What is normal for your family?

[PleaseHelpHimToUnderstand79]

Hello all,

I would really appreciate your advice/input. My husband and I are really struggling in our relationship at the moment. We have been together for almost 16 years and have 2 children and it hasn't been an easy ride to be honest.

If you don't mind sharing, could you please tell me how your partners are involved in day to day chores, childcare etc?

Without waffling on, the (condensed!) reason why I am asking is because this seems to be a massive bone of contention between us.

As a bit of background, I had a good career until several years ago when I developed ME and just this Monday I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. My husband works Mon-Fri and gets home by 7pm.

I feel terrible guilt about my illnesses and push myself to do a lot more than I probably should. I keep quiet most of the time about the extent of how exhausted and in pain I am in day to day, I understand how hard it can be on the whole family so I try to minimise that as much as possible.

I am at home with my children (who are 7 and 3) and I do everything day to day, the school runs, the cleaning, washing, general housework, oldest's homework, their dinner, and all the usual. Come 4pm I am exhausted but push through because what's the alternative? When my husband gets home, he takes over. Bathes the children every other night, takes them to bed and cooks dinner/washes up. Then walks the dog (which for years was my job, until I asked him to take over as I was struggling with doing that on top of everything else).

I am very grateful for what my husband does. He knows this. However, for the last year or so, we have been arguing a lot - we are both tired and stressed. My husband seems to have a lot of anger towards me and this is when it comes out. He says he resents doing all the bedtimes etc all the time and nobody elses partner does what he does, whatever argument we have always turns into this issue. I am very grateful for what he does and have told him this several times, but it doesn't seem to make any difference to him.

He also gets the children up with him in the morning when he gets up for work and gives them breakfast before he goes. Again, I am appreciative of this.

But he refuses to believe that other dads do any of this. Family life is hard work. I try to take the burden of everything else by doing it myself but it never seems enough, I'm not quite sure if he gets it that other families also have the same struggles (without the added complication of these bloody illnesses).

God, sorry, I really have waffled. But it's at the point where I feel like he really resents me and our life and I just don't know what to think anymore. Could you please tell me what is normal for your family and how stuff is divided?

Thanks if you made it this far!

And also he is your husband, so he is supposed to help you even when other people don't necessarily want to. It's literally his job to help and support you. As yours is for him. One of the main points of marriage is about if one of you falls ill, there is another person to pick up the slack.

dh does the 'fun stuff' with the kids and all the DIY and the hoovering because if I so much as look at that shitty dyson he bought again I will shoot it!!! I do the rest. But he works full time and I work part time so its about fair.

FWIW, DH works full time, I am at home doing occasional freelance work but mostly looking after our 4yo. I have episodes of depression but don't have anything like the health problems that you deal with. DH comes home and does DD's bedtime every day. I usually cook (but he will do it if I have work or am shattered), he usually does a dishwasher load in the evening. I do more cleaning overall, bathroom, hoovering etc., but he does some tidying in the kitchen and most of the gardening. We share weekends so that we each get some downtime.

If you are too ill to carry on with the good career you had, you are also too ill to run a home full time. You're not at home having a bloody holiday! Chronic life-limiting illness is hard on a whole family, but yes he does have to step up, just as he would if he was a single dad, just as thousands of women do every day, just as YOU did when you were working and doing tons of housework on top of it because he wasn't pulling his weight. Lots of other people do what he has to do. Sometimes it's what life serves up. Why's he so blooming special that he shouldn't have to look after his kids and produce an evening meal?

You matter. It's OK for your kids to see that you are not well, and to see you looking after yourself. Self-care is important in whatever form it needs to take, and that's a good lesson for them to learn. If they developed a chronic health problem in the future, would you want them to slog on in tears rather than taking the rest they needed?

If he finds producing the evening meal too demanding, maybe HE could do some batch cooking at the weekend...