Should she be stepping up more?

[LucyYak21]

My long term partner has recently moved in (within the last couple of months) with me and my child (10, autistic).

She is good in lots of ways (she makes sure the washing up is always done, she will do half of the work for my child and help out with the dog).

I have a long term health issue, and they have recently found out that I have a profound vitamin d deficiency (they said they could not find a detectable amount in my blood, my levels are that low). All of my health issues along with this new issue, has left me absolutely floored. I am exhausted all of the time to the point where I can just about do things for my child, but then have no energy to look after myself or the house. I am not able to work at the moment because of it and I am on long term sickness.

Normally I am very on the ball and on top of everything - the housework, the washing, etc - but I have massively fallen behind (the house is always tidy but hasn’t been cleaned for 2-3 weeks properly) and it’s getting me quite upset and overwhelmed because I physically don’t have the strength or energy to catch up with it at the moment.

My partner gets about 2-3 days off a week but has quite decent hours and either starts at 2pm in the afternoon, finishes at 2pm or works night shifts and obviously then is at home during the day.

I have started to notice how she is good in lots of ways but equally quite lazy in others. For example, she knows how unwell I have been and how overwhelmed I am with the house etc. She had 3 days off at the beginning of the week - didn’t do any housework (even wiping down some surfaces or giving everything a quick dusting), didn’t do any clothes washing for us all, anything to actually help lessen my burden.

I feel like how I’m feeling physically and mentally could be slightly clouding my judgement so asking for some KIND opinions please - do I need to have a conversation with her about stepping up more whilst I am unwell or is she doing enough at the moment trying to look after us all during this time and housework/washing clothes etc can be caught up with at another time?

😆

and she pays half towards house costs and then her own personal costs. I support myself and my child financially.

Your standards are very off if you think a live-in non latent must do ALL the nitty gritty parenting lest they make that child feel like shit.

I grew up in blended families. Not once did my step parents help me get dressed for school, took me to school or did homework. I wasn’t treated like shit, I didn’t expect it and we all survived, I expected my parents to care for me.

The more you post OP the more it shows how much you wanted a live-in nanny and cleaner. You won’t answer as to why you won’t apply for PIP or hire a cleaner (“it’s expensive” doesn’t wash when you have 50% more household income than before). I suspect it’s because you don’t want to spend the money, because you ordered a cleaning woman in your OH and you want her to do it for free

What a catch you are OP. Incapable of lifting a finger and demanding a carer nanny cleaner. What sort of partner are you, really? Why should she want to be your partner? Sounds like she should move back out tbh.

What the fuck?

So is this hypothetical child’s own parent you’re mentioning so kindly to @Reassurancells also making them feel unloved and unwanted for not doing these tasks?

Then there’s £250 extra OP didn’t have before (though I find it hard to believe any family of 3 only has £600 in bills)

Council tax increases won’t happen until April. Thats 3 months worth of cleaning they could hire

Hold on a second.

I am chronically ill.

I get pip exactly because I am chronically ill.

and I recognise that and recognise my limitations because of my illnesses and disabilities but somehow me choosing not to date someone with young children because I know I don’t have the bandwidth makes me a horrible person who wants to kill puppies and innocent children?

I never pretended to be anything I’m not. I never pretended to anyone to be up for taking on young children.

why is that a bad thing? That I knew where my boundaries were and held them?

OP said that the OH contributes 50% to the household, and that she pays £300. Meaning household bills are £600 a month

I can not believe some of the responses you’ve had here @LucyYak21 - regardless of the fact that one of your earlier responses was out of order, which you have now acknowledged. Maybe it was the phrasing of the title? I’m not sure.

Why don’t you speak to your partner about the possibility of perhaps getting a temporary cleaner, or someone in to do a one off clean whilst you are feeling so poorly - and then think about how, together, you can keep on top of things. (If a cleaner isn’t a cost that wasn’t factored in when the original calculation of the household contribution was made, and both of you agree it is a good idea, then you should share this cost as an extra too).

FWIW I can see how easily a situation like this can happen when one person who has been a ‘visitor’ for many years moves in with the other. My partner spends 2/3 nights a week with me and does absolutely nothing in terms of cleaning beyond loading the dishwasher occasionally, which is fine with me - but if he were to move in then that would need to change and I can see how that would mean a readjustment that is hard for everyone to get used to.

Plus mortgage, which OP is quite rightfully paying herself.

I didn’t realise council tax increase would only be from April, I assumed it was from the date another adult moved in and you lost the 25% discount.

If he was a man, we would still expect you/woman to do all the care for your child. You would also be expected to pay for 2/3 of the cost of the house, because it's your house. In fact, if you were a woman I would advise you NOT to allow him to pay towards your mortgage, because it would give him some claim on the equity. I'd also say he should only be paying 1/3 of the bills, because there are 2 of you living there (child and mother).

And the chances of a man moving in doing what your GF is doing would be virtually nil. There are plenty of men who want a nanny with a fanny, but live-in boyfriends who nanny and do the majority of the housework are non existent.

If I were her, I would be moving out again.

You seem to be contradicting yourself in some ways.

on one hand you say you are just expecting your partner to clean up after herself and do half the chores, and then go on to say that you are so unwell right now that you would have needed a family member to move in to take care of you, so you obviously aren’t doing your half, so which is it?

it could that they are becoming complacent around chores, but IMO it sounds extremely convenient that at the point they have moved in you have suddenly become incapable of doing everything that you have always been able to do in the past, so for that reason you need to approach this sensitively with your partner, you ARE expecting her to pick up your slack and you need to acknowledge that, and IMO you need to be farming out some of that responsibility.

Can someone explain to me how me knowing my limitations and setting them out clearly is making a child feel shit and unwanted?

I have stepchildren who are adults. One is working and the other is still at uni.

they know they have a home here if they need it, same as my kids do, but they’re adults and if they came to live here they’d have to be pulling their weight.

when they were still at school and I was dating their dad, we didn’t live together. Because I’ve seen a shit show of a “blended” family and I’ve no desire to replicate it. Also because I’m not up for rearing children other than my own. And I didn’t expect my other half as he is now to rear mine either. Interested adult. That’s was as much as it was. For either of us.

why is that wrong that I did that?

im really upset by what was said to me. It was a horrible thing to say. And I really don’t know what I did wrong? I applied the same standards both ways.

edit to clarify because I used a word that wasn’t quite right.

I think you are expecting far too much. It' sad and difficult for you that you are so unwell but you can''t expect a lodger to pickup all the slack for housework and childcare.

My partner spends 2/3 nights a week with me and does absolutely nothing in terms of cleaning beyond loading the dishwasher occasionally, which is fine with me - but if he were to move in then that would need to change

You’ve made a massive mistake there, someone spending nearly half the week with you should already be doing their fair share of housework.. women expecting men to change when they move in/get married/have kids is one of the biggest issues in relationships imo.. if they don’t start as they mean to go on, they never will.

I live with extreme fatigue so I do understand the inability to even do 10mins of housework in a week let alone a day sometimes and people who haven’t experienced that will never understand. However I’ve learned when things are that bad something has to give and housework is it. My partner works and has three or four days off a week and I don’t expect him to fill his time cleaning because his work is hard enough. I don’t expect him to care
for me either because he deals with patients at work and doesn’t come home to do more of the same.

Sometimes when we’re both able we gut the house otherwise we accept the limitations of our life. Our house will be messy until it can be done. Messy doesn’t have to mean filthy.

OP YABU to expect your OH to suddenly move in and become your carer, cleaner and nanny because you have an ultimately short term and treatable condition causing your extreme fatigue. Could she do more to help out? Possibly. Is she obliged to? Not at all.

your health and your child are your responsibility. Your home is joint. Im
guessing from her hours of work she’s caring of some sort, she needs a break from that. She needs a partner too. What do you offer her?

Did I miss the bit that said OP was a man?

@LucyYak21 is a woman and is getting a very hard time on here because everyone is so heteronormative in their view that they’ve automatically assumed that this must be a male poster. Commentators are berating the OP as they’re presuming she’s a useless ma who’s moved a woman in and expected her to do the ‘female’ jobs when in fact the OP has made it clear they were managing fine as a solo parent, the partner moving in has created additional housework at a time when her health has declined significantly. The partner is contributing half to bills but not the mortgage and is offering some practical support to the child that’s it. She should be expected to do her share of the housework and also step up more while @LucyYak21 is so unwell, that’s what caring partners do.

Comments are being made with a gender bias that is so obvious that it’s almost laughable if it wasn’t so awful to see.

If she's paying half of house costs, you are presumably in a better financial position than before she moved in. Could you use some of that to pay for a cleaner?

@LucyYak21 theres a few things here. You’ve recently moved in with your partner - this can be a challenging adjustment period for most people. Plus there is some backstory with you not really wanting your partner to move in in the first place which may be clouding how you’re taking this current situation.

You’re not well and acknowledged in OP you’re overwhelmed as well as completely exhausted. This is hard. It must be so frustrating to not be able to do things that seem simple and every day.

Your daughter suffers from severe autism in your words which must also make things challenging. So I’m not surprised you’re feeling overwhelmed.

If you look at it from your partners pov, they’ve recently moved in somewhere, you’re not very well, they’re probably worried about you and trying to support you emotionally as well as working some gruelling shift work pattern. Whilst they have 2-3 days off, when working nights it can take a whole day to get your sleep back into gear. Or it could just be that they are less on it with cleaning. It sounds like you’re starting to resent them moving in with saying things like they “sit on their arse all day whilst creating half the mess”.

I think it’s one of those situations in a relationship where you both have to give the other grace. You’re probably both not at your best. The only way forwards is an open and honest talk about expectations explaining that the sides being wiped down or whatever really helps you feel less stressed but you feel rubbish that yoj can’t do it when normally you would be able to. As 1st poster said don’t go in saying she’s lazy. Whilst I agree with pp that a cleaner would be helpful if you could afford one for big things like bathroom, floors etc, most people can only afford one every 2 weeks or every week if you’re lucky and a family of 3 will still need the sides wiping down or the dishes doing in between. A cleaner may not be the magic bullet people are suggesting it is if it’s the little things that are stressing you out. I personally find I need to do a big tidy before our cleaner comes which is always a bit stressful and would probably take up energy you don’t have at the moment.

I hope you feel better soon

Both of my daughters have had low vitD 13 and 19 I think was the level. And they were in their twenties so I imagine you must feel like death warmed up as my mother would say! They had low energy levels and were picking up even illness going. I myself have a disease one of which symptoms is low vitD. One thing which has helped me keep my levels up in the 80s is taking the vitD with a magnesium supplement. Magnesium is needed to help activate vitD sort of like taking an iron supplement with vitC. Also loading doses of vitD such as 20,000ius or 50,000ius can make people feel sick. You would be better off taking 4000ius every day with a magnesium supplement at the same time. I got my own vitD up from 50 something to 80 something over a few months by taking 3,000ius daily with mg.

If your partner only moved in not that long ago then you should still be used to having some spare cash shouldn’t you (as they are contributing half to bill now and you were paying all before)? Can you not use some of this to get a cleaner.

I would have a conversation but be careful with the words you choose. I am disabled and yes I expect my husband to pick up some of the slack when I’m not well but I also don’t expect him to do everything and call him lazy. I want there to be a clear distinction between me as a partner and me as a disabled person and sometimes when you’re poorly it’s hard to distinguish between that. You’ve only just moved in together and I wouldn’t want her to already be resuming a carer role. It’s one way to doom your relationship.

I do everything for my child and never expect anything from her for that side of things - she will offer to get up with her in the mornings or get her on and off the school bus - I never ever tell her to do anything where my child is concerned.

But you said "she will do half of the work for my child and help out with the dog". So she is already doing a chunk of your work without you even having to ask. I'd have thought you'd be grateful instead of expecting her to do even more caring.

So do you want her to clean instead of looking after your child and dog? Or as well?

Social care and disability teams usually need to be chased. I agree that you and your DD need more help. But it's not on your partner to provide it.

I am sorry but from what you have said maybe she should move out. For her own sake and for yours.

She's getting a hard time because she comes across as pretty horrible in her replies, and seems to expect partner to be her carer, maid and nanny, and seems to be focusing on what she doesn't do, rather than what she does..