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!

Women need to be encouraged to spend more money on domestic and childcare help if they wish to pursue FT careers.

Women need to be encouraged to spend more money on domestic and childcare help if they wish to pursue FT careers

Women???

In the great words of DJT: SAD!

Yes, women. Since they are the decision-makers (the bosses) in these matters. If you tell men, nothing will happen and women will continue to be exploited by the system.

career woman

Ah yes that lovely monicker for a woman who doesn't outsource her entire future to a "career man" in the often vain hope that she won't end up having to 'stand on her own two feet' in late middle age with a shitty pension provision

BoboChic

How about NOT taking full responsibility and sharing it?

Make joint decisions. About work hours. About work at home. About child care.
Or ditch thr bastards.

Clearly the issue is not the physical housework but the fact that the OP's husband know it hurts and annoys her and does not change. That is what makes it a relationship issue.

OP, when you ask him, what does he say?

Taking responsibility is where power lies. I rather like responsibility - it gets me where I want to be. Women relinquish it at their peril.

Has this been posted?

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9055288

It's not power to take full responsibility for the housework in a partnership. What a strange idea.

Society does not value housework. Making it our responsibility in full is not gaining power, but losing it. It's an illusion.

It should be a partnership, where both partners share responsibilities and rights.

Has this been posted?

Just three times.

It serves no purpose to bang on about what men should be doing if they won't do it. In any situation, people who do not take responsibility are at risk of losing power. Women need to understand how to work this to their best advantage. Look at matriarchal societies for ideas!

It serves no purpose to bang on about what men should be doing if they won't do it

But "they" do do it. Many men do it. And almost all can do it.

We just need to give them that responsibility, by not accepting it, and by passing it up to them. Or by rejecting those men.
Accepting that household responsibilities are only ours will never, ever, solve it. It just prolongs the problem.

Why? Because men are not genetically programmed to avoid household responsibilities. They are socially programmed. So, we need to reprogram societal expectations, not reinforce them.

What do you think we can learn from matriarchal societies that is useful to us?

Good luck with your social reengineering programme

Not good luck

It's happening:

--From 2003 to 2015, the share of men doing food preparation and cleanup on an average
day increased from 35 percent to 43 percent. The average time per day men spent doing
food preparation and cleanup increased by 5 minutes, from 16 minutes in 2003 to 21
minutes in 2015. (See table 1.)

--From 2003 to 2015, the share of women doing housework on an average day decreased
from 54 percent to 50 percent. The average time per day women spent doing housework
declined from 58 minutes in 2003 to 52 minutes in 2015. (See table 1.)

www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm

It's thanks to people like you that it doesn't improve.

Well done.

It's not about upping cleaners hours it's the disrespect he is constantly showing you by refusing to help when you've told him you're at your wits end. He needs to do more - if he refuses I'd be doing the same. Older kids can help too but why should they do it because dad isn't pulling his weight. Everyone should take a role

In this case it doesn't look like a 'man does less' problem to me, more 'person who works most hours outside the home does less'.

More like "hardly anything". And 40 hours is not a small amount, particularly with commuting. Not to mention being in sole responsibility of everything while he's away.

I'm more than happy to give up the 'power' of cleaning, cooking etc whenever I possibly can in return for more time to do whatever I wish to. Having domestic tasks completed is nice, it's nice to live in a clean house, be fed good food etc, but it doesn't change the world, it's boring mundane stuff that unfortunately needs to happen on a regular basis.

I was thinking about the OP's life and actually I'm not sure that the housework thing is what would lead me to think about divorce I'd come at it from a different angle. I think I'd be much more angry that her DH has chosen a work lifestyle that means he is away for large periods of time and when home also pretty much completely avoids his family. He doesn't see his wife and children in the morning because he doesn't get up. He doesn't see them in the evening because he has organised to work then instead. At the weekend he also opts out of their lives for big chunks too just because it suits him not to engage. We've already seen how much this upsets the OP, I bet it upsets their children too (or perhaps they see their father as pretty irrelevant).

I love the comparisons to changing car filters and tyres.

I have been driving 14 years and have had, in that time, two flat tyres. One was slashed and fixed by the garage and one I did in fact change myself. I wish I had known that a tyre change every decade or so would get me out of all tedious, relentless, thankless, repetitive daily housework tasks.

I can't quite believe so many posters think OP is over-reacting by considering divorcing a man who has ignored her requests to pull his weight in his own home for over a decade. It wouldn't make me feel loved or like being romantic, or up for a shag, very often - doubt it does her, either. The fact that becoming a single parent will make her life easier (as presumably their father will then step up and have the DC EOW or whatever) speaks volumes.

I get that some of these jobs are tediously boring and you want more help , but you can't love him to want a divorce over it it's way OTT.

I suppose the responses do make it clear why this kind of disconnect exists. When so many women accept that housework is tedious and mind numbing, but think sucking it up and doing it themselves is preferable to divorce - it indicates an awful lot of men out there who can coast through life ignoring this facet and suffering no major consequence except the occasional frustrated nag

When so many women accept that housework is tedious and mind numbing, but think sucking it up and doing it themselves is preferable to divorce - it indicates an awful lot of men out there who can coast through life ignoring this facet and suffering no major consequence except the occasional frustrated nag

God, yes, this.

I think Nooka's point is right.

The op's life has become subservient to her husband's career and consequent lack of involvement in family life (although more recent posts suggest he could do more but just chooses not to).

Some women choose to live with that disengagement because of the money & lifestyle the high earning job brings, but op has made it clear that's not what she wants.

He should be dropping his hours to make family life work, not her.