To be irritated that hubby went for his workout on my designated day? ?

[Chalatte]

Edit: hubby, not hint, can't seem to change title
I and my partner have just started working out semi regularly, and due to our busy schedules he does Mon-weds and I do the remaining 4 days
I don't usually get to do all 4 because there's always a birthday party or social engagement on the day, and sometimes miss all week for reasons like that.

I've got the week off for half term and I've been on top of the laundry and some deep cleaning. I've also done loads of cooking etc plus ensured the kids were off screens for the most part, taking them to local parks etc to keep them active.

This means I've just been exhausted and not been able to go gym the first 3 days
Today I set up a playdate so we had kids over until past 7. I couldn't even think about going coz I've been up and down stairs, In and out dropping the older kid to their play dates, tidying, cooking and cleaning basically all day. Turns out he got a session at the gym in and I was really irritated by this!

Yesterday he suggested "I just take the day off and do something for myself" and I didn't do it knowing fully well I had multiple playdates to coordinate, lunch laundry and tidying. I work a very busy job so this half term has been a rare opportunity for me to do stuff. He's booked himself a gym day and went ahead with it, and honestly I got a little upset by this. Despite him telling me to "take today off" and that"he'd cancel if I booked"

I think there's a deeper underlying issue because this irritated me to no end and I can't articulate why this bothers me so(especially because he even offered to cancel if I were going)! My whole point is I don't want to feel I'm constantly begging him for time that's designated to be for my gym time. He just doesn't seem to get why I'm so annoyed if I wasn't going to go to the gym anyway(I was honestly exhausted after being around the kids all of today).

I think the issue is that i feel he isn't pulling his weight in the house enough and everything he says feels like lip service. If I went out today I know, for instance, that the lunch would have been ramen or if there was proper lunch I'd have to clear up stacks of dishes from the sink and counter, the laundry wouldn't have been done etc, so my"taking time off"would just mean "put off what I'm doing until tomorrow and double the work"😢

To be fair he does some work around the house but feels like it's the bare minimum compared to what needs doing. He'll do the washing but not the folding,leave a pile on the table or bed for days on end. He'll feed the kids but it's ramen or takeout, and the dishes will all be out on the table. Or, he'll engage the kids, but it's going to be with Tv

I understand he works a busy job and has no free time but I am feeling so triggered today in particular, even more so after he so generously told me to"take time off" that I guess I just wanted to vent here and any thoughts on whether I'm being unreasonable will be received with an open mind!

What would happen if you just sat down and didn't do all this stuff?

Would your house genuinely turn into a hazardous tip, or would he step up and just do it?

A lot of your posts are filled with lists of things you feel you "need" to do but I do wonder how much of it is necessary.

@Chalatte
I know others feel differently to me, and have talked about lowering standards, but I don't really see it like that.

I believe that you have a house to run and a family to raise. You can choose to do it living together with your spouse, or alternatively, separate and raise your children in separate homes with both parents contributing or be in a situation where one parent is solely responsible.

What you need to decide is what you are willing to NOT do!
If you aren't willing to not do things, then it means that your options are limited.

My husband's standards tend to be "higher " (different) than mine when it comes to tidiness and cleanliness. Mine are "higher" (different) than his when it comes to raising our children and relationships with both our families.

I am never going to keep a ship shape house. If he wants things done a certain way he can do it himself. I'm fine living with the way I am.
He is fine not involving himself more in things I feel are important. Do I wish he took more interest? Definitely. Does he wish I weren't such a slob? Also definitely.
We have accepted that we are as we are, and we will make up for each other's weaknesses.

If you don't recognise each other's strengths and weaknesses then this is a problem.
What is your husband really good at? Can he not take that over or do a much higher proportion of this in your relationship?

I dont really buy this higher/lower standards
It's either clean and tidy or its not
It's just an excuse for laziness

I know what you're getting at as my DH also always use the quota of 'lazy' meals every time he makes dinner or lunch for DCs, despite the meals always falling on a weekend, equating to at most 2/21 meals a week, and there rarely being a rush to get them fed at those times. I feel those meals should be saved for when time is really short, there is illness, or to give the person lumped with the bulk of cooking (me!) a night off.

FWIW, I do often use packet noodles (the japanese that end up with a broth, rather than Super Noodles) for DC's weekend lunches too, but I tend to add stuff to it to make it more nutritious - this might be something to suggest to DH or do yourself to lighten your load? I chuck in a selection from the freezer and cupboards such as frozen peas or edamame, dried seaweed, kimchi, tinned mackerel, leftover meat (I specifically freeze roast leftovers for this purpose), frozen surimi, sesame seeds, boiled eggs, handful of spinach etc. It all gets chucked in along with the boiling water, so adds little effort on the chef's part, but makes it a lot more interesting to eat and balanced.

I'd be greeting him with the business end of a heavy frying pan when he got back from the gym if I were you.

What he is doing is cheeky fuckery of the highest order.

Gym aside - it is not ok to make work for you. Leaving dishes piled high and a kitchen that looks as if a tornado blew through it is massively disrespectful.

Make a list of everything that normally falls to you around the house during an average week - not your "week off".

Make a list of everything that falls to him.

Include details like arranging play dates, rsvping to party invitations and buying presents and cards, compiling shopping lists, clearing counters, sorting socks, washing dishes, sorting school lunches, dealing with school paperwork, ferrying children - every single thing.

Sit him down and ask him why his list is one tenth (or far less) as long as yours is and what he's going to take on so that you can also swan off to the gym confident that you can return to a house that doesn't look like a bear pit.

In the nicest possible way - what a load of utter hooey.

Don't let him make work for you.

Insist he pulls his weight as a parent and as a partner in the domestic sphere.

He is a fully grown adult who has what it takes to hold down a job long term.
He can therefore focus his mind on his home and family too.

If he doesn't see himself as your fully-on-board domestic partner and doesn't understand that this means rolling up his sleeves and performing at the level of a grown man as he does in his job, then by default he sees you as his maid, nanny, and housekeeper.

Agree
Jaysus the poor bloke apologists are out

Do posters like @saphirestones not realise that women don't want to be married for 25 years to a lazy twat?
A manchild who is content to watch the Op run herself into the ground ?
Ugh no thanks

@YesImawitch
While I realise that most people have to do things while running a home that aren't particularly enjoyable, I also think that women, for one reason or another, often end up doing everything because they won't let anything go.

If you want things done completely your way, then accept that you either do it yourself, or continuously push your standards onto your partner, which in the end creates resentment and frustration on both sides.

If you feel your husband is good for nothing , and can't contribute to the relationship, then you can separate.

🙄 whatever...

Or maybe they do it because the children need clean underpants and nutritious food, and a festering bathroom with splashes of pee up the walls is not something you want your child touching.

You're speaking as if these silly women are attempting to serve cordon bleu meals off a spotless floor daily. No, they're just trying to make their homes reasonably clean, make sure everyone wears cleanish clothes, and serve meals that provide protein, calcium, vitamins, carbs and fibre daily, off clean plates.

Don't shame women for picking up the massive amount of slack so many lazy, entitled, freeloader "partners" have left to them because they've decided it is beneath them to participate in domestic life.

That's all very well and might fine if your H isn't spending his time at home piling pots and dishes in the sink and letting the kids run amok.

Over time, the prospect of coming home to a home that looks like a disaster zone starts to chip away at your enthusiasm for heading out and taking care of your health. The stress and resentment of cleaning up after another grown ass human who just blithely assumed you'll would be the one doing the skivvy work will negate all the work you did in the gym too.

It's not martyrdom to take care of your house and your children, and men who do it are treated like gods walking the earth.

It is cheeky fuckery of the lowest kind to enjoy the results of someone else's labour and fail to appreciate the time and energy it took to get the laundry done, the school paperwork seen to, the food shopping done and the meals cooked.

Let's shame the person who deserves to be shamed here. It's not the woman trying to keep her house in order and care for her children while also holding down a job, whose husband has prioritised his own health and leisure time over his family responsibilities.

OP, I get that it must be disheartening to come home from the gym and to find mess everywhere and the kids hopped up on junk food.

But rather than throw your hands up in the air and say "Oh well, guess I won't be going to the gym anymore", I think there are steps you can take to try to rectify the situation, such as;

1. Asking your DH to feed the kids something healthy and tidy up afterwards (you might need to be specific here. Eg "Please wash the dirty lunch dishes and put them away.")
2. Explaining to your DH the impact on you, when he doesn't pull his weight. (Eg "When I come home and have to clean the mess that you and kids made, it results in me staying up late into the evening to get everything done. I feel tired / disrespected / lonely / etc.")
3. If you come home to mess, resist the urge to start cleaning! Instead, ask your DH to do it. Set consequences. For example, you don't cook dinner for anyone until the dishes have been done, etc.
4. If your DH still refuses to tidy the mess, it might be time for more drastic steps, such as scooping up all the dirty dishes and putting them somewhere he can't ignore. Such as his desk, or on his side of the bedroom, etc.

It may take some time, but I think the more you push back and be a bit more 'selfish', ironically, the more likely your DH will be to step up.

Also, it does seem like some of this busy-ness is your choice - for example, why do your kids need to have loads of activities and playdates all the time? It's okay for them just to chill / be bored once in a while.

@mathanxiety
My intention was not to shame anyone.

I have read many threads here, by multiple women, who talk openly about what their standards are, and I can assure you they are not people who accept an average level of "clean and tidy" or "average" anything really.
I'm talking about the people who feel it's essential for every child to have multiple extra curriculars, wash their daughters' long hair every night, where changing pyjamas every night is normal, who iron every single item of clothing, who have multiple personal bathroom towels which get washed after every use.

I'm not talking about the families where children literally aren't being fed an adequate diet or left in stained clothes, or the dirty dishes pile up until there are none left.

Obviously we can't know exactly what the situation is in the OP's family, but the mention of multiple play dates, and the idea that they deemed reasonable to dedicate 3/4 personal gym sessions a week to each partner gives me the impression of a pretty organised family.

This organisation may be all down to the op, rather than the husband, but I still agree with what I said before. If your partner isn't on the same page as you, you can't run the family as if he were.
Feeling cross and frustrated all the time doesn't help anyone and certainly won't help the relationship if that is something you believe in.

“I'm talking about the people who feel it's essential for every child to have multiple extra curriculars, wash their daughters' long hair every night, where changing pyjamas every night is normal, who iron every single item of clothing, who have multiple personal bathroom towels which get washed after every use.”

there is a lot of this on mumsnet tbf. It’s totally unnecessary..

I have read many threads here, by multiple women, who talk openly about what their standards are, and I can assure you they are not people who accept an average level of "clean and tidy" or "average" anything really.

Yes, exactly. People who wash their towels everyday, who steam mop the floors after every meal, who change the beds multiple times a week, who insist on cooking breakfast for teenagers everyday etc. It's just work for the sake of it.

There's a massive difference between living with a man who is a genuine lazy fucker and can't be arsed to do anything, and a man who just doesn't see the need to bleach the skirting boards every week but who actually keeps a decent home otherwise.

I say all of that as someone who has quite specific standards - but I don't expect DH to adhere to them because I recognise that it's a "me" issue.

I get it. It's such an empty offer when you know he'll do fuck all and you then have to come do it all anyway while gets a pat on the back for having a lazy afternoon letting the kids watch TV.

Maybe you need to calm down and then speak to him about the bigger picture.

But also accept, some of this is on you martyring yourself. He offered to be with the kids and you said no so of course he went. You cant complain you don't get support when you refuse it. Regularly he's already agreed to 3 gym trips to your 4 per week so he is trying.

So talk to him but calmly explaining what you need and how you recognise you contributed t o the problem.

I have had this, and I exploded at my dh once when I came home late and dinner hadn’t even been cleaned up and said how I wished I was married to me and had my life facilitated instead of married to him and every time I took time for myself I had to catch up on family stuff and housework as nobody did any of them. That’s babysitting not parenting. It’s much better now, part of which is dh stepping up and part of which ia me being more selfish.

tell your dh, you know how you said book a day out for yourself? I’ve done that Saturday. What was stopping me is the stuff that needs doing at home- I really really need to be able to go out sometimes and that gets taken care of for me. You get that all the time, don’t I deserve that too? Going out stresses me when I know that if you make them real food then you’ll leave the dishes for me. That no extra housework will be done and I don’t have extra time tomorrow to catch up because I dared take some time for myself. I am going to take a leaf out of your book and try harder to look after myself instead of only looking after myself when there’s extra space, but I really need you to do some more than keeping the kids alive while I’m out so my stress levels don’t go up at the idea of taking time for myself. Im this close for disappearing for a week as at least you’d have to do dishes and laundry and tidying over a week instead of leaving it to me.

and be more selfish. Focus on stuff that affects him to drop.

That’s not quite fair, he’s really only offered to keep the kids alive and let her clean up the mess and catch up on anything else when she gets back. It’s totally different to offering to parent for the day.

We iron a minimum, hair wash a couple of times a week, wash towels fortnightly, our kids do have lots of activities as they love their sports and do all of them with all their friends, it’s still pretty damn busy!

I absolutely agree he shouldn't "help" he should parent.

But if she's doing everything, presupposing he won't do things her way she's not helping herself.

I think the gym is a good start and a show of willing, i do need to think it needs to be better thats why im saying let this go, calm down then do a bigger picture talk. Where you accept that some of what he may do mightnt be her way or standard but it's good enough and move from there

What's ramen? Yes I know I'm missing the point of the thread 😬

That depends what you mean by doing things his way. If he goes straight for instant noodles every time he has to parent his own children, he’s taking zero ownership of their health, and meaning the op has to take full ownership of all healthy eating. Instant noodles are pure upf and we see more and more how upfs are bad for you. We make them very occasional in our house. If my dh did that every week because I was at the gym, I’d feel that was their upf quotient and I could never take the quick and easy feed the kids way myself. So that’s not ok to just do it his way. It’s not ok to just be the lazy parent and leave the actual work all to your other half.

I completely get it.

A few weeks ago my husband came home fr work and said he was going to start going to the gym with our nephew, 3 times a week. I was so angry and I couldn’t articulate why it made me so mad.

It is basically because he already has a weekly hobby, he come home from work and spend 1-1 1/2 hours in the bathroom then he just wants to relax. Yet he would be happy to spend yet even more time away from us.

(he shoots and hunts and fishes)

So even though I know it’s fine for him to go it made me angry knowing he wanted to.

I said it was fine but twice a week not 3 times. And so far he has gone all of 0!!!

What the fuck is he doing in the bathroom for that long? Is this every day? I'd be livid and tell him so repeatedly