To break up family over chores

[ShittyLife456]

I have a 14 month old. I do everything. House stuff, DS' food, paying bills, maintenance stuff, all of it and I'm drowning. I work FT with longer hours than him too. DP only does stuff after I told him to do it, 3 times minimum. He has no responsibility, at all. I actually just hate him now. He's another person to manage. To others and to DS, he is a nice, interesting, funny man and no doubt I am a raging bitch. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the sight of him.

I feel incredibly guilty to leave DS without a dad over some fucking dishes. I CAN handle everything. I just resent his presence in the house. I'm the problem really. God I hate myself right now. I'm a complete failure at motherhood. I should just put up with it for DS' sake, why can't I????

I'll have to do all this shit and more if I kick him out. So why can't I just accept it for the sake of a happy family. I don't know. I feel like something is wrong with me.

And before you come blaming me, no, he was not like this pre-baby. At all. I must be a fool.

OP your DS also loses if you stay.
Right now he is learning that the woman does everything. And so it goes on.

Your DH is another child, he is treating you like the parent.

I have been a lone parent for many years, I can tell you life is easier without a manchild in it.

Leave him, it won’t change, or if it does, it will only be a temporary reset or it’ll take years and years of training and even then, you’ll do the majority of the work still and have to override the reset they seem to fall back into!

If you are at the point of hating him, staying is not a happy environment for anyone.

If he goes, you’ll go from looking after 3 people to looking after 2, any mess created would be your own and your child’s. Also you aren’t leaving him because of chores, you are leaving him because you didn’t sign up to be his mother.

Life is long, and there are many an older generation of women out there that really would love to live alone after their kids have grown up and moved out, but are still stuck with their Man child.

Being solo is easier than being with a burden, just saying. I had a partner like this but the Lord sorted that out for me. Its only now in my grand old age I look back and think how did I tolerate that. High earner, paid for EVERYTHING, he barely managed to look after the eldest and expected praise for taking her to the park for an hour...
Also i don't feel resentment for cleaning up after myself and kids and getting on - I did when he didn't do his share or even bare minimum.

Tell him to go, and have an easier life.

Outsourcing things because DP can't be arsed to help? asking DP to help by looking after his own child for one day a week?

seriously? Jesus

Your DS won't know any different. 🤷‍♀️
You need to realise what you are modelling to him if you stay and the kind of 'normal' he'll be raised with. Then you need to lose the guilt and choose what you want your son to view as far as what a healthy relationship looks.
Issues come when the adults can't act like adults. Your DS will be guided by you and there is absolutely no reason he can't have a happy childhood even if his parents are not together. All the best

It’s difficult to believe that this man was doing 50 percent of the chores, life admin & mental load before the child was conceived, and then suddenly out of nowhere transformed into a slacking inconsiderate do-nothing asshole.

Anyway, he won’t change, so be done with him. At least the child is young enough he won’t remember anything but a single parent home.

Seriously @ShittyLife456 why do you keep fighting? If he doesn't wanr to do his share, he pays for it to be done. DH made his views very clear about housework by about date three. 35 years on, never a problem. But he is a workaholic who was out of the house at 7am and home at 9.30pm.

That wouldn't have suited some, but it suited me and I took the view that DH trusted me to deal with schools and tradesmen, etc. I worked once the youngest was settled in school but locally and was home by 6ish. Our inputs were therefore equal. As were our outputs. He funded the lovely houses, school fees, etc, and my "investment" in the children got one to Oxford and the other to Cambridge. Pertinently, he always respected me and was grateful for my input.

If the op and her dh aren't on the same page about goals and choices they need to go their separate ways.

This article really annoyed me. The assumption that these things are "wife work" and by "helping" he was showing he loved her..
It's NOT "wife work". He used the glass, he should put it in the dishwasher. "thoughtfully not tracking dirt or whatever on the floor she worked hard to clean". The implication that it's ultimatley her job to manage everything really annoys me. He makes 50% of the mess.. when you see it, deal with it.
Presumably he will also babysit his children to "give her a break"

I would reframe it. What role model do you want in your sons life? Do you want a strong independent woman who sets high standards for herself or a man that demonstrates misogyny and treats his partner like shit. Putting it bluntly your son will either learn that women should be respected and are equal or that women's needs are not important and household jobs are not for men. Which type of man do you want your son to grow in to?

i was in this boat and the manipulation as others have stated just got worse and worse but i stayed for the guilt. i left after 24 years (a couple of years ago) and it has actually been harder for my child to accept now that he is older and understands. Please do what you feel is best for you and the child will follow as they will pick up on the negativity. if you honestly want to leave I personally feel after my own experiences younger is easier to adapt than older as if nothing changes the time will come anyway. Good luck OP

what you're going through is hard, i gotta admit. but breaking up your family for small things that can be changed is not the best thing.

start by going to couples therapy, this way you can talk and express yourself without having to argue with him. there will be a third party, someone to support you, because you have the right to be furious and carry that much anger.

you can also seek help from a coach or a therapist, to vent out. once you vent out you'll become calmer, then you can think more clearly and you'll get to figure out something.

Firstly, don't blame women for men's bad behaviour and lack of responsibilty.

Secondly, percentage of chores is incredibly difficult to gauge; that's why there are those itemised charts of granular detail. There are so many more chores when a baby comes along, a large proportion of which are totally unobserved (like in the middle of the night).

Additionally, many men expect their partner to become their mum when a child comes along. With added sulking that she doesn't find him sexually irresistable 3 x a week.

Letting someone drown when you could very easily step up is not ‘a small thing’

It is enormous. Why? Because it highlights a total absence of love, respect and care. He would sooner she collapsed under the strain than be a responsible parent. That isn’t something most people can recover from.

Disagree- the not doing chores isn't trivial. its a symptom of a much bigger thing. A fundamental lack of respect, a willingness to watch someone else tire themselves out whilst you sit around. That isnt the act of a decent man.

How can that be a solution when the the OP is also the higher earner?

Oh wait no, I misread, she said she pays all the bills which is ambiguous.

I agree that a higher earner could just put their money where their mouth is.

I read an article once saying that you need to get the little things right in a relationship, these things pick at a relationship and destroy live.
A relationship can survive the very worse things thrown at it, it can survive the death of a child, but it can't survive the toothpaste cap being left off.

It hasn't been easy being single parent, but I'm so glad I left my ex husband when my children were little (2 and 5 years old). He was so lazy around the house (my house) and earned very little money. The moment I left him, I felt relief, even though it was hard being everything for the kids. 12 years later I'm still glad I did it. I hope you find a solution that gives you peace.

If nothing is ever good enough for you, you should be flipping ecstatic. Nothing is exactly what he does. He’s gaslighting you. Jus bin him because your life will be so much easier without him.

Believe me, the foundations have to be rock solid for a marriage to survive the death of a child. I wish I didn't know that.

You are NOT the bad person here OP. Your “D”P is. He is the one forcing this situation. He is showing that he doesn’t care for you struggling at all, he has no regard for you. He is modelling terrible behaviour for your son, and he is causing the breakdown of your relationship. It’s on him not you.

Your DS will have a much happier life out of this atmosphere. It will be all he’s known, he will be happy with his life.

What are your living arrangements, do you own your property or joint own it? Can you boot the waste of space out?

Your husband and father of your child really does nothing around the house or house admin? And you both work full time? Who does the childcare when you’re not at work? What does he actually do with his time?

My DH can be a lazy so and so but this is something else… he is basically treating you as his skivvy. Do not put up with it.

Re your son - there is no future is showing him this is how relationships work or that women are there to serve lazy men. You’re doing him a favour by putting a stop to this.

i understand you point. but breaking up a family is also enormous.
their kid is going to have difficult time adapting to the new situation of her father not being around. my parents split when i was 17 and it hit hard.. their kid is much younger. what i mean is they should make separation a last resort. seek help at first.

Ok I am partly playing devils advocate here and some random thoughts from a woman in a 47 year marriage with a man I still love deeply but I have experienced periods when I have loathed the bastard…
you are exhausted this is not the right time to make a life decision with such great ramifications for you and your son.
hate is nearer to love than indifference. If he can still create a passion ( even hate) in you there might be something worth saving. Some counselling might help.
babies can paralyse men. The responsibility, the fear and he sees you coping and feels inadequate.It.is an excuse but needs handling. They also suffer from depression at the change in lifestyle and the loss of their wife as a lover to being primarily a mother. This may not be reasonable but we have to work with what is, rather than what it should be.
In the past I i have personally found that asking for a specific job to be done and handing over complete responsibility has worked better than just fuming and issuing a request to do more. Yes it still needs your impetus but do you want a better life or to be right?

be brutally honest are there things that he does that you barely notice and never acknowledge? The fact that every morning of my life my husband has bought me tea in bed has got me through some down times. Acknowledging that made me also think of the other things he did.

the grass will not necessarily be better if you leave , all marriages go through bad patches and need working out.Babies need fathers and from what you have said he wasn’t always like this and things were good at one time. I know mums net has lots of people who recommend dumping their partners (because they of course are so perfect) I suspect that these are not happy people.

good luck

Yes at 17 I am sure it was incredibly hard, but this child is just a toddler and won’t know anything different - which is absolutely the best way to go, the alternative is years of rows, festering resentment, arguments, growing up with such a poor role model. His mother being deeply unhappy and perhaps burning out and becoming ill.

It is by far the best route for the child, he can grow up in a happy, peaceful home. I think you underestimate the damage caused by people staying together long after the love and respect has died.