Husband still struggling, AIBU to expect more?

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I’ve got up this morning with our 1 year old and there’s literally nothing to feed him as husband again hasn’t bought bread- he’s spending £150+ weekly on food but barely cooks and frequently forgets the basics - I’ve got 2 Ribeyes in my fridge but no bread 🤣 me and kids only eat decent food if I cook it - he mostly buys M and S ready meals. Just this week alone I have worked full time ( I WFH ) cleaned the house, looked after the kids whilst he run errands on Thursday, cooked 3 nights out of 5 ( he cooked one - takeaway the other ) I also did everything for our older child’s birthday. On Monday I cooked a roast dinner, bathed and put toddler to bed. come down and husband tells me he’s exhausted because he cleared up from dinner. Yesterday he tells me life is mundane and spends the whole day in some sort of depressive episode even though I’d got up early with both kids and let him sleep until gone 9 even when I needed to start work. I’ve been up since 530 this morning and he’s still sleeping and I don’t know how much longer I can do this - he’s shit at the job he has chosen to do ( SAHP) and doesn’t seem to want to be good at it. I’ve tried leaving it ( house, kids, cooking etc ) but it doesn’t get done. If I moan there’s a brief improvement but we always end up back here. We’ve tried a cleaner, also toddler is in nursery 2 mornings a week ( not free- I have to pay for this ) It’s been over a year since he got sepsis ( was in hospital 3 weeks) yet he blames that for everything. I want to support him but feel like he’s taking he piss out of me constantly. He’s started lately moaning that all I do is work, I haven’t got time for him, I don’t listen to him etc - frankly I don’t have any more to give him as I’m utterly exhausted. AIBU to be expecting more now ? What’s reasonable to expect ?

Sounds like my friend. Her “SAHP” - aka unemployed through choice as he doesn’t act like any actually SAHP, partner is utterly useless and behaves like this. She is so burnt out. Nothing changed despite her trying to explain to him his job is to make sure the kids get to school in time (the head called her and not him every time the kids were late ffs!) and to make sure they are fed properly. He hasn’t worked a job in 6 years and the kids are in primary school 8.30 to 4pm, yet the house is a mess, the laundry is never done and she will come home to nothing in the fridge for the children’s dinner yet a rib eye steak and a nice wine for him. She has booked cleaners thinking he needed help with the load of running a house, order hello fresh meals for the week, but that didn’t help, written out for him what needs to be done daily, taught the kids how to get themselves ready, and shoulders the mental load as well as the financial load. He swans about in a new car paid for by her telling people at their new school gates he took early retirement.. what a crock.

They had a one nice last holiday this summer as a family and she has finally decided to leave him after he complained on holiday she gets more time to herself than him…this woman kills herself working. At weekends he goes off and does his own thing.

On one day on holiday he had put the eldest kid in kid club while she sat in a doctors waiting room with the youngest for over 5 hours. When she came back she said she wanted to go for a swim and could he take both children to dinner and she’d join them in 45 mins after quick swim and shower. He said no way it’s your turn i got up this morning with them I need time to chill. The utter straw that broke the camels back.

be careful about wasting your one precious life with a man who behaves like another child

You're a better woman than I am, OP. I would have gone berserk.

What would life without this waste of space look like for you and the children? Do you think he'd aim to get full custody so that you have to move out and support him?

And even if you say that this is it, he can't do the job of a SAHD and needs to find employment - that will not take anything off your plate. Because even a tiny part time job would mean that he is so exhausted he can't even do the microwave dinners any more. So instead of current 80% of housework, you would be doing 100, on top of your 60h work.

This is terribly difficult for you and you have my sympathy but post-sepsis problems can go on for well over a year. Your husband is obviously ill, he can't help it.

If you can afford a regular cleaner, do hire one, it will be worth it. Make shopping lists and have groceries delivered, it costs no more than going to the shop and at least you will be getting what you need.

I don't think you can expect much from your husband right now but you too need all the help you can get so please use whatever is available. Go to your doctor with your husband and see if he can have any treatment to help him as he is now and to build up his strength. There may also be other, practical and financial, help available if he qualifies, you won't know unless you ask.

I am so sorry for all of you. x

I never like to suggest breaking up a marriage if it is salvageable but I’m afraid I would go in hard here - he either has to change or I would be out. It’s not just what he is/ is not doing, it is the entitled attitude. Even if his performance is due to sepsis complications, depression or whatever, he should have sympathy for you and the burden you have to carry, not complaints.
Apparently your standards are too high are they? Hmm, I would say I disagree and I am not lowering them so do you want to try to meet them or is it divorce?
Lastly about your situation financially if you split. Get some professional advice on any steps you could take to stop him from being a financial leech well into the future if you break up. You would be advised to approach this tactically to avoid being taken advantage of yet further.

We were at this point not 6 weeks ago . I’m usually at college, hubby at home with health issues . I was beyond tired and emotional trying to do everything .
ultimately gave him a choice , we stay together if he is more proactive, or we split after 26 years married . I ment if as well . Resentment consumes you and makes you bitter, angry and frustrated . It’s horrible .
pleased to see effort has massively improved , because I love him more than I ever have, because he’s listened and understood x

Shock horror the working parent has a harder schedule! This is defo a mumsnet first.

He's well enough to pester her for sex and to do his hobbies though. It's just child care, cooking and housework that he can't manage, despite being the SAHP.

It sounds really tough, but I echo some of the posts here that there may well be some ongoing issues from the Sepsis. He still needs to step up though, as someone who has had different but debilitating health issues, I’d suggest for him to try using AI to help with some of the challenges including making an energy saving schedule for chores, make shopping lists for cooked family friendly meals etc - it can do this for a whole week pretty easily which might be less overwhelming if that is genuinely his issue. It does sound blood boiling though.

Goodness. He seems terribly self-absorbed. I really don’t understand why he’s so whiny. He is in an absolutely perfect situation: he is a kept man, he doesn’t have to earn a living, and through what appears to be a highly successful strategy of “learned helplessness” he gets away with doing fuck-all around the home and contributing nothing to the parenting.

If he were sensible he’d keep his head down and do as little as possible to antagonise you OP. But by being a whiny whinger & complaining about you not giving him enough attention/sex, he’s driving you closer to the point at which you realise you’re getting nothing out of the relationship and bring an end to his grift by throwing him out.

Pester?

Child care, cooking and housework are exhausting and he is pretty exhausted. Hobbies are relaxing, you can pick them up and put them down as you choose, there is no obligation. Sex is comforting.

The man is ill. He needs help.

This is terribly difficult for you and you have my sympathy but post-sepsis problems can go on for well over a year. Your husband is obviously ill, he can't help it.

Why do you think he's obviously ill? I mean one could be after sepsis for sure, biut in this case OP posted that he was recovered and otherwise fit and well to do what he wants already in January..

Have you ever been invited along to one of his counselling sessions? I think it’s time you have a session together. The counsellor needs to realise that he is a sahp to kids, with a partner who works 60 hours/week. There needs to be a plan put in place for how he can combine his job (being a shap) with getting better, without you getting overworked. You need to work in this as a unit. You need to tell each other how the current situation is affecting you. And the counsellor needs to know how the current situation is affecting you (as well as him),

@greyA , you poor thing 😔.

Why are you working your backside off paying for nursery when there's a dad at home that could be looking after your nursery age child? See my ex husband was quite lazy and selfish when it came to childcare he wanted to quit working altogether if I found a job but I would have been paying childcare because he wouldn't have done it. He could hardly be arsed to do a school pickup if I had any important appointments. Your husband either needs to step up and actually be a parent or get a job and start contributing financially because right now he's doing neither one of those

He needs to get a job before you ltb. Or your big job might end up paying him cms if he claims to be the main carer of your dc...
Use proper childcare until he's gone.

I think you have to tell him.

Tell him that you married him because he led you to believe that he was a capable adult. He’s got the life he always said he wanted and he’s utterly incompetent at it. Your standards are not too high. If they were that high, he’d have been out the door a long time ago. You’re going out, working your arse off, to pay for him to lounge about all day and fuck up the things he does deign to do, so you have to do your job and his job. And now he’s blaming the kids for you not having the energy to shag his brains out five nights a week? In what possible universe would you be sexually attracted to a man who is behaving like the biggest child of all? He’s not your partner; he’s just another responsibility for you. Tell him that the children are the only reason he’s still married and not living in an HMO on universal credit and if he doesn’t pull his socks up and stop poncing off you, the children won’t be enough to prevent a divorce. Tell him that you don’t feel any sexual attraction towards the man he has become and it’s only a matter of time until you start feeling contempt for him. And once that comes along, there’ll be no saving the marriage, so he’s on borrowed time. How his life goes from here will depend on whether he chooses to start pulling his weight.

I was on the fence until you said he was a SAHP!? Wtf?! Lazy cock lodger more
like. The narrative around all the reasons he didn’t like his job makes me think he is using this as an excuse rather than it being a genuine medical thing. I don’t know how you cope with this. I would get rid. This is taking the piss.

Yes. He is pestering her. She says:

'He’s annoyed that I don’t dress up in sexy outfits or jump his bones frequently but honestly I am so turned off by him and his incessant whining about how tough he’s got it.'

He's got help. He regularly sees a therapist who gives him a lot of support. OP is doing most of the child care, cooking and housework as well as a full-time professional job. I bet she is more exhausted than him.

His wife is the one who needs help.

Regardless of whether the OP's husband actually has some lingering issues from his illness (and I doubt I'm the only one on this thread who thinks that's not the case), as an adult parent, he needs to step up. There are many ways to do this - by actually doing his job (i.e his share of the cooking, cleaning, washing, caring for the children etc) or, if he is genuinely ill, by recognising this and either sorting alternatives himself or talking about solutions with his wife e.g. I'm struggling to manage my fatigue, will our finances stretch to a cleaner for a few months? I'm struggling to get things done, can you take over the laundry for the next couple of months?

Sex can be comforting...when BOTH people want it. The OP shouldn't feel obligated to have sex just because her husband wants some "comfort".

Lay it on the line. He either steps up as a SAHP and does all the housework cooking shopping etc or he finds a job

He sounds absolutely useless

He's deadweight kick him out

Child care, cooking and housework are exhausting

indeed, he doesn't do much of them though. OP, who does, is exhausted.

YANBU.
He needs to be better.. he sounds very unfulfilled as a SAHP. I would think if he cannot find purpose and motivation in the tasks involved; I’d be suggesting he goes back to work; at least part time. Could you afford to both work part time?? If not forever, for some time? To reset the balance and allow you both more of what you are missing.
I definitely think some big change is required. You can’t carry on as you are as it will lead down a very bumpy miserable road!!!!