How do I stop overdoing everything and then resenting my partner?

[MiddleAgedMum45622]

Anyone else find themselves just doing too much and then resenting it? I'm a first time mum to a 2 year old, I work full time. I'm by far the higher earner, I work long hours (solicitor) and also have some long term health problems. I find myself carrying the "mental load", fine. I can handle most things. But I sort of find myself doing too much and then massively spiraling and resenting DH. Like, I'll make dinner, and also do the dishes, then notice some mouldy stuff in the fridge, then I remember I need to sort something out for DS, and since I'm doing that, I might as well reply to the nursery email about whatever. You get the gist. By the time I sit down, I'm a wreck.

I partly do this because I know that if I don't, I will likely suffer the consequences (upset DS, missed appointments etc).

But my mum was the same. Growing up was genuinely awful. All I remember from my childhood is ANGER. She was so fucking angry, the moment she stepped in the house, it was like a dark cloud setting over the home. She worked long hours, would get home at 8pm, and then start cleaning the bathroom, mopping, vacuuming, cooking, and she would just collapse from exhaustion. And she would invariably shout at me for something, you never knew what would set her off. She was honestly the definition of a martyr.

My DH is not nearly as useless as my dad but things are not 50/50. I'm not as bad as my mum and DH is a calming influence on me. Having a calm and patient mum for my DS is a priority but it's sort of ending up with me bottling everything up for the sake of peace but mentally, it's not great. And I do snap eventually.

Any advice? My upbringing really wasn't ideal, there was a lot of anger and bickering (my parents bicker 24/7 still and my friends and DH and ex boyfriends who have met them find them extremely difficult to be around, constant tension).

I did start therapy but it was not that helpful and it became just another massive task on my to do list. I have a lot of medical and physio appointments to juggle anyway (and will do for the rest of my life).

Any advice from more experienced mums? Sometimes the stuff I do is just minor stuff. Like, how do I let some things go?

I'm a woman and I'm terrible at housework 😅 I also have severe PMS! So if you married a woman like me I'd probably be more work than your DP 😂

Incidentally my husband is great at housework and cooking.

OP your thread has struck a chord with me because my mum was exactly the same as yours! I didn't want to be raging like her, so dealt with it by being opposite to her with housework

There will always be a long list of things to do in the house. I have this same problem. I have learnt that you have to consciously choose to ignore it, like men do all the fucking time. You have to say to yourself "DH will have to deal with it" and go take your kid to the park, take yourself shopping or for a coffee. Do something that you enjoy and take your child along. It doesn't have to be the park. When you get in the house, force yourself to just go straight for a shower, get into comfy clothes and sit down for FIVE minutes so you decompress. In other words, at the end of a work day, prioritise yourself...noone will die of starvation.

What does your husband say about his failure to share the domestic load? When the laundry experiment failed, what did he say about it? Did he care that he failed? So you think he ever took it seriously?

i think you have a real DH problem. If he doesn’t share your standards of housekeeping, that’s one thing and you probably do need to find some middle ground between pristine and midden. But if it’s because he doesn’t care that you are collapsing under the weight of Doing It All, if it’s your well being that he doesn’t care about then that’s a real problem.

So what does he say when you talk about this?

This 💯. There will always be replies saying "if you just communicate in X, Y and Z way, men will understand and change!" But realistically men are very different to us, typically don't do well with negative reinforcement, and don't truly understand something bothering us if it doesn't bother them too.

Better to ignore the man, even if that would be the most drastic improvement, and focus on life around them. The less energy you give trying to change them, the more energy you have for yourself.