DP typically leaves house at 7am and returns at 8pm.

[Jaycee74]

I currently don’t work - all household management is left to me during the week. I get some help at weekend - but I have to ask. He generally cooks at the weekend. Do I have a right to feel pissed off?

Some bloody awful replies on here.
You sound miserable op ....and rightly so.
He needs to do something about those working hours and start to take care of his responsibilities at home.

There’s another thread going at the moment with a similar issue and thank god the overwhelming response is actually guess what a man who made a decision to have a partner and children can still wash dishes and do laundry.

Just like he would fucking have to do if he was single and not have a skivvy around the house.
Being a SAHM doesn’t mean you have (like poster in other thread) run a bath for your DH and have warm tea waiting in the oven when he can’t even put a fucking teabag in the bin

@Jaycee74 yeah he's being lazy and refusing to be held accountable for it, you need to go on strike imo. Let him see and understand how much you do to keep his child cared for and his home in a comfortable, livable condition.

@Faffandahalf there are so many threads like this one and tea and bath man. It's depressing and enraging.

Ok faffandahaf
When you said up nights with a baby I thought you meant an actual baby that requires regular night feeds every night, not a 3yr old toddler having a nightmare once a week.

Jesus wept kitk. You’re home at 5.45? Your DH is home how much longer after you? 2 hours?

So that means you have to do ALL the housework? Wtf
Unless he’s a trucker and is out all night driving or something....

Making more Money doesn’t mean you just don’t have to do stuff. How do some women really believe this misogynistic bullshit?!

Once again for the crowds at the back. If he was SINGLE who the fuck would be doing his laundry then?

Sometimes my husband starts at 8 and finishes at gone 10.30, so leaves at 7.30am and gets home gone 11pm. It's life

THANK YOU! Some great replies here - I’m very appreciative. Betsy and Flibble and Tanner!

No need to be sarky plan. Some women want their partners to help with a baby at night. That might be after a breastfeed or rocking to sleep or like mine making the bottles. Not all women BF. Plenty of partners out there who can help their FF babies.

Either way a man who runs off to sleep downstairs so as not to be disturbed by a sleeping baby is a bit pathetic. I had a 1 year old who woke for comfort and DH did most of that because I worked too. As did he. He didn’t die.
(The 3 year old wakes every day)

How long is your DH's commute? Any other potential jobs with other companies? My DH has a senior job in a full on sector and sometimes works till 1am, but often does so at home, and at often works from home so he can take the kids to school etc. Its the late of variability I wonder about - he might have deadlines, but they won't be consistent ones. Can't he ask for a WFH day, or leave on time once a week? I get why you have a lot of questions about this.

Some weird responses on here so far. But maybe you didn't phrase your original question properly. I think you feel your DP may be cheating? (e.g lost hours?)

Sorry if I've got that wrong. Many hours at hospital today and not good news.

Ok happymummy but 90% of DH’s are not finishing work at 11pm so you’re situation is wildly different from the norm and the OP’s

He is a software engineer - and is supposed to work set hours/flexitime.

DH is a senior software engineer. He's worked for a number of employers. His current job is very family friendly, but it does depend on the culture of the place he works. At his last job he was rarely home before 7.00pm and 11pm wasn't unusual.

I've worked with lots of software engineers.
That is very much a job that you can come home from and still put a dish in the dishwasher.

I beg to differ on that. Some tech employers have work cultures which are exceptionally stressful, and are known for beasting employees until they burn out and get another job.

Thats not the case everywhere, but it does depend on the level they are at and the individual company in question.

The one benefit that DH had when he worked at his last place with the crazy late hours was the fact it was flexi-time. This meant that DH could make use of this occassionally and either go in late or have a half afternoon. His employer couldn't complain as he demonstrated that he regularly more than pulled his weight when it was needed and this was his reward for doing so.

Its hard work to pick up the pieces for someone in this position - it has to be worth it for you both. Having a home/work life balance is about both of you, not just him. Its not simply about doing all the domestic chores; its also about having someone to talk to in the evenings and to have emotional support from. Personally, that was the hardest thing. I didn't mind him not doing stuff around the house so much, because he was well paid and that meant we could do stuff together as a family, which we couldn't otherwise. It was the emotional side of it, and not always being appreciated for me facilitating his ability to do his job that pissed me off.

I think the point is, if he's working these hours you have to think about

1. Is he making an effort to do things as a family unit when he isn't working?
2. Is he taking advantage of the perk of flexiworking for the benefit of the family occasionally?
3. Do you have quality time as a couple as a couple?
4. Do you both have emotional support?
5. Does he value what you do to enable him to do his job?
6. How is this going to work when you go back to work? How he feels about 5 is important to this?

Ultimately if his work/home life balance isn't working for you both, then he seriously needs to reconsider this - even if this means a switch in employer to one where the culture is better. Its not hard to change jobs in the field.

The fact you have started this thread says that he's not doing the above points and you need to pull him up on this as its making you unhappy.

This isn't about what chores he does or doesn't do. Its about his awareness of his responsibility to the family isn't all about money or labour but also emotional.

Right now he sounds like he simply 'isn't part of the family' because he doesn't think about this side of things.

DH is now doing a job which is much more 9 - 5. This has its pluses and minuses even then. He's not as happy at work, but he gets so much more from his home life. I don't miss the late nights, but if I'm honest if he could work from home or have flexitime with this job and have the odd late night that wouldn't be so bad.

Pulling your weight isn't just about doing domestic chores...

20/30 min commute - so that’s not a big issue. I remember when we first dated, his laundry basket was overflowing - so his mum stayed over and did 4 or 5 successive loads of washing...

FWIW even with his long hours, DH would always occasionally 'give me a night off' with DS if I'd been struggling with lack of sleep for a number of nights.

Lack of sleep is a form of torture and just being you are not employed doesn't mean you can somehow cope with this without support.

Whos being snarky? You said you wrote “baby” when you were thinking “3yr old toddler” when you objected to my response about how is a man going to breastfeed a baby, the mother working or not kind of has to do the nights because she has the milk factory.
I was just explaining that because you wrote “baby” I visualised a baby not a toddler. Now you’re objecting to me having said, oh I thought you meant a baby when you wrote baby!?

If anyone is being snarky it’s you expecting random people on the internet to know you meant a 3yr old toddler when you wrote baby.

Even if the father helps out at night with actual babies, the mother still has to get up to breastfeed and it may not make sense for BOTH parents to be sleep deprived. So while I appreciate the overall thrust of your argument about men not helping out your example of babies and night wakings was honestly a shit example.

Same as it ever was. The only improvement is that we're no longer encouraging housewives to get smashed on tonic wine to allay the stress and boredom of being an unpaid domestic servant to ungrateful anf entitled men.

Those are pretty standard hours in the industry I work in and I do similar hours though less when my children were younger. We both worked so sharing cake naturally, but when I was on mat leave I did it all. I was at home all day so of course I did. I hate to use the sentence what do you do all day, but surely unless you are struggling with PND you can do both house and children ?

You know what? DH lived at home until we got married. We come from a very traditional patriarchal culture. We’re both religious and from religious families. Husband wife roles generally quite traditional.
He couldn’t do anything. Load a dishwasher, work a washing machine, hang laundry, use an oven. Fuck all.
I also lived at home until we got married. My mum did all the cooking and laundry too!
We were two idiots who stumbled along and figured it out. I still did all the cooking though. Some cultural stuff just doesn’t die 🤷🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️
And yet despite coming from such deeply old fashioned and traditional background my DH still managed to look after our children and our home equally. Sure I did more of the laundry and still do but he washes al the dishes and wipes down the kitchen every night. We do a kid each for bath and bed. I do bathroom cleaning. He does the hoovering.
We try to give each other breaks on the weekend. (Library/park trips with the kids while the other gets to chill)

Honestly it’s not that hard to make things a bit more equal. Men can do it. They just don’t want to.

YABVU

Spot on Red. It’s the emotional support and feeling valued. And I’d say that’s mutual. We don’t ever do things as a couple - but weekends are all about the children. Our joy is them. They are beautiful and happy and thriving. So maybe the plates/emails/bins far outweighs the joy of having our children.

Men can do it. They just don’t want to.
^^ this 100%

I’ve noticed a lot of men seem to like hanging around in the office, in what I strongly suspect is a way to miss bath time etc. They’ll be unproductive all day and then kick into gear when they “absolutely have to get this done this evening”.

Other people - men and women - find that jobs that they thought were all encompassing do actually allow them to leave on time for pick up if they have no other choice.

Working long hours does take it’s toll on a relationship. It’s not fair to live your live as though you expect someone to be waiting at home with a hot dinner and accommodating laundry basket.

@Jaycee74 sending you and a for your DH who needs to sort his 1950s bullshit out and pull his weight. Good night and good luck!

Christ is that all there is housework, drudgery, up all night with kids, laundry, loading the dishwasher. Sounds like a really joyless life.
Did you both make an active decision to have kids and discuss how things would work or did you just blindly go into it?
Is there any fun in your lives at all?