Husband says I don’t do enough

[Katontour]

My husband has recently refused to walk the dog meaning I do it every night. Last night it came to a huge ugly head and resulted in a nasty row in front of our 5yo. He basically said he does everything around the house and I do nothing. I work full time long hours and he works from home so naturally is around more to put washing on etc. He said I need to have 1 thing that I do (ignoring the fact I deal with all cooking, keeping kitchen tidy, keeping our child off the iPad and actually playing with him). He seems to have a very different view of things to me and complained I go to the gym all the time (he regularly nips to the pub in the evening). He feels he is constantly tidying up when in reality I often get home and spend the evening wiping and tidying (we have a cleaner too so no major work needed). He said I should walk the dog every night as he washes the car and does the garden at weekends. Our marriage has been up and down for a few years and he actually packed his bags after our row (didn’t leave). He’s stubborn and un-empathetic and cannot be told even when he is wrong. How can we work through our different views of who does what? He feels strongly about it and has made me feel like a sh@t mother.

Your marriage sounds like it's over OP. Threatening to leave but then not leave of his way of emotionally manipulating you. Why does he get to do the things he wants?

Do you want your child growing up in that environment?

@Katontour My ex-wife used to give me the same kind of grief. It's normally the lazy partner who accuses the other of being lazy, because the lazy partner is the one who is incapable of accepting the workload and just getting on with it.

Funny that, because it's her who now lives in a filthy house and sends the children to me dirty 😂

Yikes. Your marriage is in a bad place. He is frustrated with things and maybe you need to acknowledge that is how he feels. Calling him stubborn and unwilling to accept he is wrong won’t move things forward. Basically it sounds like you aren’t willing to doing anything wrong either and might be equally stubborn.

Maybe try to have a conversation where neither of you are able to start with a “you” allegation or blame statements. Listen to statements accept them and don’t rebut or debate them.

Even if you don’t stay together you will have at least understand each other and maybe build a foundation to Co parent.

Sit down and go through everything you both do and see if it's fair in black and wHite.
You both need some fun as well. It does seem like he's miserable. Does he really want to leave or would he rather things got better?

He wants things to get better as do I. I think we need to sit and write things down. It isn’t helped by the fact he is drinking a fair amount most days - he’s been in the pub all afternoon yesterday, I’d been at home with ds and cooked dinner and still got told I don’t have a specific job in the marriage.

It's like I said, it's always the lazier spouse who accuses the other of being lazy.

Let me elaborate using my marriage as an example. When we met she was doing some stress free minimum wage job and I was starting a career and studying for professional qualifications. We split housework 50/50 although I was expected to do most of the cooking on top of that. So she got used to being "looked after" doing nothing particularly hard all day and then having someone to do half the housework including all the dirty jobs at home. Then children came along, I had to work more to pay for it and the amount of work at home increased a lot. She had to step up and o her fair share of the work and boy did she resent it.

See, the real issue isn't that you are lazy. It's that your spouse doesn't have you to look after them anymore and they're upset that they have to grow up and share the load.

Why do people on MN always jump to “oh your marriage is over”

Marriages are up and down and require work! OP sit down with your husband and communicate with each other! My therapist has told me the reason so many marriages end in divorce is our reluctance to communicate with our partners.

Okay I get some are down to falling out of love, affairs and what not. But just talk to each other and get an understanding of where you are both at.

Tell him your specific job is to be the sober parent because he spends so much time in the pub.
He won't like it but it's true .

Wtf. He really needs things spelled out to him. How deluded of him.

It isn’t helped by the fact he is drinking a fair amount most days
I don't think I would give too much credence to his complaints about who does what in the house whilst you have this problem clouding everything. He was drunk and wanted a row.

He sounds like a nasty piece of work. He needs to cut back on being in the pub every day. Maybe go to the gym instead if he needs to get out. If He doesn't recognise childcare and cooking for the family as a job perhaps he'd like to do it all instead? You do the car walking and DIY

Probably experiencing alcohol induced paranoia dementia - 👍🏿☘️

I had one like this. Both worked full time, I had a long commute and he didn't. I did all the cooking, cleaning, DIY, home admin and all childcare including support with school work. He put his own laundry away and took the dishes to the kitchen after dinner (but did not wash them).

Apparently things like doing homework with the kids and doing the grocery shop didn't count as housework because they were 'spending time with the children' and 'outings' respectively.

Let's just say it didn't get better.

Yeah, this is not unusual. As reasonable spouses we don't keep score on the other. We just get on with it. So when they start complaining that we don't do anything, which a lazy spouse who is used to being looked after is quite likely to do, we're not ready with a comeback to that line of argument. I never used to keep a list in my head of everything I'd done that day in the way my ex-wife did so I wasn't prepared.

However, once you do start preparing yourself for the next assault, you will lose again. Because no matter how long your list is, there will always be a reason why it's not as long or as hard as theirs.

Often, the problem is that the lazier spouse has never had a "proper" job. I mean the sort of job which is almost non-stop for 8-9 hours, where people are constantly on your case to have things to them. So for example my ex-wife's idea of "hard work" was to wash some dishes for twenty minutes, then have a cup of tea in front of the telly, then do some vacuuming for another 20 minutes, maybe chuck some laundry in the machine, have an hour's lunch break, hang out some laundry for 15 minutes and then read a magazine until it was time to get the children from school and make their tea (normally a sandwich involving prep, clearing up and supervising of 30 mins duration) before sitting all stressed out with a glass of wine and I came home to sort the laundry, cook our dinner, put children to bed etc. But she'd done the dishes, the vacuuming, the laundry, the school run, tea for the children... what had I done all day at work? 😂

I think a lot of people realised how little such spouses did during the pandemic. If I'd spent that long sat on the sofa watching TV instead of being able to work remotely I would have gotten so bored!

@BetterFuture1985 we both had full on jobs. And no, I didn't make the list until he started complaining at me. When I did make the list it was a shocker - I was doing 80% of everything on top of my full on jobs. In his case it was learned behaviour - his parents did housework 50/50 until the kids came along. At that point his mother became a SAHM - that was how it went back then. The difference was that I wasn't a SAHM!

It's like I said, it's always the lazier spouse who accuses the other of being lazy.

Not me man, I know I do a lot less, my standards are miles lower, DH does way more around the house & for the kids. I do end up doing stuff that he overlooks, tbf, and I think I'm more rational. Like he will moan (about house losing heat) if the bathroom window is open 2 inches for 15 minutes after someone had a shower, and then he leaves our front door wide open when he goes out for a minute to grab something in garden.

Yes, there's also not really a single, definable "SAHM." They could be like my own mother and do absolutely everything. Or they could be like my ex-wife and do very little but also not go to work.

My MIL was somewhere in the middle - she expected FIL to muck in on weekends (he did) and expected the kids (all boys) to do their bit as they got older. My husband forgot about that bit (how convenient) because he said he was 'traditional'. We worked the same hours and earned the same - there was no excuse.

Then he became an alcoholic and it all exploded, but I'm so much better off single.

To me it sounds like you both need to spend some time reassessing your situation and making changes to the way you do things. There appears to be resentment on both sides.
It looks like you both do things you don't like doing or don't want to do (all the time). You can swap jobs you both dislike doing (like walking the dog). One solution would be, mornings he can take the dog and evenings you can do that.
You can probably do laundry on certain days and let him take over the cooking job on other days.
If you both really want to make it work, you can. When your children get older you are going to argue about the same things with them. You may not have the option of quitting then, and you will try and work it out by setting an example (or whatever parents need to do to sort out the situation).
It is possible your husband just needs a break (so do you) - work on that, give each other space, plan some "me" time once a week at least.
WFH is not great for mental health. He probably feels stuck and wants to socialize (and therefore the pub). You can work out a plan where he goes to the pub on certain days (if it is planned it won't disrupt your lives and may actually be something you both look forward to).
After all this trying, if you still feel you are done and don't want to try anymore, that is okay too. But at least you know you have done everything you can to make it work.
Wishing you happiness and peace at home.

My ex was fond of telling me I was lazy because he was truly hideous. We were hosting some kind of party one day and he actually had to lower himself to going into our kitchen. We'd lived there 18 months at this point and he had to ask me where we kept the tea towels. Fast forward to my new life with my lovely partner who really tries bless him despite doing a proper grafting job outdoors. It's so lovely being with a partner that supports you.

DH and I sat down and listed our all the tasks we could think of. Then divided them into daily, weekly, monthly. Then we assessed who was doing what and who would be responsible going forward.

In my case there was no malice on either side. He genuinely thought he was doing 50-50 because mowing the lawn was one task and laundry was another, forgetting the lawn is once a week and laundry 5x a week. Etc etc.

Now he actually does 50/50. I do all the big chores one weekend and he does them the next. The little chores are divided fairly.

I could have written this three years ago.

Divorced now.

He sounds like a piece of shit OP. You'll be happier without him and his shitty gaslighting