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.

Similar situation here, also due to op dh can't return to work, so I am the breadwinner. As soon as he has recovered from his post-sepsis thing, you must not do a thing at home - otherwise you will feel massively resentful. Even if you want to do things at home, help him, please don't - it will ruin things if you do. The breadwinner works and pays for the family, the sahparent does everything else - house chores, driving, after school clubs, absolutely everything. This is how it should work. If he does not like it, make him return to work. You are either satparent or you carry the financial load, you can't do both even if you can - otherwise resentment, rightful resentment will kill everything off. If he starts whingeing like many sahm here do - it is a full-time job and that sort of shit - nip it in the bud and say 'ok, from next week we change roles - you go and earn and I shall be a sahm' and see him come to his senses immediately.

It dues sound like you’re doing everything. Can you maybe sit down and agree what chores each if you should he doing. Ie, what days each of you cook, what childcare duties each if you do (bath, bed etc), what cleaning duties etc . He may find the thought if everything overwhelming, so break it down into smaller chunks,

Else you’ve got a potential cocklodger on your hands (which never ends well).

Perhaps because he’s genuinely ill? She needs to properly establish how ill he is (or isn’t) before jumping to LTB. If he’s basically fine then yes totally unacceptable. But I don’t think we can assume that just because he does diy.

There is another thread on the go at the moment where a woman is doing everything for her partner, who was also ill but is now healthy. This thread is nothing like that because we don’t actually know how ill this guy is, which is the key information.

We also don’t know how demanding the baby in this case is.

So he is well enough to work, just not at his previous job.

Some people are just not good at housework, and never will be.

I know it’s not a choice for some but if he is truly diabolical at it, (which is not a sin but he can’t pretend he is going to do it if it is something he is never going to do) maybe he can get a job outside the home again and pay someone to do the housework for you both.

The person at home, not working, contributes through maintaining the house, planning meals, doing laundry etc

If he needs rests between tasks, that's fine. 15 minutes on a task an hour or two rest. He'll get plenty done. I've got injuries and that's how I've got to do things at times.

Brilliantly put.

Does he think of himself as a SAHP, or does he think of himself as being too unwell to work?
If the latter then he may well not want or feel he can do the responsibility of the former.

I'd say an SAHP should do majority of the child related housework. But everyone as adults should do their own share of tasks for the home not child related. So I'd think SAHP does kids laundry, tidies their toys/area, Hoovers and cleans home in response to child based mess, does their daytime meals and takes to activities.

But it's down to you two to work out who's doing what.

Depends on his previous job surely? He might be too unwell for military/police/fire service but perfectly capable of working sitting down in an office, for example.

For those of you saying that op's dh is taking the piss , have you actually been around/known people with chronic fatigue or similar disabilities? These conditions leave you with limited capacity (or spoons as some say) meaning that you may have 10 spoons on one particular day. It could take 5 of those to get dressed , 2 of those to bathe etc. You have a different number of spoons each day depending on how well rested you are. This has a massive impact on what you can achieve and how reliable you are. Look up spoon theory if my post makes no sense to you.

I can't say if the dh is or isn't taking the piss , but let's not assume that he is. Chronic fatigue is real and debilitating.

If he is well enough to do a sedentary job then he should look for one so they can put more money into childcare/cleaner

But again op is not clear as to whether they’ve discussed this

He has decided he does not want to return to work and is going to be a SAHP which is why he has pushed for medical retirement. The business is making mass redundancies anyway so this was an easy out for everyone. He is generally well and our son is a happy, easy going baby that naps usually at 10-12 and 2-4. Most days I put our son down to nap and most days I find him watching tv when I come downstairs. I’ve gently explained I can’t do everything but he gets very sulky and defensive. Historically when well he wasn’t always the best at housey stuff but I let it go as he contributed 50% to the bills and is a good dad.

There's a world of difference in the physical demands between sitting in an office vs looking after an 11 month old and running a household. That's before you consider the mental and emotional side. A year ago he was healthy, working and expecting another baby - his whole life has been turned upside down. I know I'd struggle with that.

I'm the first to scream "useless man" but I'm not convinced that's the case here.

DH had sepsis during covid, fit & healthy it took him a lot longer than 7 months to recover fully, more like 18months before he was fully back to normal & didn't tire easily.
Under normal circumstances yanbu but taking the sepsis in account yabu.

Nope your update proves you aren't! He wants his cake 🎂

Okay that casts things in a very different light. If it’s his stated preference to be a SAHP then he needs to parent. No way should you be sorting naps when you’re at work if this is what he’s actually chosen.

If he maintains he is not well enough to do this stuff then ask him how on earth he is expecting to be a SAHP???

Then he should be doing pretty much everything! End of.

Do a huge list, tell him stay at home parent is a job , this is what they do, and if you don’t want to do it then you need to go and get a job that earns money. You’re behaving like sahp means your time is your own and I’ll do carry on doing the house and working, I’m exhausted and totally fed up.

book yourself a couple of nights away, work from the hotel? For a reset.

Only you and he know how fit he is, but it sounds like he needs assigned chores.

If you leave it fluid, people like you DH will slack off knowing you'll pick it up, then it slowly becomes more and more till you are doing everything and drowning under the pressure.

Break your chores down to daily, weekly, monthly, ask him which ones he wants and stop doing them for him for him.

put on the list ‘thinking of everything that needs to be doing’

What will he do when you keel over with exhaustion and stress?

You had to return to work when your baby was 6 weeks old and have been doing everything ever since. Does he understand how exhausted you are? Does he care?

Ok, so cross post. Time for a chat about the long-term.

A fit and healthy SAHP would do most of the grunt work, especially once the DC get a little older. You can't carry on as you are forever. Does he actually want that role? All the mental load and the rest? If not, fine, but he can go and work. You won't be doing it all while he chills indefinitely.

I really do t see how he can be medically retired but deemed fit to care for an 11mo.

It's incredibly difficult to get medical retirement.

He needs to be deemed so disabled & unemployable that he can't do any job at all for years, potentially risky to retirement (there are different levels).

He needs to claim ESA & PIP and you use these to pay for cleaners & childcare.

Then he needs to understand being the SAHP includes 100% responsibility for child during your working hours, plus agreed chores he could do during nap times. If he doesn’t agree to that then he needs to get a job he can manage physically & you split household/child responsibilities 50:50. At the moment it sounds like he thinks being a SAHP means sitting on his arse while you do all the work.

I've had Sepsis twice, and can confirm the recovery and ongoing fatigue are brutal. My DH was Superman while I was ill, and for the first couple of months after coming out of hospital, when I would fall asleep mid-conversation, or a trip to Tesco would wipe me out for the day, he basically did everything around the house, as well as work full time. At 7 months post discharge, in my experience (YMMV, of course!) I would expect your DH to be able to manage most of the housework, except for perhaps particularly physical things like vacuuming, as long as he can take regular breaks when he needs to.

If he's adamant you're asking too much from him, perhaps you could gently suggest he visits his GP to check his bloods. Has he been offered a "ITU Discharge Course"? I found mine invaluable. It was a 6 week course for people who had been in ITU, and included time to talk through our hospital notes with a Consultant, group work to discuss challenges we were all facing and 1-2-1 therapy (for me and DH - which was great, as DH wouldn't have spoken to anyone about his experience otherwise).

In addition, being the partner of someone who is in ITU is incredibly traumatic, even more so for you @greyA I expect, since you had so recently given birth. If you haven't taken the time to talk through your feelings from this time, it would be well worth doing so.

That sounds like a lot of work for OP though. If he truly believes he’s fit to be a SAHP then he’s fit to get a desk job, which as PP have said is far less demanding.

I would push for that on the basis he’s not able, for whatever reason, to fulfil the central role of a SAHP, which is to provide childcare to facilitate the working parent to work