Should I be expected to make dinner every single night?

[Comingtoarealisation]

And do everything else?

Dh works Mon-Fri-8-4.30

I work less atm, three afternoons per week, this is due to increase to five days from mid February

I bring in roughly half what Dh does

We have a 6 year old Dc with special needs.

I do all drop offs and pick ups, all school and drs related things, cook every night and do dc breakfast and Dh lunch. I also cook at the weekends and most breakfast and lunches, *sometimes Dh will do for Dd-not for me. I do all food planning and food shopping. I do all washing, picking dog poo up, keeping house tidy, dog walks, vets etc. I do all bills each month.
I have a cleaner every fortnight for four hours to do a full clean of the house (pay for this out of my pay, I don’t have beauty treatments, nails done, rare nights out or new clothes)
House is always tidy, dinner ready for everyone after work etc.
Recently not been well and also looking after dc who is not well.
Dh came home today, went in kitchen to look for dinner, asked what are we having for dinner (in a moody way) I said I didn’t want anything and i’d asked dc and they didn’t (not feeling well)
Cue, storming around and putting pasta in a pan to boil, huffing and puffing. It’s literally just that with a stir in sauce. Says something horrible under his breath, so I shout back ‘It’s just putting pasta in a pan’ he responds ‘Yes, it is isn’t it?!’ and that he’s been working all day and I shout back ‘And I work too and do everything else!’

He acts like this a lot and i’m sick of it, I do mainly everything else because I work a lot less and that’s fair enough, but hate the fact it’s expected and hate the drudgery of it sometimes

I’m due to make more than him from February and feel like shoving it back in his face

I actually keep imagining living on my own (obviously with dc) in a nice little apartment/house where I can come and go as I please and only have to be responsible for making food for dc and not an expectant grown man capable of doing it himself, how would he cope on his own?! He’d have to shop, cook, clean, pay bills etc.
He wants me to be the one doing all that AND working the same too

Aibu

OP works. She is about to work more than her husband AND earn more.

And the point of having a SAHP is to provide childcare, not to be a maid.

She works part time and does all childcare and household stuff so probably ends up doing more than DH. Work needs to be equally divided.

Also she was ill !

Well, that’s our situation.

Unlike the OP, I am a SAHM. But I’m not a servant. My husband is a functioning adult and a parent. He doesn’t live in a hotel where he has me to do everything. He lives in a home we both share, with the children we both chose to have.

It’s not something we have ever discussed. We are both adults and we both do things in the home. He likes to cook, so he does. And because he cooks, he also does all the food planning and shopping. It’s really not that deep.

*Funding me?!!

Yes, you would not be able to stay at home without your DH’s financial support.

You would then be doing all catering and cleaning as well as working full time.

How do you work that out?

DH should be catering/cleaning for himself 100% of the time and for the kids 50% of the time if they weren’t living together. So how would OP be doing all she is now?

If OP were working fulltime while living with DH the household work and childcare should be split equally.

Is he your boss? Your dad? Your master? Nope - so why is he acting like it? Ordering you about and telling you off like that - it’s ridiculous OP. A marriage is supposed to be a partnership, and an 8am-4.30pm workday is by no means excessive.

I work full time and manage to do domestic chores, as do the vast majority of women on the planet, so why do men seem to find it so challenging?

He's taking the piss.

I was reading the OP thinking okay, you do drop offs, so you should as you're not working mornings. Then shopping, cleaning, laundry - yeah I think I could probably get most of that done if I had all my weekday mornings free, that's 15 hours, plenty of time.

And then you carried on and said you do every breakfast, lunch, dinner, school appointment, pick up, dog walk... and even everything at weekends! Bloody hell. Can I be your husband OP?? 🤣

(Sorry. I know that really, it isn't funny.)

Obviously her DH is not her boss as such, but the SAHM set-up has to work for him or he will end up looking at sending her back to work.

SAHPs and working parents need to have a clear framework in place for how the arrangement works and how the SAHP’s ‘service’ is delivered.

They should be having regular discussions to ensure both parties are happy.

His attitude is horrible. I say this as someone who is responsible for sorting dinner out in our household as I'm the one at home, but dh wouldn't speak to me like that. It would put me right off him.

I think you mean her DH is not her boss AT ALL. The SAHM set up has to work for both of them, and she is not even a SAHM as she works PT - or did you miss that?

You might be happy to be treated like an indentured servant by your partner but that doesn’t mean everybody is.

The way I see it is that catering is one of the SAHP’s ‘duties’. I can see why her DH is annoyed if he has come home from a long day at work and she hasn’t bothered to do one of the key tasks of her role.

As she was feeling unwell, it would have been better for her to say that gently to her DH: “I have pasta and sauce in the fridge and it just needs heating up. Would you mind doing it as I am ill?”

She is not a SAHM - why are you struggling with that concept? And she didn’t mention signing a work contract at any point, so where are you getting all this nonsense about “duties”?

What should be happening is that the person who is predominantly at home with the children takes care of the children and the house for the period of time that the other person is out at work, and then once both parents are in the home, duties are then split 50/50. One person cannot work 24/7 while another works 40 hours a week - get it?

Men like this who think they do "everything" because they don't see the invisible work forget, that once their wife is working full time, they'll have alot more than some cooking to do. I bet he'll sharp want you back part time!

@SilkySquirrel I think you need to read OP's posts again.

Your DH needs to be a team player @Comingtoarealisation if he is not on the team, what is the point? Earning money is nowhere near enough of a contribution for any husband and father, even if he is bringing in millions.

Sorry, I don’t think it’s sustainable to expect anyone to go out to work and then carry out half of all catering and cleaning while their partner is at home full time.

I'm a SAHM but DH cooks on at least one of his days off and always helps to clear up the kitchen in the evening. If I wasn't around or ill he would get stuck in without complaining e.g. today our youngest has a hospital appointment so I'll feed him early and DH will sort something out for himself and eldest.

She isn’t a SAHM and even if she were that does not give the WOHP a free pass on all home/family/child tasks.

What part of “she is not at home full time” are you struggling with?

And a SAHM’s role should last 40 hours a week if that is the equivalent amount of time her partner is spending at work. The rest of the time the duties should absolutely be 50/50.

My dh works full time and I’m part time. I have more time than him to get housework done but he does not expect me to do absolutely everything. We don’t even have our own jobs it’s whoever gets to it first. If I’m cooking dinner he checks if he needs to put a load of washing on. If I’m putting the bins out he loads the dishwasher. I do more in the home overall because I have time but he doesn’t expect me to spend every waking hour doing everything else so he doesn’t have to! That’s not fair in the slightest. I’d be fuming if I were you!!

I’m apparently in the minority but if one person works FT and the other very part time, then yes I would expect the one PT to do a lot more at home. For ex if DH works 40h and I work 12, then I would do 28h of house/child-tasks… basically everything!

Re the specific point of making dinner, if this is something that you usually do, it is not ok to just decide one day to not do it and be annoyed at the expectation.

What are you getting out of this relationship? I’m struggling to get past an adult who finishes work at 4.30 every day and thinks this exempts them from lifting a finger around the house and most parenting. I couldn’t live like this.

When you married and in particular planned a child did he say then that you would be expected to be his full time housekeeper/childcare including when you were also in paid work?

Who does what work doesn’t matter, what matters is that you work as a team and overall both get equivalent time off equal benefit from any financial benefits. Both also then need to respect and value the other partner’s contributions be they financial or unpaid labour.

So this isn’t going to get any better unless you make it an issue, your DC will be 16 and you will still be the mop and bottle washer including when working full time. What do you want to do about it?

Its not unreasonable to expect one’s life partner when finishing work at 4.30pm to pick up the slack if they come home and find you ill. This isn’t someone racking up 15 hour days - he leaves at 4.30!

@SushiForMe if someone is ill should they still be the default dinner maker? What about weekends? What about when OP becomes the higher earner should she still be doing all the parenting/household chores.

He just leaves his empty cup for OP to tidy up, is that okay.

And he works to 4.30, that isn't exactly late hours, so I assume he has plenty of time at home, so he could make dinner once in a while

But they were not hungry because they were feeling unwell.