I’m stuck!

[Tetheresend25]

Ladies/Gents- who work part time and are stay at home parents.
To a long story a bit shorter I work part-time (5am-7am) mon to fri and then stay home during the day to ease childcare costs till my son gets her free hours next year. Im also currently expecting our second child. We have a house together.
My boyfriend works full time and studies at uni 1 evening a week to be a teacher. He pays the bulk of the bills and I'm responsible for food shops and gas/electric.

Now I know it’s not uncommon but we have a reoccurring argument in our house over responsibility of job sharing. My partner believes he has no responsibility to help me other than to bath our son and put him to bed. My partner believes I don’t get any free time as I sacrificed all of that to have a child so its my ‘loss’. I spend probably 99% of my days cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, putting toys away. Cleaning the house down. Cleaning up the mess my partner leaves behind whenever he makes breakfast for himself usually a greasy egg pan and his plate and grease splattered stove top to wash up, plus whatever else he’s gotten out to make his dinner/breakfast etc. he rarely ever washes up after tea.

He refuses to help clean the bathroom, or help me clean the house and will only come running the stand and observe when I’ve finally had enough of asking and resort to doing it myself whilst doing god knows what else. My partner believes his spare time is for him and him alone, but when I do ask for help he’s never too busy to go our drinking with friends, going to the gym, going for haircuts, going out to gigs regular with his friends or football matches every other weekend with his family. Iv allowed the football as he pays for a season ticket never would I stop him doing it, nor would I say uni work and lesson planning is not priority those both are important.

But there is zero give and take on the rest and in his own words.

’ITS MY JOB TO DO THE HOUSE WORK NOT HIS. ITS NOT MY FAULT YOUR LIFES MISERABLE’

Please help :’( my mental health is suffering big time.

Well you ditch him, go it alone. Know that you are responsible for everything so don't resent anyone and don't have to tidy up after this misogynist man child.

Once you've done that you'll probably find your MH improves greatly.

Not sure what you expected? It sounds like he has not suddenly changed since you had your first child.

I would leave and never let a man treat me like this ever again.

You are being abused OP. Leave and show your DC that life doesn't have to be like this.

Thanks for that don’t really need reminding of the decision to have a second. That was as much his decision as it was mine.

The point of my post being is how do i approach this before resorting to leaving him. Im 32 yr old perfectly capable of being a single parent if needs be but I want to avoid that.

My point is he is not going to change. You need to leave. Only you know if you will be fine and happier without him. I know what I would do.

But his attitude isn't going to change. You can't change a man like that. This isn't someone who is a bit thoughtless and just needs a chat and change of perspective, this is a man who actively thinks that you are there to be his servant and no amount of talking or pleading will change that.

You can't change him OP. Your whole relationship, his mortals, the way he views you are deep rooted. He could hide his behaviour for short periods to lure you back in, but it will never stop.

I agree withbthe above, you kick his useless lazy backside out.

What possessed you to have a second child with this absolute arse?

To me it seems theres a small minority of men and women who think its ok to treat their working/SAH partners like their ready made slaves.

I’ve said before I feel totally unappreciated and used in this house, Its hard enough caring for a child without a grown man coming home taking his clothes off and slinging them all over the house, disappearing to do some work then only showing his face when he’s hungry or is going out somewhere!

I’ve lost so much love for myself and iv stopped caring how I look as im becoming so miserable living like I do!

Well to avoid that you need to fundamentally change him as a person, and I'm not sure that's doable. He doesn't seem to view the children as his responsibility and that's not really something you can live with.

I guess therapy? But it doesn't sound like he'll cooperate. You know he's treating you like shit OP, I think you need to start getting your ducks in a row.

So so disrespectful to you 😔
I think you tell him how unhappy you are, what you need to change and that otherwise you're gone. Leaving his breakfast stuff for you to tidy away is awful, that's how he'll show your child to behave.

This is stupid bit, id NEVER change anyone or expect them to.

But I’ve always told him the way he treats me one day will come back to bite him on the arse as he’ll get someone who will do this to him and he’ll wish suddenly that he treat me better or helped me out more.

This could be easily resolved if he actually took his blinkers off and helped! But he’s so spoiled and blind sided that he doesn’t think he has to do anything to help just because he provides.

As far as I’m concerned if you make the mess you tidy it up not expect someone else to do it for you. You did it, you sort it. People aren’t born to be a ready made slave.

I need a decent enough ultimatum as this really is the last straw for me now

But why give him an ultimatum? This s him. He might change for a short while but he'll be back to his old tricks soon enough.

You need to start reviewing your options, first how pregnant are you? It's decidedly easier to be a single parent to one than two but the time for that may have already passed. Have you got family you can move in with? If not you need to start looking at other work and somewhere to live, you'll qualify for UC and help with childcare once you've left him.

my parents would always have me back until Im sorted, there always that option.

I’m too far on for termination but I wouldn’t choose it as iv had one before due to the baby being extremely poorly and I was deeply traumatised by the whole experience so I’d never put myself through that again.

It hurts the most as he can be such a kind and caring person when he steps back. He really is a nice person and was when we got together and moved. We’ve been through some rough patches together with some really abusive neighbours we had and we worked together to get out of that house before. The team works just disappeared and this selfish side of him came out of nowhere and he seems to think he can use his controlling ex as an excuse.

But it’s becoming a problem now and he’s making it really hard to live with him. I don’t want our children growing up seeing their mum crying as she feel’s unappreciated and upset as shes forever chasing their dad around whilst caring for them. My son will grow up and mirror him.

To me there is nothing more unattractive in a person than a partner who fails to acknowledge that their partner is asking for help and blatantly ignores and lets the problem get beyond repairing!

Great you have somewhere to go. You will have a new baby soon and you will become even more isolated and entrenched in him wearing you down further. You still have the strength to recognize how unhappy he is making you. Move back with your parents. I bet they will tidy up after themselves and not expect you to be their personal slave. Give yourself time to reflect.

My mum and dad have told me to come over tonight to get away from him.
It hurts as he’s not always been this way. But he shows no interest in altering his attitude and then he wonders why I hit my breaking points after iv asked 100000 times and I get so angry and loose my sh*t with him.

my parents are great, my dads amazing. Literally the best dad a daughter or son could ever ask for. He respects my mum so much and he cares to help, he’d give me his last £1 too his name if it meant i had enough to feed me and my son

@Tetheresend25 your parents sound amazing and I think a couple of nights away from him now will help you a great deal.

You are brave to admit your feelings to yourself let alone your family given you are pregnant but start putting yourself first and your children will benefit too.

He has treated you badly and he thinks because he works you should be his slave. This is masking his deep down disregard for you as a person and the mother of his children.

Don't waste any more of your precious life on him.

Sorry, I know that's not the answer you're wanting to hear. But that is the quickest route to get you unstuck, that will make you less miserable. I don't know that there is a way to do that within this relationship. He doesn't care about you in the way that he wants you to care about him. He expects you to facilitate him having as much spare time as he wants but he doesn't think enough of you to return the favour.

I don't doubt that he can be a kind and considerate person, but he also has a fundamental belief that your role in the relationship is to serve him/be beneath him. And he may well be kind within that context - like a dog owner might buy the food their dog likes, make time to take them on extra-long walks at the weekend, leave the TV on so they won't feel lonely at home, give them blankets so they won't be cold while the heating is off during the day. Those are nice dog-owner things to do. But a dog owner still wouldn't feed the dog at the kitchen table, and would think nothing of booking them into kennels when they go on holiday - because it's a dog. I don't mean to imply that he thinks of you with such lesser status as an animal, but as an illustration of the fact that being kind and considerate, and having a fundamental belief that you are less than he is are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Literally the only way out of the arguments would be to fully accept your role as his skivvy. But that will be an extremely lonely, miserable experience especially after the kids grow up and you get space to breathe again.

Im hurt the most as he’s not always been like this but often the reference he makes is ‘my ex was like this, i wont live another relationship under my girlfriend’s control!’

I sit and I think, pardon? excuse me? I don’t control you, I don’t stop you going out doing things, I didn’t stop you pursuing a career I supported it and gave up parts of my life to help accommodate to you studying. I may have agreed to support you and our son, but I didn’t agree to become a house wife that still gets up 4.30am goes to her own job as a cleaner then comes home and starts the same job all over again.

I'm punished constantly for his ex’s actions, iv told him before perhaps he should have thought about that before he got with me and decided to make a life. I’ve never stopped him and I’ve always acknowledged his ex was a POS who controlled his life and she did, I saw how she was for myself as she wanted to be his friend and tried to take control when we got together and it took a lot of convincing from me to make him get shot of her from his life for good as I could see how manipulative she was!

I most definitely have my flaws, I can become really hot headed and I’ll shout before I think.

But with him I’m usually pushed to my limits already before I loose it. The worst time he causes the argument is when we’re eating as I’ll just give up; put my plate down, walk off and Ill bin my food and refuse to eat as I just get so annoyed with his attitude towards me and other things.
It’s like dealing with a hormonal, stroppy, moody teenage boy thats stuck inside of a grown mans body

@Tetheresend25 This is not the place if you want support on how to better your relationship. All you'll get on here is, "My husband would never do that", "Leave him", "You chose him so what do you expect." My advice would be to have a conversation with your partner, set out some kind of rota where you both get free time. I don't know your partner or you but I can see you'd rather make it work than throw in the towel so quick. Do start to organise and think about option two, doing it alone and how to navigate that. You are pregnant so please remember to look after yourself too.

This 100% I agree with.

I think this is about the lack of love and respect. Life is hard, but it's harder when the one you love doesn't support you when you need it.

What he sees as control, should be a partnership. Life changes when you have children, he clearly wasn't prepared or mature enough for that. He's being selfish and immature. Children or no children, part time work or no work, he should still be capable of cleaning up after himself. Sadly I don't think he will ever understand your point of view.

I like your response. I don’t personally want to leave in an instant as we are generally a good couple otherwise. But when it comes to the share of jobs in the house and responsibilities he doesn’t want to do it. I try to be rational in my decisions around him and I try to decide whats best overall for us all. But its hard when one person’s been too used to having his mum wiping his backside all his life, doing everything at the click of his fingers.

OR he goes straight to using money and financial support as blackmail which I absolutely HATE. Very quick to forget I pretty much supported us both financially for a long time when I was originally the higher earner out of us both but I never used that against him. I hate money being used as a weapon.