Advice anyone? (sorry is a bit long)

[shouldIjustputupwithit]

I'm not sure whether I expect any advice or whether I'm just having a rant!

DH and I have been married for 12 years. Have two children DD(9) and DS(3).

He has always been slack about the house not really helping but now I am working more I am finding it increasingly difficult to cope with everything. DH works Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, on Mon and Wed he drops DD at her lift for School (so leaves at 7.30am). I am self-employed work Mon am, Tue am, Thur am, and all day Friday out of the home but have to do paperwork etc at other times at home. I also do majority of the housework and do morning school run on Tue, Thu and Fri and afternoon school run every day. School is 20 miles from home (long story!) so think it relevant to mention it as time it takes out of day.

DH puts DD and DS to bed, DD literally gets shoved into bed so DH can get on with whatever he wants to do. He empties the dishwasher in the morning and generally puts a wash on and he puts it away in the evening.

Now that sounds great and I should just get on with it (I realise that a lot of your partners don?t even do this) BUT he makes more mess as he?s going, I?m sitting here steaming trying not to say anything as I know it will go into another row. So far? two days of DS?s clothes are on his bedroom floor, DH dirty clothes from yesterday are on our bedroom floor, DH had a shower and knows the shower leaks but didn?t bother to put a towel down to catch water so children?s beanbag is soaked, DS decided to strip off and leave his clothes on lounge floor, DH picked up his underwear and threw it to the side of the room (ending up on DS train table) and I know it will stay there until I move it.

He never tidies up anything he does, does nothing with the children (even pointed out the other weekend he has no desire to do anything with the children). He doesn?t like his job ? money is shite to be honest but he won?t look for anything else (I haven?t pushed him to he says he wants something else but can?t be arsed to look for it).

I?m fed up with being a skivvy, its always me who sorts DD?s homework with her if she needs help, supervises music practise etc.

sigh not sure why I?ve really posted this but had to get it out?.

Don't blame you at all for being fed up - it's hard to change patterns once you get into them though isn't it?

Have you tried sitting down and talking through exactly what it takes to keep the house running, kids clean and fed etc? Maybe even writing down everything that needs doing - like EVERYTHING - and then dividing it up?

Maybe he just doesn't notice - people have different standards for what counts as tidy. If he isn't bothered about stuff that you consider to be a tip, he won't notice that you've tidied it and so won't think about doing it himself.

I have tried to sit down with him and all I get is (which I feel is a bit of a sob story) 'oh I'm so stupid I don't see anything that needs to be done'. I queried whether he was depressed and his answer is 'no I'm not depressed just stupid'.

I don't think he's stupid, just being very clever to avoid doing anything.

My sympathies (even though I'm a slob myself). Agree with making a list of everything that needs to be done and assigning half that work to him. Then DON't DO ANY OF "HIS" SHARE no matter what. It will take a certain amount of fiendish cunning, perhaps, to make sure that the stuff you assign to him is stuff that's obvious when it doesn't get done, but doesn't actually threaten the life or health of the household.
Good luck.

I will try that but I know he won't do anything. I have been asking him for weeks to mend something and he just says 'yes ok' and thats it, nothing ever gets done. I think I'm just having a bad day

no advice just sympathies..... men seem content to live in muck dont they (well most men i've ever met). It does feel like a never ending cycle of pick up put away wash up hoover up mop up tidy up and then.... blimey me you think you might get five mins to sit down and they have created bedlam whilst in the simple process of just making a cup of tea.... and then they have the cheek to call you a nag just for expecting to live in a basically hygienic home!!!!! Grrrr. Hhhmmmm that must explain why i am now a single mum!

One of the 'why women can't read maps' type books the authors observed that often men and women have different standards in the home - men don't see or mind mess, they like 'camping' whereas women get a lot of self worth from a tidy well organised nest. It may not be that he's 'leaving it to you', it may be that he just doesn't see it needs doing (any more than you see the need to constantly check what's on the other side on TV). He may literally not see the tidying up you can see, so when you point it out to him he does feel stupid.

Look at it from his point of view as well as from yours. To be happy you need a tidy hygienic nest. He doesn't need a tidy nest for himself, but he does need you to be happy. Don't punish him for being lazy, give him specific tasks to do that will make you happy/prevent you from going off on one. And accept that some of the tasks are for your pleasure alone, so do them for yourself and take pleasure in the results.

Aah, giving advice is SO much easier than following it!

Budgie, the trouble with books like that is they are nearly all rubbish science and smug bullst. Housework is tedious, uninspiring drudgery that someone has to do and throughout human history, people have done their best to designate another whole class of people as the ones who have to do it. So there's all this stuff about how women/non-white people are somehow "better" at cleaning things, tidying things and emptying things. The reason it allegedly matters more to women if their homes are tidy is because of centuries of propaganda to the extent that if, you, Woman, don't serenely scrub and serve and shovel the sht, you have somehow failed the whole meaning of your life.
Many men, if unable to find a woman to do the shtwork, become not only competent at it but quite possessive about no one else being able to get the dirt out of all the corners or whatever.

I have a fully functioning pair of X chromosomes, but when it comes to the joy of living in a nice clean tidy house versus the tedium of having to do the cleaning, then I shrug at the mess and go and do something interesting. DS is nearly big enough to wield a duster, though, so I might get the tidy house yet...

I get no satisfaction out of a tidy home at all. But everyone expects me to. I get comments like "Oh, I would feel bad if I left toys out all night" Well, I don't. I didn't get the buggers out, and I'll put them away at my leisure. I take pride in my son learning to clap, or my other son writing his name, not how shiny my sink is.

And when their dad lived here, he used to moan that I used to make him do more tidying than I did myself. This was because he made more mess.

Men don't like taking bins out, and that is considered the 'man's job' so why should women like all the other boring, grinding, depressing, repetative shit that goes with keeping house? Nobody does like it. We do it out of a sense of duty. By the age of 17 I was expected to do everything for myself - my mother ran my brother's baths until he was 19. my sister, however, is expected to do more than he does, and it is never ever admitted that this is what is happening. And that, my friends, could refer to this entire country.