What is fair - a DH one

[toomanybins]

Regular poster have name changed.
I work three days a week in a high stress senior role. I work long days - 12 hours with no break and a long commute. My children are now at primary school although previously I would care for them on my days off. I now do school run, house jobs and physio as I had a major operation six months ago but do obviously have time for myself. I earn well and my job is secure. I have no plans to go full time at the moment and my DH and I are happy with that.
My DH started contracting last year so does longish contracts (six months ish) with periods of time of in between . This is usually at least a month but has been longer (up to three months). We both agreed to this plan as it will further his career. He earns well during these contracts so we spread the money across the months his not earning. It is normally full on and stressful when he is working but less senior than my work.
When's he is working we have childcare but when he is not he does school runs and any holidays when I'm not around. He is happy with this. During time off we agree jobs that need to be done ( daily and diy type jobs) but he has quite a lot of time to himself. Excluding job hunting and jobs about four hours a day. He usually does a home based hobby the rest of the time.
This has always worked well. However in this break between contracts (now 7 weeks) all daily jobs seems to have slowed and apart from three days of childcare for half term and a week of diy, nothing else is getting done. Maybe one small job a week plus the dishwasher or a wash on. House is a bombsite when I return at 7.45pm even on days the cleaner has been in. He resents me nagging but I am fed up that he has forgotten his side of the deal. Really don't want to fall out but we have reached an empasse. This made worse by the fact that my health problems have flared up and tidying hurts! (His job hunting isn't really an issue - confident he will get the right contract eventually)
I am wondering whether last time he was off I wasn't part- time.. Thoughts?

You are justified in thinking he should be doing more.

Not sure why he thinks you ought to be responsible for everything when he has no job?

The only way is to have it out with him

3x12h=36h so pretty much full time hours (although compressed into 3 days) + a long commute. DH should get his tushy into gear.

Usually do a few hours on Sunday too. Although full time was closer to 60 hours, my part time is close to 40

Any ideas how to raise with him? Any attempt in a blazing row. It's the hobby I know it. But my view is he could do his jobs and any job hunting done by 11am if he cracked on. Leaving him four hours fifteen minutes on hobby a day before he needs to leave for pick up

I tend to have success if I raise issues after sex. DH is a lot more agreeable then.

Not sure how to bring this up with him but I agree, he needs to get his arse in gear and start to pull his weight.

Do you pick up the slack when you get home/days off? If you do, I’d stop now! He gets more than enough time to himself for hobbies, but the ‘chores’ should come first most of the time

The thing is I don't want to have sex. I'm annoyed and tired. If he did his jobs he would get more sex! Also the health issue doesn't help.

He could do all non daily jobs left on his list in a day. It's so fucking frustrating. Yes I do start picking up when I get home. I need to stop. But it's such a state

Not sure how I'd address it as he's being blatantly unreasonable especially that you've got a cleaner so it's not like you expect full housekeeping from him...

The only (slightly obvious) tip would be not to be angry or accusatory but more along the lines of how sad you are to see the house in this state and how very tired etc. And talk about your feelings (but not for too long and approach him at a good time rather than be pissed off as soon as you walk through the door). He's less likely to get defensive then.

He resents being ‘nagged’ (hate that word) - we’ll guess what, if he pulled his weight like a grown up with responsibilities to his family then he wouldn’t have to be nagged like a small child.

Tell him to grow the fuck up - four hours a day on hobbies and he’s acting like this, he’s acting like a spoilt brat.

Could be be depressed? I just wonder, as you seem to suggest he wasn't like this before.

He just gets engrossed in the hobby and can't see beyond it. Taking him away from it makes him angry and resentful. Even today, after a visit to the hospital yesterday when I was told to rest, he spent two hours on the hobby. Most of the time the kids were playing in their room but it wasn't restful

My husband did contracting and I reckon in very similar industry and it was not like you describe at all. When he was off work looking for the main contract he was mostly stressed or depressed.

Job hunting is not linear so he would be attached to his phone waiting for the next call, looking on the Internet and job.sites, networking on LinkedIn.

After two years luckily it stopped as he had an offer of permanent working and I got my husband back. He does a lot more now than he did when he had that time off, o think the uncertainty was very destabilising

Ps maybe the hobby is a way to distract him

Black eyes an interesting perspective. He's definitely quite relaxed on job hunting - partly because there are jobs out there so he could earn next week but he jumped a few rungs on his last role ( which was v stressful) and he is looking for an equivalent senior level role. We have a cut off at the end of April when he will just take anything. Jobs do come up very quickly though. But maybe he's insecure and it's destabilising

He just gets engrossed in the hobby and can't see beyond it. Taking him away from it makes him angry and resentful.

My dc get like this if they’re allowed too much time on their tablets - they get cranky and snappy. I still think he needs to grow up. Why should you have to shoulder the mental work of chivvying him along to pull his weight.

that I agree he needs to grow up but I'm struggling to get him to see it. I thought he would get a wake up call when my health flared up but no.