disorganisation' and 'laziness' has really hit you so you've arranged to go back to work and he can arrange the kids stuff Monday-Thursday and you'll take Friday-Sunday - make sure to remind him that you'll then have more to do as Saturday and Sunday are potentially full days you have to cart them around. Also remind him you'll need to outsource cleaning and maybe even dinners, so you'll get a cleaner twice a week (because I'm sure he's the type to need freshly ironed shirts every day) and you'll start ordering Hello Fresh or similar to ensure you can just cook it without thinking.

If he objects ask him why, when he's so sure you do nothing, that if you're working all the time the normal family stuff shouldn't be split equally?

Then divorce him because he sounds insufferable (the gifting shit is annoying but I reckon the proverbial straw reading the rest of your post).

Or just do what @BusyMummyWrites because she's right.

He sounds unpleasant op and like you’re not very well matched. Regifting your Valentine says it all!

@Jf20 if you value yourself and the crucial role mothers play in their kids lives so low, then I pity you. The OP should know her worth even if supposed fellow mums like you and her husband don’t. Most professional couples have 2 nannies and additional cleaners/ironing services for all the legal and safeguarding reasons I set out… or one (the woman, usually) gives up their career. And this is without considering whether any of the children involved may have special needs.