Sick of fun DH

[StressedNeedCoffee66]

I'm at breaking point and need some advice on some coping skills.

We have an 18 month old DS. DH is great with him. He loves playing with him, he's super patient and fun and caring. Except....that's all he does. Pretty easy to be fun when you have NO other responsibilities. I do and think of everything else.

DH works in a very easy low paying job that is also his passion; he really does not want the stress of anything better paid or a promotion (although he is highly educated and has potential).

So I am the breadwinner, by far. I work in a very stressful job and long hours and I will never be able to take a step back. I handle everything - bills, DYI, house stuff, DS' clothes, shoes, nursery stuff. Just everything. Even organizing a cleaner is my responsibility.

I tried delegating things, for example:

• cooking, he says he loves cooking. But he cooks the same 3 meals on repeat (heavy on meat and carbs). DS went for weeks without seeing a vegetable and got quite constipated. The kitchen was a bombsite.
• car stuff. Car ended up undriveable and I had to arrange service and MOT as he just "forgot" to do it in time.

There's more examples but you get the idea.

I don't want to break up, not yet anyway. I don't want to see DS less. But I'm so tired and stressed and just not "fun". I don't know what to do. I am trying to see the positives but at the moment he gets all the upside and I get all the downsides.

I feel like this is how Miranda Hillier felt at the start of “Mrs Doubtfire”. Anyone who’s seen that film knows it pushed her to breaking point. I first watched it at about 12. As a 44 year old, I understand completely why she divorced Daniel.

This sounds like me when I was in my 20s and 30s, so I do feel for you. I would come home from work and the house was awful. Not just untidy, it was dirty and I was so ashamed. I didn’t care about toys lying around, but having to wash last night’s dishes before I could cook a meal would get me so angry. All everyone saw was him being a great father to DS, and meanwhile I was drowning.

I tried just not doing it in the hope he would have to, but caved when we got maggots in the kitchen bin. It took a separation to finally get it through to him that his behaviour was unacceptable.

Things are much better now, and looking back at my younger self I realise I was enabling his behaviour by not being clear about my expectations of him in our relationship, and what I believed were reasonable contributions from him. I would huff and then complain to others. Not that I’m saying that’s what you’re doing, but I think you need to make sure he knows exactly how you are feeling and the effect it is having on you. Outsource anything that makes life easier for you. You do enough already 🙂

First step is to make the mental burden less by accepting what isn’t going to change to get out of a cycle of being disappointed.

So he’s never going to step up the way you want him to.

Once you can make peace with that - meaning you don’t have to like it but if you can get your brain to be resigned to it, you can stop the cycle of getting your hopes up and feeling let down and disappointed.

Then you do whatever you can to reduce the things you have to physically take care of. Stop doing anything for him that makes his life personally easier - for example don’t do his laundry, if he wants clean clothes he’ll have to remember to do them.

Someone’s suggestion of meal prep boxes was good - tell him he’s cooking Monday-Thursday and will be using the recipe provided by the box.

Get a cleaner who also does your little one’s laundry.

If he is in a low pay job (which is absolutely fine if you are pulling your weight elsewhere), then essentially you are funding his life.
Without you, he'd be really stuck.
Maybe show him this thread and the penny might drop :) xx

I had one like this OP. Except he wasn't even the 'fun' Dad. I felt like I was micro managing him to do just the smallest of chores. Endless discussions about how I needed more help and participation from him. It didn't get any better, only worse. We divorced and I had full (unofficial) custody. Of course he wasn't going to argue, he just wanted an easy life.
The meals for DC are easy to solve. I did a Sunday roast every week and did extra. I just used a blender to chop it to age related size and then popped meal size portions in the freezer. It had everything in, a really well balanced meal, heavy on the veggies. My DC never ever had a jar of baby/processed food. Chopped up fresh fruit with some fromage frais was dessert. Yes it's a bit samey but at that young age, they don't care so much. It really sets them up for life.
Even your DH could manage to defrost and heat a home cooked ready meal and chop some fruit.
Also, get a big chalk board and write down the weekly chores you expect him to do and cross off. Yes it's infantilising him but he needs it. Get him some gold stars too!

@wordler thanks for getting it. Yes, this post comes off the back of yet another attempt at delegating something to him and just backfiring (he says he doesn't see the small stuff and prefers whole "jobs" i.e. car or cooking but then I take my eye off the ball, something doesn't get done and I deal with the fallout as it impacts me).

I went through a phase of just doing everything myself and I was more at peace and less stressed but I literally couldn't even be in the same room as him. I encouraged him to go on a holiday with his mates just to get him out of the house for a week. It was bliss.

I stopped doing his laundry or anything that is purely for him a very long time ago.

As I understand it the OP already employs a cleaner. (She mentions that she is the one who has to organise this.)

But I am mildly incandescent at the suggestion that she should pay for other everyday domestic tasks out of her salary because her husband not only earns peanuts but does nothing. How could this possibly be fair? Maybe she’d rather pay for exotic holidays, or save for school fees, or whatever. If she and her husband were both working 70 hour weeks and earning large amounts, then paying domestic staff from their shared incomes would be fine. If he earned little but ran the household beautifully that might also be fine. But the OP can’t be flogging away to pay other people to make up for an entirely useless husband.

😡

OP, I think you need to work things such that his laziness has a negative effect on him & him alone.

This is so depressing, are the mothers and fathers of these men not ashamed at the fact that their adult child can not function. And why is it always the fucking women who pick up the slack!!!

But I digress….

How to survive? I am so reluctant to give practical suggestions as once again it is you taking responsibility for thinking and directing what needs to be done! Of course you could get more help or write lists on what he must do and what you will do. But you’re not his fucking manager.

Seriously you are going to be miserable staying with him!

He knows what he's doing, showing him the thread would only make him try harder to leave all the work to the OP.

Ask him to get assessed for ND/get a pre assessment counsellor. He’s showing many signs (I know MN never like this answer - but it’s looking pretty likely). Things need approaching in different ways if he’s ND, there’s no reason he can’t start being more helpful, it might just need to be approached differently

And he’s not doing those things and OP doesn’t want to separate. So…

You don't sound compatible at all, he's laid back, fun, do the bare minimum and enjoy life, you sound ambitious and organised with high standards. I suppose it's a bit late to consider compatability now, but if you do separate you now know this isn't the kind of man you can so life with. Sometimes couples who are opposites can complement each other's strengths, but that's not happening here.

Have you considered couples counselling? It might help him see how deeply unfair the current set up is.

I had this as many years ago we had 3 DCs under the age of 5, DH had 3 catering outlets, very involved in playing rugby & then in the summer triathlon & I got totally pissed off with working 09:00-14:30 5 days a week & doing all the childcare, household admin, helping out in his 'shops' cooking for the rugby club etc.

So I arranged for my parents to have the DCs for the weekend, cooked a meal, sat him down & presented him with my record of what I'd done in the previous 4 weeks v what he'd done.

I was furious that it was up to me to get the DCs up to go to nursery/school, arrange all doctors appts, all cooking & cleaning, paying bills etc etc while he spent his hours when not working having a run or a cycle ride, swim, going to the gym, & then lying on the sofa- that kind of thing, but no actual contribution to the household as he did no laundry, no cleaning nothing to help contribute to the household except the money(which, frankly, was good, but no practical help to me). So I was able to present to him with the evidence of what exactly I did every day - hour by hour v what he did & asked him to tell me if I was wrong, because I knew that it was diddly squat.

Frankly he was shocked. He had no idea of everything that I did.

So we agreed that we would buy a whiteboard for the kitchen with everything that needed to be done written on it & we would tick off what we'd agreed to do & then, in a different colour, tick off when it was done.

It worked - he even introduced it into his businesses.

Over 40 years later we're still married, he does more than his fair share now that he's retired & I still work. We still have the whiteboard & it totally works.

He’s not even doing the bare minimum though, and the OP doesn’t have high standards she just has normal standards!

Tell him you're at your wits end and it's either separation or couples counselling. If he says no to the counselling then you have your answer. FWIW, I separated from a man like this. The resentment at having to parent an extra child became too much. Are you having sex with him OP? I quickly lost all attraction to someone who I could no longer see as my equal.

Stop doing everything. I was like you, world’s most stressful job, looking after family (classic generation sandwich situation) whilst my husband pottered about . I got ill , left work, downsized, learned to get an Aldi shop in for 60 quid and enjoy tribute bands at the local boozer rather than Glastonbury. Quit gym membership and go running instead, it’s free! Found a hairdresser / beautician who operates from her home who cuts and colours/does lashes and brows for under100 quid … honestly never been happier, it’s amazing what you think you need and don’t .

He won’t do it.
If you tell him, he accuses you of nagging.
He’s bone idle academically, professionally and as a husband.
He’s got you over a barrel.
You don’t want to split up from him and lose a percentage of motherhood.
Give him a shock. Show him what life is like without you and the baby.
Send him away to stand on his own two feet in the hope the penny will drop.

If one is single, or in a couple whereby you both have the same values, it would be fine to live this no effort life. A choice made by many.
but as soon as you make the decision to have a child, then you should be doing what you can to make their lives good. Vegetables for example. Call this what it is. It is shit selfish lazy parenting from him, not chilled and laid back or whatever he thinks he is.

coping strategies? Difficult because this is him, he isn’t going to fundamentally change, and you knew this was what he was like. Cast iron contraception for a start for no more babies. I think you will want to leave in the end so don’t make it harder by having 2.
does be benefit directly from your money - eg a hobby that he wouldn’t afford on his own pay for example? Can you pull that and redirect the money eg to something that makes your life easier? Can you start going away eg for a whole weekend leaving him to do everything, with a (albeit manipulative) plan of letting him realise that it’s not just the fun stuff if you do a whole weekend, making him less likely to want 50/50 when you do divorce. I do think it’s a when, sorry. Your contempt for him will only go in one direction.

If it was bliss for a holiday , imagine having that feeling all the time. You would have less work, not more, and probably more disposable income.

If you’re serious about it , sooner rather than later would be best for your DC. You may have less time with them, but you’ll be able to enjoy it rather than your head space , and actual time and space being spent on him. Also if he’s as lazy as it appears he might not step up in any meaningful way .

It may seem daunting, but honestly you could be looking back in a year’s time wondering why you put up with his shit for so long.

have you ever asked him what he brings to the family? what is the point of him?

I agree. However it seems the OP has accepted her lot, and just came here for a rant. Which is fair enough, but it’s such a shame.

So @SevenYellowHammers,you’re essentially saying that whatever training and effort the OP put into her well paying, stressful job was a waste of time? She should give it up and arrange to live on NMW for the rest of her life? Forget any dreams or aspirations she might have had?

Because … ?

He's a lazy bastard who doesn't care that you are having to pick up all the slack. I would give him this ultimatum and be prepared to end it.

If you're not prepared to end it yet, you might think about giving a time limit to how long you're prepared to stick it out. It might help to get through the days.