Boff, I meant to say thanks for your suggestions to avoid grim evenings.
I have begun only giving each DS a bath every second night, on alternate nights, IYSWIM, so that they are never in the bath together. I was trying to get things done while they fought and splashed water everywhere, and I was rushing back to the bathroom to separate them/mop up/shout like a fishwife, so I've given up that trick. Seems to be helping.
It was lovely of DS1, but the breakfast in bed thing wasn't much help, as the last thing I want at 6:45 is a bowl of oatflakes and plain yoghurt, TBH. I will retrain DS1 later when he is big enough to make tea...
The answer to your question is no, I don't think DH would pull his socks up if I do less. I have given up doing his laundry, and I am pretty damn sure he wore his swimming trunks to work for several days in a row last week due to an underwear management crisis.
He knows sth is very wrong, but doesn't seem to get it, really.
I can't bear another blardy conversation about how little he does, where he concedes that it is indeed so and says how wonderful I am and how we worships me, but nothing comes of it. The problem with the ultimatum thing is that however true it is, I don't know if I can say, "you don't do enough laundry/cooking/childcare/cleaning/shopping, so I am binning X years of life together and scarpering with the kids."
I am in a vicious circle where I feel that I can't get things with DH into perspective because I am so knackered; but until I sort things out with him there's little hope of being less knackered. Love the idea of Vezzie phoning him up out of the blue to give him a bollocking, though!
Not sure BA has any relevant advice, really, she lives on another planet from me, where one gets a little man in once a month to scrape pigeon droppings from one's shutters, and one's car is valet-cleaned once a week. (Did I mention I stalk her around MN?) And I don't think I could take her brand of brutal frankness with sufficient equanimity. But the idea of hanging out in Paree is nice. Have a conference there in May, sth to look forward to.
Sorry to bore everyone with this old chestnut again. Haven't spoken to friends about it as am liable to collapse in tears.