my dh resents me for not working

[thestarryskiesabove]

we have 2 Dc's, 4 & 5, both in full time education, it was always agreed that one of us would stay at home and look after the kids until they were older, whilst the other worked - I am now looking to get a job but have so far been unsuccessful. The fall out is that dh is being really resentful towards me and pretty much treats me like a home help/employee, ie with disdain and contempt. I get that my role is perceived as the easier one, but in reality our hours are pretty much similar in that I am a house wife 7 days a week, I do everything to do with the house and kids from sunrise to sun down - whereas he does a 40 hour week mon to fri. How do i deal with his deep, brooding resentment?, obviously apart from getting a job - thats for the future, i am talking about right now.

"after that I think it is fine to swan about for a while, upgrading the curtains and feeding the doves in the dove cote (Minifingers' life basically)."

Are you saying that because I shop most days and cook breakfast and an evening meal most days my life involves little more than finding creative ways to waste time?

Seriously - fuck off.

I work as well as have time at home when the children aren't here. I can tell you - my work is easier. Time goes faster and it's less physically exhausting. I get to sit down. People value what I do. :-(

I knew this would end up a SAHM bashing thread.

It is as if I hadn't posted. Why are people so reluctant to look at things systemically?

Is it

a - people enjoy attacking each other so much they can't take their eyes off that fun stuff for a second to look at the bigger picture;

or

b - people are so reluctant to look at the big picture that they are grudgingly forced to attack each other as a distraction that will prevent them having to do that?

It is astonishing.

Sneezecake, btw, I think your advice is terrible. Advising the OP to do more of the stuff that her H has no respect for is going to make him more contemptuous of her, not less. I think that would be ok if he already appreciated her, but he doesn't. It would just be rewarding him for being a dick and encouraging him to be more of a dick

Velvet Gecko, your post is utterly grim. You are like someone grimly insisting that it is possible to live in a coal mine, and so everyone should

I think Sneezecake is taking the piss

Think it is both *bonesarecoralmade'

Why do women so enjoy attacking each others choices. I've been a wohm and a sahm. Both were bloody hard for different reasons. But everyone attacks and takes offence and attacks.
Some arse suggested sahms were dull so their dhs were bound to cheat on them.

Most of the women I know in real life are bloody amazing. Only on here...

just for the record

I have never claimed that being a SAHM to 2 young DC's both at school is hard work - I'm having the best time ever! can't remember having this much free time to myself since I was doing my A'levels!

My dh works harder than me - but over all, over the whole week, our hours probably even out is all i am saying - because I am such an amazing wife, he has very little to do when he is not working.......his weekends are free to watch footie and play zombies on the ipad.

Believe me as a full time working single parent, I rarely had time to make stuffed bunnies after school - oops i mentioned it again!

Minifingers, why do you do all that stuff then if you prefer work? Your post outlining your day includes a lot of unnecessary stuff. It looks like fun to me, but if you don't like walking the dog, walking to the shops, fingering the celeriac and looking forward to the new season asparagus, walking home, chopping and marinading, doing the garden..... why do it?

You said up thread that your lifestyle gives you and your H time. Well not really, not if all this awful stuff is time you resent and goes slowly and you would rather be doing work.

Why don't you step up the work and sack off some of the stuff you don't like?

Make up your mind - is this a "quality of life" thing you are prepared to stand by - yes your life has quality - or are you some sort of weird martyr who is enduring horrible leisure for undisclosed reasons?

Is it your H likes the big house, the garden, the dog, the hour-cooked-reasons, and you have to do it? If so, don't you think you should be having a word?

I don't mind if you love it, by the way, Minifingers. Enjoy away. I would. But either you like it, and choose to live half on holiday, which is fine, as I keep saying; or you don't, in which case you can change it, because you aren't actually doing real necessary work that actually has to be done, and you do actually have some paid work that presumably you could step up if you needed justification for stopping swanning about pretending to be a milk maid like Marie Antoinette

I think we need to see a picture of this bunny!

"if SAHM mums were just honest and admit the spare time they have~"

Would you like me to do a breakdown of my schedule for a week, and you could criticise me and tell me how I could be more efficient?

If it's of interest, today I have:

Dropped dc's at school
Cleared rubbish out of the front garden and been to the tip
Taken the car to be MOT'd and walked back from the garage
Gone through a pile of old bills and shredded them
Sorted out the recycling
Answered an email to my dd's teacher
Made a doctor's appointment for my son
Cooked and eaten breakfast (while mumsnetting just now)

And it's 11.20 am.

I'll walk the dog in a minute. Be back by about 12.45.

I'll put stuff up in the loft and bring down some stuff to get rid of. That'll take me until just past 1.10. Then I'll clean the bathroom - it'll take 20 minutes because there's mould on the window that needs careful taking off, and the tiles are grubby and need wiping down.

at 1.30 I'll stop for 20 minutes for a sandwich. At 1.50 I'll make dinner for DH. Then I'll sew some tape in and hang some curtains in the front room. That'll take until 3. 3 - 6 we have sports and music classes which I sit in on. 6 - 8 - feed kids, supervise music practice, baths, bedtime. I'll sit down at about 9pm.

That's a normal day. I'm doing all the stuff you and your partners would do in the evening and at weekends. Which means my partner can come back at 7pm and do nothing at all except talk to the kids and watch tv. And we can go out over the weekend/or he can catch up with some DIY (carpentry) that I struggle to do, or go and see either one of our elderly parents.

Just because your lives are packed to the gills/you contract out childcare/cleaning/buy a lot of ready meals/easy to cook foods, it doesn't mean that someone who's not doing this is lazy. I do everything during the day so that our weekends and evenings are free. Partly because I work a lot of weekends and evenings, and I don't want DH to have to do stuff then. I also do a lot of housework because our house is big, our kids are messy, DH is messy, we have a shedding, filthy dog, and we don't have enough storage/have way, way too much stuff.

Anyway, this won't buy the baby a new bonnet, and I've got a lot to do today (!) so I'm going to stop hijacking this thread.

Sorry OP!

Thestarryskiesabove, when your DH and you discussed you being a SAHM until the DC were older did you agree an age of the DC?

I meant hour-cooked-dinners obviously.

I actually don't think we should be ashamed of not working every hour god sends. I hated my mum working so hard when I was a child, she made me feel guilty for needing anything. I don't think work has some higher moral quality than dossing about being nice to people, most work is just trashing the planet and making someone else rich who doesn't need to be any richer. Most of us are working insanely hard because we don't really have a material choice and that is what I am interested in - not who works harder than whom, amongst us.

I would love it if my family could live in our house on 40 hours WOH and if so I would love to do half of that and dp the other. Then I could spend lots of time doing cool stuff, most of it right now with dd2;, later, when they are both at school, more other stuff - although as people are keen to point out, the school day is short so it's not like the dcs suddenly disappear when they are at school.

bunny is still lost, I keep meaning to go upstairs and find it, but I am compelled to sit here and post on mumsnet, god I am lazy and self-indulgent.......

creamy, no we did not have a specific age of the DC's, just a general idea....

bones: it is clear the inequalities in wealth are increasing. Property costs are spiralling and squeezing incomes and lots of people are back to being hamsters in wheels to keep a roof. Perhaps we need a modern Engels to put it all in perspective.

Pagwatch, I've noticed a few blokes in the generation younger than me getting quite shrill about their partners being SAHMs with pre-school kids. Expectations are changing.

HappyGirl

I know plenty of sahms who don't have extra time and I know others who have lots.
Why should it matter which camp they fall into.
Why should they say they have plenty if they don't.
Just to make a wohm feel better.

"if SAHM mums were just honest and admit the spare time they have~"

I have fucking loads of spare time. I go on holiday 5 or 6 times a year. I have a cleaner and a gardener. I do what I want. It's bloody brilliant.

Happy now

I'm a SAHM with DC at school.
This is my day today.
7-10, sort out DC, house, do washing, check what's in fridge for dinner
10-12, iPad and watch Teen Mom3 on T.V
12-2.45 meet 3 friends for lunch, do some jobs such as chemist, bank.
2.45-3.45 read Closer magazines ( might not need the full hour)
3.45 DS3 arrives home
4.15 collect DS2 from an after school lesson
Then dinner, house work, sorting out stuff
7pm start the evening.

happygirl

"As other posters have said, if SAHM mums were just honest and admit the spare time they have and that they don't want to work partly because of that it would command more respect from mums who are employed and still have a large amount of work to do at home.."

You do realise that those of us with pre school children at home, actually do the job of the nursery nurses/nanny/child minder that working mothers use, whilst they are at work, as well don't you?

And I don't suspend my kids to the ceiling for the whole day and just do the same housework as those who work. Christ, the mess is in every room, all day, every day.

If i left for work every morning, and the children were out all day, i wouldn't do half as much tidying, cleaning as i do now. My hands look like a 60 year olds, cracked and bleeding. All.The.Time.

I don't think it's a competition who has it worse, to me it's just a complete lack of understanding of what actually goes on when you sah.

I've done both. I'd much rather be at home with 3 pre schoolers, than live my single working parent life with 1 child.

But i'm much rather choose to be the one that went out every day to work, with not so much as a backward glance, whilst someone took care of the house and the kids and me. Fecking bliss.

In effect, I would kill to be the ops dh.

I always say I wish I had a wife.

at (might not need the full hour)

Clearly for most families (i.e. where there aren't exceptional circumstances such as special needs, illness and other extra caring responsibilities) it is entirely possible for both parents to work. This is the norm in the UK today. It can be tricky but it is possible and not that hard.

For families with extra challenges such as illness etc then there is a very clear difference and reasons.

For families where there are not any extra challenges then there are many ways to choose to run your family and share the burden of earning income and running the household. Each family needs to do it how they choose and everyone else should butt out.

The challenge comes where the parents aren't aligned to the choice and the way responsibilities are allocated and resentment builds up. This can come from a single earning parent sick of being a sole income earner or from a working parent who finds they are also doing all the household work as well. And many shades in between.

My names impty I'm a sahm. I love it. It's easy peasy. I have lots of free time and fun.

Respect me more now?

enlightenment this thread is about SAHP with children at school. No one is saying that you get spare time with toddlers under foot. If your children are out at school they tend not to make much mess. (at least during the time they are there).

"You do realise that those of us with pre school children at home, actually do the job of the nursery nurses/nanny/child minder that working mothers use, whilst they are at work, as well don't you?

And I don't suspend my kids to the ceiling for the whole day and just do the same housework as those who work. confused Christ, the mess is in every room, all day, every day.

If i left for work every morning, and the children were out all day, i wouldn't do half as much tidying, cleaning as i do now. My hands look like a 60 year olds, cracked and bleeding. All.The.Time. "

And this is exactly why, the second they do go to school, the parent who has dragged them kicking and screaming to the point that they are adequately socialised that other adults will put up with them, should NOT be immediately kicked out into a full time WOH position! Because the workl they have done for the past few years is out of all proportion to the other parent, unless the other parent is a miner. A miner who gets woken randomly a few times a night to go down the pit a few extra times.

Once you're dragged yourself through that, maybe including bfing, certainly including a lot of lost sleep and a lot of bodily fluid scrubbing, then - then, my friend, if your family can afford for you to read Closer (may not need the full hour! Great, have a snooze then) - then, I think we should all bloody go for it.

Me, I didn't last that long. I went back to work before they went to school, partly because otherwise I couldn't afford any help.

The majority of wohm I know use services such as cleaners, ironing service, CM, after school clubs etc....all of which I do as a sahm.
I am sure there are plenty of wohm who get no help or use no labour saving devices/services, just as there are sahms who sit around all day watching homes under the hammer in their pants...horses for courses and all that...