DH's feelings about how I should spend my day off

[zozzle]

Normally I do the weekly shopping on my day off (fri) while kids are at school. Got in at midnight from work last night so decided I felt too tired to go shopping today so have pottered round the house catching up with housework. Also I had an important phonecall just as I would have normally gone shopping. I will do the weekly shop tomorrow.

DH is now in bed. I think he is sulking that I didn't go shopping today, as I will now have to cut into family time at the weekend to go. The same thing happened 3 weeks ago and we had a row about it.

For a while he has tried to "have a say" in how I spend my time off - he thinks I am not "efficient" enough with my use of time. Yes, because I am bloody cream crackered (and not a natural domestic goddess)!

Is this just a man thing (ie. wanting to use time efficiently) or is he being a total prat?

I dunno

Zozzle, what does he do in the evenings when you're at work?

I only work 2-3 eves a week, the rest of my hours are in school hours.

He puts kids to bed mon-fri (bath, story etc), makes DS's sandwiches in the mornings and empties the dishwasher plus general DIY stuff, and does anything that needs doing on my car.

He's got a stressful job, but manages to be home at 6.15ish most nights.

i can't even begin to imagine DH DARING to question when i do chore x or y.

he's just grateful to have someone who knows what he'll like best for dinner without asking him.

and if the kitchen's not spotless enough for him, he cleans it himself ffs.

if your DH wants things done a certain way, he'll need to start doing it himself. OR, sitting down and talking in a calm measured way with you about what he would love to see in his home, and whether it's possible that you two, as a unit, can come up with something that looks a bit like that.

When he's put kids to bed, thats it, he's done his bit for the eve apparently.

tell him go fuck himself

I have told DP that I don't like being given 'jobs'. I work longer hours than him in general and at the moment he's not working, but regardless, if I'm WFH or day off, I don't appreciate being given a task list.

He on the others hand needs one and as long as it's negotiated rather than dictated he's fine.

Different strokes I suppose.

(Personally I'd love a rota of chores, but he doesn't like organisation of that sort at home, do I have to do without...)

Yep, as others have said tell him to fuck off. And look him straight in the eyes when you say it!

Me and DP have been together since 1984. We've had some really shit times, have seen DS through a life threatening illness and have split up a couple of times. But we are still together and stronger than ever.

But if he ever dared to pull such crap on me he would be told to fuck off very clearly and he knows it. Maybe the fact that he wouldn't dream of doing such a thing - and neither would I - is partly why we are still together?

As soon as a bloke starts thinking he is the boss in a relationship rather than an equal partner means it's sit down time for a very serious talk. And if that talk isn't had then the relationship will only ever go downhill.

The fact that he tries to micromanage your day off is not on. Do you micromanage HIS time off? No. I didn't think so.

If he wants an ordered house for the weekend, he should maybe call you on the way home from work "Did you manage to get the food shopping today, as if not, ill swing by the supermarket and pick up what we need to see us through to the weekend".

Good lord. I'm on maternity leave and I still call DH on the odd day on his way home from work to ask him to stop of at the supermarket en route to pick up something of his choice for dinner that evening.

Holy God!I've been married for 37 years and DH has never once suggested how to plan my days off.I wouldn't dream of trying to organise his leisure time either.We managed to work,bring up kids and do housework jointly without any of that nonsense.

STOP calling it a "day off". Youre doing work
Write down a list of everything youve done in the day, with a tick by each one, then stick this "retrospective to do list" on the fridge so he can see exactly how busy youve been working
Dont do any jobs which would normally fall to him, dont move his socks, do his laundry, send his family birthday cards for him etc etc. by having to do it himself he'll soon learn to realise how much time these "day off" tasks take

He's cross with you because in his mind you've had a "day off", which he would dearly love, and he thinks youre spending hours swanning around coffee shops and lunching with friends, and then spending the last hour rushing round doing a bit of housework. Proove thats not the case, and let him have a taste of what your "day off" is really about.

I would never ask DH to pick up something on his way home - he sees it as my job as there's a supermarket near to the kids school and I work less hours than him. Mmm...

We did try online shopping 3 weeks in a row - and DH branded it all as a failure - as each time I may have forgotten an item (I had never done it before and was just getting used to it all) so we went back to the supermarket shop.

Just tell him to Fuck Off

Yes, just tell him to fuck off FGS. He can't pick up something on his way home as it's your job? Dear God!

If he was my son - or partner - I'd kick his arse into kingdom come, metaphorically speaking of course. What a self entitled arse!

OP you deserve better than this. This really isn't normal.

I was in two minds about this until I read your latest post, OP. Bear in mind that my judgment is clouded by the fact that I live with 2 able-bodied, mentally healthy adults who simply will not do anything related to maintaining the household: won't clean, won't take the bins out, won't hoover, won't even routinely go through their food in the fridge and throw away the stuff that's literally rotting. Neither of them works; I work about 50 hours a week. So I am HUGELY oversensitive to injustices in the distribution of housework.

That being said, I do not get why your DH is so rigid about when the weekly shop is done. Is he like that generally? Does he apply similarly strict standards to himself? Was his knee-jerk negative reaction to the online shopping experiment typical? If so he sounds very tiring to live with.

How many hours per week does your H have of leisure time, ie time not spent doing either his paid job, domestic chores, or childcare? How many hours of leisure time do you have?
If the answers are not roughly the same, there is a problem.

goodness, dh phones from work most days to see if we need anything from the supermarket and if we do will buy it at lunchtime and bring it home afterwards!

I'm currently on mat leave and I teach so I get long periods at home. My dh never comes home from work expecting me to have done all the household stuff cos he is not an arse! He expects me to do fun stuff, see friends, do stuff with Ds etc. as I am not at work.

I forget stuff on the online shop all the time. So I bob into the supermarket and get it. Or dh does. Or we do without.

These things seem really small and petty. Why do you think your dh gets so het up about the weekly shop? He could do it himself couldn't he if he feels that strongly about it.

op, the only thing you need to go shopping for is a new man

I like grocery shopping. But I don't have much else happening .

I find that most of my friends' and family's husbands are jerks a lot of the time, just in different ways.

And I still believe those who say you can't change a man just are not trying hard enough.

Keep at him, fix him until it gets better. If it doesn't, slowly poison him.

I'm always reading on here about women who excuse their husbands' lack of contribution around the house by saying they do the DIY, mow the lawn and sort out the car. I fail to see how that can possibly equate with doing all the housework, laundry, shopping and cooking, things which need doing on a daily basis, week in, week out. Mowing the lawn is a fortnightly job during the summer months only, and how long does it take to check the tyres/oil on a car? And why is it a man's job anyway? I do both cars myself as DH has no idea.

Our set-up is pretty much like seona's in that dh does nearly all the food shopping and cooking - because he likes it and hates my cooking even though he denies it. He frequently comes in from a 12 hour day and gets straight in the kitchen to cook, even if I've been home that day. He's fairly crap at ironing so we send his shirts out to be done and I do the rest. He wouldn't recognise a can of Pledge if it came up and shook hands with him and really couldn't care less if I dusted or not. I've often suggested setting up online shopping but he says he likes pottering around the supermarket on a Saturday morning chatting to people

So I feel I can cut him some slack when, like yesterday, we were both working from home and mildly bickering about who was going to take the dog out. However, I feel he lost major ground on the "but I've got important work to do" front when he then mentioned he didn't have time anyway as he had a golf lesson booked at 12!

Are you (ahem) allowed out without him at weekends, or does he insist on all weekend, every weekend being family time?

Seriously, again read wife work I thought thatOH and I split the chores pretty much 50/50. Fuck was I wrong, and the book helped me articulate that.

OH did all DIY, heavy gardening etc, I did most of the housework, it seemed fair enough, except when you think about it, it's not. Pruning the trees, get the loppers out of the shed, chop, clear up, go to dump, repeat about 5-6 times a year.

Cook dinner, well first of all you have to have the bits bought to make the dinner, my job too, menu plan, up to me, the kitchen has to be sorted before I start, up to me, and that's before I even start cooking. Ingrained habit to wash up as I go alone, so even if anyone offers to wash up its usually only the plates glasses etc.
Repeat every bloody day.

See the difference?

Now if he's generally a nice person, maybe he's one of those that needs to experience something to get it. (though If he sees things as your 'job' mmmmm)

Couldn't agree more with Usual and Anyfucker - just tell him to fuck off.

Our house is tidy and clean most of the time because we all tidy up after ourselves and are all out of the house all day during the week . I do the cleaning on a Sat morning and he does the weekly shop - sometimes i might take the kids out for the day and hope expect that he would have done my cleaning as well as his shopping. He doesn't though - but i would never dream of telling him he should have done it - I am not his boss or his mother (this works both ways btw).

"he wishes he had time off in the week and how he'd do things differently to me."

Having someone tell you what you must do with your time is NOT "time off." It is another job, with another boss.