For having simmering resentment towards my husband

[SquashedSquashess]

Looking for experiences from those who’ve been in a similar situation, and how it was resolved. Apologies in advance for the length.

I’ll start by saying DH is in most ways a great husband - I’ve no doubt of his love for me, he works hard, helps around the house with DIY (which he’s good at), is intelligent, honest, and makes me laugh every day.

We are married 3 years, early 30s, and thinking of starting a family soonish. However, over the last 6 months we have bickered on and off quite badly. I think the last 24 hours is a summary snapshot.

DH was away for a week with work. I enjoyed the time to myself, kept the house tidy and got into a good routine with dog walking, work and chores.

DH returned yesterday, very nice arrival saying we’d missed each other, very affectionate. Great.

We get home, and he opens a load of packages that have arrived for him. I ask him to put the empty boxes under the stairs, a 30 second job. He tells me he’s too busy, and makes a “joke” (often made) that unlike me he has a real job. I’m a solicitor.

I end up, a couple of hours later, clearing the boxes away myself. I actually have to point out I’ve done it to get any thanks.

Later, he’s huffing and puffing around and tells me he’s tidying. I ask what he means. It transpires he is putting away his own clothes left out before he went away and unpacking his suitcase, which he seems to think deserves some sort of commendation.

He’s then generally a bit quiet through the evening, saying he’s exhausted. We have dinner, and I go to bed, leaving him to play video games.

This morning, conscious we’ve been communicating badly recently, I raise with him that I’m concerned I cannot find the keys for the safe, which contains most of my jewellery, but don’t want to make it a big deal, just mentioning so he’s aware / can help. He says he’s already told me where to look. I explained I’ve done that looking, and still cannot find them. I was not the last one to use them. He tells me it doesn’t matter, and at worst we’ll just drill the safe (a gift from my family, which would render it useless).

He then proceeds to show me various YouTube videos. When he’s done, I tell him I’m going back to my reading, in a tone that conveys I’m not really impressed. He tells me that I hate him. I explain I’ve just tried to raise a topic that matters to me, that I’m concerned about, and his attitude was entirely dismissive. No apology, we just read in silence.

Thanks to anyone who’s made it to the end. Not every day is like this, but I would say it is weekly. The good equalities I’ve mentioned at the beginning are also present weekly or daily. So I’m not looking for LTB responses

In any case, you may just be at an uncomfortable juncture where you can’t afford enough childcare to ease the burden fully. If you had a higher paying job, you could get a full time nanny, full time cleaner etc etc. it would be hard at that point to argue being a sahm was easier.

Jokes that put you down aren't funny and demonstrate a lack of respect. If he cares about you he will want to make you happy. If he doesn't want to make you happy then he doesn't love you

It's scary that he thinks that counselling will make your marriage crumble; that suggests he knows that there are, at best, incompatibilities amd he is avoidant

So to sum up you:

feel happier and more free when he isn’t there
have your hard work as a solicitor undermined
are expected to pick up after an adult even though they have two hands and are capable.
when you raise issues you are ignored.

but you don’t want LTB advice because he ‘helps around the house’ and is honest.
i don’t think he should get brownie points for just being an adult. Of course he should be honest and do DIY- he lives there.

dont have a kid with him. Honestly you will just add another entire job to your list and he will continue to lack accountability.
you will be a single parent in a relationship until such time as you leave him to be a single parent for real coz it’s easier. (No boxes to clear up etc)

you deserve better than someone who negs your career and uses your valuable time by making u pick up after him. Tell him to shape up and don’t pick up after him. Then see how it goes. Hopefully he will buck his ideas up. Maybe he doesn’t know he is doing it?

@Calliopespa However, if you're a ft SAHP you are only likely to be doing that role. If you're a working parent you are doing two; your paid job and then your parent/house job when you get home. Plus probably additional working hours for your paid employment at home.

I think we crossed posts. I touched on that above: that if you’re left with the childcare as well it isn’t easier. However the context this whole debate came up in was a poster saying that she would take derision of her job as a bit of banter and another poster effectively retorted that she was in a different position because she didn’t have a job ( in other words, sahms more or less deserve to be derided; whereas a solicitor with, incidentally in this circumstance, no children was a whole other case.) Anyone who has been a sham and made a decent whack of it knows it deserves respect. Most of my friends were desperate to get back to an office with the ability to take coffee breaks, toilet breaks, lunch breaks etc.

@Calliopespa Teachers would like to know...what are these coffee/toilet/lunch breaks you so fondly speak of? 🤣
Genuinely though, so many of us get urine infections because we literally struggle to find time to go to the loo.
Also (please forgive if TMI), the amount of times I have bled through my clothing whilst on my period because I've not been able to go to the bathroom... it's grim!

I used to work in a high school, and all the teachers had breaks when the students did... This was a good 8 years ago, mind. Maybe times have changed, or the school I worked at was an anomaly. You shouldn't joke about getting UTIs with your colleagues, that's disgraceful!

@DonnyBurrito It's par for the course in teaching, I'm afraid. As well as digestive issues and chronic indigestion.
When the kids have their breaks we are either out on duty or preparing the next lesson. Lunch breaks are either for meetings or again, lesson prep.
I'd say around 50% of my colleagues go without lunch and the other 50% have about 5-10 mins (often whilst supervising kids).

What, every single teacher is on duty? When it was mid morning break time half the teachers were out round the corner having a cig at the school I was at 😂 and then at dinner, if they weren't on duty (only a couple were out of 100+!) they'd eat their lunch in their empty classrooms while they were sorting stuff... I was only a technician in one department though, so I didn't get a whole school view. Even so, your school sounds particularly awful. Can you usitlise the union for things like this?

@DonnyBurrito How many years ago was this? I think you will find my situation the norm in the vast majority of schools nowadays.

It was 8 years ago... aren't you allowed to eat through your meetings if they're during lunch? It's really crazy to me that you seem to have accepted you aren't allowed to eat or use the toilet.

@DonnyBurrito How does a class teacher "just" go to the toilet when with a class of 30 children? Example: Kids come in at 8.40. Break at 10.30 but On Duty. Back into class until 12pm. So from 8.40 - 12.05pm I literally cannot go for a wee!

Same also from 1pm - 3.40pm...

Not every single class teacher is on duty every single day though, and surely on the way back to class you can nip for a quick wee? When I was at school, teachers used to be a couple minutes late for lessons all the time... It didn't cause us to riot or fail our exams.

Are you going to get fired for going for a wee?

@DonnyBurrito i can't leave small children unsupervised in class for any period of time; that would be a safeguarding issue.

My husband had a 'joke' like that. I would tell him frequently and seriously that it wasn't funny at all and that he must stop. He didn't. I ended up going quite feral and launched myself at him screaming like a banshee and we nearly came to blows. I told him quite simply that if he ever did it again I would walk. That was fifteen years ago. No problems since. Sometimes a bloke really needs it hammered home in a dramatic way before he gets it. He's mostly well-trained now.

As neither of you are communicating effectively with each other and missing so many opportunities to connect and strengthen your relationship, I recommend couples counselling.

Working on effective communication and to discuss the expectations each of you have of each other and of yourselves within your relationship and then find the model that works for both of you so that you are both actively taking care of your relationship and each feel respected, supported, loved and on the same team.

He sounds exactly like my ex, bit of a man child and checked out of life as a couple.

Okay that now makes sense. I wonder why he was horrified, it's a very natural reaction to say when you say I don't have a real job it makes me feel belittled. I struggle to get what other reaction he would expect?

Well in that case, I’d have expected you to be a little more understanding of the fact that saying a sahm ( who is equally always on call for endless untimely demands) doesn’t have a job is unreasonably dismissive of the pressures on them . The debate isn’t about whether LorlieS has it even worse than most, but whether the duties of a sahm warrant being called a job. Because they involve countless tasks that demand attention and must be done and would cost money to get someone else to do them, I think its totally unreasonable to say it doesn’t count as a job.

@Calliopespa What I am saying is having done both, I found one was far easier than the other. I can only speak from personal experience of course.
Have you ever been a ft working parent to very young children out of interest?

Yes. But I had wraparound childcare so that they were ready for supper and bed when I came back on duty. It was infinitely easier than being FT mum. But, I reiterate, it isn’t about whether doing both is hard; in this case the OP WASN’T doing both. She was working as a solicitor. A poster told another poster they had no right to say OP should try to brush off a derisory comment about her job because the OP actually HAD a proper job ( which should not be derided); the poster was only a sahm ( so by implication their job was inherently more deserving of derision). So in fact my experience is more relevant to this; and I would say being a sahm is far harder than being a professional with adequate childcare. Again, to reiterate, this doesn’t mean doing both isn’t harder.

@Calliopespa Well I agree with you insofar as no decent husband should belittle his wife full stop, even if he feels his very high paid job is "more important." That's not OK.
Why she is keen to stay with him I wonder?

It’s not ‘fake crap’, it’s how most relationships work. OP might be lucky enough to have an entirely upfront relationship, but I knew that basic, simplistic advice would be readily available from unsubtle and early wisdom commenters. The real fake crap is pretending that relationships are all like Sesame Street and that confronting a partner who’s already exhibiting dismissive tendencies will always get you where you want to be. Thanks for being dismissive yourself though.