Help me not be a seething ball of resentment at DH about chores

[yourfamousblueraincoat]

Can you help sort out how on earth to fix the fact I’m drowning after having gone back to work? It’s easy to say get my DH to do more but he is a workaholic and works even harder than I do. I just don’t know what to do. How on earth do people cope with high pressure jobs and more than one child?

This is our schedule:
DH leaves for work at 7.30am and returns at 7pm - spends 20 minutes getting DS aged 15 months to sleep (already in PJs and bathed by nanny). Then he returns to work until about 10pm when we have dinner.
At weekends, he works at least one day out of two and can barely concentrate when having family time. He always makes time for church and watching one sporting event.
In the house, he irons his shirts and takes the bins out about half the time when asked.

I am up with DS anywhere between 5.45 and 7am and get him ready for the day, sometimes skipping a shower as he won’t be left alone. I leave for work (also high pressure job) at 9am, handing DS to the nanny, and return at about 9pm. Then I cook dinner, do dishwasher, clean high chair, do laundry, do admin, tidy toys and go to bed around midnight.
I am also off on Fridays and try to preserve this as time spent with DS without too many chores except in nap time.
We have a cleaner but it doesn’t feel like enough.

I do all bills, DIY, household shopping, negotiating with tradespeople for repairs, organising and tidying for cleaner, all laundry, changing bed sheets, booking holidays, birthday cards, most Christmas presents for both families, all child related research and shopping, booking and attending child medical appointments, random household chores like changing lightbulbs, controlling the heating, setting burglar alarm, liaising with nanny/other childcare, organising our limited social life, preparing beds and meals for when his relatives randomly descend with no warning, sorting garden.

How can I make our lives easier without giving up work? I am a massive seething ball of resentment and just end up sniping at DH on the rare occasions I do get to spend time with him. I have zero time to myself.

Having a career as a woman isn't all cracked up to be, if it was, so many women wouldn't be writing threads like these.

This. A thousand times over. And I have to say it’s a refreshing change on MN not to have the LTB (for not pulling his weight)/tell him to step up comments being thrown at OP.
In my experience (as one half of a once ‘power couple’) the only way such couples survive is either by accepting that they outsource pretty much everything (which is going to cost in the region of £50-60k/year) or they have HUGE amounts of family help.
I know plenty of women in high powered jobs, but they have DH who have accepted lesser roles to facilitate childcare/housekeeping. I honestly believe that anyone (male or female) in a highly demanding job either needs to be single or have a VERY supportive partner behind them. No-one earns 6 figures working 9-5 mon - thurs and slotting sports day, the Christmas play and open classroom (usually with 3 days notice) into their schedule.(although I’m sure someone is going to come along and say they do).
Id warn any women against completely giving up work. The divorce rate is almost 50% and no marriage is fail proof. Concede as you can (or make your DH), outsource if you can. My career has taken a huge hit (financially about £100k/yr), but if my husband walked out tomorrow I could step up and financially keep us afloat. There are many many careers where it’s no so easy.

Whilst people are not saying leave, a lot of people are saying he should step up and that actually he is not to be trusted in terms of op making any decisions around changing her work.

That’s not my interpretation of what Michelle O said. She basically had to accept “the deal” - barak prioritised his work and interests and travelled for it - and also be independent within her marriage.

She also talks about the extensive help she had with childcare from her mother, before the wealth, and she continued to work FT before the Whitehouse.

If your dh prioritises church and sport over his family, then you're right to be resentful, he's behaving like a dick. Go on strike and stop doing things for him.

I also don't understand why you had a child. Aside from the practical stuff, your child needs love and attention and interaction. Lots of people change their lives and careers once they have children to spend more time with them.

But anyway, if you both want to stay in the same jobs you need your nanny to do more stuff (cleaning high chair etc), your cleaner to do all the cleaning and washing etc or take on more help so that at least the very little time you have at home you can dedicate to each other and your child. And if your budget doesn't stretch to that then for goodness sake look at a career change which gives you a much healthier balance of life!

Yes I am halfway through the Obama book and I have found that aspect of the book eye opening.

Good God. What a miserable existence. Why is your husband working till 10pm? And one day at the weekend. There is no work life balance here. At all. Does he think this is normal? Let me assure you! It's not.

No-one earns 6 figures working 9-5 mon - thurs and slotting sports day, the Christmas play and open classroom (usually with 3 days notice) into their schedule.(although I’m sure someone is going to come along and say they do).

Yes sorry I am going to say this. I think it’s important to counter the impression that the only way to earn well is to do stupidly long hours. I think it’s a ploy by men to avoid the bits of family life they find tedious. I earn 6 figures working 8.30-4.30 with a day or two from home. I have men in my team with young children and their wives think they are forced to be in the office all evening. It’s bollocks - they just chose it.

She decided that nobody else could do the key bits of parenting, being with their children, so she did that. Nobody else could do being a wife to her husband, so she found ways to do bits of that

Actually I felt that Michelle Obama minimised the contribution made by her nanny - she definitely had one when she was working! She also kind of glossed over the fact that they had marriage counselling - I suspect his working pattern was part of it.

But she came to the conclusion that a lot of working mothers come to - you either accept the guilt or you try and cut down so you spend more time with your children. But it’s impossible to do both.

And I’ve had a decent salary and relatively good hours but because work wasn’t that close to home, it was hard to juggle the school events etc. I only know one person on six figures who manages it - because they’re lucky enough to live around the corner from work (in London) and they can afford it because they had substantial parent help when it came to buying property in zone 1. A luxury which just isn’t there for the majority of us.

Interested to hear what dh plan is though you have a child you both work mentally long hours. What did he envisage happening? He needs to take a step back with his career

This isn't about the OP having to give things up though, is it? It's about her DH who (for whatever reasons) is not sharing the load with her - so that he can further his career.

Bollocks to that!

You do have to give things up if your partner won’t step up!

RiddleyW

Which field are you in? Asking out of total interest as I am fortunate to earn very well currently, but though I can leave at 5, I also then have to work late into the evening, every evening, and it's driving me a bit crazy. I keep wondering if there are actually workplaces that might be more reasonable, but worry I'd be chasing a unicorn!

I’m in house legal - in a medium sized media company. We’re quite forward looking on flexible working.

I mean it’s not medium as in SME but it’s not a giant mega-corps.

What would you rather have.

More time or more money. It's finding that right balance and sometimes you can't have it all.

You might be able to retire earlier. I bloody hope so with that gruelling schedule but then your health has gone because of all that stress and your children have all grown up.

You can't have it all and what you do have doesn't seem to be working

If you both love your jobs and want to keep them - keep them!

You need to cut out some of the additional stuff you are doing though. No more cards, presents or hosting of DH's family.
Assign your DH and yourself roles at home, and don't do his jobs for him - so say you do admin, bills, medical appointments
He does bins, DIY, organising repairs.

If he doesn't do 'his' jobs, you just have to leave it undone - hopefully he will realise that changing a lightbulb is preferable to living in darkness.

Definitely buy more help.
Get a gardener
Up the nanny's hours if you can, even if she starts an hour earlier that will give you time to shower, eat breakfast etc. Live in nannies often work 7-7 and do 1-2 nights babysitting.
Swap the cleaner for a housekeeper on your 4 working days. I would look for someone who can come in 3-4 hours a day and completely take over tidying, cleaning, laundry, changing beds, shopping and prepping the evening meal.

Make sure you are getting a lie-in and some time to yourself at the weekends! If your DH is getting an afternoon to watch a sporting event, you need to take equivalent time for yourself the other day.

@AbbyHammond Where's the time for the children?

If she's exhausted and he's a workaholic someone somewhere is suffering.

Your kids will be raised by nannies. You are working more than you spend with your kids, more so than lots of other people.

Kids don't care about money, they want their parents there.

Nobody said they wished they worked more on their death bed.

@MrMagooo she spends 2 hours a day with her ds, all of Friday and the weekend. The child is also being put to bed by his parent every night. Her time with him less than many might like but it's more than most full time mums or dads manage, and very unfair to say her child is being raised by nannies.

It's also a bit ingenuous to say 'someone somewhere is suffering' when the op has very clearly presented that she is, because she's doing every other job in the evenings and getting minimal sleep in order to spend every spare minute with her child.

People may not have said they wished they worked more, but plenty of others have wished their lives were more comfortable, or less stressful, or that they could have left their knobhead DH, and having a good job is sometimes the key to that.

People may not have said on their deathbed they wished they worked more,, I mean!

It’s not fair for the onus to be on you to reduce hours when you already have to spend time with your son on Friday.

He needs to either start compartmentalising and actually switching off after work and at weekends so he can actually participate, allocate a lot more of his salary to hire in help, or just go off and be a single workaholic which it almost sounds like he wants.

MrMagoo, she gets up everyday with her child, spends three whole days a week with him and I'm guessing every night waking too. Her child is not being 'raised by a nanny'.

@AbbyHammond I didn't read it properly.

I don't get it sometimes (I know it's not always straight forward)

Why can't she just tell him what she expects him to do, it's not fair and he has to help out.

Is his job so important?
Does he need to work so much or does he choose to?
What the hell is he doing when he is working on the weekend?

Nice to have some more info?

I'm sure in all of this the OP should be able to carve out a compromise e.g a Sunday off 1 or twice a month. It doesn't sound like they are rolling in cash after giving up so much time.

Sit down and carve out some terms and conditions. That way your OH can plan for doing some childcare / mornings / days off and get his ever so important work in.

Sometimes I find having kids calls for part of the relationship to be business like. Everyone knows their duties and when they are supposed to do them.

www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-greedy-professions.html

Interesting NY Times article about the financial and career rewards of working long hours in high status jobs, and how this affects mothers and family life.