He promised he'd change, the baby is now here, but he hasn't. How can I make him understand how I feel?

[Writerwannabe83]

Me and DH got married just over a year ago and have a 3 month old baby.

We lived together for 3 years before getting married and he has always been a bit lazy. The housework was typically left to me as apparently he didn't see mess. Admittedly I do like a tidy house and maybe our ideas were different as to what constituted 'messy' so I tended to just get on with things. We had some HUGE arguments about housework and how he'd never do anything unless I nagged him but things never really changed. He'd tell me to stop doing the house work and just relax, but if I didn't do it then it didn't get done.

When I was pregnant I told him that I was absolutely dreading the baby arriving because I couldn't imagine looking after a baby but still being expected to do everything around the house. He promised me that things would be different and he would help out more but nothing has changed.

The house is a tip and he doesn't care. I'm pretty tired most days and when DS is asleep I'm running around tidying up and cleaning. When DH comes home he sits on the sofa, I hand DS over and then I have to start doing more housework. I just don't get a break. I'm sitting on the sofa now looking at the tip that is the living room and thinking about how messy all the other bedrooms are, and the kitchen and the bathrooms etc and I could cry. He would never think to do anything.

I feel used and that I'm just being taken for granted. I feel like screaming at him but it just seems so pointless.

We haven't had sex since the baby was born and I have absolutely no desire to do so. DH has started bringing this issue up and the reality is that I don't want to have sex with him because I feel angry with him. I want to feel like we are a partnership and that the house and the baby is a joint responsibility but I feel like everything is on my shoulders and I'm expected to do everything. Why would I want to have sex with someone who makes me feel this way?

I just don't know what to do or say to make him see or understand how I feel.

He can not read your mind. You have to tell him. He'll know that you're in a mood, but how will he know it's his mess if you don't tell him. Relax now. When he gets back ask him what housework he's going to do whilst you do bath and bed.

Ole it makes him manipulative

he "couldn't cope" equates to "I can't be arsed and if i make a shit job of it the silly cow won't expect it of me again"

and you don't, you just get another woman in

unless your cleaner is a bloke ? < hopeful >

I think Op is busy cleanign and tidying

Adjusting to that first baby is difficult and things that could be swept under the carpet before baby cant any longer.

Don't underestimate what a lot you're going through right now- new baby and now a bereavement.

I'm a terribly messy person- I always have been. DH used to say it showed a lack of respect for him. I never really understood that. Anyway, we used to row a lot about it, then I took him seriously - i recognised that my mess distressed him and because i didnt want to distress him i learnt how to do housework (not brilliantly) and more importantly we got a cleaner. We say that saved our relationship.

My DH would let the house get in a mess before it bothered him enough to clean, I am a clean freak. I have over the years accepted that, he will do stuff when asked and does pull his weight in other ways. I choose to clean more often because I hate sitting in a house with mess and fluff over the carpets. I am tidy so stuff goes back where it came from, anything left out by anyone else goes in a heap in their room or in DH's case his study. I do a quick tidy daily and hoover a couple of times if its messy but always on a friday as I feel I can start the weekend if its clean, bed changed etc. Have a routine so you do one bit a day, don't have such high expectations of yourself, do a quick tidy daily then relax with your baby. If there are only 3 of you it cannot possibly need so much cleaning / tidying with a pick up daily and a task a day, so Mon washing, Tue bathroom, wed kitchen, thur day out do nothing, fri change beds hoover house. Tell him he must hoover once a week on any other day of his choice and cook every other day. order food online for delivery, do things together at the weekend and try to relax a bit more. you sound like a stressed out new mum trying to be perfect. do you think you might be depressed? don't ask when things need doing tell... so please put the bins out tomorrow, please hoover this week, what would you like to cook next week as I am doing a shopping order, etc you have to make him part of this partnership or ship out. A ew days away might help you focus and see that there is more to life than a spotless house, your baby will grow up remembering how much fun he / she had with mum NOT how clean you kept the house.

DH went and did the shopping tonight when he came back from his walk and then cooked me dinner. Not long ago he opened his wardrobe and said, "I wondered where it had all gone" so I told him that his wardrobe is where all his stuff lives now. Every time I find something of his lying around I'm just throwing it in the wardrobe - including all his cans and crisp packets that he likes to leave lying around.

I'm feeling a little bit calmer this evening.

In 2 weeks time I'm going on holiday with my parents (only somewhere in England) and DH isn't coming do for 8 days he will be home alone. He might realise how much I do when I'm not there to do it....

Don't bank on it. It's more likely that he will leave it all for you to do when you get back.

Lovey, let this be a turning point

Start standing up for yourself

Don't hide your displeasure and your disrespect for someone who doesn't step up. You wouldn't tolerate in anyone else, so don't tolerate it from your husband

You are not his domestic appliance. The only little person you are "slave" to at the moment is your baby, but that will pass. Making yourself a slave to your husband is a lifelong sentence that nobody should have to serve

I agree with simply flinging all his crap in the bottom of his wardrobe. And when he needs that wallet, that belt, that important piece of paper you let him root around for it

start taking more time for yourself to just "be"....have a long bath with a glass of vino, read a book lying on your bed as he holds the fort downstairs, make sure when he watches baby he also understands that isn't all there is to it ie. don't prepare everything for him so all he has to do is sit and cuddle 'cos that is a piece of piss

assert yourself as the important lynchpin of this family that you are

Well done OP. Do start sharing out the chores. If he gets in from work ask who is going to cook tea and who is going to run round with the hoover etc. Be a team.

he "couldn't cope" equates to "I can't be arsed and if i make a shit job of it the silly cow won't expect it of me again"

that all rings a bell from when i used to work evening shifts....

like the time i preheated the oven to make dinner and could smell burning. He had put all the oven trays away dirty in the oven caked in food.

when i went to put the lunch out and he had put all the plates away into the cupboard wet the night before

or the time i was looking for socks to wash as i knew the kids had took them off before bed. They were in the outside bin along with the plates he had made their supper on

or when i had brought all the washing in off the line, went to work and came in to no clothes, brilliant i thought, hes put them away. No, he had put them back in the laundry basket.

coreyHaim - my DH always does that with the oven trays.

I long for the day my DH would think to take the dry clothes of the clothes horse and put them away...

you stop doing it invisibly and with your teeth clenched and tell him to do it

as much as it pains me to advise you to tell a grown man that these shitwork chores don't do themselves, you are doing yourself no favours to constantly take care of this slave labour

if you want to stay together, I suggest you start getting very vocal indeed

DH had to tell me several times about the trays and the grill.

I still can't believe they need to be washed every single time

I hate it, house looks tidy but hes created more work as he hasn't actually done anything apart from hiding stuff so it looks tidy. TBH i could scream at him and it made no difference, i just had to grit my teeth and do it as it was no good neither of us doing it. Only lately have i got more organised since going back to work. I do what someone suggested above and have days to do a big job like windows, beds or washing paintwork with a bit of general housework daily. I have never been really tidy or big on housework so its not like im a clean freak and he wasn't, he was just a lazy fucker. I symlathise but some people just wont listen, i found it was easier to just grit my teeth and do it or seeth at him and not do it which meant i still had a messy house which needed clean. When its all done you do feel much better but its hard with a small baby as your tired. Make a list like someone suggested above, mahbe once you get it immaculate he will be more jnclined to help and realise your in a better mood with a tidy house.

anyfucker just like I couldn't cope with the gardening and got a bloke in.

You've got a very skewed and sad view of things if you think that any household with a cleaner has a man in it who thinks his partner and cleaner (if female) are "silly cows".

I don't think it's my view that is skewed

Your husband has done a number on you ole and you can't even see it. Oh well.

No, he hasn't. Oh well.

He already understands how you feel, you don't need to spend any extra effort or time trying to make him understand. He's perfectly aware.

He just doesn't give a shit, I'm afraid.

There is a difference between hiring a cleaner because everyone in the household is pitching in but it's not enough (working or caring or something) or hiring one because you want more time for everyone to do other things and hiring a cleaner because one of the people in the household cannot give a shit. One of the household sits on his arse while the other does everything. One of the partnership wants some woman, any woman, to do the shitwork because he doesn't want to.

FWIW I'm the one in this household that hates and 'doesn't see' mess like DH. I still do lots around the house because I love him and it would make him feel sad and undervalued if I didn't.

Your partner was shit at housework before a baby? Why do you think he will magically change just because you now have a baby and think the housework should be shared? I was shit at keeping a tidy house before kids, and just as shit after kids.

One of the household sits on his arse while the other does everything. One of the partnership wants some woman, any woman, to do the shitwork because he doesn't want to.

Yup

This thread has made me sick to my stomach.

If my DP expected me to clean up, even after myself, during a time of bereavement, when I wasn't coping, I would feel as if he did not care for me whatsoever and would be walking out.

I don't think you have quite understood what is going on here