Am I being unreasonable about our division of labour?

[nostability]

I’m 37F, work full-time from home and my husband is 44M. We don't have kids. He does a couple of late shifts a week alongside consultancy work.

Financially, he pays the rent, council tax, water and around 70% of our basic groceries. I pay rent for my office room, the remaining groceries, for any premium groceries for my personal use/health products/supplements, luxury toiletries, household purchases including appliances and furniture, and I usually cover most of our holidays apart from his fuel/driving costs. We keep our finances separate.

Household-wise, I do pretty much everything. I clean the house, including deep cleans and cleaning on the go, cook his dinners every day, do all the laundry and bedding and generally keep everything running. His regular household job is taking the bins out and that's about it. If he ever uses the kitchen, I have to clean up after him. Water splashes in the sink, table wipes, dusting etc - basically all cleaning on the go is my task.

The issue is that he thinks I should be doing more. He expects

• breakfast made and served to him every day, including days while I’m working and on shift, wouldn't even make a cup of tea for himself without resenting me if I didn't do it for him
• his clean clothes folded and put away
• ideally his meals brought to wherever he is in the house
• hosting his friends and family a couple of times a month which I can't, as it eats into my time to recharge for work

He also wants more say over what I cook, would like me to host his friends and family more often and is unhappy that I don’t spend much time with some of his family because of a difficult history between us. He wants me to be the bigger person and forgive - I can not after repeated and ongoing attempts by his mother to break my home. He wants me to increase my capacity to face toxic behaviour even though he knows my mental health is messed up because of this.

He gets annoyed when I ask him to do basic things for himself. His response when I say I don’t have the bandwidth is that I should increase my capacity to do more around the house. At the same time, he feels I should contribute towards rent and household bills. My position is that if I’m expected to contribute significantly more financially, then the domestic workload also needs to become much more equal. He doesn’t agree and has actually said that

"Doing household chores makes me feel more like a housemate than a husband" - which I think was quite telling.

The immediate argument is that I’ve told him I’m not going to interrupt my workday to make and serve him breakfast when he is capable of making it himself.

Am I being unreasonable? And from the outside, does our current split of finances + household labour seem fair?

Do you earn enough to rent a studio apartment yourself OP? Well done for not having a baby with him. He doesn’t want a baby he just wants to trap you. Agree with PP he is a monster and you need to get away from him and leave no forwarding address.

I hardly ever say this but you need to leave. He sounds awful! He feels like a house mate - tell him you feel like a maid.

Good grief, this is not a healthy relationship with two supportive, loving individuals. Or at least, he’s neither loving nor supportive. Get rid!

When I cook, sometimes he takes leftovers for his friends or his brothers and we fight about that also because I plan and ration portions and him doing that means = more work for me via either cooking bigger batches or more frequently. He doesn't understand this adds to my workload and instead says you're selfish and not big-hearted enough. I've said I don't mind it if he shares his food as long as he cooks it himself but he doesn't understand that. Or chooses not to.

I'd appreciate some advice on how to try and find a resolution here to try and give it one last chance before I say goodbye for good. I understand this is a toxic situation. I can possibly move out and from the looks of it, I might have to since he is threatening not to find a house together since we have to vacate this rental in a couple of months.

He wants a housekeeper/personal servant/cook/hostess/¿sexbot. He's extremely controlling.

Serve him breakfast, 🤡. That mfer better not be holding his breath waiting for that, he'd be ☠️

You should be paid extremely well for all those hats you're wearing as the wife appliance in your marriage.

Exactly this.
@nostability This is an abusive relationship. Just leave him. You will get half of everything in a divorce. He can then pay for a slave to look after his lazy fucking arse.
Gosh I am so mad at how he is treating you. This is not a marriage. He's got himself an unpaid servant!!!

You are SO RIGHT to not have kids with him. Please make sure your contraception is rock solid or you will be tied to his abuse forever.

There isn’t a resolution. He is an abusive, misogynistic, arsehole of a man. There is no negotiation with this type of person - as you well know as you have been trying for the last 8 years.

Do you have family you could stay with to enable you to leave when or before this rental comes to an end, whilst you find your feet?

I'm sorry to say that there is no way back fom this as he is treating you so disgustingly. As your rent agreement is about to end, this is the time to take control and leave him. It may be hard on you initially but you will be so much happier in the long run. Good luck.

The only advice really is to move out, you'll be so much happier as what you have now is not a respectful relationship.

Is he saying he believes his greater financial contribution buys your servitude?
Or that he wants your financial contributions to be 50/50 and you still are his slave?
Honestly its abuse witchever way.

He’s taking the piss.

Another man who thinks earning and paying more means he gets a domestic appliance.

OK the South Asian part is very relevant.
Stop contributing to the household money and hire a cleaner. No is a complete sentence with regard to his family and having a child.

Think your life through. Is this what you want? Would it be better to go to the office so you are out of the house more. Get your licence and save some money and decide if this is what you want because he is not going to change and he will get worse once you have a child.

He is trying to sabotage your work. He interrupts you to deal with tasks he is free to handle. He expects you to stop working and make him meals.

This isn’t just about the division of labor. He doesn’t want you to have the option of leaving him. A good job means you could walk out the door at any moment.

My advice is to make sure you prioritize your work and your savings.

Oh dear. He is a bit of a pig.

I’m sorry @nostability you have given plenty of chances. Take the end of this rental as your chance to start over without him. His awful
family can have him.

Your updates are appalling OP. You know he doesn’t like you? Resents you?
why are you trying to do one last thing? Is it so you don’t feel guilty when you know that will fail and you can tell yourself you tried? You already know this is over.

Very pleased to hear about the rental situation. There’s your trigger to move on - do you have options? What will he do? Go back to his family and slag you off and tell all his male friends and his mummy what a failure you were? LET HIM.

He will never turn in to a good husband. Too selfish and immature. Good luck.

Sorry I read this more completely. Honestly OP I get trying to save a marriage. Nobody marries to divorce.

But your husband has blatantly told you that he sees getting married as about getting a living domestic appliance and if he has to share chores then he has a housemate.

He has refused for YEARS. So what honestly do you think can be done differently? Basically this is a case where you accept it as it is currently or leave as he is not going to change

When we got married I was the only one workng and earning - I would support him financially then without emasculating him. I'd still do all the housework. I shouldn't have done that in hindsight. I think I was too afraid to be rejected.

Who you are when you are dating is unfortunately who you will attract. A lot of women make this mistake of auditioning for the role of wife, doing what it takes to secure commitment and then hope he will change post marriage. No matter how many millions of women this does not work for still more try it. I cannot even see why you want this man.

He is never going to change. Please don’t try ‘one last time’ just accept that you want different things and leave it at that. If ever there was a time to get your ducks in a row, find yourself somewhere to stay and go.

Don’t sign any more rental agreements. Above all don’t get pregnant. Be on your guard for any madness he might dream up but honestly, lovely, get yourself out of there. Good luck.

You asked

"any advice on how to try and find a resolution here to try and give it one last chance before I say goodbye for good"

My advice is that he's had 8 years of chances!
and from the sound of it stonewalled every one of them.
What difference would one more chance make with someone who consistenly stonewalls you? Other than upsetting you all over again. Be kind to yourself.

Why not put all that effort instead into securing your future and making yourself a priority for once, because a future with him treating you like his own devoted personal servant, whilst till telling you, that you are not good enough, sounds grim, really grim.

I think you need to talk to someone like Women's Aid for advice on how to leave this man safely... I doubt he will react kindly to his support system leaving. The lease expiring is an ideal opportunity for you to look at finding yourself somewhere else to live.(DO NOT TELL HIM your plans to leave until you are ready to go and can do it safely. ) This man is sucking the life and the joy out of you. Its no way to live and you don't actually have to. You have a job, you sound intelligent and hardworking and capable - you can do this and have a life where you are not someone else's despised servant. Wishing you all the best x

This is the perfect
He's already had enough chances and he's never changed
Also agree with not telling him your plans at all. he is not a safe person to do that with

OP the more you post, the more devastated I am for you - you’ve wasted many years with this absolute scum-bag. He is an emotionally & financially abusive shit-head, who also abuses you by making you do all the housework (there should be a word for this!).
Please please please cut your losses and LEAVE THIS BASTARD!!!!

I'm sorry OP but after reading your other posts I don't think he loves you anymore anyway, he tells you to leave once a week and has mentioned that he may not get another rental with you, that is clearly him telling you he isn't happy also. I think he's not bothered about helping you with anything as he's no longer in love, plus spending all that time with his mates is a sign also. What quality time does he spend with you? He just hasn't left as he has you there helping with finances and being a domestic servant to him. I doubt things will get better, he won't change. Maybe sit him down and ask him if he actually still loves you? Ask him how he would feel about separating as it's clearly not working? Obvs if it's safe to do so. Sorry you're dealing with this.

Not a lot of time together to be honest. I can not watch movies or TV with him, because he makes misogynistic remarks about a female character sometimes that upset me. I don't go out with him to socialise because he says or does something in front of people we know that makes me feel disrespected. An example is wife jokes and then his favourite is moaning about me indirectly but making it very obvious it's about me. I don't go to the gym with him because he has a problem with my workout clothes, or take a gym class with him because he starts competing with me and then quickly getting very self conscious because I'm more regular and therefore fitter/know the class routine etc that's no fun for him or myself. In front of friends and family he likes to walk ahead of me, ignore me and sit with his friends or family instead of me. That bit makes me really sad. He looks at me for a reaction when he does that because I've told him so many times that hurts me and that I wanted to be a priority in his life. Everyone's more important than me and I've always felt that with him.

He's always spent lots of time outside since teens, it's why he doesn't live with his mum anymore she would question him and discourage that etc. I let him be and this is not because of me. He resents me if I ask him to spend more time at home.

The other day we had an argument about him demanding something specific to eat when I had just finished work and already had leftovers from the previous evening. We have these every weekend. The neighbours must be so sick. Maybe that's why they've told us to move out. I found it interesting that when I was sitting in the same room and trying to talk about an instance where he had been quite unfair - visiting me when we didn't live together, he would come and stay for weeks and not do a single chore or help out with anything at all, had noo job, nothing going on at the time and I still carry resentment from that time period that I was trying to share with him the other day and he just wouldn't let me speak about it. I eventually left the room. When I left, then he told me to come back to the room to talk and I said this is what you do to me - you drive me out and as I'm about to leave, you rope me back just a little bit, just enough so I wouldn't leave. Why wouldn't you hear me out when I was trying to talk and share my feelings about that incident, why would you refuse to talk about it then but now that I left your room you are suddenly open to discuss it? I said that as I stood in the doorway because I knew the moment I go inside the room he will find a reason to dismiss my feelings once again and change the subject.