Give me some rational opinions (another husband one)

[Jellyfruit]

Married 10 years. A 5yo and 3yo. Husband works 55hrs/wk over 6days (physical job) and I work 27hrs/wk over 3 days (gov job). I am well paid, so finance wise this isn't that unequal.

Routinely, our lives descend into a big 'blow up'. I can't stand to be around him or listen to his excuses. It's always that he 'does more than most men', which to me would be a sad state of affairs if true.

Before kids I was highly strung. Husband was generally quite laid back. This wasn't an issue until the children came along. Quite frankly, I'm sick of managing everyone's lives.

I do all drop offs/ pick ups unless I specifically plan for Husband to do this because I'm busy elsewhere. House is big. Absolute nightmare to maintain. And I'm not big into cleaning, so routinely I need to tackle spaces and sort them out (Husband and kids leave things strewn everywhere). It's not unhygienic but it affects my mood.

This is how it's roughly split:
Drop offs/ pick ups- 100% me (unless prearranged very sporadically).
Shopping- 100% me.
Cooking- 90 (me)/ 10 (him)
Dishes- 80 (me)/ 20 (him)
Medical/ dental appointments (kids)- 100% me.
Kids sports/ activities- 100% me.
Clothes shopping/ rotation/ payment for kids- 100% me.
Holiday scheduling and payment- 100% me.
Bathtimes- 50/50.
General cleaning- 90 (me)/ 10 (him).
School prep (lunches/ bags/ trips etc)- 100% me.
Taking bins out- 10 (me)/ 90 (him)
Outside maintenance- 100% him.

I am just so sick of running the show. I feel like i exist to sort everything in this family and it's driving me mad. But am I expecting too much of my husband? What would be a fair split to anyone else? I'll caveat that by saying I have to tell him what needs done. Every. Single. Time.😖Just so fed up!!

It’s taken years of compromise and argument but dh and I finally have a set up that I feel is fair.

kids/ family-
pick up/drop off me 70% dh 30%
bedtime 50/50
cooking me 60% dh 40%
activities me 75% dh 25%
dog walks dh 100%

housework
me-
pots/ dishwasher
laundry
dusting / tidying
bathrooms

dh
garden
bins
hoovering/ mopping
cars

I work 2 days dh works 5 and he earns more. Birthday/ Christmas I do my family, dh amd kids. Dh does me and his family. Food shop os delivered

After years of nagging/ rotas etc I just stopped doing his stuff . I stopped checking on him / stepping in, if he doesn’t do his stuff it doesn’t get done and he has to deal with it. It took a while but now we have our roles and we know what they are. I don’t take on his mental load at all

I honestly think this is the crux of the problem. He has made his value choices and his work is more important to him than the happiness of his wife and the well-being his children. Neither he nor you like the activities of running a house so he has opted out and made it your problem.
Whilst it is true that your split is ‘fairish’ given your working patterns, he has in effect forced those working patterns.
The fact is that, unless desperately needed to finance the household or unless your partner is happy with it, working 6 long days a week with 2 small children is unreasonable. Indeed, it sounds like you earn more per hour than him so it is doubly unreasonable.
Can he reduce his hours to make it more fair? I’d speak to him along those lines. I’d say im not willing to live like this permanently, that I am prepared to work more days to make changes and he must pick up a fairer share in the home combined with paying for help like a cleaner. If he says no, I’d frame it that, as above, carrying on working as he is is therefore more important to him than his marriage then as he can’t have both. And if necessary I would leave him over it,
yes, because i don’t want a man who loves his job so much he is prepared to insist I live an unhappy life.

That’s very unfair.
I'm calm and some might say laid back. I just don’t see the point in getting worked up. I see what needs to be done and do it while my other half frets so much about what has to be done he barely gets through anything.

Same at work, lots of anxious & panicked ppl but they accomplish very little.

How do you do school runs and be at work for 9 hours a day ?

I understand why you’re tired of doing it all but equally he works 6 days a week and you work 3. When you decided on that it was always going to end up like this.

I like the approach of you should both have equal free time. But that does rather depend on you both being happy doing the tasks you're doing be that paid work or house/ family stuff.

I think £50 for a cleaner twice a month might be a bargain - if it makes you less resentful of the dynamic. It's a lovely feeling coming into a house that looked grubby and was in the back of your mind as a Job, to find it all sparkling.

Send him Alex Trippier videos

Look at it as any other bill and just include in the monthly cost. I genuinely believe my cleaner temporarily saved our relationship which sounds similar, although the frustration still rears over everything else

I use to do all the cleaning in addition to everything else I did but it would be easier to list what my partner does (50% of school runs, food shopping (I need to do the list & meal plan), adhoc DIY (rare), washes his own clothes, dishwasher emptying)

He runs a business too however the women on the school run who run a business do it in order to be more flexible and present in family life, however the business comes first for him. It frustrates me that I financially contribute equally and flex my hours to keep family life spinning, yet have to pick up about 95% of the not-fun stuff. It just becomes tiring when you are not only the default parent but your partner leaves you to do all the jobs. It chips away at the relationship bit by bit

So he works 55hrs & thought what about having kids?

That he could just carry on with the 55hrs & take on nothing else?

What was the split before kids?

Does he really need to work the 55hrs?

I think there are a couple of things going on here:

The first is that as you do significantly fewer work hours, it is not unreasonable to take on MORE of the household tasks. However, it appears you take on 95% of the household tasks which means, even though he works longer hours, you are "on" more often. This is a problem.

You hate housework. Perfectly reasonable feeling which means that you need to find a solution and yes, £25 per hour is very steep but if that's what it takes, then I'd do it.

The final issue is linked to the first - even when he IS here, he is not on, and you are. And that is the bit that i think you need to solve. So if you are cooking and he is at home, he needs to be entertaininmg/watching the DC so that you can get on with that. etc.

I don’t think we will ever get away from in most cases children changing the Mother’s life much more than the Father’s.
Realistically him working those hours is not sustainable if he is to be anything like an equal parent and partner.
How many people have already said ‘ how can he do drop off and work a 9 hour day, of course you need to do it’
If you had both agreed to this it might be more acceptable, but it sounds like he is doing a job that he enjoys, and thinks that his hours give him a get out of jail free card to do very little else.
I also hated the domestic side of going down to part time hours to spend time with the kids. I found my days at work far less stressful ( until the day ended and I dived headlong back into the domestics). Work was hard, but no boss is more unreasonable than a toddler. At work no one ever came up and destroyed a piece of work I’d spent ages on so I’d have to do it again. Tidying and vacuuming at home seemed like a continuous chore.
I think you need to address his working hours. Unless there is NO option he needs to cut down whilst the children are young, so he can be a husband and father.
At very least you both need to recognise that you are both working the hours he is at work, even though much of yours is unpaid, and he definitely should not be resting whilst you are still working.

To all the posters saying OP has so much more time than her husband ‘to herself’ have you taken into account she has her toddler to look after in on her days ‘off’?

Yeah but we all have been mothers to toddlers and know how to get everyday tasks done whilst having a toddler, the world keeps turning even if you have a toddler pulling at your leg.

Thanks for all the responses.

To address some suggestions:

1. He will not reduce his hours (and I don't want to increase mine at the expense of my children's wellbeing). @firefly100 he would simply book more Daycare to cover my absence. Not actually be here himself.
2. I do school runs around my work. I have to make up that time when they're in bed.
3. An ideal world for me would be 3 days Daycare and each of us at home one day. Will never happen.
4. I will try and source a cleaner again.
5. My husband has no 'free time' because he fills it with work, work related admin, other outdoor tasks he wants to do. This means I'm 'on duty' for all those hours, as well as the hours outlined. Classic default parent.

"Another thing I observe is his parent's dynamics. And I think that says it all. The mother= home keeper (but also brings in a wage) whilst father= busy business man 😑 I don't want my children growing up thinking this imbalance is acceptable!" -

Where is the imbalance in this @OP? This doesn't seem odd to me.

Re Cleaner, yes £25ph to include products and travel is good, the norm where I am is £20-£25 and we aren't rural. Also - if your house is a big as you imply, two hours a week is not going to be enough to satisfy you. It will help though.

Most of the time Mums do undertake most of the life load, I think DH needs to recognise the few things he can help with easily, like the lunch example you gave, however have you pushed him away from thinking for himself at home? It sounds like he does what he is asked when asked and is keeping his head down the rest of the time for fear of doing what you will consider 'the wrong thing'. And he is doing all the thinking, planning, managing, keep things afloat all day 6 days a week at work. You don't see that. How much do you support him with that?

I agree with this. I work part time and my husband is full time so even though I find the house stuff really boring, I do more of it because I have the time to, and your husband really is working long hours. Definitely think a cleaner would be a good idea.

He may be working very long hours, do I understand correctly that he is self employed with two business which are a big part of his identity.

your work takes fewer hours but you earn the same. And do not enjoy housework.

id be questioning his productivity. There are men at work you spend the last hour or so after the official close of busdinesz honestly just chatting , very open that they are strategically avoiding g going bath time.

is he really pulling his weight at work. Why can’t he give up some hours and go more housework and parenting ?

It’s tricky. I get your frustration. But I’m not sure how much more he could do if he’s doing 9hour days 6 days a week. Would he go part time and you could increase your hours and reverse roles? Would you want to do that?

Our family couldn’t hack both of us full time as the logistics of the children (even with paid childcare) wouldn’t work. I therefore chose to be part time. Chose an area of work that’s not entirely exciting but very family friendly. And I took on chief organiser of the chaos. I sometimes get pissed off with my dh (usually near Christmas, or before we go on holiday) but then once I’m less stressed I can rationally see this is the way it has to be. We could swap roles but I’m a control freak and also love being organised. It’s hard.
echoing a cleaner though. I’d love a cleaner 😂 that would tick one thing off the list and free up time for you abit.

Haven't read the thread - and I don't advocate you do this! - but I love being divorced, I just do it all. and not if I can't be arsed.

He's not even in the picture as he's back in his own country.

Hope you find a solution OP.

My son is an adult now. We got through it.

This! A lot here are stating he works all the hours, it sounds like he chooses too as he has made work his life rather than family. He doesn’t have to work that much, he’s the boss, he chooses too. He also isn’t solely responsible financially. Sounds like OP is equally contributing financially near enough but ensures work is flexed to support family life

I have a partner that’s similar and he just has to head back out to work around 5:30-6pm and misses bath, bedtime etc. He gets up just in time to leave the house and barely manages to remember his set school runs, never mind anything else. They can also be inefficient during the day as they’re the boss - I know without looking that the social media screen time is high whilst my partner is oh so busy during the school day. More efficiency with their time means they could spend more time with the family, they just won’t in these cases

Why are you paying for all the holidays when you're the lower earner? What is the rest of your bills splits like?

My biggest problem with this is thst you are married and have children together but you never actual spend any time together- what sort of relationship, or indeed life is that?

First post nailed it. Have a rational discussion when no-one is already annoyed, and balance what would seem fair in terms of available time and workload. Create a schedule. Then follow the schedule! Do not break down and do someone else's job because they didn't do it. Also (and this is hard) don't do the job again because it wasn't done to your standards. If you have outside space, get a storage bin with a lid. Explain to kids and husband that anything left lying around for you to tidy up will be placed in the bin - they can retrieve it and put it away at their leisure.

Doing it this way becomes ridiculously complicated. Like the intensity of the task, the amount of work of the task, and the chronicity of the task.

I'd focus on a different way that someone suggested on here previously: work out how many free hours either of you have during a normal week and work backwards from this.

PS literally are you free to leave the house solo to do what you want? Work out how many hours he has a week to do this and how many hours you have to do.

My guess is you have an awful lot less than him. He needs to fill out some of his free hours and actually take on some of the physical load.