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.

oh the carpet cleaning dear god

so another day spent with the child then, while you postured round the house

so that's that done for a year - what else?

cleaning windows? how long does that take? squirt squirt wipe
fix the car - oooh, it sounds like tinkering. And you worked on your friend's car too? Oh yes it deffo sounds like a chore to me and not something you enjoy doing
bake bread - this isn't a chore, it's a lifestyle thing.
ironing clothes - I bet with a 6-month-old baby they are mainly your work shirts, aren't they?

oh, well I'm pleased dh has lower standards than me. Housework would finish me off.

I was better at it when ds1 was 6 months old, but I was a bit dreamy and baby bubblish then so deifnitely a bit gormless about things like shopping. Now I'm just too stressed/no time.

"I cook, iron cothes, clean windows, bake bread and fix the car, but I won't vacuum."

But OP, fixing car is monthly at most? Ironing - just your shirts, perhaps? And baking bread and cleaning windows are so peripheral to the core of drudgery that is housework with a small baby.

Surfaces
Sweep and mop kitchen floor
wipe hob
clean sink
wipe cupboards
put away shopping
bins out
cook babyfood
wipe table/highchair
sweep/wipe under highchair

clean bath
clean basin
clean loo
wipe surfaces
mop floor

sort clothes wash clothes dry clothes fold clothes
etcetera etcetera

I think, when you break it down, you might find that you do far less than you think. Perhaps you should try to assess, objectively, how much free time you both have per day and divvy up the chores proportionately. Though that wouldn't take into account the sheer exhaustion of looking after - in anything other than the most basic feeding-changing-wiping manner - a six-month-old, five or more days per week.

ha ha - I have to bake bread so it is a chore (gluten free kids) but agree it takes 5 minutes at the most. It sounds very much as if lots of brownie points should be in order for that, but really it's the equivalent in time of a trip to the toilet.

making bread is so quick, agree its a 5 minute job

I have always been a bit shit at the housewife thing. Dh always asks why I decided to become one...

They live in a dusty house because they have an allotment and like walking

Now, presumably along with the triathlon thing if thats a factor, thats quite an amazing amunt of time spent out and about?

which rather reduces the proportion of time he is about to witness what she actually does? (unless she does the allotment in which case she is contributing)

My personal experience is of how many jobs there are that can go unseen- Dh would never clean the loo, for example. She could well be filling a lot of her time with these chores.

now if OP is genuine and really doing all thsi then he has my sympathy its just that my experience of anything of this kind is that half a story tells you a quarter of the truth, iyswim.

DH did all the hoovering when DS was young because he was terrified of the hoover.

Oh - he actually still does it as I had sciatica when pregnant and hoovering exascerbated it - DH obviously doesn't realise that I am no longer pregnant 3.5 years on!!

Foolish man!

OP is doing too much though a small baby is not that demanding and she should make an effort to have the house clean and a meal cooked at night.

fab post from DaddyJ there...

I think you've got to the stage where the hoovering is almost the be all and end all. Perhaps it is the one job that she absolutely detests and she would happily do everything else that you do, but not that. Perhaps you once pissed her off when asking her to do it so she has now decided that she would rather die than ever do it again. Who knows?

But... you can't go on like this, because you're getting more and more pissed off, and likely she is too.

If she's on her high horse about the hoovering there is nothing at all that you can do to get her off it. You NEED to stop mentioning it. She will do it in her own time. Or she won't. But you mentioning it again will only cause a row. I promise you this.

You do need to have a big talk with her though, your expectations are obviously different. Yes, she has enough time during the day to look after the baby and do all the housework, including having tea ready for you when you come home. But if she does this, it doesn't leave much time for anything else. ANYTHING else. trust me, I know this.

Am I the only one to be a bit worried about her use of the phrase "I couldn't think of anything" when asked about tea... I think it is possible that she perhaps has a touch of PND. Has this been discussed? What was she like before the baby came along? was she a clean freak then?

Mammoth post, I'm sorry, but I can feel for you both.

xx

By TheHedgeWitch on Tue 29-Apr-08 11:33:06

My DH does loads around the house, and leaves me with nothing to do... then moans how i never do anything.

I HATE the martyr syndrome. Hey DH.. stop doin all the feckin housework then i might have something to do!!!

We are married to the same man! He came in from work yesterday, sat down for a bit and then did the washing up(I was feeding DS and changing him). Half an hour later he said to me "You could have done the washing up" Well I was going to do it when I finished feeding ds but you've already done it. At least moan about it before you do it yourself and it was 2 plates, a bowl(His from breakfast) and 2 mugs.

Are you my DH?

I might think so if we didn't have 4 dcs and a new house to deal with every year...

There have been days where I have felt/behaved in the same manner and I would suggest that depression is a likely explanation but I also happen to think that being with the children is more important than hoovering.

agree with squonk abut the phrase culdnt think of anything- either

A) she has some degree of pnd, which culd be quite likely

B) previous efforts have been met with disapproval

C)- the allotment and home made bread points to a certain attitude about food being fresh etc, does she share that? if not maybe she's given up trying to fit someone elses rules; maybe she fanvied pizza!

I say "I dont know/couldn't think of anything nearly everyday when we discuss dinner. I dont have PND. So maybe that day she just didn't know what she wanted.

It's not lazy to do minimal housework, it's sensible. Housework is boring repetitive shitwork that is sold to women as something they are 'for', which is untrue. Many women are guilt-tripped into doing far more housework than is necessary by reactionary bullshit like FLY among others.
Housework is unecological: all that electricity used up by excessive hoovering (once a week or so will do) all those detergents and chemicals flushed into the water supply, etc, etc. As long as you've got clean plates to eat off and clean pants to wear, it's only worth doing much else when it's messy enough to be noticeable that you've cleaned it - and then it can wait if there's anything more interesting to do.
I bet the OP's DW is quite aware that he has got ideas about what a woman 'ought' to do round the house and is making sure those ideas don't take root.

6mo was about the worst with dc1. You can cope with a non-napping non-sleeping constant-feeding screaming baby for a few months because you (foolishly) imagine it is going to get better soon. At 6mo I realised that this was not temporary, it was my new life. That was very depressing and I had no motivation at all for leaving the baby to scream while I tackled tedious repetitive unrewarding housework. A poor change from my previous "life" where I had a mentally-stimulating job with adult company, and we shared the housework when we both felt like it.

Now I have 3 dcs, I think "what's so hard about looking after a baby?" and I whizz around doing a bit of housework in between all the school runs. But back then, when looking after the baby seemed impossibly difficult, and the day stretched endlessly and emptily and noisily ahead of me - doing housework seemed like just too much to manage.

I have just spent 2 months in hospital and 2 months being incapacitated at home, while dh looked after the dcs by himself. It was quite enlightening for both of us.

I hoovered last week, for the first time since September .

"Housework is unecological"

Oh Madamez I love you!

I would hazard a guess that if she isn't really managing to get anything done she may be suffering from depression. I have suffered in the past and seriously had no motivation to do any housework or even look after my own personal hygeine. It really can be that hard to keep the house running when you are so low.

We often say to each other "remind me again what we eat?", and I know that my DW finds my (perceived) presumption that she'll always have an idea intensely irritating.

I say we should menu plan but she can't be arsed.

menu planning doesn't solve it, we always do but dh or one of the boys will swipe something crucial for a meal and we'll still sit there feeling stumped

Plus the coming up of ideas for menu planning can be an interesting debacle, often passed to the boys

"the allotment and home made bread points to a certain attitude about food being fresh etc"

hmm you may be on to something there

Triathlete you do seem uncommonly perky

I bake my own bread!
I am a triathlete!
I am out on the allotment/ walking in the countryside/ helping with my mate's car/ baking my own bread

this isn't character assassination. You just seem to have a lot of energy

maybe she doesn't

neither do I

energy in other people pisses me off hugely

wheres he gone?