To think I maybe just have to lower my expectations and realise that DH will never change?

[confusedlots]

Numerous conversations about similar issues have been had over the past few years, but it’s clear DH never thinks he’s done anything wrong, and usually turns the conversation around to being about me nagging him, and we never get anywhere.

Dirty plates left on the worktop right on top of the dishwasher (why not just put them in the dishwasher?). On the odd occasion he might empty the dishwasher he leaves half of the clean plates on the worktop instead of putting them away in the cupboards which are right beside him.

Empty milk cartons left on the worktop instead of being rinsed out and put in the recycling bin.

He took DS out recently and they ended up getting soaked heading back to the car. They came home, DH got dried and changed and made himself a cup of tea and sat down. I was sorting laundry and just asked where DS was and he had left him in dripping wet clothes to play in his room and hadn’t thought that he should maybe make sure he got changed into something dry. DS is 7.

DH takes the kids to breakfast club 1 day a week (after I insisted on this) but this still involved me sorting out the uniforms, lunches, getting kids and myself ready etc. DH just got up and showered, had his breakfast and dropped the kids on his way to work. So I asked that on his one day, he sorted everything out for the kids too, like I do every other day. It was a disaster and the mornings were so stressful for everyone that I have had to intervene for everyone’s sanity.

The final straw was when I tried to calmly bring this up again recently and he actually told me that he didn’t think I did that much in the home, and I could tell that he actually really believes this. I do all the laundry (his included), the majority of the food shopping, a lot of the cooking (he does cook 2 or 3 nights a week due to our schedules to be fair to him), all the life admin, kids admin, sorting birthday parties/presents, booking clubs and lessons, etc, you know what it involves! So trying not to antagonise the situation I calmly said that if he felt I didn’t do very much around the home that he wouldn’t notice if I continued not to do it for the next month, and then he accused me of being petty and not trying to do the best for our family.

I honestly don’t know where to go from here. It’s the fact that he can’t see my point of view that upsets me the most, despite me trying to talk about things calmly and not be accusatory. He’s definitely got a degree of neurodiversity going on, although never diagnosed, so I’m sure that’s a major factor in this.

Help! I really think we should be able to make this work but I’m struggling to see how when he can’t see my point of view.

One problem with downing tools is you only need to look at the homes of many long-term bachelors to realise many (by far not all, but significantly more than single women) men are quite happy to accept a much lower standard of cleanliness in the house than women. Ditto eating habits and general life admin. That's before you've thrown children into the mix.

My ex used to call asking our sons to clean their room "micromanaging" them. I told him it was called parenting and teaching them to be responsible adults who took pride in themselves and their environment.

Hat tipped!

Some posters seem to forget that children are still learning, they don't use logic and thoughts of consequences of their actions the same way we expect adults to.
Children have underdeveloped emotional control, empathy, impulse control, understanding of consequences. So as adults we remind them and show them. Not ignore them to learn for themselves.

Explain to him that if a husband keeps behaving like one of the children, his wife eventually sees him as one of the children. And she’s not attracted to children. It’s as simple as that. It kills any romance in the marriage, but the relationship is over once a woman realises that leaving the marriage would make her life logistically simpler due to having one less “child” to look after.

I think its extremely petty to not send thanks for presents, or acknowledge his families events/bdays. Takes 5seconds to send a text.

What difference does it make what he does, what about you and your manners, they must think you are an extremely rude family, very sad.

He knows. He just doesn’t care.

Op do you have money to go away for a weekend?

I’d tell him you’re going on the morning and just go - leave him to sort everything, don’t prep a thing for him. Come home Sunday evening and see how he has coped, will be a shit show for you once you’re back, but I’m sure this will easily make the point.

Long term bachelors manage to do their laundry and get to work, doctor’s appointments etc without having a wife to remind them. I think it tends to be men who have lived with their mother too far into adulthood that have the issue you describe.

I think you have to stop stepping in and fixing his laziness. If the dishes are on the side, leave them. When there are no plates for him to eat from, shrug.
Don’t do his washing. When he has no clean clothes, shrug.
Nagging him isn’t working. You’re not communicating in a language he understands. But with all of this, never prove any points that leave your DC neglected.

I think it’s really just communicating with DH at his level. I call it show don’t tell.

Yes, getting to appointments, doing the laundry etc but jobs such as cleaning the bathroom/kitchen, tidying up after themselves etc not so much.

Possibly because the OP’s DH, if similar to mine didn’t show his negative side until we were married?

Great at knocking up a bookcase, tinkering away under the car bonnet, laying patio slabs etc but absolutely incompetent at managing day to day tasks other than in his workplace.

My DH worked in biomedical research where every single action had to be documented in detail and resented being accountable for anything else.

The straw that broke my back was when I said “I work full time in a pressurised environment and still manage all the household tasks.” His reply…”Isn’t that what women are for.”

That was the day I decided to prioritise my daughter and myself and left him to manage his own laundry, shopping, cooking etc. It took approx 3 months before he had a meltdown claiming his mother never taught him to do anything around the home…well surprise, surprise he was a quick learner!

I think most of men are like this. I gave up long time ago. He started stepping up finally 2 years ago (but the oldest is 10, so fairly independent). I still do the laundry and 90% of cooking and cleaning, but I just reduced it to the basic level. E.g. I clean when I have the time, but it's not super-clean, just basic-clean. When he moans, I say, we both work, you can do it too, to a better level, if you want to, nobody is stopping you, LOL. Nagging will destroy the marriage. Just back off, lower your standards and do less. It worked in my case. Now we only super-clean when we have guests. However, he does all the household admin and takes kids to their clubs. I think none of us does the presents' stuff, but we are both nerds, so we just don't remember.

This! Sex isn't a reward for being a good boy or lack of it a punishment for not pulling your weight.

But why do you need to teach a child to change out of wet clothes iF it doesn’t bother them?

this whole thread is about people having different standards and one trying for force another to adopt their standards without being able to offer real justification as to why their way is better

out of ops original post - I would make the kids send thank yous and call dad out for being rude but that’s about it

So they don't catch a chill! It's neglect to leave your small child in damp wet clothes whilst you change into toasty dry ones yourself.

This is so true. Men’s childish behaviour & unwillingness to take on responsibility in the home causes so much devastation- miserable, resentful, stressed, exhausted wives, broken relationships, children growing up in divided families.

Late stage capitalism in the west - high house prices, low salaries, lack of job security, skyrocketing utility costs- has driven women into the workplace, without any of the fundamental change in sex roles that were needed to make family life bearable when mothers work. Women carry all of the resultant burden. We are the labour force that no one represents- that no one even wants to see!

Politicians just tinker round the edges promoting vanity projects that are completely useless for the vast majority of working women- more women appointed to public bodies, in boardrooms etc. More women CEOs, leading companies that underpay female workers, great.

I don’t know what the answer is, but reading this, and the responses to it, I am just so glad that I am free of my ‘fourth child’ aka my children’s lazy, selfish father. He’s living in such filth that even his children are embarrassed by it; & he’s been unable to sustain any subsequent long term relationship.

I think just dump him, OP.

You either leave his stuff on the side and just wash your own and the kids’ clothes, dishes etc until he gets the message or you tell him now you want him to leave.

But why do you need to teach a child to change out of wet clothes iF it doesn’t bother them?

So they don't get sick? Sounds pretty basic parenting to me, and I don't even have children.

Sorry, I’ve not RTFT - but all sympathies OP. You are not imagining how hard this is. This book and card set saved us: it spelled out exactly what needs done and shares the load in a fair and visible way.
www.fairplaylife.com/the-cards

I would completely stop having sex with him, as well as doing domestic things for him.

If he asks why, tell him you don’t feel like being intimate with him because he shuts you down every time you try to talk to him. Intimacy has to start with emotional intimacy, which requires an emotionally honest conversation about workload in the house.

Op, why did you decide to intervene for everyone's sanity on the mornings when DH was getting the kids ready for school?

You could try going back to that chaos; leave it up to DH to slowly learn to cope better.
You have taken years to become efficient.
Give husband more responsibility and more time.

Honestly, frok the sounds of it, no matter what you do he’ll just come up with somd way to rebuffen you point out. Ivd downed tools on numerous occasions - I’m just told that either the house is no different and this it’s obvious I do very little anyway, or I’m told that it prove how lazy I am and Hes having to pick up my slack and the house is stories becayse of him.

It’s nasty.

I now don’t cook for him, I barely do anything but the bare minimum Becsuse why should I, I don’t do his laundry, I dong shop for him if he asks me to do something his way yhd answer is ‘no’, I don’t have anthing to do with him, He certainly diesnt get to use my body for sex and I’m told I’m selfish but at least I’m not his skivvy and sex toy, and he can hail himself as some sort of hero for spending 40 minutes loading the dishwasher and wiping the kitchen counters at a snails pace IDGAF anymore.

Yet again young children are held to a higher standard than their useless fathers.

He’ll probably look at OP like she’s grown two heads.

Men like this need to get back in the sea. There’s plankton more evolved