To think I'm doing an unfair share of the housework? (male)

[Unjeffeson]

Hi all, looking for unbiased outside perspective.

I (m40) live with my wife (f40), DD (3) and dog (f5).

My wife has been asking for me to do progressively more of the household tasks over the last 2 years, and I'm starting to feel a bit overwhelmed.

Currently my pile is as follows:

• All meals
• All meal cleanups and dishes and kitchen cleaning
• All laundry and putting away clothes
• All dog walks (twice daily plus evening poo run)
• All bathtimes
• All overnight child getups (typically 2/3 of nights - wife sleeps through these)
• All nursery drop-offs and pickups, including prepping her bag
• All household maintenance (anything physical)
• All grocery shops
• Management of our financial spreadsheet
• Making sure plans go into our shared diary
• Usual man-column tasks like garbage, garden care, car care etc.

In addition I run my own small business and make around 70% of our income, so have the responsibility of not messing that up.

I've recently had an ADHD diagnosis which, while in itself doesn't change much, it's confirmed that I'm quite likely to struggle with too many responsibilities and organisation.

My wife does the other stuff. This includes admittedly high cognitive load stuff like buying all DD's clothes and toys (almost all online), organising medical and vet appointments, the 3 weekly classes DD does, settling her at bedtime, and organising our bi-weekly cleaner. She also looks after our daughter on Fridays, but this is entirely out of choice as we'd be a little financially better off if she went to nursery and my wife worked. (We split childcare 50-50 otherwise).

The problem is that my wife says she feels stressed at work and wants me to take on some more stuff to help her out. But I feel like my schedule is already super crammed and I'm not able to give the attention to my work that I'd like. I've got the chance to take on an extra client as well but she doesn't seem that interested in the extra money, just expresses concern about workload.

She also wants another kid and since she had an early miscarriage earlier this year (which did affect her mentally) she's very focused on fertility at the moment.
I am scared as to how another baby can fit into our world as I don't think I have the bandwidth for much more, and I'll need to if she's got a newborn.

So AIBU to think she needs to toughen up a little bit and split the work more fairly? Or perhaps go back to work 5 days to allow her more work focus time (her 4 day schedule is more like 4.5+ days of work)? I'm aware of the toll miscarriage can have and I haven't pushed back much so far, but it's frustrating me that her contribution to the household seems to be largely doing tasks on her phone and playing with our kid.

If she's doing compressed hours she needs to change and then she can do more at home. Seems to me like she's got it easy.
No drop offs or pickups. No laundry. No cleaning. No cooking.
Don't let her kid you what she's doing is difficult because it's not.
I've had a miscarriage, yes it's horrible but it doesn't make you incapable.

things don’t have to be totally split down the middle to be fair
You do sound as though you’re doing more right now tho
so, it’s time for a conversation around this and having another baby
you also both need to sort your three year olds night wakings out

Sit down together and do a chore audit? Based on what how overloaded you both feel you probably shouldn't add another child into the mix

On the face of it you seem to be doing much more and it doesn't seem equal

Talk to her. Lay out every task you both do and work together for a fair outcome

I think this is one of those times when it would be interesting to see what your wife's perspective is, as well as yours.

Sharing out household tasks can be a minefield, which is why communication is so important.

I do need to ask a couple of questions:
●All meals
Do you mean you do breakfast, lunch and dinner, everyday, including weekends?
● what are your working hours/days?
It's coming across that your wife wants your time, not the money.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like she gets all the fun bits? Classes, shopping, extra day off with DC. While those can still feel like work, I'd be a little frustrated if my DH was the Disney Dad only doing the enjoyable parts too.

Totally understand covering a stressed partner for a short time to help them mentally, I think we've all done that and had our partners do that in return. But if this is long-term, I don't see how it's sustainable.

The way my partner and I split it isn't by task or load, it's by time. So we each get the same amount of time to ourselves each week, and the same amount of discretional spend. He works longer hours, but I do more of the items on your list. I don't feel resentful of this because he is putting in just as much time as me supporting and raising our family.

You say you do the meals and the shopping, can I ask who plans the meals and thinks about when to buy ingredients and what meal works alongside all your busy calendars?

Does she give you a list of food to buy when you do the food shop and does she plan when the food shop gets done and from what shop etc.?

Who plans when laundry/ cleaning is done?

The plans in the diary is this input into a diary or is this actually planning the contents of the diary?

Who does the cleaning? Who sorts out banking, insurance, utilities and all those things? Who plans holidays and keeping in touch with family and friends? Who organises Christmas?

I think this is my point - she feels like she does a lot and wants me to help more.

I personally think she does a lot of nice-to-have tasks, e.g. choosing a Christmas outfit for our daughter's xmas week at nursery (she has something from last year that still fits), or going to get her feet measured to buy some more shoes for her (she has 3 pairs already and they still fit). It's all stuff she thinks is necessary though and she thinks I try to dismiss certain tasks because I want an easy life. I do question the need for some things as our plates are pretty full and I don't

To answer the questions:

• Yep I do all the meals, apart from lunches on the Fridays that my wife has our daughter if she's out (if they are in I usually end up doing it)
• I need to work 35 hours a week to fulfil my contracts (IT stuff), so I do have some spare hours. But I need a bit of that time for business admin, and as I say I would like to take on some more work to help us financially. (I also use about 3-4 hours a week for exercise because otherwise I'll lose my mind...typically I do this as far away from family time as possible ie lunchtime midweek or less often at 6am)

Yabu.

Why is he unreasonable? It sounds as if his wife is taking the piss!

If you can’t cope with another child, don’t have one. It won’t get better here.

Hmm. I'd be interested in the previous context here. Is it possible that you didn't start pulling your weight until two years ago? If your wife did everything before then she might view this arrangement as you catching up and paying her back. ADHD marriage is notoriously challenging, especially when diagnosis comes late. Counselling from someone who understands the ADHD marriage dynamic might help.

We have a pretty standard weekly shop that allows for a meal rotation of about 10-12 different meals. My wife found about half the recipes as she wants to follow a certain diet, I make up the rest (simple stuff like lemon and garlic fish with rice and vegetables). I then order the food for delivery or go out and buy it, depending on how busy the week is (going to the shop is better value). Most of the stuff we buy every week so there's not much additional planning unless its Christmas or whatever.

I do all the laundry, I have a process that mostly involves just making sure I do at least one round per day.

The cleaning is every 2 weeks, someone comes in for 4 hours and blitzes everything. If there's cleaning needing doing in between (mostly daily kitchen or our daughter's play space) I do it 90% of the time (all kitchen, occasionally wife will tidy play area and living room if people are coming round on her day off).

I tend to put everything I know of in the diary. This involves things that I organise for our family like time with my family, dog groomer, car appointments etc. My wife organises our daughter's classes and occasional play dates - then often just tells me about them and I put them in (she doesn't put much in the diary herself, I've asked her about this but she get's defensive saying she's too stressed)

Banking and insurance is me, utilities are her. Most of these things are perpetual automatic payments.

Holidays we plan together.

Family and friends is whoever has the primary relationship

Christmas - joint effort, I've coordinated about half our daughter's gifts and will be in food duty. Other presents are as per family.

I think the main challenge is that my wife feels she's doing a lot and gets frustrated when (for example) she sees me go for a run on a working lunchtime when she's got lots of meetings. She feels things are unfair, and that's what I want to tackle.

He does the shopping and cooking and clearing up afterwards. You're not seriously suggesting that his wife is doing the planning. I doubt that she is and if she is it's not exactly erroneous.
Who in there right mind plans laundry and cleaning. It sounds like op just gets on and does it.
His wife is seriously taking the piss.

Sorry but his wife sounds lazy! She cooks 0 evening meals. Theres no excuse for this. Do not have anymore kids. I think you need to show your wife this thread @Unjeffeson

You need to sit down together, write down everything that needs to be done (absolutely everything) and then divide it equally.

You should also make sure that you each get the same amount of downtime. If you've got 4/5 hours a week to exercise, she should have similar to pursue a hobby/exercise.

It does sound like your DW either increasing or decreasing her work hours would improve the balance a bit. Four days is really hard because you often end up doing five in four essentially.

It’s depressing how hard some posters will try to find new facts to put a man in the wrong.
Fml, this woman sounds lazy as hell and still wants less stress??
Suggest you swap chores/childcare/working hours for a week and see how she likes it then…

Is your wife buying loads of unecessary clothes and toys and then making out that is an admin/mental load?
Is "organising the cleaner" more than a 5 min job per week? Ditto medical and vet appointments.

I agree you need to express to her your concern about your ability to take on more, lay out collective tasks on the table and see if you can allocate better.
Or, just do a straight swap for a few months

Oh, and do not have another child with her.

Didn't mean erroneous but I've forgotten the word I did want. Difficult covers it.
I've done one load of washing for two of us today so I'm a bit stressed.
Got it arduous.

Is your wife also ND? That could have an impact on her views.

I'm also wondering how long you have been married and how the work was split until 2 years ago.

If you are doing more now but she did more for years then that needs to be taken into account. And you should be embarrassed for being willing to accept a situation where she was carrying most of the load, only changing when she insisted and now whinging about it.

Is she able to switch off at all? It sounds like she's a little (probably unconsciously) jealous you take time to yourself. Even if the time is available to her, she might not feel she can take it or be able to push herself to do it.

That can often manifest in relationships as resentment you're not doing more. Even if the 'more' isn't reasonable or necessary.

Instead of breaking things down by tasks and who does more, why not try to switch evenings on and off for two weeks? E.g. you get Monday and Thursdays for hobbies, she gets Tuesdays and Fridays. It doesn't matter what the hobbies are, they could be vegging in bed with a pizza, but there's no household responsibilities from 7pm to 10pm.

Do you get equal down time?? Your list kind of covers everything and makes it sound like she doesn't do anything at all. What is she actually doing, at the time you are doing all of these jobs? If you're cooking because you get home earlier/WFH and she's still on her way back, and then she is busy putting your child to bed while you wash dishes, that's not so bad, whereas if she's sat on her phone while you do it all that's obviously quite different. It doesn't sound like having another child would be a good idea, if both of you are already feeling like you can't cope with doing anything more.

How many knots did you tie yourself into to make out op is in the wrong?
The op is trying to be fair to his wife. If op were a woman everyone would be saying her dh is a Cocklodger.