How to divide household chores if DH works away all week?

[KatyTheCleaningLady]

My husband had been working up in Scotland while I've been living in Greater Manchester with the kids since Christmas. Prior to that, we all lived up there and I was a SAHM while he worked. So, I was responsible for most of the housework.

Now, I'm working nearly full time, although he still earns the most money.

He's sometimes able to come down for weekends, and sometime in September (we hope) he'll be able to work from down here in Manchester two days a week and travel up there for three days. But, that means he'll go to work on Monday morning (before the school run) then leave the office for the train to Glasgow and stay Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights. Thursday, he'll catch a train that will get him home at about 10pm, and work a full day at the office on Friday (getting home about 7). So, he'll be home Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, but his only two days "off" and at home will be Saturday and Sunday. I am not happy with that because that still leaves me with all the weekly grunt work in regards to the kids and school, and I can't do the hobbies I wanted to do (knitting group and a beginners brass band). But, it has to be, so oh, well.

Here's my question, though:

When he's down here every weekend, is it OK for me to want him to do a fair chunk of chores? I was thinking that I should do some basic upkeep during the week (dishes, a load of laundry a day washed and dried but not necessarily put away) and do a quick tidy and hoover just before he comes home on Thursday so he doesn't arrive into chaos. But, after that, I sort of wish that he'd do the rest. Like, folding and putting away all the laundry, tidying the boys' bedroom, and generally keeping on top of things for the two days he's home. I will take the kids out on Saturday am for swimming lessons (time for him to put away laundry) but then I'd like it if he'd entertain the kids a bit while I go lie down in bed and have a rest or watch TV.

He is the sort of man who likes to come home, fill up on stodgy food, and then go into a coma in front of the TV. Generally, he will spend a Saturday watching the telly and being annoyed that the kids are quarrelling/asking for snacks/making a mess. I tend to try and escape. I can't relax at home so I will go out to the shops or for a walk or something and he'll sort of complain about me "disappearing again." I just CANNOT sit down in front of the TV. I have to keep getting up to fetch and tidy. The only way to get away from it is to leave the house.

I know my husband works very hard and "needs" to veg out on weekends. But, he lives in a spartan little room up there in Glasgow and unless he goes out with coworkers, he has very little demands on his time in the evenings. He also gets to sleep without interruption.

What do you think would be fair?

Does his GP know about his weight? If he is so fat he can't get up out of a chair to help with the kids that is one very big and serious problem.

How can you have let it get this bad? Do you not talk to him about the risks of his health and try to get him to do something about it?

He is not a 'nice' man. He is lazy, has no personal hygiene at home, ignores his 3 kids, doesn't lift a finger and thinks that by smacking his lips he'll have food brought to him.

How can you think this is 'nice'?

"How can you have let it get this bad? Do you not talk to him about the risks of his health and try to get him to do something about it?"

Are you serious?

What am I supposed to do about his weight? Of course I've talked to him. Obese people already have a very hard time doing anything about it, and that's if they're fully motivated. There's certainly nothing I can do about it.

I used to try and monitor what he ate. I'd put him on diets and measure his food and goad him to go exercise. At best, it was horrible to have to treat him like a child and shoulder the emotional burden of his food issues. I now no longer do anything about it (easy because I'm rarely around him.)

I did tell him that I couldn't have sex with him because of his weight (and also because of the now weird dynamic between us where I feel obligated and he feels like I'm withholding).

At this point, he's mostly a friend/sometimes roommate who pays most of the bills. We're not going to get a divorce, so I'm just trying to find a way to be as happy as possible in that situation.

Katy those are quite big issues - he won't care for your DC. Doesn't contribute to housework. Easily offended and you having to walk on eggshells.

Last one is the biggest problem IMO.

I would make a start by agreeing to a proper lie in at the weekend - taking it in turns. That means keeping DC completely quiet, supervising them properly, and ideally taking them out of the house.

Also, is there scope for you to be more relaxed about the frequency / thoroughness of chores, especially when you are on your own during the week?

Wow Katy, way to drip feed I feel bad for being flippant now, sorry! It sounds like you have several problems:

1. Your husband is lethargic, possibly due to health issues
2. He does not do enough around the house or with the kids
3. What he does do, is not to your satisfaction
4. He takes offense easily at perceived criticism

I think if it were me I would try to solve 1 , 2 and 4 first by:

1. Suggesting a healthy eating/fitness plan (maybe you can link to dcs development/healthy schools orsone other sneaky reason)... get the whole family planning and contributing to healthy meals. Get dh and dc cooking and tidying up. This can be rewarded with healthy family activities eg bike ride, swim, walk and picnic: track your progress by doing some kind of fitness test with the kids eg how fast can they run the length of the football pitch, how many veg can they get into one meal. Make it fun, make it about the kids, but it will (hopefully get dh more involved in food prep and feeling fitter/less lethargic)
2. Compile a list of all chores/tasks required to run the house, work out how long they take and show your DH, explain that you are tired, you need help and you want to teach the dc how to run the house. Decide who will do what (including tasks for dc and supervision where needed) and keep track of it. Have the rota/list somewhere visible and link it to rewards eg. I would really like to do xyz as a family this weekend but we will only have time if we complete abc as a family first

You can work on 3 slowly over time with little hints.

It's probably totally unfeminist but I find that rather than going in guns blazing and demanding he do 50% I find framing things in a positive wayworks better, as a family working together here are all key, and with any luck you'll get the dc pitching in no problem and he'll be shamed into helping.

If you hadnt insisted he was lovely though, id say he needs some straight talking/massive kick up the arse. Depends on your preferred approach and what he'll respond to.

I agree it's his responsibility but often in the home it's the whole family whose diets need improving, which is why the idea of having a healthy eating plan for all 5 of you is a good one.

Is he diabetic? Lethargy is one sign and if he is obese and has not been checked it's quite possible he is. How recently has he seen his GP?

Oh, I've told him to see his GP. He agrees. He doesn't go. I'm not making any appointments for him.

We don't really eat unhealthy food. Me and the kids are skinny as rails. Even he doesn't eat unhealthy things. He just eats a lot of food (pasta, potatoes), and then moves very little. I don't know what he eats when he's not home.

I'm really not in the frame of mind to take on responsibility for his eating. Trust me, I've done it all: prepared healthy things, monitored his diet, coaxed him to go running. At best, if I goad him constantly, he will whinge at me and maybe lose a few pounds and I end up hating him.

I know it's hard to believe, but he is a nice man. I definitely think he could and should do more as a father - he is way too passive and something has happened where he seems to be overwhelmed by the kids to the point of not being able to deal with them. But, he's a good person. He doesn't blame other people or say mean things or anything like that. He's just sort of passive and mopey and sometimes a bit whingey.

He does more than just goes to work. He handles bill payments and does my business book keeping. It's just that when he's home he sits in front of the TV and watches telly all day long.

Also, he and I are into very different things. We don't like the same tv shows or music or books and I kind of no longer really bother trying to talk to him about the things I'm interested in/thinking about/listening to.

What do you want then OP? You sound very unhappy and you talk a lot about what is wrong, but think about what you want, what would make you happier? And do you have any ideas of how to get it?

On a side note if he is very tired and overweight, does he have any other symptoms of underactive thyroid (depression-maybe, from your description- hair loss, cold hands/feets, weak nails), if so might be worth a test

Katy,

laughing my arse off at DH signalling he needs feeding by smacking his lips........

Wouldn't be the only smacking going on chez Things, if I tried this with DP.......

Apparently, I want to whinge about my husband!

I'm sorry about that.

I want him to be more involved with the kids and the household chores. I'd like him to do things like say "I'm going to go to the library and I'm taking [name one of the three] with me."

He can be fat and unwashed, really. I'm past caring about that. I just wish he'd stop watching the TV all day long with his belly hanging over the edge of the chair while I either run around picking shit up or flee the house to get away from the sight of it.

Things I did cure him of that very rapidly and he hasn't done it in a long time! It wasn't fair of me to even bring it up.

Do you think there is any chance of him changing?
I can't see how unless he has some kind of Eureka moment or a heart attack. If your marriage is dead - which it sounds- why are you still there?

Whinge if you want to. We all need to sometimes! But if it were me, and divorce were not an option I'd want to try to change things. Can you get some child free time to relax and talk about how you are feeling, would that work? What about the other options I suggested? Rotas? Lists? Whole family involvement? If you are going to spend the rest of your life with this man something has to change. And your dc need to be shown a healthy relationship - otherwise they may suffer the same dysfunctions in their adult life, with your sons dishing out this kind of behaviour and your daughters putting up with it.

I think he can improve in some things. Maybe he'll have a eureka moment regarding his weight. Maybe he won't. I have told him that he's headed towards serious mobility issues and incapacitation and he just looks really bummed out. He has to reach a certain level of wanting to change for himself and I don't think picking at him regarding his weight will help.

I do think he's depressed but he thinks it's just reality/the way he is and he's not going to do anything about it. My bringing it up is just more picking on him and making him feel bad.

I do think that a list of chores and positive reinforcement will work. It has worked in the past in some ways. I need to be more organized in what I do, and less controlling in what he does.

I'm still here because we have children and no real reason to divorce. And it would be financially very difficult for me to leave. As it is, I rely upon my inlaws for child care while I work. I couldn't ask them to do that if I left their son.

But, really, while some things are difficult, it's not unbearable.

You're not whiny, you're living with a man who holds women in contempt. He thinks that he is your superior and you are his servant.

DH works away all week, I work (not quite FT) and he does pretty much fuck all in terms of chores at the weekend. BUT - and this is the difference - he is very very hands on with the kids and is pretty much doing stuff with one or all of them all weekend. I get to sit on my arse most Saturday afternoons while they watch football, for example.

So although the fact I carry the domestic load does piss me off at times, and I'll have the odd hissy fit, he'll get his act together briefly and then go back to treating the house like the hotel he lives in most of the time, I mostly put up with it because he misses so much kid-time that he over-compensates at the weekends.

In your case though, a) you're working FT and b) he's not even doing the DC stuff. You do need to set some rules - it doesn't sound like he's being very fair. Have you actually had the "fair division of chores" conversation with him?

No real reason to divorce.

He doesn't even look after his own children. He doesn't wash clothes, he doesn't clean or even tidy. He doesn't even look after his own children.

And he lacks personal hygiene. I couldn't live with him. You are either very brave, or a total martyr.

I second getting him to go to the GP to get some tests done.

He might benefit from doing low carb as well.

He looks after them. If I leave them alone (like I'm going to next week when I go to a music festival) he looks after them. And, he sometimes makes an effort. This morning, he had the youngest making some craft things. He didn't supervise too terribly closely so I had to clean up some mess when I got back but he did recognize that the youngest was bored and needed some attention and something to do, so he took the initiative to do that.

And, he does wash his own clothes every week. He just doesn't shower or change when he's home from work. I did say something to him and he sort of laughed and said "You're right, sorry" and took a shower. I think he'd just be happy to sit around and ferment in dirty underwear if I didn't remind him.

But, yeah. He defaults to just sitting passively unless told otherwise. If I tell him to do things, he'll do them. I told him to go through the fridge and clean out "anything past date or mouldy." He cheerfully agreed to do it, but he had to ask my opinion on a lot of stuff. Perhaps out of fear of doing it wrong. He does do this sort of baffled thing where he asks me where something goes or where something is, though. Like someone else said in the thread: sometimes you wonder if they do a bad job in order to get out of doing it again.

I think a detailed list, and then just ignoring his "I'm such a failure" sad face when I tell him he did it wrong so please fix it, will eventually work.

I used to have this rule that he put the kids to bed and read them a story. I was utterly inflexible about this and he would say "But why?? Why do you refuse to do it even once in a while?" "Because by bedtime, I'm sick of their angelic little faces but, mostly, because if I do it once, you'll never do it, again. There will always be something on TV or you'll be snoozing and I'll be the big mean bitch who asks you to do it. So, you just have to always do it, period." I have to be sort of a hard ass about things.

Oh, yeah. We did the low carb thing. That was back in the days when I paid attention to what he ate. Seriously. I'm no longer willing to do anything regarding the diet. If he made an appointment, himself, or joined slimming world, I would be all "Baby, what do you need me to buy at the grocery store?" and I'd be happy to help him. But, no. I'm not putting him on any diets or doing anything regarding his health. Nope.

Get rid of the tv?

Buy an exercise bike and stick it in front of the tv? Maybe one of those where your pedaling powers the set?

I sort of suspect that he does better when I go away. Like, I went to America for a week a couple of years ago and I think he coped OK. I think he'll cope OK when I go away next week. Maybe because he's forced to or maybe because I'm not there to potentially criticize him for doing it wrong.

Things that would be brilliant!

Seriously, though... losing weight is very, very hard. Keeping it off is extremely hard and the few people who manage to do it have to be pretty much fanatical about calorie counting and exercising for the rest of their lives. I've always been very thin and I have no experience with the issue, personally. Everything I've read says that nagging doesn't help, and doing "helpful" little things like arranging exercise or heartfelt talks about health doesn't actually accomplish anything. Trust me, I've talked to him. He's nodded his head in agreement. That's literally the limit to what I can do. The rest is up to him.

I think if you want him to take more responsibility and do more you need to lighten up a bit on the 'doing it wrong' thing. This is really poor wording which would get most people's backs up. If he is 'doing it wrong' by for instance loading the dishwasher but not turning it on, or washing clothes but not hanging them out I would just word things a bit differently- not 'you are doing it wrong', but 'we should turn the dishwasher on now because we'll need clean plates for dinner'- more inclusive, less accusatory. If he is 'doing it wrong' by folding clothes the wrong way, get over it. If any of the 'doing it wrong' endangers dc, go nuts

I agree on the weight thing. You might guess from my pp I have underactive thyroid and it is a struggle but I am very much aware of it and keep it in check , I know it is not easy.