I have recently moved in with my husband (four months) and I am finding it really hard to adjust if I am very honest. I have been an independent woman all my life who had her own space and no one to answer to or cater to. Please don't get me wrong, I am happy to take care of my partner but it has to be fair and reciprocal or equally compensatory in some form or the other in the grand scheme of things.
We both work, I work from home and I also do university work from home (writing) on the weekends and days off. He is self employed and does bits and bobs here and there, sells insurance via phone and manages a team of security guards for a security contract as a subcontractor from his phone - he doesn't need to go in for this and earns a commission for each hour his boys work.
We agreed that he would pay the rent and that I would contribute towards his bills. When I arrived in the UK, I found out that I am expected to pay council tax + ALL the bills because he found a fancy flat in Wembley, London that we couldn't really afford, which was 5 minutes away from his mum and brothers. And now he was expecting me to take up responsibility for all the bills and council tax. I agreed to it. But then he wouldn't agree to contribute or take responsibility for groceries. Please bear in mind I am expected to do all the house work, cooking and cleaning. I said could you at least give me £300 and he said no, I am cancelling the contract while we sat in a Travelodge waiting to move in the flat. I didn't like that he threatened to cancel the contract like that and called someone in front of me saying he wants to cancel the contract, I don't really know whether it was the real estate agent or his brother or a friend. Sounded like the latter. He even wheeled out his suitcase from the Travelodge room to show me he was serious but I stuck to what I thought was fair and eventually he agreed to £300 for groceries.
That £300 has increased because we have both gone on a diet to fix our health and my hormones and so far he has paid. This does not cover everything because we're taking a few supplements now which are expensive, we have had to make dietary changes that have been expensive as well and I was going to do this on my own but he joined the diet program willingly, I did not encourage nor sell it to him. When we moved in, I bought all the kitchen stuff, appliances etc that the flat needed, anything else the flat needed except the bed + mattress and a coffee table that he paid for. We either picked up items for free or I ordered and paid for them myself.
I feel like ever since he has started paying more towards groceries (I still cover all the house bills, council tax, at least 40% of the grocery bills and a 100% of all our restaurant dinners, we go dine out at least once a week) he has been making me feel like a servant around the house. He expects to be served on the table, he won't even serve rice on his plate if the pot's ready on the stove. He wants me to lay out his plate and cutlery etc - the works. He won't even make tea for himself anymore and won't put away his dishes. It makes me feel like I'm a servant. I'm not really living here for free. My physical labour itself is at least 3 hours a day with all the cooking, cleaning, planning, shopping for the house etc including mental labour. That's at the very least 20 hours/week and he goes around and tells me I don't really do anything around the house. I cook him breakfast, I cook him dinner (which is different from my dinner because his macros are different and I can't eat certain foods on this diet plan but he can), I load/unload the dishwasher and put away pots and pans, clean the bigger pots etc myself, clean the kitchen twice a day and the house+toilet twice a month, tidy up the bedroom and living room a couple of times a week, do our laundry, fold both his laundry and mine. I'm sure I'm missing stuff here but the point is, he won't lift a finger. He never wanted to so I had to compromise and think okay so if he won't help with house chores then how else do I make this fair for me because it needs to work for me also. I hate cooking and cleaning, it's not my thing but there's nobody else to do it if I don't. I know he won't.
And then there's this suffocating control that he tries to exert perhaps in lieu of the rent he pays and contribution to groceries. The other morning I told him something about his brother and his family going to visit his brother's in laws for the weekend as small talk over breakfast and he said, who told you this? I tried
to avoid the question and he asked me three times. I said why do you want to know? He said because you lot cause issues when you talk to each other and I need to know who has been talking to you. I lost my temper at this and told him he doesn't own me and nobody controls who I get to talk to. He has told his family to keep contact at a minimum with me and give me no information on what goes on, it feels like I am not a part of the family and I am someone who needs to be managed, like an employee.
On top of all of this, he wants us to have kids and start a family. I am maybe a couple of steps away from collapsing and burning out because of my workload (full time WFH job that is mentally demanding, my thesis writing on the weekends that I majorly struggle with, housework, cooking etc). I don't get any financial support from him as a husband for my personal expenses and he barely pays for his own food and health supplements. I don't need any of his help by the way, I can rent on my own, I can live on my own, I have a job but in my culture the husband takes all financial responsibility, it does sting me that he has been doing it for his family all his life and he still supports his brothers family financially and he won't take care of me that way. He used to do 3 jobs at a time at one point to support his family years before he met me. Now that he is with me, his lifestyle has improved massively because he no longer has a financial drain of dependents and I pitch in where I can rather than taking money from him and being dependent on him, but now what bothers me is that he doesn't want to work so much anymore. He chooses to bicker about £200 over the budget spent on good, healthy food that we both enjoy but won't just go out and do a couple of shifts a month to cover that overhead.
I have some money saved from before I moved to the UK and I feel like he expects me to help him set up a business. I won't be doing that because that won't help me directly. He recently told me that I earn as well and that I earn more than him, and that he expects me to share the financial load as well. I said I am not going to be doing that because after years of arguments over house work, you have shown me that you are not at all interested in sharing the domestic chores, you don't want to cook or clean or even carry the groceries I plan and shop for myself upstairs to the flat. So the only way this can work is if there is a fair division of labour and the way I see it is if you pay rent + ALL groceries, and I pay for bills + council tax and take care of the house and cooking. I told him it's not something I enjoy doing but since he doesn't want to do any of it, I have no other choice and he still isn't happy and thinks I need to do more. He says he is tight on money but won't go out and do the shifts he gives away to his team of boys, I have told him if needs more money he should pick up more shifts. He somehow finds employment beneath him and looks up to his rich friends who have businesses set up. I suggested we move out of London and in the suburbs or a cheaper city because neither of us have actual jobs in London and I can work from anywhere since it's WFH as a way to cut rent costs but he won't move away from his family who lives a 5 minute drive away and he visits them every other day if not every day.
I feel frustrated. If I don't cook or clean, nobody else will. If I do cook and clean, then the only way I can see this as fair is if he pays for rent and groceries. If he pays for rent and groceries, he starts acting like he owns my ass and I start resenting him for it. It's a vicious cycle I'm in and I really just want to leave because I would be so happy on my own but I can't even do that because I depend on him to support me via a spouse VISA to stay in the UK. It's frustrating to hear when he compares me with his friends' wives and says look they do it all - they have full time jobs, they have kids and they take care of the house and contribute financially. I think that sort of division of labour and arrangement within a family is bollocks and pure exploitation if you ask me.
Am I being unreasonable to expect him to pick up the heavier load with financial responsibility? Am I being unreasonable to say no to kids given my workload and how he doesn't help me with anything in the house at all? I feel like I'll do something to myself if there's a kid in the mix that I must take care of on top of everything else that I need to do. I do have motherly instincts, very strong and I have taken care of my cat for 15 years until she died of old age and gave her the very best life. She was my world and I made sure she got the very best, was treated in the best way possible by everyone and there's no reason why I wouldn't do more for my own child. I just can't think of having any more responsibility as things are right now.