Straw poll - who handles all life admin in your house

[Lifeadmin22]

Just been having quite a terse disagreement with my husband about division of labour in our house.

I think I do far more than him and he seems to think this is absolutely fine/normal.

We have 3 children - an 8 year old and 5 year old twins. I went down to 3 days after the twins as we couldn’t afford full time childcare for them. I’ve changed my hours to school hours to accommodate drop offs and pick ups - of which I do them all. And then sort the kids when they get home, do their dinner etc. He gets home from the office and does help with books/bedtime.

I organise all doctors appointments, school admin, arranging holiday care, booking clubs, birthday parties, days out, our holidays.

To be fair to him, he does his share of ferrying them round, getting up in the morning, doing their breakfast while I get their uniform prepped and lunches made.

BUT basically I feel he sits back and waits to be told what to do and I’ve had enough of it. Like I’m his line manager dishing out tasks and telling him where he needs to be that day. Or he’ll happily come on a family day out but I need to think about where to go, book the tickets etc first.

He says he works full time and that no other dads do any admin so I should be grateful he does a lot more than most.

Im also resentful as I have a demanding job that I start at 9.30 and finish at 2.30 and have no lunch break as I’m so busy. He seems to think I’ve got the good end of the deal when actually I’m cramming a full time job into school hours and then have the children to manage the instant I’m finished. I don’t even have time for a lunch break! I do all the clearing up the minute I’m back from the school run and put a wash on and then have to be logged in working. He gets to swan off to the office, chat to colleagues and have plenty of hot coffees I’m sure!

AIBU to boot him out and change the locks!

Me, but I've always enjoyed it and don't see it as a hassle.

In this day and age it's much easier with technology.

I'm old enough to remember queuing up at the bank and the post office etc and all the filling in of paper forms for insurance and everything else.

I do every single bit. It just doesn't occur to him that these things need doing, or thinking about.

Yes exactly! Mine wouldn’t have a clue either.

But I’ve had enough of it. Why am I burning myself out organising the whole family’s life while he seems to have the luxury of only worrying about himself!

You work 9.30-2.30 three days a week so 15 hours is that correct? @Lifeadmin22

I do most of it as I'm on a PC all day and can get home stuff done during work hours on a break, send an email, book the vets, pay a bill etc.
DH works shifts with no access to his phone for 48hrs a week so wouldn't work the same.

Our division of work at home is that he does the lions share when he's off work which is quite a lot on his shift pattern he will generally do laundry, cleaning, shopping, ferrying kids around etc. When he's working I'll do most of it.

I don't find the admin stuff too taxing but I know it's exhausting balancing work/ home/ kids/ marriage. Maybe you can find the chores split that work for you.

Term time I do, holidays DH does (he’s a teacher). Both work FT. If I worked PT and didn’t have preschool DC I think I’d expect to do it all, on the ‘everyone gets the same amount of free time’ principle.

Same here that I do all the admin though we do share the school runs. I am better at it than him (he is also rubbish at his own admin) and I find it more relaxing knowing that stuff is actually done on time but it does massively irritate me that he doesn't appreciate the effort involved especially holidays which he is a total pain to discuss ideas for but then moans about how we never do his hobbies on them

No 3 days so 21 hours over 5 days.

but my part time job is basically the same as my full time job was! I often end up working in the evenings to get everything done

Oops quoted my own post! @justasking111

I work FT, have 3 x kids 5 and under, and organise everything at home like you mention above. It used to annoy me but after reading some of the stories on here about their husbands and partners behaviour, I count my lucky stars my DH pulls his weight in other ways. He like yours, does his share, but only after being given instructions. DH just says he wants me to be happy, so will do whatever I ask to get it right. After a while reflecting on this, I can see weirdly it comes from a place of good intentions. I also let it go as deep down, I’m a control freak too 😂

We split it. I tend to do things like food shopping, cooking and sorting out childcare stuff. DH does more of the big admin (bills, finances, insurance, house stuff). He basically does all the grown up jobs. No complaints from me.

My point is I don’t have any free time! Any time I’m not working I’m either cleaning or have the children!

I'm just going to answer your title question as your post got me angry (for you).

I handle all admin. Always have done. Right now I am handling the divorce admin for him as well as myself, plus sorting out the house selling admin.

Yes you heard that right. If I didn't do it I would never be able to get divorced. Pisses me right off 😡

Every single part of your post resonates with me OP and it's exhausting 😰 especially dealing with the kevin the teenager strops from 'D'H on top of everything else 🫠

Ahh…sorry, I assumed you meant three days school hours, so two days to do stuff during the day. YANBU

Me. Because there is only me here.

Before - me. Because I married lazy men.

My husband and I split things. I do all the appointments for our child, paying for and finding clubs for our child, sort birthday/Christmas presents for both sides of family, food shop, booking holidays and days out. He sorts the mortgage, bills, car and insurance- jobs which I hate.

Can you tell him you want to go back up to full-time so he will have to do some drop offs / pick ups? And use breakfast/after school club a couple of days? The only way I ever got my husband to realise was him doing 2 days a week of the childcare and realising what it was like.

I still do the majority of the mental tasks like GP, dentist, birthdays etc, but he does take on a lot of other stuff in the house. And also you need to go away for a night now and then and show him what it’s really like. He’s able to rely on you too much.

Sorry to hear this - utterly infuriating. But at least you’ll be shot of him soon.

Yes I can feel myself getting very annoyed too. He’s got absolutely no understanding of how much time it takes to sort out every aspect of home stuff.

I do the finances and insurance stuff etc too.

he does “the bins” meter readings and car admin. That’s about it for stuff I don’t have to tell him to do!

No worries.

I do all admin because I'm worried my ADHD husband will forget. Friday is admin day here. We have to provide tax returns for the accountant annually which is on top of all domestic admin. We used to argue over that because pinning him down to go through online bank statements isn't trouble free.

I'd get him to cook, do laundry, hoover whenever you set aside time for admin at the very least.

If you work 15 hours a week I don't see how that's a full time job. I also wouldnt expect a lunch break in a 5 hour working day. How many hours a week are the schools runs/life admin/cooking etc?

Could have written this tonight. We have a baby and a toddler. All of the admin things you’ve listed are up to me. His answer whenever I complain about anything is that I didn’t ask him to do it or ‘I didn’t know there was a washing that needed put away’.. you’d know if you took anything to do with putting the washing there in the first place 😅

I run myself ragged and work for myself (luckily from home) but I cram in work at all hours of the day wherever I can, I end up just having absolutely no time to myself whatsoever. He complains I’m on my phone when he’s there and could be entertaining the kids but I’m either doing work or posting on my business social media to try and make money! It’s crazy to think that for the last 3 years he’s been having lunch at work with no children. I think I’ve probably eaten one, maybe two, lunches on my own in that time. It can be 3 hours in the morning just running from one job needing done to the next and until all three of us are dressed and ready to get out the door.

Usually it doesn’t bother me as I am glad to spend all my time with the kids but it is infuriating just to be the head of everything it seems, while he goes to work, comes home, does a bit of help with bedtime (even that we take day about) then passes out on the sofa while I work til silly o’clock. It’s even small things like I haven’t had my nails done in months and almost never have time to put make up on. I wear the same leggings and jumpers all the time. The house is never actually clean or tidy despite me cleaning and tidying it all day long. And occasionally he’ll make a comment about the state of the place and my blood pressure goes to a whole new level! 😭 AHHH, I feel you!

OH died recently so it's all on me now. But until last month, I did 100% of the life admin and planning + all bill paying and organising our social lives, but he did the vast majority of the physical housework.

Most days he'd get a list of 2-3 tasks that needed to be done at some point before bedtime and a weekly list of where we were going, why and with who.

It worked out that we spent around the same number of hours per week on everything and had the same amount of free time. If either of us felt things we're getting unfair we'd talk about it and shift things around a bit but over the years we fell into this split and were very happy with it.

I've no idea what to do now though. I don't even know how half the household appliances work.

Roughly 50/50. Although he deals more with finances as I would just shove it all in isa/premium bonds and savings account and forget it, he is more willing to do the chase the rates thing / work stocks and shares. In return I tend to do slightly more of the mundane house paperwork - like making sure insurances etc are correct. But roughly 50/50.
However we do discuss everything financially, so we both know what’s happening even if it isn’t something on our individual to do list.
Historically it used to be me that did it all, then we swapped to him doing it all, now 50/50.

It’s always been me that did all the organising. I always did the majority share of household chores too when I worked PT. As we are both now FT with older teens we share chores more equally.