I think I've married the wrong man

[Spiderwithoneeye]

We constantly argue about who does what. He was brought up in a house where his sahm did EVERYTHING. Now he expects the same, except I work 5 1/2 day week, do meal planning, shopping , all laundry and cooking. Daft things like making sure dd and DS have the right uniform/ clothes/ packed lunch/ swimming kit/ non-uniform money etc etc..I feel like I'm responsible for remembering everything- it's too much.

Thanks again for that. Iwaswatchingthat, your DP sounds just like DH. It's all the planing in my head that is unaccountable. After yet another bicker this lunchtime when I was yet again accused if whinging, he's volunteered to do all the cooking this week. No idea how that's going to go as most of the raw materials are still frozen! Am going to do as many of you have advised and make a list and start from there..

'Whingeing' eh? O rly?

He still hasn't got it. Doing the cooking all week is not the point, partly because he will be expecting applause for it, and partly because he still has not grasped how much you do & thinks that doing a random bit will make a difference.

How did he take the cleaner idea?

Yes, it's a vicious circle- he says if I need him to help I should ask but when I ask the first time he doesn't do it so I ask again and get accused of nagging/whinging. He obviously has many redeeming features (when I can recall them) but is such a Neanderthal at times.

As far as a cleaner goes, I told him a year or so ago that until he's happy to do half the housework we needed a cleaner so someone comes every 2 wks for a couple of hrs to Hoover and dust so at least that's done, all we can afford. Still all the laundry, ironing, shopping, cooking to do on one day off a week though. As I say, it's carrying sole responsibility for remembering everything for everyone and where everything is etc that I find so tough! He looks after himself and I take the rest!

Now really am whinging! Will shut up now!

No, whinge away OP. Mine doesnt understand the sheer time involved in any amount of planning and organising for the DCs. He hates it when I call him lazy but he is! He responds better if I say something like "we are both being self indulgent". Drives me mad.

Stop running the house and it will force him to do it.

Let him cook all week and let him eat his dinners. It may be a disaster but if you step in to save the dinner, you will reinforce the idea that he shouldn't do the cooking.

As for remembering everything, there are simple ways to relieve the stress of trying to remember everything: get a family calendar, deal with things as they come, keep paper and pen in the kitchen in the same place all the time, so you can write things you need to buy straight away, di the shopping only once a week max and always on the same day. My ex Mil was a genious of routine, she even had a seasonal menu for each day of the week so her shopping was always the same and she didn't have to worry about not having the right ingredients.

There is no need for you to do his ironing at all, the only one that would have problem/get embarrased is himself. So let him do it.

One thing that I found fascinating about splitting with my exh, was to realise how less stressed I was at the end of the day. Mind you he always did the bed time drill with DS and was a wonderful cook, it was the nagging him to do it that was tiring me out. So, if at some point you reach the point of no return and want to leave, rest assured that having a man in your life will always bring more work to do than it takes away, no matter how helpful they are (having said that, their lives are not exactly simplified by having a spouse either)

You are not whingeing!

First of all - the principle of your asking him 'if' you need help around the house - is a no go. It's predicated on an idea that you might not, furthermore he is not your 'help' he is 50% responsible. Running a house is exactly the same as running a business: you need to mark out half the chores each, so you both know what you are responsible for, & you don't have to ask the other one to do it. A system predicated on you asking, him not doing, then accusing you of nagging can only fail, as it would in the workplace.

Telling him that 'until he's happy to do half the housework' you will get a cleaner gives the wrong message. He needs to be happy to do half the housework whether you have a cleaner or not. If you want to get a cleaner to help both of you, that's a separate issue. Can you really not afford a cleaner for 2 hours a week on the minimum wage given that you both work? Once every 2 weeks is not enough.

I totally that it's 'carrying the sole responsibility for remembering everything for everyone' that is draining. It's not on.

I agree let him cook however disastrous it is. Don't tell him all the ingredients are frozen, let him figure it all out himself. It's only that way that he will understand some of what is involved.

He might try and pull the 'poor helpless man act' which involves doing something so badly that you never get asked to do it again.

Yeah. I think you married the wrong man.

I have the being in charge of all the organising thing. Am going back to work so dh is going to have a shock!

Many years ago I realised that the arguing wasn't worth it and took control, just got on with everything and particularly with regard to the children, mentally switched it for myself. I decided that it was his loss not spending time with the children and thoroughly enjoyed getting up early and going out with them. BUT I am SAHM, it's massively different for you.

All I can suggest is that you both decide who does what. Put it down on paper and tick boxes. He does it or you do it. When you share tasks it gets complicated and could end up in an argument so make sure that he takes responsibility for half the chores, you, the other half. Base it on the time it takes to do the job. Always add 5 minutes faffing time to each task.

If it's any consolation I don't think you will find one single woman on the whole of Mumsnet who would think your situation is acceptable.

Oh, the other thing you can do is the Saturday morning rule. Nobody sits down or goes out until the house is sorted.

If you both work full time then chores need to be divided with you doing half each. The best thing is I think for some kind of flexible arrangement but not one where you have to constantly saying day in day outt well this needs to be done and that needs to be done.

Tell him he'll be responsible for cooking tea on these nights and getting the DC's ready for bed on these nights. And washing up or loading dishwasher on these nights. And see how that goes. If he won't do it well then you have problems. And get a cleaner if you can afford one.

Yes, my XHs response to me asking for help was 'get a cleaner'. To me, that showed how little idea he had of everything that needed done with dcs. A cleaner cleans, she (he? ever?) does not do anything else.

I have just spent the weekend catching up on cleaning (no cleaner), and the difference is that I did so on my own with no-one sitting reading the paper, demanding my company, complaining the hoovering was not done right, telling me it was demeaning for me to be on my hands and knees, he didn't like it, etc etc etc. And no-one thinking because they have helped with one thing, they are entitled to sexual favours.

I tried lists, I tried talking, I tried shouting, crying, tried saying I could not cope, was also fulltime, tried accepting it, tried saying I wanted to separate, tried everything. Gave up.

Oh yes, he cooked on the weekends, always took two plus hours, used every pot, drank wine as he went along, whilst I bathed tired and fractious children etc.

I so do not miss it.

I think if you are asking if you have married the wrong man, chances are you have .

Really appalled for you tbh. You're doing 2 people's work if you're running a household as a single parent while working fulltime - more, because a single parent in your shoes wouldn't be dealing with your H's domestic workload as well.

Think you need a spreadsheet of all you do in a month - add every single domestic task, however minor, every evening before bed, including how long each took and bold it if there was an emotional energy/responsibility/memory aspect - then add all the time you've spent on it up in total. Then add your working/commuting hours to it, and sleeping hours, and then work out how much leisure you have left, as opposed to how much he does.

One weekend evening after the kids are in bed, sit him down and go over it. It's easy to whine that you're nagging when he hasn't got the evidence of what his laziness is actually costing you in black and white in front of him. If he's a fundamentally decent guy and you're calm and matter of fact and just "these are the facts on our respective time to relax" he doesn't really have a leg to stand on, does he? If he tries to complain you're whining you can say, again calmly, "I'm not whining, I'm establishing facts so we can have an adult conversation." If he still calls it whining, I think the answer at the start of your thread is answered. If he starts to look at what you can do to share the load more equally then that's an answer, too.

My Dh came home from the pub and relayed what had happened that evening. A couple of strangers(to him) joined the regulars in a pub wide conversation .No women were present in the pub. The conversation turned to domestic duties and the 2 strangers were loud in their description of how to avoid doing any kind of 'womens' work.This involved mainly doing such a crap job - burning food/clothes,breaking things,'forgetting' essentials items including children at school . Etc etc etc. Repeat until ordered to stop. Everyone present seemed to be in agreement with these statements.

Of course DH, poor fool,hasnt realised that I now know what he's up to when he presents me with burned food etc. I will simply send him back to redo it .He has to learn after all

Do they really do that inneed ? That's terrifying. A pub load of men egging each other on to be useless bastards?

"Think you need a spreadsheet of all you do in a month - add every single domestic task, however minor, every evening before bed, including how long each took"

Of all both of you do, there is more to running a family than the housework and sorting the kids out, and that will seem fairer rather than a one way whine.

The aim is to have equal amounts of free time.

Yeah, good point. Apart from the (valid) fairness aspect you leave a mile-wide loophole for, "I walk the dog and take the bins out!" if you haven't added those tasks and any others, and then calculated time spent.

I do think cold hard facts will be more effective than bickering, if anything's going to be. If it isn't, as I say you have your answer. But it could honestly be that he's drifted into this because it's familiar, and sees the bickering as an irritant but normal aspect of married life, without ever grasping the full picture.

Unfortunately it seems so passedgo.

If DH hadnt relayed it to me without prompting I would have thought it an apocryphal story. Perhaps it was the absence of women in this case but maybe we will never know if ,where there are 2 or men gathered together they will conspire to get out of domestic chores by whatever means necessary.

It sounds like something out of the 1920s - those public information films.

A smoky black-and-white pub, over pale ale... "Listen 'ere sonny, don't let 'er get the better o' you and think you're a lily-livered pussy-footing girl, 'ere's a few 'andy 'ints to keep 'er in check"