You're not the only mum who works full time...

[doyoulikeflowers]

Said my lovely, supportive husband today.

When I approached him about the fact that I feel like he makes me feel like I don't do enough housework / good enough housework.

I said in his tone, when he complains about the state of the house- I sense that he feels I'm the one who's falling short.

He didn't agree or disagree but told me I was once again nagging. I wasn't. I was just saying that I find it hard to keep up with everything.

I've barely slept an entire night for probably 3 - 4 weeks. My children have been unwell on and off for that time.

I've not been able to send them to nursery much either. This week, they were at home with me for 3 days whilst I tried to juggle work. Last week they were at home for 4 days. And on it goes.

My work is suffering hugely. I can't meet deadlines and I'm constantly under pressure.

Thankfully I work from home, but I'm not able to keep up.

I go to bed at 8 pm every night, as it's all so exhausting.

My H works in a demanding high pressure role and has no time off, no working from home time either. He leaves at 5:30 and comes back at 8:30 every day. He can't do much more to help around the house, because he's just not here.

However, I expect him to understand and not continuously complain about laundry not being done or not being able to find his clothes etc. or the general mess that children bring.

I loathe the weekends as we always end up having discussions and it's really getting me down. Unless I'm constantly clearing up and basically just shut up about it, he's not happy.

He's really upset me today by saying what he said. He always upsets me and then he says it's not a big deal and he didn't mean it. I feel like I spend a lot of time thinking of ways to make his life easier, but it doesn't work the other way. I think he thinks I'm just a bit rubbish.

Our kids are under 5. They go to nursery full time and I work full time from home. My job is pretty intense. It's all a lot. I'm a shell of former self.

Can't he help with housework? Or help with childcare when they are poorly? I don't understand why he can't do either - it sounds more like he just doesn't want to.
I was in a similar position with my DP years ago when the DDs were smaller; he once asked me why the laundry basket was over flowing and I honestly could have murdered him there and then.

Contrary to some well-meaning posters, the OP would be bloody mad to give up her job.

That would only give him even MORE licence to treat her badly, so sweet fuck all, AND she'd have no access to money. Madness.

DH is out at work 8-8 every day (incl commute) and works a high pressure job. I work entirely from home. 3 kids.

I - do school drop off in the am every day. Do all the laundry, do the post wrap around time from 5.30 - 7.30 when they go to bed. Cook some of the meals. Tend to do dry cleaner stuff etc. All kids medical appointments and knowing about all of that. Less than half the financial and other life admin. Manage the wrap around and cleaner (1 full day a week, but she does laundry and irons which saves me time). I buy and sort all kids clothes, presents for our kids and other ppl, thank you letters, etc.

Wrap around - does 3.30 - 5.30, collects from school and makes kids food (sometimes I do this).

Husband - cooks a lot of the meals incl in bulk for the children, does the weekly shop, does over half the financial admin, books quite a lot of our holidays, keeps on top of things and tells me what to do and when quite a lot, and does about 45 mins of mostly sole care of the children between 7-8 whilst I get a start on my day (emails if urgent, shower). Mostly the bins.

He complains at me all the time that things aren't organised enough, but they are in fact quite organised and more importantly I don't feel resentful (think he does though! I think he does quite a lot but not more than me, however he works longer hours/commutes).

How does this stack up against your situation?

Absolutely this

I’ve never met this man and I want to kill him.

@doyoulikeflowers
there clearly is a husband problem here.

There’s also a you problem. Have you ever wandered if you have an executive dysfunction? Your over spending and lack of planning seems difficult to grasp. Try focusing on yourself to sort out what’s really going on with you. That will give you the confidence to stand head to head with your h in tackling what other issues that are going on in your lives.

When one has an ed and doesn’t know it there’s often a strong dichotomy between being successful at work for example yet not being able to get their act together at home in day to day life.

@doyoulikeflowers I don't want to pile on, but it really does seem like he has completely disengaged from fatherhood. I am not one to suggest breaking a marriage lightly but this one seems over.

I cannot understand why he's so fixated on "success" - did he grow up in intense poverty? - but that's almost immaterial. The "sacrifices" he talks about are making you - and your children, who basically don't have a dad, just a martinet who occasionally slings food at them and is horrible to their mum - into the sacrificial victims.

I work full-time in a not terribly well-paid job, my husband - who still does a lot more than yours - has a chronic illness and spends two out of three days flat on his back. That is where I see you headed if this continues - you're already unwell and burned out.

Not at all suggesting being a single mum would be easy. And I think you need to wait to find out if your contract gets renewed. But if I were you I'd make plans to get out for both eventualities if you can. I think five years down the line you'd be glad you did.

Would you like your kids to grow up to treat a partner like this? I'm sure you would not, but they learn from what they see...

If your husband can’t be more flexible due to work then you will have to work less. Something has to give and it shouldn’t be your sanity. It’s only for a short time and then the kids are a bit older. It flies by.
If you can afford to drop some work hours and get some sanity back.

She mentioned she suspects she has ADHD, so seems very likely, but the other thing about ED is it makes it harder to get the screening process off the ground (bitter experience speaking...)

dont be so ridiculous. They are having a disagreement and need to listen / communicate more. What you have suggested is like chopping off a leg when you have a scraped knee.
No wonder so many marriages don’t last these days if that’s the attitude

I’ve read all your posts @doyoulikeflowers and it boils down to the fact that your husband is just not a good man, not a good husband, not a good Father. He is selfish, sexist and possibly a narcissist.

Let me tell you about my husband so that you can see the comparison. I am not doing this to show off or make you feel bad, I am doing this so that you can see how a good supportive partner behaves and what you also deserve.

My husband is a top 0.5% earner, he pays 100% of all mortgage, bills, outgoings. He refers to it as “our money”. For around 8 years I was mostly a SAHM. My husband works out the house 7am-8pm most days, in a very high pressured and stressful job with a lot of responsibility. However when he gets home from work he reads with the kids and cooks dinner some days. At the weekend he takes the kids to clubs/sports, does half of looking after the kids, half of the cooking, half of the tidying up. I lie-in one morning, he lies-in the other. I work part-time now the kids are all at school……… and I try to take the majority of time off with sick kids, but my husband with his big important job also takes off several days a year to look after sick kids so that I can still go to work….. despite the fact that I earn £15ph and he earns £250ph! Because he knows that’s fair, he loves our children and appreciates my work despite the fact I don’t earn very much! We both appreciate the input and sacrifices the other does to provide for the family.

Your husband could choose to do all of the above, but he chooses not to. He sees you as his support person and personal servant. He doesn’t appear to love and respect you. You need to ask him what his plan would be if you died. Or if you divorced. Many many men have high pressured jobs with long hours and still are hands on with their kids and do their share of work around the house - regardless of if they are a single Dad, have a SAHW or a working wife.

My assumptions if his work is so full on and rigid its relatively high earning.

Can you increase the cleaner to 2/3 times a week. Him being busy with work doesn't absolve him from picking up the slack.

Even after 8.30 he can do a late night tidy, set the dishwasher, put on a wash.

WFH is still work. You are and should be unavailable for household tasks during that time. He should not see it as you being free and easy to random household tasks.

All of the home and childcare isn't your job, stop letting him treat it as such.

Disagreement ?? You call it a disagreement where a man considers all childcare and housework the duty of a woman. Plus the fact that he expects a dinner every evening and demands his wife ensures there are clean socks in his drawer always. A man who complains when his laundry basket is not brought back upstairs.

A disagreement where a man expects his wife to take care of all child nighttime wakenings, expects his wife to be the one who takes time off work when a child is ill.

A disagreement where this man expects his wife to pay for the majority of running the house, where she has no savings and he does.

A disagreement where a man doesn’t give a shit that his wife’s career is suffering while he does absolutely nothing to lighten her load.

A disagreement where this man expects his wife to have a picture perfect home when he returns from work. And so on …

If you’d call all this simply a disagreement and a communication issue, you must have extremely low standards or expectations on how healthy relationships work.

Right. I am assuming your DH is a high earner like banker or similar and you’re also in a high flying professional job but somewhat less high hours/pressure than banking.

First. All money should be joint. One joint account, it all goes in there. His earnings and yours.

Second. Nanny not nursery. SO many benefits.

Third. Cleaner twice a week. Get someone who is happy to come twice a week for 3 hours each time. Or 4 hours each time if you want them to do laundry and ironing (you do).

Fourth. Online food shop. DH is in charge of this, he can do it at the weekends. Food needed for nanny, kids, he doesn’t get to just think about himself. For adult meals, Gousto.

Fifth. Make plans to separate. Your H is an UTTER dick. DH and I were in similar jobs when we had small DC, he was never there due to work and it sucked but he never would have dreamed of complaining and he absolutely pulled his weight when he was home.

You need to separate but right now you are stretched too thin to do that. Get the additional help in place and then get ducks in row. Also you need to set some higher precedents for household expenses before you split.

He needs to lower his standards. That’s the first step.

Could you look at getting a nanny? It can often work out not that much more than nursery- depending where you are and will help keep on top of the kids mess and chores. She can also help with general washing and food shops too if you want. (I am a nanny).

Lots of people giving practical advice are missing the point. He's not making you happy. He's not trying to make you happy. He is making your life miserable and doesn't care. You don't have to live like this, you don't owe him anything. You deserve more.

Sorry, I need to read through more. That's awful x

OP you are clearly struggling so instead of judgement here is a plan for you...

You need to retain your job, so tell husband that he needs to support your for the next x number of weeks to enable you to do that. (Blame sharing see? if he doesn't and you loose the job then its partly his fault!)

1. Book cleaners for an extra day each week till your deadline. Forget cleaning out cupboards, get them to change all the beds once a week, clean the kitchen and bathroom, hoover everywhere else and if they have time do the (kids and yours first) laundry. Ask them to put the kids laundry away and leave his and yours in baskets (on the bed?) Your husband is then responsible for putting his own clothes away!

1. Tell husband which days ironing service picks up and he is to have whatever he wants ironing ready (by the door in a bag whatever is needed) if he doesn't- tough.

1. Find a source of good ready meals. Our co-op has started to do the 'cook' range as do alot of the garden centre farm shops. Go and buy 2 weeks worth if your freezer will hold it. That way you have meals to go from the freezer to the oven with minimal prep/washing up. You can buy family sized or single ones. They are not cheap - but cheaper than your deliveroo habit! Stop cleaning up after your husband.

1. Book a shopping delivery of cereal/breakfast, snacks and lunch stuff. Set up the same delivery each week until your deadline. Send husband the login - tell him he can add but must not remove anything you have on the list. Maybe ask the cleaners to do an audit of your cleaning materials/ loo rolls etc for the shopping list too. Book it to arrive when the cleaners are there to organise it for you.

1. Try and book a nanny to care for the sick kids. Not ideal but you need to work.

Once you know where you are with your contract then you need to sit down and think about how it is all going to work out but I think you need to get through the next few weeks, sort out the sick kids and the work problem and go from there.

Oh and breathe OP... sometimes we forget to do that...

The Ozp is clearly trapped in a fairly abusive marriage any advice should be about womens aid, counselling and leaving him
would your mum support that op getting out to her and rebuild

Sadly op your DH is horrible, male plans to leave.

@Nanny0gg just to say too when I suggested a cleaner and asked if it was affordable I meant, was it affordable for them as a family not can she pay it to cover it, I had no idea he wasn't prepared to contribute financially towards it. That being the case he is in no position to moan. What gets me is, if he were single he'd expect to keep house and be a parent, what is it with these people who think that being the higher earner means their other half is lucky to be the house slave 🤯

He is not appreciating her load. He is not taking enough of the load for himself.
Why is he not appreciating how much she has on her plate? What stressors does he have and is he taking those out on her? We only have OP’s side here. What would he say when confronted? I’m assuming he’s not a total abusive ogre otherwise she wouldn’t have married him and had 2 children recently.
Communication is not happening effectively here or maybe some mediation is needed. Plenty to try before jacking it all in. Marriages (if not abusive) take work. If you think they don’t you are wrong. If you think your marriage (if you are married) won’t take work longer term you are either wrong or in the vast vast minority.
Having kids and working is stressful. Having kids full stop is stressful- it’s not going to be automatically perfect and dreamlike where two people work in perfect harmony (unless you are living in a Disney movie)
Life and marriage is tricky and takes understanding, forgiveness communication from both parties. This can take time to resolve and there will be patches where someone fucks up. You don’t just throw in the towel because times got tough.
I’ve Been married for 25 years so far and I hope to be for another 25 at least.

Seriously stop giving a single flying fuck what he has to say and stop doing stuff for him if he does nothing for you, he can do his own laundry, food and clean up after himself (and he can pay for a housekeeper if he wants to outsource). He complains, reply "your mess, deal with it, plenty of Dads work full time and manage to not need a Mummy to wipe their arse for them". Go on fucking strike OP. I know you may not get your contract renewed because he's fucking sabotaged you but assume you could get a similar salaried job (or at least enough to support yourself and 2 kids) scare the fucking bejeesus out of him with saying you'll go for 50/50 custody. (but seriously, if you LTB, even every other weekend is better than nothing, at least you'll get a break.)

You cannot carry on like this he is a fucking parasite and you are a bloody legend for putting up with this, but don't destroy yourself for him. He treats you with contempt so why stay? It is not worth his big important salary to stay with this leech.

Either work less or find a housekeeper for a few days as in full days or tell him to step up and actually help

I’m assuming he’s not a total abusive ogre otherwise she wouldn’t have married him and had 2 children recently.

It doesn't work like that though, does it. It's the old boiled frog analogy.