Am I the only woman who feels like this?

[makemineasnowball]

Not sure where to start, been with DH for 25 yrs, married 15. 2 DCs.
I've been a SAHM for 2 years, DH runs his own business (with a partner).

He works very long hours in a highly stressful job. Most of the time I cope with more or less being an SP until it gets to the point where I feel he's taking the piss and everything erupts (usually about every 6 months).

Well I'm sick of playing this game. What's really sent me off the scale this time is that he forgot to turn up tonight to the Xmas lights turn on in our village. No biggee but its a family tradition we do every year. When DS phoned him when we got home, apparently it was my fault for "not emailing" him to remind him!! WTAF?? The DCs were gutted he wasn't there and I really had to bite my tongue.

This was after he almost forgot to pick up DS from a football training session Wed evening (something he is expected to do every week). I'd just got home after dropping DS off and had a nagging thought that DH would forget about DS. So I rang him 5 mins before end of training and sure enough he'd forgotten . He couldn't understand why I was so livid - never mind DS would have been left waiting on a dark, freezing cold pitch.

I've just had enough; he seems incapable of putting his family first. Everything involving the DCs has to be organised by me and its a given that I should be DHs PA if I require his involvement. The usual arguments swirl around "you take me for granted/you dont care about me or DCs (me); you don't understand how busy/stressful work is; I cant be expected to remember everything"(him) - round and round and round.

In his more conciliatory moments he is mortified that I think he doesn't care and when I'm feeling more generous I realise how hard he works and that he cant be expected to remember all our family engagements. BUT when I have to remind him time after time, it feels more like I'm dealing with a 3rd child than a grown man and actually I start to worry about what would happen if I wasn't around to double/triple remind him of engagements. Its like because I'm the SAHM he absolves all responsibility for taking control.

Dont know what to do anymore; not even sure I love him. Sure as hell feels like he doesn't give a shit about me.

My most organised, delightful and perfect friend - you know, the one you'd love to hate but she's so nice - has a family calendar on the wall. She always fills it in. Her children reliably checked it from toddlerhood onwards; as they got older they reliably put their own entries on it and negotiated clashes with other family members.

The only person who didn't check it was her delightfully nice DH. He told her about his appointments, mostly. She put them on the calendar. But he didn't check it so he didn't know if his thing clashed with a family thing. If she didn't phone him and his secretary concerning important family things, he didn't show. He sometimes forgot to tell her the dates of extended jollies, so she'd find out a few days beforehand when he started thinking about packing.

She tried everything and everything didn't work. Eventually she booked herself on some sort of retreat thing - I don't know where she went, but it seems to have involved both spa stuff and some therapy - informing DH he would have to use her highly effective systems to keep the show on the road. And that his children knew how to use these systems, so it was time he learned.

Upon her return, he seemed to have got the message. Just to be sure, she told him she wasn't prepared to run the 'home service' single-handed any more. Their relationship was good and the family happy but, unless he could pull his weight, she would carry on running the happy home and he could live elsewhere.

He is now the almost perfect husband she deserves, and has been for more than 15 years :)

Garlick I need to meet your friend

You're not the only woman to feel like this! What bugs me more than anything about my family life is how DP never seems to have to use his initiative or plan a flipping thing. It's worse than him not helping out practically because his head just isn't involved in family life and that's not fair on you.
You must find it very lonely having to keep it together for the family all of the time. It's not on. I think strong words are needed.

Soooo just had a very short sharp, non-productive row where he told me to shut the fuck up and I told him I'm not sure I even love him anymore .

Silence..,.exit room

My grandfather was a vicar. Apparently a very good vicar. Crap father though and pretty crap grandfather.

At his funeral the church was packed with people sobbing about his death. Except the front 2 rows which were full of relatives looking bored. If I remember right me and my cousins (who were teenagers) spent the meal afterwards sharing our holiday photos. (He died in August.)

Does he really want to be that man?

Oh no. I'm really sorry. He needs to apologise for saying that (if it's crossed s line, for some people it's no biggie). Maybe not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

If he can't see that he's being an entitled arse then i advise you get to a solicitor and make the lack of teamwork/separation in your lives formal.

So sorry OP.

Oh, god, make, I'm so sorry. I really hope the silly sod will have a think and get your point.

If not ... well, pressing the issue could work out best in the long run. Hope it doesn't come to that.

You are a SAHM, with 2 kids that are at school. So, you have 6 hours a day all to yourself. And even when the kids are home, at age 8 and 10, they don't need close supervision. You are completely financially supported by DH who is totally knackered. Personally, I think you should be doing all the chores, and it's not too much to ask, to send him a text reminding him of family stuff. There are millions of women who work FT, long hours, and have to juggle way more than a SAHM. And I'm not being sexist. If you were the breadwinner, and he didn't work, I'd expect him to sort family stuff/send reminders.

If it's his own business, can't you go in and help him, to ease the burden?

ILiveatthebeach OP had sent him two emails, on the day, reminding him of the switchon.

OP isn't talking about chores. She is talking about him being a dad and taking some sort of role in family life. OP cannot do those things for him. He is already having his hand held re family life - all he has to do is show up - so going off the deep end at OP is completely uncalled for.

OP hope you find a way forward...

Thank you Handy for replying on my behalf . Exactly that....I do not expect help with chores or help with general day to day activities. I know DC are at school and it's my job to run the household.
It's the few commitments he does have as a husband and father that I expect him to attend (for his benefit as much as ours).
And yes, I did send him plenty of reminders regarding last night.

I get how hard he works, how stressful it is running a business and how it is 'for our benefit'. BUT there has got to be some sense of balance.

FWIW I have offered many times to help out in office but DH is adamant he doesn't want family involvement. They have various skilled and experienced people in place to cope with general business management.

Nope, I feel like you too OP.

'DH is adamant he doesn't want family involvement'

I say this very gently, OP, without really knowing any context about your dh's working life. But, have you ever wondered if there's an OW?

Might explain why family life is so 'difficult to fit in' for him? Maybe his emotional investment is elsewhere?

Might be completely on the wrong track. But sometimes when you are getting the blame for everything or are the subject of contempt - that turns out to be the problem.

He is taking the piss, another solution in the long term would be to get say a cozi family online calendar that gives everyone a reminder.

I've been in your situation it isn't fun

( I made my dh get a new job)

It's ok Handy, I see where you're coming from. I am sure as I can be there is no OW. He's exhausted and I dont think he'd have energy apart from anything else. One of the reasons he's reluctant for me to get involved with work is because if I did then his business partners wife would also want a role. Something neither he or any other colleagues want!! So it's more pragmatic for me to steer clear.

The other reason I don't think there's an OW is because I recognise a pattern of behaviour. This stand off happens approx every 6 months where I lose the plot, cue massive row and then things calm down for a while. If the situation was more inconsistent I might be suspicious. The difference is this time I've had enough

OP you are being let down, I recognise the signs - the main one being his extreme defensiveness. All the stuff about who's busiest & who brings home the bacon is irrelevant: as you've said, the division of labour is a shared decision, AND you send him reminders of family commitments on the day. I used to behave like this; work stuff was more important because it was so immediate. I have a stressy, time-driven job so it's the easiest thing in the world to privilege work stuff over home stuff and make excuses. "I'm busy; I have no choice." But I did have a choice, and so does your DH.

My DW said to me, you plan work stuff really well, in great detail. So why can't you plan home stuff just as well? Answer: because you don't want to. And that's completely unacceptable. You have to stand up for yourself at work & refuse to let them treat you like a doormat.

If your DH is his own boss, he's fucking himself up; that's bonkers. He knows he's in the wrong, that's why he's so defensive & tells you to stfu when you point out his failure & refuse to accept responsibility for it. There are SO many means of communication & scheduling these days, there simply is no excuse. This is what I was like; I had to-do lists & calendars & reminders but I was ignoring them all because work was so much more immediate & demanding. I had to realise that what felt like a situation in which I had no choice was in fact the opposite. I'd allowed myself to be cornered into last-minute demands, short-notice changes of shift etc. I began to resist; the sky hasn't fallen in, I'm still doing that job & I'm still good at it.