Stay at home husband - are my expectations too high ?

[greyA]

Long story short, OH and I have a beautiful daughter age 6 and had a beautiful baby boy 11 months ago- shortly after he was born my husband was taken unexpectedly ill, he caught sepsis and ended up spending time in ICU and his recovery has been slow due to ongoing fatigue. He’s now in the process of being medically retired from work and will likely get a (£25k ish ) payout. I had to return to work when my son was 6 weeks old and have been working ever since. I’m fortunate that I earn a good wage and I can support us all on it but AIBU to expect my husband to do the bulk of the chores / childcare if he isn’t going back to work ? Currently I’m WFH but also juggling our children, cooking, cleaning etc - spent yesterday cleaning the bathroom, mopping floors and meal prepping. I’m really unwell with a cold right now, I’ve worked all day flat out, cooked dinner for everyone and bathed both kids and my husband just got annoyed at me when I said I was going to go for a bath and leave him to clear up. What’s reasonable to expect from him if he’s at home all day? When I was a SAHM to our daughter I did everything.

I’m baffled that you decided you needed to mop the floor when ill. I think the last time I mopped the kitchen floor was 6 years ago!!!

He might need help knowing what to do and how to do it. Literally a rota. Lots of people struggle with executive functioning and women are socialised to work on theirs from a young age.

He’s being medically retired as opposed to being made redundant as he wasn’t able to commit to a timescale of when he would feel well enough to return. I’m not an ogre nor do I have impossibly high standards but I am working all day in a very high pressure job, getting up with the baby at night, looking after the baby whilst trying to work so he can run errands, I’m food shopping, cooking, cleaning. All attempts at gently helping him take charge have failed and even when I am on my knees like I am today he still has a knack of making me feel bad. I also did everything for the first 4 months after he came out of hospital - I didn’t ask him to lift a finger and just wanted him to concentrate on feeling better. He’s happy and well enough to do DIY or tinker with things he just doesn’t seem to want to do housework.

Is he home educating the 6 year old? If not then it's not unreasonable to expect him to do some light chores as well as care for a largely containable baby at 11 months. With just one baby/ young toddler it is possible to do cooking and laundry fairly easily, when physically well. I wouldn't expect him to be doing the equivalent of when you were SAHM because he's been so ill. If he had two four year olds at home full time I'd say that is a job in itself without adding all the household chores. But school age children change things as suddenly some of the chores can be done much easier (ie alone!).

Being home with an 11 month old and an older child is really hard. He's also early in the recovery process.

Why don't you do online shopping?

Is he confident with taking the baby out and about alone?

Can he cook?

I think the bigger issue here is that OP is doing everything and her husband got annoyed when she asked him to clean up after dinner.

OP cannot be expected to single handedly provide for the family and run the household. Her husband needs to recognise she needs some help too.

How is he getting disability medical retirement if he's fit and well?

7 months post ICU stay, I honestly would not be expecting housework.

I was a bit on the fence until you said he grumbled about you going for a bath. What exactly does he do? Mopping floors may be physically exhausting for him at the moment, but washing a few dishes? Wiping a table? Does he do any housework at all? He may not be fully recovered (or may never be) but if he does absolutely zero in terms of housework or parenting (and honestly 25k will have little longterm impact on finances so presumably no income), I’d be starting to consider the if I’d be better off a single parent after a while.

Re the cooking, can I suggest a slow cooker-- minimal prep and cleanup. Ideal for disabled people in my experience

It's not physically tiring for most people; however if you have ME/CFS then standing for 5 minutes can sometimes means a person and to spend the rest of the day recovering. If he is medically retired, then clearly he can't be as fit and well as OP is suggesting.

He's done nothing all day, she's been out at work, come back, cooked dinner, bathed the kids and just asked him to clear up and he's kicked off that that is too much. If he is so unwell he can't manage that he needs to be hospitalised.

He doesn’t sound like he’s completely well if he’s been retired from work. And does he also have an 11MO at home full time? That’s a pretty intense age and means you only get 2-3 hours a day whilst they’re napping and only if they’ll be put down in a cot. Maybe he’s capable of doing more, maybe he isn’t but I don’t think anyone can tell from behind a keyboard. He’s looking after a baby at a busy mobile age though- that definitely isn’t doing nothing!

He should be looking after the children while you are working at the very least. You both need to pretend you aren't there.

It’s not that hard if you don’t actually seem to be doing any childcare. Seems the op is juggling that around working from home, which is not just hard but near impossible if she’s literally doing everything else.

He should be doing something if he is well enough to tinker about and do things HE wants to do

This is what I suspected, but unfortunately you really needed to put this in the OP. You’ll get pages of people snarling at you and insisting that he should be wrapped in cotton wool and never lift a finger for the rest of his life.

To clarify, he wouldn’t commit to returning to work on any timeframe so they’re letting him go? I’d imagine it benefits them to call it medical retirement rather than redundancy.

Robot vacuum.

Paper plates. I know it's not environmentally friendly but you need to decrease the workload for some time.

Slow cooker or electric pressure cooker.

Stool for him sitting at counter for things like vegetable prep or setting up the slow cooker.

Enlist 6 year old for tasks like clearing table, putting some things away, and getting clothes to washer.

Make up some meals in advance for the freezer, the thaw to throw in the slow cooker.

If he's fit and well he should do the bulk of cooking and cleaning while you're taking on financial burden. Approach the conversation sensitively. Sometimes men also kinda need to be told what to do, otherwise they wing it and hope for the best, so maybe some helpful suggestions of how he can manage his day, etc

OP you are not being unreasonable at all. You need to have a really clear discussion. Is he now well enough to work? Is he going back to work? If not, is he going to be a house husband? If he’s at home with the kids, how long for? Is it forever? If he’s staying at home, what will that involve? Will it work for you?

It sounds like you don’t have a say in all this but you need to. You can say “I’m willing to be the breadwinner but you’ll need to doing the childcare, cleaning and cooking and not interrupting me during the day. When the youngest is at school you’ll need to work”. If you don’t have compatible visions of what a ‘house husband’ does, then he needs to go back to work and you get childcare. It won’t work otherwise.

You worked all day, cleaned the house, did dinner and bathed both children…he can wash up the plates for goodness sake.

Definitely start making some small changes to help yourself out, such as a couple of slow cooker meals a week etc. Could you fit a dishwasher in your kitchen? Could finances stretch to a cleaner once a week?

If you weren't working from home, I think he would bother doing a lot more.

I think that a toddler and running a house is very hard work without health issues, but additionally challenging with ongoing fatigue etc. also, he may feel pretty crap about losing his career due to health.

He should do whatever he’s capable of during the day - not everything, but a good crack at getting some of it done.

Evenings and weekends the tasks should be split.

Ah fair enough, I didn't realise the extent to which he'd recovered already.
In that case you're right, he should be doing a lot more.

If he was ill I would say be patient. Now this seems to be just him not wanting to do housework (who wants to?) while having zero consideration for you working ft, waking up at night to feed baby and still cooking and doing all the housework. He needs a wake up call ans realise what a partnership is about (clue: not watching your wife exhaust herself while you do fuck-all). If no changes I can't see any other solution than LTB unfortunately...