Does my husband do enough?

[Lalaland1956]

AIBU to think my husband could help more around the house?
Or AIBN and he’s doing his fair share?

We both work full-time and have two young children (aged 3 and 6), so life is full-on.

What he does:

• Puts the washing on (usually with reminders) and puts it away—sometimes I help with this.
• Takes the bins out.
• Does the washing up and loads the dishwasher after dinner.
• Manages the financial admin—bills, switching providers, budgeting, insurances, MOT, etc.

What I do:

• All meal planning, food shopping, cooking, and prepping.
• All cleaning in between having a cleaner every two weeks.
• Laundry —put on, change beds, wash towels, and sorting kids’ clothes when they’ve out grown them.
• Childcare logistics—school/nursery communication, forms, events, school uniform.
• Emotional —keeping track of birthdays, gifts, play dates, family visits, and social calendars.
• Health admin—GP appointments, prescriptions, managing sick days.
• Home maintenance—chasing repairs, liaising with tradespeople about 50/50 between us
• Homework and reading.
• Packing for holidays, day trips, and managing seasonal wardrobe changes.
•making sure nursery fees are paid, school breakfast club booked and paid etc.

It feels like I’m carrying the mental load and the bulk of the day-to-day running of the household and family life. He’s helpful in specific areas but I’m not sure what is reasonable?

Going off your list as it is, without garden factored in, I would:

1 - Split reading/homework job up between you.
2 - One of you cooks and one of you is clean up crew (wipes down, clears table, washes up etc).
3 - Split the bathtime routine
4 - Tackle 1 big clean each on bathroom OR kitchen. So DH cleans the bathroom once a week inbetween cleaners shift and you clean the kitchen. Im talking a clean thats inbetween the routine basic clean and a deep clean.

My husband doesnt do this much if he did ny mental load would be so much lighter.

He does the bins every week. I often have to ask him to empty it during the week though. He often comments that anyone could do it (they could but its the only thing he does)

He does hang washing out/put in dryer but I do that as much as him plus I put it all on then sort through it to go away. He periodically may do that, but I would have to ask.

He does sometimes do the dishwasher, he never cleans kitchen or anything though.

That is basically it! I do everything else incl sorting his car insurance etc. We have 3 teens living in the house. All 3 will do stuff if they are asked but none of them do anything to help out.

I have massively failed with it all, i am upset at myself mostly! I am the higher earner (by a small amount) we both work full time but his is more unsocial hours due to type of work, he should work normal office hours but it encroaches more than mine (well I just get on with mine plus do dinner/cleaning in between without making a fuss)

Can you tell i am massively resentful, it is making our lives a misery as I am so angry at him all the time. He is thoughtless, the kids find it funny as they think he is quirky/nosey, i wouldn't expect them to understand the impact it has on me. They think I just moan loads I imagine.

Short version - it sounds ok in your house but would be better if he did the stuff without you asking, or if you are sorting old clothes etc then he helps.

This doesn’t address the mental load issue but I’d be looking at who has more free time/ down time. Is your DH sitting resting while you’re rushing from job to job? is there a block of time eg 2 hours on a Saturday morning that you could BOTH spend cleaning/tidying up/food prep/batch cook/food shop etc. Or try and get the cleaner once a week for a weekly reset or an extra hour to change beds.

Why but put him in charge of all financial admin? Thst means nursery fees, school related fees.
Seasonal wardrobe changes? That’s a you thing.
I do think it makes sense for one parent to be in charge of school stuff though.
Food shop? Do you do it online? Does he like to cook? Do you? If one person cooks makes sense they do the food shop, and if that’s you then fair enough he’s on clean up duty.
Can you get the cleaner in every week?
Laubdry - if he does some why not all? Whatever your routine is (change all beds every other week for example) then discuss with him what day he wants to set aside a couple hours to do this.
The emotional load - I think if you handed this over to him it just won’t get done. But do you need to do more than keep track of your own kids birthdays? I never give kids outside my family gifts nor friends. In laws/parents got something at Xmas but only a card on birthdays. Play dates - when are they organised? School run? Who does that? Do you share an online diary it have a calendar up with appointments noted? You can both fill that in and discuss at the start of the erren who will do what.
I think women end up doing a lot because they fall in your it and it’s easier to just do it than talk about it - but it’s not at all fair. You need to sit duen and sort it out between you. Don’t dictate, just have a discussion about how the load can be shared better.

I do ask for him to do the extra stuff but he forgets. I do tell him the washing needs doing, all of it and it’s down to him, but he doesn’t. I have had the conversation so many times and this is where it feels like as a women you can’t win.

You ask to share the load, but then the constant reminders to DH to do his parts becomes just as hard work as me just doing it.

I’ve tried to not pick it up the bits he doesn’t do or forgets, and leave them, but then it impacts everyone; no clean clothes, bedding, towels not changed for weeks, school uniform not cleaned, ironed.

We split childcare equally, we don’t have any family support, so makes things difficult and we are both exhausted.

He is a great dad and will take them out on the odd occasion to give me a break and I will do a similar thing so he can. He is hands on, plays with and dedicates time to the children. We both have our strengths and weaknesses. Obviously the post is bias, as it’s my post and if it was his I’m sure there would be some bias too.

I think from the comments he does his fair share, although could support more with some aspects. So I will ask to share some of the chores more equally.

I think your marrage is based on a somewhat old dvision of labour,man woman thing.

To be honest, he seems to do quite a bit compared to some of the men l.know. Plus, you do have the luxury of a cleaner

But l would definitely put him in charge of repairs and getting things fixed

Your lives seem quite stressful.

Have you both thought of working less hours or from home?

This is why I don’t want children. You both work full time but the majority of everything else is left to you.

Just assign him more tasks!

??? Think we have different definitions of financial admin.

I don’t believe she is his boss

Agreed.

Had to laugh at “seasonal wardrobe change”

How are finances split? Rent/mortgage/bills etc?
Free time for each of you for hobbies / general own time?

What happened when you sat down to discuss this.

You did do that, right? If you’re relying on mumsnet for basic marriage admin Youve got bigger problems.

What washing does he put on as you have listed dishes separately and said you do the laundry?

Agree, why is such a big task but what he does, paying bills, renewal quotes etc played down?

Good lord…

It seems to me that the issue is not so much what's on his list, as it is that what's on his list is not actually being done by him. If you're still thinking about and worrying about laundy because he's not doing it, and then still doing half of it because otherwise bedding and towels would never get done... then really, it's not on his list, it's on yours.

So my DH's list looks similar to your DH's list, but the difference is that he 100% does his share of the list as well as picks up a million other little things along the way. I am actually a bit embarassed as we came back from holiday at the end of last week and he has done all the washing, including all the bedding that needed washing as the cleaners came while we were away and changed it all. I have done absolutely none of it.

To ask it a different way: do you get equal downtime?

I’d say car admin and maintenance is a separate entry for his list to finance (as a single mother who does it all myself! They’re both really big jobs.)

Perhaps you should swap some jobs for a while? Give you a break from yours and tbh you really shouldn’t let your financial knowledge and control lapse, just for your own protection.

In our house the equality is about a moral principle rather than a list of chores. We both have stressful work weeks so sometimes I take the strain and then other weeks my DH does. We consider the domestics a joint endeavour so we essentially look after each other in that team effort.

Ultimately It’s just not right that one person in a relationship runs themselves ragged and the other sits back letting them. I never quite understand how women think their partner loves them if he’s willing to do that.

I know some women like cleaning or love cooking or whatever, but when it boils down to the nitty gritty of running a household the contribution to the running - whatever that may look like - bins/cars/admin/catering etc - should be an even load. Or it’s exploitation imo.

Yeah sorry but I agree with other posters. You've mentioned things on your list that need doing once or twice a year - packing for holidays, "managing seasonal wardrobe changes", sorting the kids clothes when they have grown out of them.

Who does DIY / bits round the house that you don't get a handyman in for? Who sorts the cars (MOTs, services, washing etc)? Who does the garden?

In our household it is:

Me - food shopping, all cleaning, laundry, financial and "life" admin.
DH - all cooking, putting the bins out, all DIY and maintenance including the garden / outside, anything to do with the cars.

I probably do more in terms of the day to day jobs but DH probably does far more overall as we constantly have stuff needing doing on our (old) house!

We both have our strengths and it works.

A lot of the things on your list aren't routine jobs and you have a cleaner often so that is a big amount civered too so I think it's pretty fair. You have written things such as holiday packing which is like a once a year thing 😅

He is doing more daily tasks.

What do you mean, he's doing more daily tasks? She does all the food shopping and cooking which is the most time-consuming daily task.