Following on from invisible women's work

[HazelNutinEveryBite]

Following a recent thread about invisible women's work, I am waiting for a hip replacement in the near future. I am late 50s, always been active, so it will be hard having to depend on DH in the short term. Interested to hear people's views on MN.

After bringing up a family and picking up most of the invisible work women do, I find myself needing to explain to husband of nearly 37 years that he will have to support me after the op. I will not need help with personal care, but will need meal prep, food shopping and all the things normally done by a wife during the recovery period. My hospital stay will only be 2 days so will not be able to do a great deal of domestic stuff for at least a fortnight or so after this.

DH says he understands and will do what is needed, but as he was not always much help when the family were young, I am worried he has no real idea of what is expected. He works full-time and I don't expect to be lifted and laid, but will need so much more help than he is used to giving, just for a very short time.

Adult DD who is single is going to take a few days holiday to help initially, which is appreciated. After this, I will need to rely on DH more than I have ever done before in our lives together. I hope to be back on my feet and back to work in 2 months, but can see the recovery period being difficult.

Possibly older MN posters have some tips as to how to approach this.

Bloody hell, stop infantilising a grown man.
He can cook, you said this.
Fortunately his penis doesn’t block access to the washing machine controls - as you say, if he dies his whites it’s his problem to buy new ones.

What the hell are you talking about getting a cleaner for, because he won’t clean? “won’t”? Seriously?

If my husband wouldn’t clean the house for 2 weeks whilst I was recovering from an op, that would be the end of our marriage. And I’m deadly serious about that. I don’t date children, I don’t date spoiled brats, I don’t date passive aggressive helplessness. I couldn’t respect a man who didn’t clean - especially when I was laid up. I certainly couldn’t muster any attraction. What a very sad marriage you have, if that is his little he cares for you

Exactly what Ellisandra said.

Some of the "advice" given on here just makes me absolutely despair.

Hello - fellow hippie here - had it very young with a husband who had just started a new high powered job and two small children. He is/ was very capable so he certainly knew I needed help but simply didn't have the time and all his spare time was focussed on the children.
In the end, I recovered much slower and we had hired help. Found a mum who came in three hours a day for a few weeks so I could shower when she was in house, she prepped lunch, made drinks and dinner and did any house work.
I would suggest you do similar if you are anxious although I also think you need to have a broader chat..,

Ellisandra
Spot on !

Agree with others op;
My DH is 71 and, as I type, is cooking dinner, having prepped it first.
It's nothing to do with being a "generation thing" or to do with age.
It's everything to do with being a grown up.
Oh, and in 1958 my mother was very ill and my dad had no problem at all with taking care of us two children and running the house after he finished work. (Me and my sibling went to neighbours aftyer school until dad came home).

My dad is 77.
I grew up seeing him cook, clean and care for us children.
Not all the time (worked full time vs mum part time) but enough to remember it.
His children were born in the 70s.

The women’s movement was already a “thing” in the 60s.

Long gone are the days when almost anyone now living can use their generation as a valid excuse for misogynistic crap.

I think a bit of assertiveness required here. State your requirements because I think if you don't, you will become very frustrated with him. Get stuff in that you want - reading matter etc, but then make it clear YOU are going to be the one in need and ge needs to step up. I sense part of the reason for your worry is that you feel he won't do things as well as you might and you want to have nice food and comforts, which is understandable in the circumstances, but you may have to let go slightly and let him get on with it. Good luck with the op.

Thank you for all your replies, agree DH is an arse in so many ways, but having made my bed I will have to lie in it for now. The time to LTB is not when you can hardly walk and need an operation to get back on your feet, with the prospect of 2 months off work. I own half of our house, so leaving would him would mean renting somewhere else to live in the short term, with a lot of extra expense involved, while he languishes in our comfortable home. We have a walk in shower which is important as well after the op. I need to be practical.

To give some background, I come from a family where DM was a stay at home mother for 12 years whilst we were all young kids. My Dad was in the navy and not often at home. It was the norm in that background to see women doing absolutely everything at home, with no real alternative.

DH was armed forces when we were young, so often away on tours of duty and I would look after the kids on my own. You do get used to this, in the same way that single mothers do not expect help from husbands, because they simply are not around. Many military wives have done this more recently, whilst husbands served in Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

It is a different way of life to that which many of you have experienced, with Dads who helped out a lot at home, but such women have always had to adapt.

I have allowed DH to continue for years after he left the forces as if he had a SAHM wife, in spite of me working full time. I should have addressed this years ago, but it didn't matter when I was fit and it is where we are now.

We have had a good chat today about the need for him to leave drinks and a flask for me where I can easily reach them. DD will be around for the first few days and I will ask her to go over this stuff with her dad before she goes back to work. I will write lists for him to follow. There is loads of homemade stew and soup in the freezer for me, he can make his own meals and do his own laundry.

DD has found me a cleaner who also works at the local hospital.

HazelNutInEveryBite it might be worth heading over to Gransnet for some advice also. There will be plenty of ladies on there with intractable, older husbands like yours. They will be very supportive and helpful to you if you post there as there will be plenty of women who unfortunately will understand exactly where you're coming from.
Best of luck with your recovery

DH was armed forces when we were young, so often away on tours of duty and I would look after the kids on my own

Where he had to clean his own stuff, including boots, make his own bed and cook his dinner. They teach you that in training you know. Stop letting him get away with doing nothing.

cranstonmanor

I know. But bulling boots, following orders and making beds does not in any way help soldiers to develop empathy with other people. DH seriously lacks these qualities. As we get older and I now need some help, it becomes more apparent.

Military life in the infantry means that young men learned to simply survive in hostile environments. My DH served in NI in the late 70s and faced baying crowds of rioters as a teenager, then went on to serve in the Falklands conflict. I guess many former soldiers have PTSD, which has not been recognised. Their families have to live with this and it isn't always easy.

I thought that you started this thread because you need practical help, but reading your last post makes me think that your problem is that you don't want this relationship. That's a whole other problem. I agree that you can't leave now.

Aside from that, you can put a canvas type bag around your head and put bottles in there to carry that way iwhen you hobble from kitchen to sofa.

OP, I’ve just been where your going with dh age 62.
I was suppose to be on 3 days of bedrest post op.
Sadly dh obviously didn’t prioritize the same as me. I was extremely well fed, propped in bed and he was available 24/7. BUT kept saying the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting could wait.
I’m not sure who he thought would arrive to do these trivial unimportant but to me necessary tasks.
I found the mess unsettling, so before I really should have was, loading the dishwasher/running it and unloading it, doing the laundry and dusting.
He kept telling me to not do it, but never got up off his chair to do it either (he did two loads of laundry first time ever, and did a feeble attempt at dusting once).
Please read this to your dh. Tell him some tasks are important to you and will need to be done for the sake of a peaceful and restorative convalescence.

shocked by this thread

I hope you have a speedy recovery OP and then tbh I hope you leave as soon as you can

I think if I were your DD I would really struggle - happy to help mum, but not happy to "instruct" dad.

I have had to recover from major injury living alone - though I had a lot of help from friends so in a way, I wonder if I had a lot more help than you will have.

of course friends were doing this round kids, work etc etc so to some extent I did plan how I would manage alone. It sounds as if you need to do that kind of planning but my friends actually cleaned up and put rubbish out and so on - are you saying your H wouldn't even do that?

Also shocked by the idea that the cleaner DD has managed to find is somehow 'for you'. Fair enough if he wants to outsource the cleaning, hope he is paying for it out of his 'spends'.

I just wanted to add that when my Mum had her hip done, she found it really useful to have a wheeled 'hostess' trolley in the kitchen; otherwise she had to stand at the kettle to drink a cup tea (she had a zimmer frame for the first couple of weeks).

Not getting how PTSD (and nothing you’ve said suggests he has it) is an excuse for not doing laundry and cleaning. What - getting on his knees to dust under a sofa gives him flashbacks of checking for car bombs?

I wish you a speedy recovery and understand that now is a hard time to change things. But once you’re recovered it’s an excellent springboard for “you know, I should have been able to rely on you - and the rest of my life is not going to include being your maid”.