AIBU to feel overwhelmed by the family mental load and childcare?

[Daydreamer94]

I am really just so annoyed with DH. I love him and he is a good person and the children adore him. We’ve been together for 10 years and had our ups and downs but he has helped me through some really tough times, I am always grateful for that. We also get on really well and generally have a happy life.

However a recurring argument we have is that I feel I have the majority of the mental load, for example with the children I do all their school club admin, I am always at the teacher parent meetings, I do the homework etc. I take care of all their doctors appointments/hospital visits. I sort out all their clothes and buy new ones. I do the food shop and plan all our meals and cook them. I do the laundry.

DH helps with paying 70% of the bills and cleaning, his argument is he has a very demanding job, not wfh and he pays for majority. He mostly pays for our days out but I do contribute. We both work fulltime but my job is more flexible.

I said I feel overwhelmed with it all holding a fulltime job and also all mentioned above. He said he can’t do anymore and it shouldn’t matter as someone will always do more than the other but thats family. I said but it feels like I am doing most.

He got angry and said I am accusing him of not doing anything, but the children never want for anything and he tries to do as much as he is able ( work permitting )

I just feel really depleted, am I being taken advantage of? Is this normal in other families, do women just do more?

Yes, in a lot of family set ups women do more.

What is happening is he is not seeing the value in what you do because it doesn't equate to physical income.

If you were paying 50% and he was too, he still wouldn't have any more time than he has now, just more money in his pocket. You would be out of pocket and still carrying the extra mental load. His argument is null and void for that reason.

I think it’s unfair to say he’s taking advantage of you. The balance may not be quite right but you are both stretched and overwhelmed. Can you outsource any of the household things? Gardener, cleaner etc?

Well you’re both working full time but is he doing more on top of that? Eg working in the evening too.

If not then it doesn’t matter what he earns he needs to pull his weight at home. In these situations it’s rubbish but start delegating to him at home. You know what needs doing, make sure he knows which of those jobs he’s responsible for.

The parent who isn’t the default for everything home and child never truly realises what responsibilities you have on top of everything else. They just don’t see it and often don’t want to, because if they do, they’ll realise what an easy ride they have. If you’ve made the decision to have children together, who earns more shouldn’t equate to the other person doing more. That simply isn’t fairness or teamwork.

The fact that his automatic response is to go on the defensive tells me he isn’t pulling his weight and he knows it. Does he have more free time than you do? If he does, he needs to step up and do more.

It sounds like you carry more of the family mental load but he carries more of the responsibility for paying the bills. Seems reasonable to me.

Booking extra curricular activities is hardly taxing. You may do a bit more school stuff but it doesn’t seem that unfair to me. Don’t know how stuff like this takes so long unless you have 6 kids or if they have additional needs.

You didn't mention cleaning, do you do all that? If so, hire a cleaner and outsource any ironing.

What are you doing that is not necessary? People complain how busy and exhausted they are then when asking further half the stuff they chose to do is on them they choose it

Sit down together and list out all of the jobs that need to be done to keep things running. ALL of them. Then see who does what. Are the lists even? Is there a massive discrepancy? It can really help to see it in black and white.

If there is a huge discrepancy and he doesn't care or tries to justify it or says he'll do better and doesn't then you can re-evaluate what you think about him and how much you think he values you.

You both work full time - does he work evenings too? I used to work professional services and the partners with kids usually really cared about their family. They recognised they couldn’t commit to getting home in the evening except perhaps one or two set nights a week (usually to coach teams or do something ‘dad job’ oriented, sigh) but a few of them did stuff like cook a Sunday roast, plus their wives didn’t even usually work full time. I’d tell your dh he needs to plan and cook two meals a week starting now. One weekend and one weeknight every week and if he can’t get home in time to cook then he needs to make something in advance like a curry or a pasta sauce. I would not tolerate his saying it’s too much for him - if he doesn’t earn enough to pay for cleaners and housekeepers he needs to chip in with his time. I send my dh to buy the school shoes and I make him fully responsible for signing school notices. Simple tasks you can fully hand over and start building them.

2 full time parents and kids is just busy. Plus being an active caring parent involves volunteering for sports teams, school and nursery roles and events.

He doesn't value what you do

He's told you that

If you were earning more, he'd have more respect. Even though you'd be doing less in the house so he'd have to do it

It's that simple

Exactly the same situation here except I’m paying 40 per cent of the bills, and because I’m self employed DH thinks that means I have all the time in the world to take on kid related stuff. I’m constnely angry about this stuff, but also like you know that deep down DH is a decent guy. I can’t work out how to share things more equally

I do all the things you do but I work part time. Can you afford to go part time? If he won't do more then I would do less.

Tell him he is cooking three meals a week or it's really simple dinners like beans on toast. Stop doing his washing for him.

No children do not need all this parents just think they do

I always find this a tricky one, as especially when it comes to children's activities and organisation of anything involving them I find a lot of women might moan about being the one carrying the mental load, but would also be reluctant to hand it over and fully leave to their OH.
Would you want to miss out on going to parents evenings?
Also if you said can you do the school club admin would you fully trust him or would you be supervising (in which case handing over this would be pointless). Same with clothes, would you be happy with his choices?

You have only given examples of what you do in terms of admin relating to children, but what about other household admin? Do you also sort breakdown cover, car insurance, home insurance, gas/electric supplier, internet/TV package.

I am lucky as my DH takes on cleaning (purely as he has better standards than me) so other than general day to day hoovering or wiping surfaces he will do the deeper cleans.
However if I moan about doing the pressing stuff like kids, laundry and food he will point out a lot of stuff he does that might be missed (other than cleaning). He deals with the bins, car maintenance and washing the cars, gardening, DIY. He somehow ended up with the gas/electric bill so he also deals with that one. I can't say that all other admin tasks are that tricky though - water bill is not changeable for example. There are probably lots of other stuff he does too that I don't even think about because it is done.
I think the food shop and meal planning just feels worse as it's every single day.

What is the issue with the kids club admin and why is that so stressful?
Do you children have a medical condition that requires frequent appointments? (You mention hospital so I am guessing so?)
Can you do the food shop online? We generally buy the same each week so can you not set up a list and then just add bits/change before submitting?
How often are the children in need of new clothes? How old are they to be involved in choosing? When little (and still now) I get a lot from the supermarket. When younger they didn't really have an opinion on what they wore so was pretty easy to just find some bits and pop in the trolley.

Do what I did. Add your DH to all the group chats for school and clubs and all school emails and apps. Just so he can experience the craziness (particularly around Christmas). When I did it I didn’t ask him to do anything but just be in them as I was forgetting stuff and could he be a second pair of eyes. After a few weeks he quietly started offering to sort out bits and pieces - I think he had no awareness of what I had going on in my head with the kid admin and house admin. He had to be in it to see it, not be told by me.

I also suggest you relax your standards if he does start helping. I have to keep reminding myself it’s ok he is doing the thing I would do perfectly effectively but sometimes not how I would do it.

Ok so when you say that it's unbalanced and he then gets emotional and says "you're accusing me of not doing anything" that's a straw man argument. A rhetorical trick designed to shut you down. Which suggests he knows fine well he's getting an easy ride.

The point is, it is unfair and you both know it. Don't give us the "but he's a good man / dad" bollocks, that's not how good people behave, is it?

Have you tried making lists of what each of you do, to demonstrate the unfairness? Or pointed out how much free time each of you has?

You could get the fair play cards and try that approach. Or just tell him that you are now stopping X Y or Z and it's his job to organise it.

There’s a fantastic feminist critical theorist called Cynthia Enloe who has written a lot about women’s invisible work, often in the context of war but I feel it fits most domestic households. Women naturally seem to take on this role almost without question. I saw a funny video a few weeks back with a man pretending to be a dad taking his child to the GP and he basically had to call his wife 10 times to answer every question. It’s funny because it’s so real.

Sounds cliche and sexist. DP has arranged and taken our 5 year old to most of his drs appointments and we also had an incident where he was given the wrong medication and DP researched and got some further advice. A lot of men are great at this stuff.

with my dh it was housework and mental load. After many years of rotas, lists, asking, reminding (nagging) I realised I just had to care less than him. So I dropped some of the tasks and didn’t do them, didn’t mention them. He started to do them because he did want them doing. I cancelled one of ds after school clubs and switched it to a weekend so we could both go (or one of us) when ds wanted to do another club I found one for a Friday when dh finishes early. I made sure I had nothing to do with it. I book parents evenings for after dh finishes work. I tend to do more Xmas concerts etc though but we are definitely more equally balanced than we were.

In the midst of family life it's easy to become overwhelmed.
I come with the benefit of hindsight.
In your list above, other than food/ cooking laundry and homework (and the demands of that will lessen as they get older) the jobs are sporadic and not really time consuming in the greater scheme of things.
You say your DH does 70% of the cleaning and house admin (paying bills, presumably that includes switching suppliers setting up direct debits, insurance, banking , arranging MOT etc)
To be honest it doesn't sound hugely uneven in terms of time.
What about the jobs you haven't mentioned? Who does the gardening and house maintenance? Who deals with the car maintenance? If you deal with that too then it's definitely unfair.
You imply that you have a flexible job working from home. Doesn't it make sense that you do the jobs that have to be done during the day (medical appointments)? Could he be home for parents teacher meetings or would it be difficult with work? If it was an important medical appointment/ school meeting would he be there?
Which of the jobs would you like him to take on? Would taking on that job be realistic? Could he be home at an appropriate time to do the homework for example (presuming they are quite young) or would he have to leave work early?
What I am trying to point out is that you are a team. You each contribute according to your circumstance. The split doesn't sound too uneven to be honest.
Edited for typo

I honestly think it doesn’t matter who is doing more or who is right. It sounds like you are both at max capacity. I am in the same position and the solution is I work part time. This is not achieveable for every family, and it is a sacrifice for the part timer in terms of career and finances. However I truly believe it’s the only way to achieve any kind of balance for our relationship and our kids.

I know this doesn’t help you OP but I have been on my own since the DCs were 3 and 0 - now teens - so have always done everything you mention on my own.

I have found it exhausting obviously but not having any expectation from another person has lessened both the physical and mental exhaustion.

No resentment as there is no one else around to do any of this stuff anyway and also there is no ‘ oh I thought you were going to do that’ type situations.

I am not suggesting that you split up of course but I am saying that i understand and I hear you.

Thanks all for commenting and sharing different perspectives. It’s been a hard few months as one of our DC has had ongoing medical issues and I have managed it all.

DH does the house maintenance, house bills etc. He does also do bath and bedtime when he is home. Our DC are young one at school and one at nursery. He has the past year tried to do all pick ups for both but I was doing drop off.

It just seems he shows no initiative to even think about afterschool club for example because he just knows I’ll do it. Maybe I have made a rod for my own back.