I've decided to be a mediocre wife

[Malara]

I've given up trying to get my partner to do better with sharing the mental load. He has improved a bit but I'm exhausted from having to be the family safety net when it comes to making sure everyone's needs are met.

So I decided this morning that I'm going to be a mediocre wife. I'm not going to anticipate other people's needs, I'll do things when asked - maybe even reminded a few times. I might not do them very well but that's ok, right? I'm deleting all my to do lists.

Is this a reasonable reaction to reaching the end of the line? ( I'm aware divorce is somewhere in our future).

I was in a similar situation to you, and certain times of the year (Christmas/ birthday season) I was drowning with mental load on top of usual school and kids stuff. I asked for more help, and he promised to do more only to have the same conversation 12 months later. That was end of 2023 and one evening I decided enough was enough and told him I wanted to separate. I explained why and even then couldn't really say anything. We filed for divorce last year and as of May this year he is now my ex husband. We remain friends for our daughter and we are amicable but just agreed we wanted different things. As a cancer survivor to me life's too short to drift along unhappy. Although it's been a lot of change I'm very excited about the future but as I say most important we've done this all with grace and kindness which has helped.

I think it’s reasonable to start meeting people where they are meeting you and if your other half is being a mediocre spouse, then that’s where it lands.

Have you considered any kind of marriage counselling prior to throwing the towel in ?

Same! I buy for my stepdaughter, go to all her events etc just treat her as I do my own children, but his wider family are my husbands to deal with. I don’t like his family tbh so I don’t go to their events etc if I don’t feel like it either

No! You don’t get cards from your stepsons because they don’t wish to prioritise or remember getting you them. Nothing to do with their partners! Wow!!

We had 1 letter at the start of term with parents nights dates on it and God knows what else.

Regarding trips out, if you wanted to go on a school trip the responsibility was yours to put your name down & bring the money in. If it was, say, a history trip in school time, you got a reminder every lesson as to who hadn't paid. There was no going to parents and babying you. You were taught responsibility for your own actions. If you didn't pay, you didn't go and spent the afternoon in another class with a spare seat!

Easier said than done but I couldn’t stay in a relationship like this.

I left my ex husband with 2 children for a better life for the three of us so it can be done x

YANBU. My dh buys cards and presents for his side of the family. But I am a bit sad that because my sil also does this it meant my db always forgot to send my dc birthday and christmas presents. So after a few years I stopped sending my nephews/ nieces anything as it was one sided, same with get togethers etc and we've drifted apart now.

It about managing expectations - if less is expected then ife gets easier. Develop an insouciant 'oh well' attitude - it will serve you well!

Interesting take on a situation.

did he ask you to carry the “mental load” or did you take it on yourself

It was eye-opening/instructive when my 2.5-year-old, on the train with me (her dad was at home) and a load of bags, pointed at the bags and said, 'Mummy, please let me carry one, you can't manage everything on your own.' I thought, Wow, a 2-year-old can recognise when I am overwhelmed, but not her grown arse father!

I don’t run my OH social calendar, his family, he sorts it all out, presents, catching up, visits.

i do all the bloody meal planning- which grates a bit sometimes tbh.

i got so immeasurably fucked off with the state of the house I ended up shoving him into a cleaning company’s shop in the next village and he booked a quote and we hired cleaners - one of the best decisions ever!

im resistant to wife work. Im sensitive to mental load creep, but even then I have to have conversations every time we go away that “no, im not carrying your fucking passport, it’s yours, you’re in your 60s, YOU carry it”

Him: face like a smacked arse.

Me: >pfft< there goes my last fuck… gone!

Mediocre is where it’s at! 🤩

Oh god yes, getting him a plate of food when they went to a buffet, making his tea when they weren’t speaking or worse she was sporting a black eye. Bring totally resentful, telling me constantly how shit he was. Sod that.

I’m not but I think a lot of us may have had martyr / resentful mothers or were socialised to think men were hopeless and we should step up. It’s a hard habit to break (one I have broken) . You are taught to get your self worth by doing for others

Well yes, they are random people who had sex are t they.. I mean if they are fab people then perhaps but if their child doesn’t care enough then they need to know that I’d suggest and it not be hidden by a woman doing the work.

When it happened to me a few times I had a sit down discussion as to why he thought I was his secretary/ personal assistant.

YABU if it negatively effects your children. And I see from you later post that it does, particularly your daughter. You say you won't let your son be affected by your mediocrity in regards to his medical condition, but your daughter will notice that his needs are being attended to, but not the things that are important to her. How do you think your daughter will feel noticing this? I suggest you read 'siblings without rivalry' to read accounts from adults who had a disabled/ ill sibling and the effect the differential treatment of them made them feel.

At the end of the day its not your children's fault you picked a shit man to be their Dad. Arguably not your fault either but at least you had the choice of Father for them, they did not. Standing back and letting them be upset and missing out on what is important to them, when they have not got the ability to take control of this situation themselves, is pretty horrible.

If their Dad can't or won't pick up his end, it is on you to take the hit of that, not your kids.

And yes I am in the same situation and it sucks. But the hits on me not the kids. They are the full victims here, not me, because I made choices that contributed to us getting here and they most certainly did not.

Mmm.
Fuck it.
Honestly, I’d just go now, save yourself the heartache.
If you’re carrying the mental load,little will change, it’ll just keep going back.
I was in a similar situation, one great big 26 stone man baby, it wasn’t pleasant.
I think a lot of it was weaponised incompetence.
It would take him four times as long to do any tasks, which were partly down to his weight, and partly because he didn’t like being asked to do things for his own children.
He much preferred to spend his days in front of the television with trays of food, because he’d worked so hard in the week.
Of course my work didn’t count, as it was only part time, and I didn’t earn as much, despite it being a physically demanding role.
I’d class that as metal abuse now, to add alongside his physical emotional and verbal abuse.
When we split, it was much fun seeing him try to circumnavigate life, learn how to set up bills, realising nobody was coming to sort things out for him.
For about 12 months after I continued to get messages, asking for things like passwords for his phone/internet banking, names and contact details for people, when the school holidays were.
How to renew his driving license after he’d got stopped realising it’d run out, along with his MOT etc.
I didn’t respond to a single one.
There would be the associated tantrums when I wouldn’t help.

I have certainly stepped back with birthdays for DH's relatives, particularly as none of them ever remember mine!

I don’t do any of DHs personal things - so I still do most of the life work with kids etc but I don’t buy cards or presents for his family etc. It means, more often than not, they don’t get anything and I’m sure they judge me for it (my own mother certainly thinks I’m terrible for it) but I don’t care - I fail to see how it’s my job when we both work.

Excellent, good for you OP. Please come back and keep us updated on how it goes! Looking forward to hearing about all the things you ‘forget’ to do 🙂

If you honestly feel that divorce is somewhere in your future, why put off the inevitable?

DH pulls his weight with housework and garden without being asked, deals with all his own family birthdays and I have never been involved in that. He looks after all things car related. I also pull my weight and I look after other house admin BUT ….., food. I plan it, Ishop for it, I cook it, the only thing I don’t do is eat it for him ! It drives me completely mad and I must really have more resolve about this. If he can’t step up and make some suggestions I will just stop cooking. I’ve been threatening this for years but now is the time to take action.

I'm with you. After a bruising summer in which I have yet again done every bastard thing while holding down a full time job and dealing with my DH still being in f'ing bed at midday while the kids bumbled around being bored, I am not only scaling back the 'wife work' but also, like you, accepting that my marriage is dead in the water. If he really can't be arsed, neither can I. I'm happy to drop him on his ass but still feel utterly enraged and impotent that his lack of care means I can't ensure I have only a fair share of the 'kid benefitting' chores. They need parenting, feeding, help planning school work, a clean (enough) home, family fun times, hygiene, clean clothes, help maintaining friendships through mutual events/sleepovers/gift giving/ etc, etc and damn etc!. And if this doesn't fall to me it just....falls. And I think he knows damn well I won't drop anything if it's for the kids and he is a swine for exploiting that. I have ceased to make any plans that involve him and I can't see any future in the relationship.

Do you expect DH to go to your family events or is he free to miss them too? How about your kids , do they get to choose if they want to visit the maternal family - ard they allowed to visit their paternal relatives?