Am I mad to end my marriage because he won't put the bins out?

[toastandjamplease]

Hi all,

Namechanged to protect the innocent! Apologies that I think this will be a long one but don’t want to dripfeed! I have been married just over 20 years. We have 3 DCs, all high-school age. We both work FT, although my husband works much longer hours than me with lots of travel. My OH does most of the taxi-ing on weekends, taking kids to football on Saturday mornings etc. He also cooks on the weekend and takes care of everything IT-related. We have a cleaner who keeps the house just about under control.

However, everything else is done by me. That is, all the school runs, after school activities, laundry, shopping, most of the cooking, DIY, day-to-day tidying etc. I have always done more than him but things have fallen even more on me as his job has involved more and more travel. He is supposed to do the laundry when he is here but does maybe 1 load in 10 and only when I ask him to put the wash on.

We recently moved house, which has brought things to a head. It is not massive but has a large garden and it quite remote. It was very much my choice and I cannot tell you how much I love where we live now. But it is too much for me to do all the above single-handed. I have told my husband (repeatedly) that I cannot do this any more. I work 40 hours a week on top of doing pretty much everything around the house and garden and I am exhausted. More than anything, it is not just the practical side of this but the emotional. That is, I feel like though I am constantly looking out for everyone yet there is never anyone there to look out for me. If I forget to do something, it just won't get done.

At Christmas, I told him that I couldn't do this anymore and unless he started showing a bit more support then I would be asking for a divorce. I gave him a couple of very clear examples of what I mean. First, he has never changed the beds in 20 years of marriage. I told him that makes me feel like he takes it for granted it’s my job and is demeaning. Second, in the 3 years we have lived here, he has never put the rubbish out – it seems like even the laziest husbands talked about on here “do the bins” and he won’t even do that. Last week, I forgot to put the bins out so (of course) the rubbish didn't get collected. I am so sick of being in charge of practically bloody everything. At Christmas, I told him that these things are like little snapshots of how everything is left to me. In effect I was giving him a couple of very simple things he could do to show that he was listening to me. But, since then, he hasn’t taken the rubbish out once or changed a sheet.

My husband works very hard, he earns a lot more than I do, and he is a very generous person. We bought this house because it was what I wanted, it is not his thing at all but he wanted me to be happy. He is brilliant in a crisis. We agree almost entirely on priorities re. the children and I would say that he is a great father, but I know that part of being a great parent is setting a good example to your children and I think we are both setting a poor example – him by being lazy around the house and me by being a martyr about all things domestic!

Given how I have laid out my stall, I feel like he is giving me no choice but to tell him this is over. But it feels like such a drastic step. In particular, it will mean selling the house and probably moving much closer to the kids’ school. The kids will be fine with the move (I think) as they will be nearer friends etc. but will be heartbroken about us splitting up. In practice, he spends half the year away anyway so I’m hoping in practical terms I can keep things on an even keel for them. I feel so awful about the whole thing but it’s like he’s given me no choice - I have told him how I feel and he has demonstrated time and again that he will not value what I do around the place or help in any of the ways I have asked him to. Since we moved house, the argument has almost moved beyond what is fair to what is possible – I just cannot do it anymore.

So, I guess I am looking for reassurance on a few things. I am terrified we’ll all end up worse off in every way and it will all be my fault as I’ve allowed this situation to develop but am suddenly saying no more! The questions I keep turning over in my head are these:

• Am I being reasonable to divorce my husband because he won’t put the bins out (and take on other things around the house)?
• Will the kids understand why these things are such a big deal or will they blame me?
• Will I get over selling this lovely house to move somewhere cheaper and more practical? I can hardly bear to think about it but it will have to be done.

Any thoughts would be welcome. I haven’t spoken to a soul about this is RL and am terrified of what I think I’m about to do... Thank you!

I'm disappointed by the poster suggesting the outcry there would be if a man came on and complained that his wife never fixes the car or does IT. Both me and dh work in IT and yesterday I fixed my car. So... Come on then. I can do IT stuff and car stuff, and I have ovaries. What stereotyping box can I get into? Is there one marked 'human being'? It's not about this stuff. This stuff is muddying the issue until it's so blurred we're all gibbering about outsourcing this and getting the kids to do that. It isn't about the tasks! It doesn't even matter if you think women are better at housework and men are better at tech-related stuff. It's not about the tasks. It's about being supported. It's about knowing someone else will step up and step into the breach when needed, without you having to give them a flipping powerpoint presentation explaining how to do every single thing.

In my case, I am losing respect for my dh over time as he behaves like common domestic tasks are completely above him and I am torn between half amused and despair. I remember a thread in the classics by ledkr on her PILs where someone said of their FIL,

"he cannot make himself a sandwich, and will stand looking pathetic with a piece of bread until MIL comes to spread some butter on it and miraculously turn it into a sarnie through the medium of ham..."

In our case, the strategic incompetence relates to all manner of tasks, for instance, choosing an outfit for each kid in the morning (young children).

Him:

Women enable this behaviour too though, you know ^^

I was talking to a friend the other week. She has two little girls, 18 months and 3. She said that when her husband has them for the day (they try and work round each other) she prepares lunch before she goes to work, and gets the kids dressed etc.
She said if she doesn't, she will come home and they wont have had their teeth brushed, or their hair combed. They will have eaten, but probably something rubbishy, or just cereal.
I was like becuase she is a normal, feminist woman, not some simpering housewife.
The thing is, when it comes to having small children, I might very well do the same, I don't know.
It infuriates me though, becuase her husband is an intelligent guy. He manages to brush his own teeth in the morning, and sort out stuff for work, so...It's got to be them just thinking, even unconsciously " I don't have to because she will".
My friend who is a single dad, his daughter is always immaculately turned out, because he had to learn plaits, and hair bobbles, and what kind of socks she like to wear, because there was no mum to dump it all on.
I despair, and I don't know what the answer is. Yes I do. Men and women should never live together!

Sorry I gave the car/IT example, I do everything IT related in our house...

I find most men are as incompetent as you allow them to be, and would not die of hunger/get buried under rubbish/get out of the house with their children naked etc. What they will eat/dress their kids in/how tidy/clean the house will be is another question, but as long as they themselves see it as ok, that should be fine? If it's not up to YOUR standard, you then can do it yourself, but don't get resentful over other people's efforts not being up to your standards. When my DH is left entirely to dressing our toddler DD to go out, he does come up with some bizarre combinations, like PJ bottoms and smart formal tops, and sometimes I just couldn't be seen out with a child looking like that and can't help doing a quick change if her clothes (which offends and frustrates him), would you say I should have berated DH or maybe it was my problem? He and the toddler were happy with the outfit.

Women take care of everything, then when it gets too much, get upset about carrying such a burden unappreciated. Don't do everything! Of course if people are get used to someone else taking care of everything they will not try to pitch in and will come to take it for granted, it's human nature.
I iron next to nothing and that means not ironing DHs work shirts, he is used to it and doesn't expect me to. If I was ready to iron them from the start I'd never would be able to get out of it iykwim...
I refuse to remind him of his parents' and friends' birthdays, mother's day etc, if it's not that important to him, then why should it be more important to me. It resulted in some awkward conversations when he'd accidentally ring his parents on their birthdays, but it allowed for the reality to sink in and for him to choose to remember for himself (or not)

The same with children's friend's birthdays - if mothers don't buy a present no one else will - why? Who set it up like that from the start? If it makes you resentful that you are doing all the present buying, it can be changed, but not just by saying I wish you did it, not me. And then be prepared to not critisise ridiculous or inappropriate presents 🙄...

They already have one

The cleaner only does 4 hours though, which is nothing for a family of 5. OP needs to triple the cleaner's hours.

And again with the assumptions that women 'do everything' and men are naturally incompetent...

And sorry but are we supposed to be impressed that you don't iron his shirts or do his family birthday stuff? It's never occurred to my partner that I should do that stuff. Not because he's some kind of superhero but because he's a normal human being.

I don't do my husband's family's birthdays or Christmas stuff. He doesn't do my stuff. I don't like the 'I find most men to be...' statement, like I don't like 'Women take care of everything, then get upset' statement. Both of these are pretty harmful concepts - there's some element of excusing men for their innate, hapless-yet-affable nature there, that they WILL learn given opportunity, bless them, n'aww. And those women, doing everything! Who do they think they are. Look at them all, being all knackered and getting sad when no one appreciates what they do. Fools.

You can't in one breath say men will be as incompetent as we allow them to be (what a damaging statement), whilst blaming women for doing everything.

Very tired today as up with the kids last night so can't quite concisely spit out what I'm trying to say here, but surely the above is part of the whole problem that we're talking about? How about we acknowledge that men and women are equally able to learn and undertake the various tasks associated with running a home and having a family, and that part of being in a relationship is understanding that it is a partnership, and no one gets left behind?

MadameSimone, I wasn't actually addressing you, I was just thinking aloud, and as for the dishwashing thing, that was to the poster named LasVegas or something like that, who said her solution to dishwasher aggro was to live in separate households, but not divorce. My friends who installed two dishwashers find it life-changing. You never actually need to unload the clean dishwasher into cupboards, you just take out stuff as you go, and once it's used, stick it in the empty dishwasher, so there's never any dirty crockery on surfaces waiting to go in the dishwasher which no one has unloaded :)

I gave shirts/birthdays as an example because i know lots of women who do iron husband's shirts and remind him of his mothers birthday... Can't say anything on here without someone getting defensive and taking it personally!!

If I come out into the driveway and see our car has a flat tyre, I WILL expect my husband to change it if he is around, not because I'm a weak incompetent woman, but because I know he'll do it far quicker and more efficiently, partly through more practice. Yes, I could use it as a chance to get experience myself, but i don't want to.

He won't be excited that i expect him to do it almost by default, but he will do it and will not mind because there are things which I do round the house/family which he never does. It would be strange for him to get upset over it and insist I need to change the tyre with my own hands for the fair division of chores. However I would thank him for doing it for me.

But in the OPs post it's clear the husband doesn't do anywhere near enough, however i don't believe arguing over it ever achieves anything. I don't think he gets it, how much she does.

And everyone already said it, how to rectify the situation - half of what the OP doing, their children should be doing (especially if they are boys, otherwise they are bringing up future partners like her DH, who expect the woman to deal with the boring domestic stuff), and another half needs to be let slide massively to the extent where others/DH has a chance to notice and pitch in, however she might herself that some things can be allowed to slide to everyone's benefit rather than harm, and time spent together while the garden gets full of weeds would trump angsty weeding(again, weeding is a random example, insert anything else which might be currently considered necessary/essential in the household but in reality is not a big deal).

motherinferior, I was trying to include everything, so of the five weekday evenings I cook once, we clean once, and I'm out in the yard doing weeding etc if the weather is nice on the other evenings (this is both chore and hobby) plus there's usually a bit of tidying/washing up, clothes cleaning type minor stuff. Maximum hour and a half I think. So not very much, and that's with an absent dh. When he is here he'd do half the cooking and most of the pottering type stuff (he is way more domestically orientated than me).

With a similar sized house and a hard work garden I was just trying to figure out where the large amount of work was coming from that was making the OP feel so overwhelmed. As her divorce plan included moving I wondered how much really and truly was associated with the new house. I've certainly felt very overwhelmed with my garden in the past (got a gardener for a couple of years and changed sections to low maintenance, now I can keep on top of it).

Ah, I get you.

Agree with Tatiana. A family of those proportions probably needs 4 hours of housekeeping/cooking per day. And I wouldn't expect much laundry or shopping for that.

I suppose in most man/woman relationships it often takes an effort on the woman's part to work to prevent the house/kids being her default job, so it's ultimately another job the woman is in charge of. Because most men will allow that to happen if they can get away with it.
(Witness the numerous posts trying to find OP solutions to her husbands apparent inability to change things; the responsibility firmly on her shoulders).
I am not sure, after years of a man-free household, if I am ever going to be willing to devote any part of my brain to that battle of wills.
Your set up sounds fine motherinferior but I don't know that it's necessarily typical. Or maybe I am cynical!

IfNot - that is a succinct way of describing a key insight into male:female dynamics. Even if you, as a woman, don't do the housework and childcare but outsource it to others, it will be your job to manage that (and quite often to pay fees r it).

No, it is assumed that it will fall to you. You don't have to do it.

That's the point being made, MI.

TBH I think women underestimate the power they relinquish in their families when trying to push housework and childcare into their husbands. I have learned much from the great Jewish role models around me

I am all too happy to relinquish any bit of housework I can.

I think we knew that, MI

Quite honestly YANBU but I really don't think divorce is the way forward over this.
What you are doing is actual work plus you are doing 40 hours a week. I suggest dropping one or two days at work. If you have to do all the stuff round the house why the hell should you work full time too. Put that to him.
Unless you are a career woman of course and you don't want to work part time.
Mind you I went part time for precisely this reason and my husband dumped me anyway so it doesn't always work out.
It's bloody infuriating when one partner does not pull their weight and thinks you are Dobbie the house elf which is mainly why I am single for life now. I can't be doing with their shit and I earn my own money.
But perhaps you should think of the children and their needs first before making any rash decisions. My son had a nervous breakdown when I divorced his father for domestic abuse, divorce has a huge effect on children.

Exactly, it's assumed, and it's more effort to resist an assumption than it is to assume something, so even being a refusenik is an added thing we have to think about. That's why I'm thinking Im not sure I want to go down that road at all (dp wants to get married, live together, hmmm)

One way to resist an assumption is to be frank and open about hours spent and resources devoted to housework, childcare and general house and family management.

Women do themselves a massive disservice by collectively engaging in denial about this. Indeed, posters accuse other women of talking up the time/energy it takes to do these things to a high standard. This is deeply unfeminist!

If you have to do all the stuff round the house why the hell should you work full time too. Put that to him.
Unless you are a career woman of course and you don't want to work part time.

Why the default assumption that women aren't career minded and are expected to drop hours instead of men doing it?
And how about dropping work hours at home?

1. Increase the cleaner's hours. It's money well spent.

1. Go onto google and type in "family chores rota". Download it and fill in with all the remaining chores that need doing.

1. Tell your kids and husband that they need to sign up to at least 5 each for the week. (Or whatever number is reasonable).

1. Stick it up on the fridge and stick to it.

Yes Lweji, back to the kitchen with you!

It always infuriates me when women are encourage to reduce down their working hours to facilitate lazy, selfish men who don't pull their weight at home.