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?

This is the best thing I’ve seen in ages! Please stick to your guns, do not cave no matter what tricks he plays as honestly, there is no saving this

Wow Op, this is great to read. You go girl!

He wants a nanny with a fanny!!

He doesn’t love you, and doesn’t think you’re his equal. Do not have a baby with him. I’d suggest getting your ducks in a row and leaving. This is no life.

OP well done. Really. Keep this anger and don’t give in to the inevitable backlash from him.

Your friend is not a friend if he’s telling you that you won’t find better at your age. You seem surrounded by people who want to maintain the status quo. I do get that it’s harder to leave a marriage in the S Asian community. But you are better on your own than with any man if this is what the people around you think is good enough for you.

Think of the peace, the freedom, the ability to spend your money how you want. It is so stressful to spend your life on edge and beaten down like this by the person you are forced to share everything with. Leave for your sanity and your health.

My friend at work who was in a similar situation did manage to leave. She had to put up with so much pressure from family who hated that she had rights and was ‘shaming’ her husband/the community. I remember her telling me she felt relieved when she found he was gambling as that gave her a ‘reason’ to leave that was simpler than the truth of the reason being the way he treated her like someone he hated and despised. (Her ex immediately fetched a new much younger wife over from India and she watches with horror at how the poor woman is treated). That friend has a great life now and no regrets.

Good luck OP and very well done for getting mad.

Keep that anger going!

You are nobody’s door mat.

My mad and bad version - stopped doing most chores. No breakfasts. He's perfectly capable of making tea on his own it seems. I told him I'll move out if he doesn't want me here and the homelessness threats have stopped since. I've said I'm going to contribute to rent and bills in the new place or I'll just find something of my own. Silence which I think is acceptance.

I'm using some of the freed up time to rot in bed on a Saturday, take more showers, sleep more and not be so stressed during my lunch breaks and shifts. Let's see how this carries on. I wanted to thank everyone for commenting on my thread. You guys are all so amazing and make me want to cry. None of you had to stop by and leave a comment and/or share advice but you did and for that I am so very grateful.

Yeah, this.

My first husband was like this. I worked a 40 hour week he worked 37.
So....I went on strike. No cooking no cleaning. Got my own food. Ate off paper plates.
He soon shifted his backside BUT I ended up leaving anyway

Looks like you’ve taken the wind out of his sails for now. Hopefully you will progress from professing nonchalance to feeling it and being ready to leave this horrible man.

Given his open hostility towards you - Is your DH or his friend in charge of your company accounts?

You need to employ someone else to handle this and check to see if things have been done against your interests.

Perhaps he was smirking because he'd just fucked something up for you.

You also need to get legal advice on your options to protect your interest in your company

How are things going op? 🙂

Hey thanks for checking in! I'm okay, how are you? How is your weekend going so far?

Things are in a bit of a limbo because he is abroad at the moment and I have the flat to myself for three weeks, it's very peaceful and quiet. He went to go get his mother who apparently is not well and might need help on her flight back in the UK (and spend three weeks on holiday while he's at it when he hasn't planned any holiday with me since 2022).

I've been using this as an opportunity to process what has been happening as I almost never can afford to do that day to day, it's too much and hinders me functionally. I've been attending therapy sessions more regularly since he's gone for a bit, crying some more... I attended a concert while he was gone on my own. It was unreal and an amazing experience but I cried when I came home because women next to me referred to me as 'poor girl' after the event was over because the seat next to me was empty and I had cried during the concert. It just reminded me that I am alone, once again. That I have attended events, gone on holidays, done important things all alone since I've been married. I felt sad for myself and also angry for allowing this to happen.

See I started this comment in a cheery mood and while I'm typing that's quickly evaporated. We vacate this flat in January. I don't know what the future holds for me. I'm a little bit afraid to find out if I'm honest. I don't have friends to move in with and the prospect of moving in with strangers is daunting. I'm trying to think about my weekly bone broths, I make a 24 hour broth once a week and freeze it and have that every single day twice a day in soups - that's mostly what I eat these days. I don't think anyone sharing a kitchen with me would be happy about that and I don't want to consume store bought broth. I'm thinking of everything that needs to move with me - most of the items in the house are mine. I'm thinking of costs that will incur. I'm thinking whether just cohabitating would be okay if we both pay our rent and bills separately within the same house. There is a certain level of depression that sets in whenever I'm alone and he's not in the house. It makes me cry every so often and just be in a bad mood and I don't know where it comes from.

I review everything and get a second opinion via a friend's accountant - it's a professional accountancy firm on both ends.

I'm so sorry that you feel alone like that.... but that says to me that it wouldn't be such a big change, you've already had to put up with being alone,all those times, but you still go out and do things that you enjoy. You didn't "allow" this to happen. He did.
But it shows that you are already used to doing things independently.
The difference would be that you would still be doing that but without out the stress and misery of living with someone who puts you down all the time.
It suggests that you would be absolutely fine without him, because in many ways, you already are.. and that is more lonely I think than being able to enjoy the peace, the quiet and the time to think. It's easier to make friends when you are more content.

Don't sweat the small stuff, like the bone broth. You will find a way. Change is always an upheaval, but you have an ideal chance to make your plans. Also to consult a solicitor about your options and about finances.
January is an ideal chance to go your separate ways. You could devote a day or two now to decluttering and getting quotes from a removal firm. And a storage company. Most of the items in the home are yours, so a removal firm that could come in, pack and put it in storage for a couple of weeks, in one go, would be ideal. Think about whether all the items are worth taking or if you'd prefer to have something new.
While you've got the place to yourself, call up some rental agents. Or Look for somewhere to stay... maybe even a 3-6 month AirBnb to give yourself a chance to move in or before January when the lease ends then look for something more permanent.
Actually I think you should plan to leave before the due date, to make a clean break. Before you get caught up in signing a new lease agreement with him.

I'm not an expert though and as they often say on MN.. its a good idea to call Women's Aid or Shelter and ask for individual advice about how to leave safely. If you got somewhere temporary you could even move out now whilst he's away. Once you've got your own space you can then have more peace to think about where you want to go forward.

I read recently on here about another person moving out... and they got their flat sorted out very quietly and gradually moved things out, and had a chance to buy either new or some items from second hand furniture shops. They left some things that would just remind them of the old house. They did things like filed in the divert mail form at the post office. Changed all their passwords.

Another thought re bone broth. Is there a decent restaurant/catering firm locally or a firm that makes those frozen foods for dinner parties that you could ask if they could make and supply you with bone broth for a few weeks, until you get sorted? I've sometimes seen things like that in organic butchers, which would probably be better quality than supermarket and you could maybe contact their suppliers directly. ( but i'm a veggie, so I could be wrong) There is bound to be a way to do solve the bone broth problem.
Wishing you all the best, whatever you decide to do x

Please don’t be tempted to stay in the house with him @nostability although I know it’s hard!