I think my dh is useless. Are we doomed?

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I'm tired. Dd2 doesn't sleep for more than 3 hour stretches and is often up for 1.5hrs in the night. I'm breast feeding so having made a total rod for my back I feed her back to sleep.

Yesterday both DDs were grumpy/clingy/whiny/generally hard-going and I also came down with a cold.

Dh is primarily a "lovely bloke". Gentle, sweet, nice, not laddish or blokey IYSWIM but I think I just think he's useless.

Days out, holidays, finances, house admin, childcare, occasions, dinners are left for me to sort out. He does help around the house in terms of housework and DIY but the non-tangible stuff seems to completely pass him by.

I've told him (cried, screamed, asked, chatted) that I need more from him.

Since Sunday a series of really small things have happened and I just feel disappointed and let down by him. On top of that the long-term tiredness is really getting to me, and I feel shit with this cold. He doesn't seem to register just how much I'm struggling at the moment despite me telling him. He'll give me a kiss on the cheek and say something meek like "these are hard times, we'll get through them" and I want to scream "HOW? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO ENSURE THAT?" at him. What I want him to do is say he's sorted dinner, or done the food shop, or whatever.

If I ask him for an extra hour in bed at the weekend, he'll take the DDs downstairs and think he's a fucking hero for giving them breakfast yet and plonking them in front of the tv while he sits with them on his phone and then there will be a huge great mess to clear up when I get up and everything will be a rush because we're simply an hour behind because I had the audacity to need more sleep.

I don't know why I'm posting really. I'm just really down about him and this useless thing is clouding everything he does so he kind of can't do right for doing wrong. Which I know isn't fair.

But the bit doesn't feel fair that I feel like I'm really struggling on a day to say basis and all he can do is give me a sympathetic look. I know he's not responsible for happiness but just once I want him to take control and attempt to come up with a plan of some kind to change/help.

When he poked his head in this morning to say bye and "have a nice day" I burst into tears and shouted at him "I am laying here wondering how I'm going to cope with all I've got to do today feeling this shit and tired and I seriously don't think it even registers with you, you just toddle off to work". He half-heartedly offered to stay home (which he knows is totally impractical as he's self-employed and would lose money) I asked what he would do "I dunno. Take the kids out or something". And I again I wanted to scream at him that isn't going to get done all the things I needed to be done today and instead told him "to just go to work because having you hear would be an extra fucking burden rather than a help". Not my finest moment.

I'm just SO cross with him for not recognizing how much I'm struggling at the moment. And for not doing anything about it.

He pussies around with his work too. For years we've been talking about him "really going for it" but nothing changes or happens despite how much I try to help/encourage/leave alone. I've also said to him if he doesn't want to "really go for it" then that's cool, just tell me so I'm not encouraging something he has no intention to do.

He zaps my emotions yet doesn't support mine. It's like having another more needy child rather than a supportive partner. I've said this many many times before but nothing ever changes.

I'm at a loss as to what I can do. I'm too tired, cross and resentful to have the energy to have the same old shit conversation again.

I want our marriage to work but he seems to think just turning up is enough rather than actively contributing.

I also like steppemum's approach. Especially the turning off phone and going out for the day - this literally forces him to come up with a method, and I know friends who have done this. No, he won't do things in the same way as you and it may be hard to accept this at the start (that's your challenge!) but it will be done.

Other thing is to get a family calendar and write up tasks for each day, what's involved and put a name by them. Tell him to ask you if he's not sure what each entails. I know it feels like micro-managing but now you are both in this situation you will have to take a few extra steps to get out of it. I know it feels hard to do this when you have already started to lose respect, but it will help. It will also clarify for you which things really pull you down moodwise and you can start to divide them out.

I have to nth the comment that you're sleep-deprived and completely knackered and that's making everything much more difficult.

That's not to say that there's not a problem, just that your ability to cope with it and come up with potential solutions is seriously impaired right now.

I can relate because I've been right where you are! A combination of more sleep as the children are getting older + more effort from DP (not too much mind you, just a bit) mean that we are doing ok 95% of the time now. See what you can do to make YOUR sleep the top priority. Much easier said than done, I realise that. But everything is so much harder when you're running on empty.

Go with the list on the fridge idea. Let him get in from work and unwind and then say, "These are the remaining jobs of the day, would you initial which ones you're going to do?".

No those small things don't really matter but I have to put a lot of thought into how things go in our life to makes things run relatively smoothly.

It's the distinct lack of thought and effort.

Eg. Offering to do dinner and getting fish fingers out the freezer, is a leetle bit of a cop out....

Sweetheart you're drowning and you're being unreasonable. There is nothing wrong with fish fingers for tea. Unless that's all he served.

You contradict yourself. In your latest post you say him offering to do dinner and producing something very simple is a 'leetle bit of a cop out.' Earlier on you said that when asked to think up dinners, he comes up with complicated stuff that take ages to prepare etc

On balance and after another rad through I think you sound rather impossible to please and none of this is going to end well for you as you're hideously nit picking.

When you're exhausted perspective is really hard, hope you get some rest soon

You do have to spell out to him exactly what you want him to do to help you. I experienced similar with DH when DS1 & DS2 were small, but provided I said "Would you please do......" It got done and with time became habit. By the time we had another 2 he began to "see" what needed doing.
I have 4 sons and I can honestly say that only 1 of them is aware of what "needs doing" it seems to be something that does not come naturally!

I think when you have little ones it is hard to keep it all going but I found that chilling out about how tidy the house was rather than obsessively cleaning/tidying helped and I also found Tesco.com useful to save time shopping.

The key for me is getting enough sleep so of you can sort that then that would be a start and a great help.

I think you are very very tired, fed up and ill. I'm not surprised. However you need to calm down - all the pent up rage and frustration is not helping and your DH is not an enemy.

Accept that until the sleep is better, standards need to be more fluid - who gives a fuck if the car has been cleaned? Who cares if an under 1 yo wears a sleep suit in the day? I really hope all the weekend day trips and things are fun because it sounds like you are doing too much and unless you are getting a lot out of that socialising i'd cut right back.

Your DH is a bit of a numpty when it comes to spotting what needs doing (and he is also a bit scared that if he does anything it will be 'wrong' by your standards). You don't have to tell him what to do in huge detail, you do have to accept that he will not do everything exactly as you would do it.

The only totally unreasonable thing your DH has done imo is to call you complaining about DD crying on your rare nights out - that is not on! You should make it clear next time that he will not be interrupting your night out unless there is an actual emergency.

Good luck OP - it sucks but it does get better.

Yep. You are exhausted and he is being crap, but doing fish fingers for dinner is not part of that. Everyone will get fed, fish fingers are an OK meal, and you don't have to think about it. So use that time to stop thinking about it. Fuming over whether he's trying hard enough at the cooking just ruins the break you could be having, and it's not necessary.

I totally understand that through the lens of your tiredness and frustration, grabbing something out of the freezer looks like yet another example of zero thought and effort - but that's because exhaustion is destroying your sense of perspective. If he's going to take on responsibility for a task, that means him doing it his way. You'll have to put up with things not being done as you would do them.

He also needs to actually learn what's involved in looking after the kids and the house. A stay-home parent goes through a steep learning curve in how to cope, and some things that are obvious to you genuinely aren't to him. It's not just common sense. You have developed skills to do the work you do. So yes, he absolutely needs to get off his arse and start learning, but you also need to expect minor fuck ups like the sleep suit thing.

I had to have a long hard look at myself after DH got really pissed off and said stuff along the lines of " I can't do anything right."

this has also been true for us.

one of the most important things you can do is to really get it that his way is not your way and they are his kids and his house too, and he will find his own way to do things and you need to live with that.

I have found that once I started doing some of what I posted before, I discovered which key things it was that made me feel unsupported/pissed off.

Because actually I was SAHM and happy to do most of it, but I hit one or two key things which made me feel that we were/weren't a team.

eg one for me was the lie-in. We had a deal that we each have a lie-in at the weekend, but on my lie-in day kids came in and climbed into our bed first thing and dh would only get up when they got wriggly, by which time I was awake. Then I would make a cup of tea and go back to bed, but because I was awake, he would let them come up and join me. And when I did get up, they were playing, but no breakfast/dressed etc.

I spelled it out, for me a lie-in = x y z. So please can you make sure that happens. Once I knew that he was actively making that happen, I felt supported and less stressed about other stuff.

Look - you're absolutely knackered, you have a small child and a baby - "running smoothly" doesn't have to equal running perfectly. I'd say you're still in survival mode, akin to the newborn days, due to lack of sleep; does it really matter if you eat fish fingers as long as people are getting fed?

And the fish fingers is just a minor example. It applies to everything. Does it really matter if XYZ as long as 123 happens? Things will get better once your dd is more settled.

And yeah, DD spent loads of time in sleepsuits when she was under 1. For that matter, I doubt we cleaned our car for about two years. If everyone is clothed, fed and clean, and the house is not a health hazard, that's running smoothly enough.

Argh. I was actually referring back to someone else's post re the fish fingers. This isn't something dh has done.

I was trying to say that whilst the little annoying things really don't matter, it's sometimes the underlying principle that's the point.

I need to accept that he needs more spelling out for him.

Re our car. It's not the outside that's the problem! Inside is gross!! I honestly don't have high standards!!!

I honestly meant the inside of the car too... ours is minging right now. But we can still go places in it. If I was shattered from lack of sleep, it truly wouldn't be on my radar.

Oh OP I understand exactly where you are coming from. My DP isn't useless – now, 17 years in – because I have insisted and insisted and insisted that he pull his weight and take responsibility for things. And because he's a "nice person", he does try. But he doesn't UNDERSTAND, and that's what I really, really want from him. The "toddling off to work" with no clue exactly how much stuff I have to be on top of (as well as my own part-time work) does my head in too. He can afford to just not think about it - because I will.

I don't want him to become superman and suddenly take all the strain off me – we have a set-up that means I do more childcare and that would be difficult to change at the moment. I just want him to SEE and think "Aurochs is going to have a really tough day while I toddle off to work and even if I can't change that, I could show that I understand and care". Instead he looks guilty and tries to think of things he could do to help, which is great, but they are often not really what I want – he's just trying to make sure he can't be accused of being Mr Bad Guy.

I just want to feel like I'm relating to a responsible adult, who is capable of putting himself in someone else's shoes.

To be fair I think part of the problem is the patriarchy in the background, generally just giving men permission to not think about domestic stuff because women will sort it out. That's so deeply ingrained in many men, even nice ones, that it's very, very hard to get through to them what taking responsibility for the home and family actually looks and feels like.

I gave my DH responsibility for one household task recently with disastrous results, it's FUCKING annoying.

My heart goes out to you OP, mines just thick, not sure about yours.

I suspect if dh had said this morning "Christ you look/sound rough. Last thing you need, after your hellish day yesterday, is a full on day today. Are you going to be alright?" I would've replied with "thanks darling, I think I'll be ok"....

OP, tons of good advice on here. The reason being that most of us have been there and felt much the same. You do, indeed have to bite your tongue sometimes and either let stuff go or simply appreciate that we all do things differently. It's why dad's often cop out at a very early stage when the mum stands there criticising every thing they do.mif it's safe then it's basically ok.

Yo sound so exhausted and worn down, though. He can see that and is probably really scared of you right now. You need to reform as a team, each of you with different roles. Why is it wrong to have a team leader (you) who makes the plans and delegates and a worker who gets on with the jobs he's asked to do? After all, if he takes the initiative later and buys the wrong dinner or decides to do a job you don't care about that will be wrong, too.

IMO what your first priority should be is to get the dc sleeping through the night. If you are returning to work soon you have to do this in order to function at all. Speak to your HV if necessary and possibly probably stop bf because that will make more difference than everything else put together.

This will pass, promise.

My DP has improved over time. A few years ago I handed him a financial matter to sort out – he never did it, just shoved it on a shelf and put his head in the sand. Recently, we went over it again and I explained why that was so infuriating for me. Finally, he took responsibility for it again - and did do it. So there is progress.

BUT the baseline I would have LIKED to start from is that he would willingly take on 50% of that stuff – of all the stuff – from the start. Having to push and push and explain and nag for your entire time together to try to drag it up to 50% from a baseline of zero, is fucking exhausting and does make you lose respect for them. Meanwhile, the man, who perceives himself to be doing more and more, thinks he is doing great and deserves a medal.

I'm sitting here nodding madly (on the inside) to a lot of the advise you're getting - particularly in regard to the fact that all of this is out of balance as you've no sleep. You've got to sort that. While she's in Ireland, she does consult over the phone/email/WhatsApp and Niamh O'Reilly of www.nursery.ie absolutely changed our lives when DD2 was six months. She was 8 months before she totally dropped the night feeds but within five days she was settling herself to bed at a reasonable hour and staying there til 6 the following morning bar one quick feed in the small hours. No more of being up for 2 hours at a time in the middle of the night and I started averaging more than 3.5 hours sleep a night total.

You HAVE to sort the sleep out - nothing works when you're overtired.

My DH has natural inclinations to uselessness but I have A) dropped my OCD standards and B) let him land himself in the poo on enough occasions now that he's learning to take more responsibility.

It would be tempting with someone like this to check into a hotel/willing friend/supportive parent's house, switch off the phone and just leave him with the DC's for a week.

I'm not saying this is good advice, but it's a thought.