Marriage falling apart, it's not even been a year.

[DontGiveAwayTheHomeworld]

I'm completely at the end of my patience and sanity, I just don't know how much more I can take.

We've always struggled with the labour divide - I wanted him to do more around the house, he used the fact that he works full time against me. It caused problems, but nothing we couldn't work through.

Then we hit a major financial problem, which meant I had to go back to work. Not ideal, but it had to be done. Except he still spends his days off lounging around in his dressing gown, expecting me to do all the house stuff, toilet train DS, keep up with college - all while working in the evenings.

Today I just hit rock bottom. He's off work, but he's refusing to go to the shops because he didn't sleep well. Neither did I, but I now have to walk half an hour there, half an hour back, then the same walk down to get the bus to work. Another half hour once I'm off the bus, then on my feet for three hours at work, then a half hour walk and half hour wait to get my bus home. Then a half hour walk uphill to my house, where I'll then be expected to sort dinner. If I'm lucky, there'll be no comments about how hard he works and how he has it so bad.

I just don't know what to do. We've not even been married a year, and I just wish I was on my own again.

I get the appeal of the 'it bothers you - you do it' argument but the reality of that is many people are happy to wait out their higher-standards partner. It's not fair to leave a dirty toilet, for example, if you have a marauding toddler. Agree a standard and divide up the work - basically clean living conditions is the responsibility of all the adults. Stuff that is over-and-above the agreed basic standard, fine, leave that to the person who wants it done. DP likes the windows done more, so he does them. I like the handles of drawers wiped, I do them. But the basic thing of a clean bathroom and kitchen, stuff tidied away, the cupboards stocked and everyone fed - those are everyone's chores because they need to be done regardless of how strongly you feel about them.

IT's telling that he expects you to make his lunch and do his ironing.

I don't consider those things as 'household' tasks, they are personal stuff for each person to do their own.

It seems you managed to marry an old-fashioned man who thinks wives do all this stuff and look after the house/man. He obviously thought things would be this way once you were married. Time to tell him, no, you do not want or accept that type of role in that type of marriage.

I sympathise. I moved in with my ex and found out then that he had those attitudes. I had no idea beforehand. It's so alien to me that it didn't occur to me to discuss this in advance. I just assumed we'd split it all. Everyone he knew lived that old-fashioned way too, so he'd just assumed that was how everyone lived. He never really accepted that it isn't the done thing these days, unless it's what both people want. It caused no end of friction. I did what I considered my share and left everything else as I can live with that (but we didn't have children to consider). His response was to pay for a cleaner for a few hours once a fortnight to be his share, although it wasn't enough, and our house ended up horrible. We argued about it for ten years and it was one of the factors in our finally splitting up. He wasn't going to change his view. I wasn't going to change mine and turn into his skivvy. We both resented each other over it.

You have to thrash this out once and for all with your OH or accept that your views on marriage are not compatible. Sort it out, or get out, don't spend 10 years resenting it all only for the relationship to fail anyway.

It is also quite telling that he wont even think about getting lunch for himself and his child, even if he is not going anywhere and have free time to do it, but expect you to go shopping, come back, and go out to work again. It beggars belief, really!