Fed up with DH. Fed up in general.

[MagnaDoodle]

I’m not happy.

Background: been with DH ten years. Married five. We have two amazing girls. They are 3 and 1. I work three days per week in a job that is highly stressful and competitive. My workload is heavy and I am working most nights at the kitchen table to keep afloat. DH’s job is also demanding, although arguably not as much as mine (but as he works full time he never has to work at home). He’s out at half seven in the morning and gets home to help put the girls to bed at the back of six.

He’s a lovely dad. Loves his girls and they love him. Very hands on (when he’s here). I can’t fault him for that at all.

I guess my issue is that...there are elements of the man child about him. Don’t get me wrong if I say to him “can you do the kitchen, put away the washing, make the bed etc” he will do so without complaint. I make a point of getting him to do stuff like that because I have to work, and why the fuck shouldn’t he. So he is I suppose pulling his weight in that respect.

However I feel like I’m living with a student at times. He’s lazy. Will do what he’s told but that’s pretty much it. He doesn’t see mess and think “oh I’ll square that away” he just walks past it. Will leave stuff on the coffee table. Will leave rubbish on the kitchen counter “for the recycling” but half of it isn’t recyclable at all he just chucks everything up there. It’s grim.

He does not “do” DIY. Ok I accept that not everyone can/does but I do feel that he could do a basic level of maintenance around the house. He could try. Friends’ husbands all try.

It’s mental load. Shopping is down to me. Meal planning and making sure the kids eat properly. Making sure they have clean clothes to wear. Toys to play with. I organise their clubs. I do all the party admin. Nursery admin. It just doesn’t occur to him to take on some of this.

I’m exhausted. I’m fat. I’m drinking too much and eating shite and have no clothes for work because I just don’t have the time or headspace to give it. I’m in a total rut and he doesn’t notice or care. Occasionally we have it out about this issue and he says he’ll be better but it never changes. He just thinks I’m always on his case.

The thing is he’s kind and trustworthy and honest and clever. He is not a bad guy. Just so painfully selfish sometimes. just feel overwhelmed and resentful.

Women in poor relationships often write the "good dad" comment when they cannot write anything at all positive about their own man.

He is not a great H to you nor a great dad to them for that matter if you are being treated like this. He needs a bloody good shake up; what does he bring into this relationship anyway and what are you getting out of this now?. He is not kind/honest/clever if he thinks you are always on his case. Your last paragraph here re him is contradictory to what you have written about him.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning from the two of you re same?
Would you want your children as adults to have a relationship like this; no you would not. Its not good enough for you either.

mustbethistalltoride.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/ is a good article to read.

Can you write down a comprehensive list of everything that needs doing and go through it with him. Then divide the chores up fairly and make sure he owns his stuff. So maybe homework, laundry, clearing and cleaning kitchens and bathrooms, packed lunches, birthday parties and presents are his and you do the rest.

My ex not only didn't help at all, he told me it was my job as he paid the bills. Which is why he's my ex!

He's not contributing to your lives together really
He's not interested in doing any of the necessary work to make your household run properly.
Agree he's not a great dad. Nothing good about this lazy entitled attitude

I think it is time to assert yourself and to focus on the things you can change and influence. Although you highlight being fed up with you husband there are other areas of your life that you can hopefully be sorted as well and will give you a better idea as to how you deal with husband and your relationship with him.

I think you are basically doing a full time job in the 3 days you are officially working and therefore working into the night. I recommend a discussion with your employer about this. There are other work life options and I think you should identify one that suits your personal circumstances. For example go full time but work compressed hours and have this recognised financially. Ask to have the workload reduced or for help. As a manager myself I would rather somebody asked for help than sat up all night working. It’s not productive and will lead to burnout.

Drinking too much is within your control. If not, then you have a serious problem and need to seek professional help. Otherwise stop buying it, break the habit and replace the glass of wine with some tea. Eating poorly will improve if you get on top of the drinking. Trust me a glass of wine never improved will power or helped with late night working.

As for your husband, he is who is he. He can improve and change to some degree but fundamentally he will be a certain type of person. You have said you have asked him to more proactive and he can for a time. Then he reverts. Why is this? I can’t tell you the answer but maybe with some counselling you could identify whether this is an intractable problem or not for you both a couple. For me personally I know that i do a lot of planning because it suits me and gives me control over things I know just don’t bother my OH one way or the other. If I couldn’t cope he would help and he would give me support emotionally and practically if I was stressed. So yes he can be a bit of a lightweight but that suits me and my perfectionist ways.

Imagine a parallel universe in which you don't have kids but your partner is exactly the same. Would you stay?

This is going to be an unpopular opinion so I have my hard hat on ready! I do think that quite a lot of men (maybe women too) don't "see" things the way the rest of us do. Case in point, my adult DS is very much like this, will do things without complaint but doesn't usually just up and do it. The other day I washed the nets in the living room. He came in while they were in the machine and we sat on the sofa talking. I mentioned the nets and he looked and said "oh I thought something seemed different but didn't know what it was". He genuinely doesn't notice a lot of household stuff.

At least your DH will do things without complaint when asked. I think people suggesting you leave him is a bit over the top! I do think you should try and do something to address your work situation also. Just give your DH a list of stuff to do on various days. Ok, you need to write the list but you only need to do it once. If you want him to do shopping or meal planning tell him. Yes you want him to take the initiative but he won't (and I don't think it's selfishness on his part, just not knowing whats needed). So you have the choice of being increasingly stressed over this or you pass over some over the load to him. He'll get used to it.

Hugs

I think that it does sound like you are doing more than 3 days worth of work if you are working at night to keep up. Can you talk to your employer?
I would also write down a list of everything you do besides the things for work. Take a look at it and decide what you still want to do yourself, cross these off and then show your husband the list. Ask him to pick half of the stuff and explain these are his responsibilities which he needs to do as you are not his mother and he is now a grown up.
Finally, pick a morning or afternoon at the weekend and use it to do things for yourself. Tell him he will have the children. Don't worry about what they eat, just let him sort it out alone and go.

I always found one of the major problems when it came to housework is that what I call clean and tidy is not what dh will call clean and tidy. I hoover a few times a week downstairs, I wash out the sink each time I use it etc but my dh will happily live in filth for weeks before noticing. I am not sure this ever changes as it is not a priority at all for him. I am resigned to doing it myself or asking him to do it. Thankfully he can do diy, likes to be in charge of the dishwasher and irons his own shirts as I don't care about creases and he really does!

You need to delegate a few aspects of housekeeping to him fully. He will be fully responsible for those tasks and you must not intervene even if he gets its wrong which will happen initially.
From your list: shopping and meal planning. He could take this on fully.

As for diy... why won't he try? I thought this was a point of pride for many men. Maybe every weekend you can go through a list of jobs around the house and he can get on with them throughout the week.

Laundry could be another thing that he takes on fully.

Whatever he takes on becomes fully his responsibility and you agree you will not remind him or step in if he forgets. If he doesn't do them they don't get done.
He's a growns ass man holding down a job. How can he be so clueless at home? Because he gets away with it.

Time to put yourself first before resentment eats away your relationship.

@storm
Your son's future girlfriend or boyfriend will end up having similar issues to the op then. Did you bring him up to ignore housework as something you did and he didn't need to think about?

He's not a bad guy, but painfully selfish?
Painfully selfish people are usually really bad people.... and he doesn't sound like a great dad at all.

No I didn't but we don't all have the same standards of cleanliness! That was my point in what I was saying in my original post! My own dishes from last night are still by the sink. Some people couldn't handle that. Doesn't bother me. Some other people wouldn't even notice. We are all different.

It seems women always want men not only to clean to their standards but to do so without any prompting. I read the article that a pp linked and I thought my god, if I was with someone who got annoyed because I didn't put my cup in the dishwasher it would drive me mad!

I certainly don't think OP should "ltb" that's ridiculous. Just communicate.

Making sure they have clean clothes to wear. Toys to play with. I organise their clubs. I do all the party admin. Nursery admin.

I would choose one or two items from that list and make them his job. Preferably jobs that don't hurt the kids too much when he fails to achieve them the first few times. Perhaps their clubs? (if he misses them one week, they can still go the next week).

And yes, as a PP says, let him fail. They're his jobs - don't pick them up if (when?) they go wrong. His responsibility.

both working, young kids, tiredness & grumpiness are going to be the norm, it's a fact.

if you spend any time at all looking for things to be angry about, you'll find plenty. suggest you try to be as positive as possible, make time for 'date nights', etc.

She divorced me because I left dishes by the sink

My dh was really sheltered by his dm. She didn't think she could have children and did everything for him, babied him right into adulthood and even hid the fact she was dying. He got a huge shock when faced with everything. Now don't get me wrong he really doesn't see/care about certain aspects of cleaning the way I do but if he sees mess he tidies it. He cooks if I'm ill but having fended for himself for a year before I moved in it always seems to involve deep fried potatoes which I can't work out
All admin falls to me though as he's severely dyslexic

To me the problem here is your “highly stressful and competitive” workload which you are quite frankly taking out on your husband. You’ve been together for 10 years ,married 5 I’m sure this is how he was when you first got together and always been.

He does whatever you ask without so much as a complaint, so leave him a list. Above all find a new job and put your family first.

It seems unfair to want equality in the household tasks but then judge him for not being interested in DIY. If it was still 1952 you wouldn't have the freedom to work yourself into the ground while looking after everyone at the same time.

From his perspective, he works full time you work part time. Does the reality of you sitting there, working at home, register with him? Does he know you're doing it our of sheer necessity and not just because you're ambitious?

He sounds like he has a lot of genuine good points and some incessantly bad habits. Catch your relationship before it's too late and see if you can fix things.

It's not clear if you are busy while he sits around - if it's a rule that no one sits down before the other you should be both be working to get things sorted ie no crap lying around kitchen tidy kids in bed even if you are finishing your outside job or at the supermarket.

You don't seem to have much standards OP, having to tell him to clean his own mess, look after his own kids, he's not kind, kind people wouldn't watch you struggle and add to your load; I couldn't live like this, I'd rather live alone with my kids and have one less kid to clean up after; he clearly thinks he's too important for domestic duties, but it's ok for you to shoulder it all; can only suggest you write up a rota, let him get on with it.

I felt like this at times. It was almost always because I wasn't happy about something in my life which made the 'small stuff' so much more oppressive. My DH is similar to yours, he is aware that I get upset about it and tries to do things to improve and he has done but he just doesn't get a lot of it and e.g. if he was a single parent having to sort out parties, toilet rolls to send into school etc. it just wouldn't get done, end of. I can't ask him to prioritise things he'd never do if he was left to his own devices.

Me being grumpy about it also made me a pretty horrible person to live with (what's worse a cheerful lazy sod or a grumpy martyr?). I decided to stop caring and also to stop doing things I didn't want to do beyond what was absolutely necessary. I also started doing things for myself more, including e.g. working out, sorting out my wardrobe and getting a few extra bits that made me feel better, seeing friends and prioritising time with other women who made me feel good about myself etc. I'm not saying it's your problem to solve, but I realised 2 things pretty quickly 1) I wasn't going to leave him about it 2) while he could improve and has improved, he was never going to do things exactly how I thought they needed doing or take on mental load on things that just weren't important to him.

We have started doing the following:

• meal planning together on the weekend and agreeing who would buy what (duplicate shopping purchases e.g. eggs was one of the things that really pressed my buttons)
• he is responsible for laundry (including folding and putting back in drawers for kids, yes I do still have to remind him about it)
• he has to cook 2 x per week in the evening after work
• on occasions where I'm working late or am going out with friends (about 2-3 times per month) he has to do childcare pick ups
• he takes youngest child to their weekend activity and arranges/pays for it (I do the other one)

I tried the whole 'can't you just think what it's like to be me and take on responsibilities etc.' and he just couldn't engage, much prefers to have defined tasks.

Oh and the absolute best thing I ever did for marital harmony was jack in my uber stressful job and find work that didn't make me want to weep every week...

Know what? I wanted to change jobs. He talked me out of it. It’s well paid for three days and we need the money. He’s right in that. Childcare costs are crippling us which doesn’t help.

I will give him lists. I will tell him stuff to do. But I shouldn’t have to. He’s a grown man with a responsible job.

Also. I delegated phoning the guy to come and look at the boiler, to him. That was in June. He still hasn’t done it.

I don’t need to prompt him to look after the kids because he enjoys that. But if I leave party admin or nursery admin to him it either won’t get done or it’ll be done to such a shitty standard that I’ll be mortified.

Well in that case he needs to step up. My DH would back me to the hilt if I wanted to leave a stressful job, even with finance implications.

I know what you mean about childcare costs. It's a killer. I'm still winding down the adrenaline now both mine are in school (of worrying about paying every month). Something has to give. You sound really stressed and sad and that is something he needs to respond to as a human being.

I do find with my DH he finds it a bit overwhelming and can't respond straight away when I do a big 'this is why I'm pissed off' speech, so it might be a good idea to prepare to be underwhelmed by his response initially, but wait a few days to see what he has to say for himself. It's never a good feeling to feel responsible for someone else's upset, especially if you're just 'doing your thing' in your head.

Maybe an adult's conference is a better way of doing things? Actually sitting down together and reviewing the state of play, rather than just giving him lists? That's how we got to our list.

You said up threat, it's you who organise their clothes, their meals, their toys, their clubs; hardly hands on imo. Oh yeah, he plays with them for a couple of hours before bed time, big deal. Sorry just my opinion, we all have different standards.