to think that DW could do ever such a little bit more around the house?

[Triathlete]

I know how hard it is to look after an infant all day, and I'm really glad that I was able to take paternity leave and help in those early weeks.

And I'm happy to take over fully when I get in from work - bathe, feed and put DS (6.5 months) to bed, cook for us, wash up, make her a cup of tea and let her put her feet up.

And DW does do stuff in the house, but only what suits her and what she likes. She makes a great deal out of "tidying your wardrobe" for instance, but I've never asked her to do it.

The one thing that I would like her to do is the vacuuming. We have a dusty house - allotment, garden, walks in the country and so on. When I was living alone I did it in the morning before going to work. It's only a small house - ten minutes doing one room every day and every room gets done at least once a week, and the place is cleaner, fresher and healthier.

The other week I worked hard on a friend's car in exchange for the loan of an industrial carpet cleaner, then I spent Saturday cleaning all the carpets - they came up beautifully.

But she won't vacuum. And I refuse to do it at the weekend - I cook, iron cothes, clean windows, bake bread and fix the car, but I won't vacuum. If I start to do it again, it'll be at 7am before I go to work. She can deal with the woken up baby then.

And then today, when I had to go straight out again to the supermarket after getting back from work, I asked her whether there was anything ready to eat. "No, I couldn't think of anything". Well honestly, boiling 4 potatoes won't win any prizes, but it would have been more than acceptable to a hungry, tired husband with a busy week ahead. What makes it worse is that she was on the fricking internet when I came in.

I'm pissed off.

Message withdrawn

sorry tinkerbells mum but dd2 is a really easy going baby and i have loads of time do the housework i also have dd1 who is not easy going she is in fact a nightmare at gtimes and needs constant stimulation to stop her wrecking the house but i would still have time to vaccuum!

Thanks knickers- That's the one!

That's your LO, mine needs constant stimulation when she's awake, but she's a happy content child who sleeps 12ish hours plus naps. I do get jobs done, I said I did, I prefer to leave vaccing and jobs that need my time for when she's not around or her dad is here. On top of looking after a toddler who needs constant attention I also have my health making things hard, but I do remember saying I get things done.

Could your wife work at weekends whilst you look after the baby, and spend the money on a cleaner?

That way she does say waitressing on Fri & Sat evenings for say £90 or supermarket work on Saturday or whatever really. That way you can have a cleaner twice a week. Having a job might perk her up a bit!

Also getting your shopping online and having it delivered is surely something she could do easily?

Why not dump the allotment? You didn't want it anyhow and dw doesn't do much on it...if she wants to keep it she could do a share with another family and you needn't do anything.

As for constantly making bread and carrot cake, just stop. You seem to me to be creating a lot of extra and uneccessary work whilst being resentful that you have to do so much! There is loads that you could just stop doing by the sounds of it and I find this a bit odd!

Is your wife happy with the status quo? If not perhaps you could both write a plan of how you would like the relationship to work and compare.