How much does your DH do? Am I asking too much?

[Tiredmummy2020]

Before lockdown, husband works 5 night shifts a week, I work part time school hours. So I do drops offs, work, pick ups, homework dinner clean up baths stories laundry cooking etc on a daily basis. Husband works Wednesday-Sunday so I spend all weekends alone with dc, food shopping, visiting family, activities etc. I was feeling burnt out. But his day is work 8pm-6am, come home sleep then up and study for a work related course he is doing, then he makes a snack for himself, exercises, watch news, talk to work friends on the phone about work and his course. Then work again. On his two days off he does load the dishwasher those two days and since lockdown on those two days takes the kids on an hour bike ride. I should feel less tired since lockdown as I have been furloughed (he hasn’t) but I feel overwhelmed doing everything by myself with no adult contact, spending all day with the kids then evenings alone while he is at work. On his two nights off we do watch a movie together once I have put the kids in bed. I feel bad to ask anything more of him as he works for the nhs (not front line but still has to wear a mask all shift which I know is hard). I just feel lonely, tired and at breaking point but feel guilty for feeling like that. I hate him working nights but he prefers it. One for money and one because their is less patient work to do in the area he works. I just feel like I parent alone. But maybe that’s justifiable considering his working hours?

Pleas rescue yourself and DC from a miserable life with him

I did my councelling session yesterday. It makes me feel so anxious afterwards because I know I need to make a big change and it feels overwhelming 😞

One step at a time

Every step feels so hard. I am carrying on with the councelling and I’ve been standing up for myself With him now but I feel constantly full of anxiety now. Maybe it’s because I’m making changes?

It is an aneurysm inspiring making changes because it's a move into the unknown. Good luck and don't go back.

Anxiety

I lived with someone a bit like this. Now I dont because looking after 2 kids is hard, looking after 3 when one of them was a 40 year old man, was too hard.

I've been where you are though, unbearably lonely and kind of aware how unfair things are, but feeling unable to get them to understand - here's the thing, they understand alright, they just dont want it to change. He sees what is happening and who is doing what.

sorry i posted too soon before i saw you're thinking about leaving. The pre-leaving anxiety is one of the hardest things ive ever experienced, in fact it was the hardest thing for me. It really is worth it though, you could meet someone who takes that lonliness away. good luck and stick to posting on here it helped me massively x

flyg thank you so much for taking the time to post that. I can totally relate to the part about finding parenting hard when the 3rd child is an adult man. I feel because he doesn’t help with the dc I feel drained and tired but also resentful because I feel like I’m parenting him too. It’s exhausting. It took me 2 years to get the courage to start councelling, two sessions in and I feel more anxious then ever. I guess because it feels real now. I’m so scared the anxiety will stop me leaving, how did you manage to get the courage to leave?

What Graphista and wobbles said. He's very abusive. And he's a raging gambling addict, a narcissist, a lair and a cunt. He's conditioned you over years and your parents set you up to put with with abusive twats.

Please listen to the advice you've been given here and start the process of leaving. For your kids. Before you get a repossession order on your house and have to move anyhow because I can almost guarantee he's borrowed against it to fund his gambling, that's very, very common among gamblers.

Maybe start writing down when things happen, your reaction, his behaviour etc. Then you can start to see a pattern, test it out to see if he reacts. This way you can start becoming more departed from the situation.

www.cleverism.com/cycle-of-abuse/

My OH and I both work full time from home. I work various shifts Mon-Sun 8am-8pm and he works Mon-Fri 9-5.

I am 4 months pregnant with our first.

He doesn't "see" mess. So that leaves me to do one of two things; Ask him to tidy up, or do it myself. I usually end up doing it myself because it might take him a few days to do it and I am trying desperately to keep on top of the housework.

He has never cleaned the bathroom off his own back. He cleaned it once and that was because I asked him to do it about a week before he did it and held protest to doing it myself.

I bought a whiteboard for the kitchen so I can write the housework on so he has a visual as to what needs doing. He was very keen on this idea so I don't have to verbally "nag" him.

He has his own office on the other side of the kitchen but he doesn't keep it tidy. The floor hadn't been hoovered in months. So, I wrote on the board "vacuum the office" and put his initial next to it so he knew he was assigned to that task. Two weeks later, it is still written on the board and still not done. Alongside other things. I have written things up that I assigned to myself, rubbed them off as they were completed, written more on, rubbed them off... you see my point.

Even when asked and introducing the gentle method of having a whiteboard rather than asking him over and over to do something, he still isn't pulling his weight. I can confidently say that I do 95% of the housework.

Ask him if he'd like money for nice things or a divorce? That should bring him back to reality.

I’m glad you have counselling to work your way through it. I had it with my last partner whilst I was planning to leave, it does make you stronger and it will empower you and offer some stability at such a confusing time. Your thoughts will settle and you will eventually see clear Op!

My DDs dad was exactly the same, ignoring the household responsibility. I was doing my degree whilst on maternity so had to go in to uni part time and study but I Mainly left my studying until evenings when DD was in bed. I remember breastfeeding through the night with my books in my other arm before my exams

No offer from him to get out of bed and help she was up most of the night.

He’d come home from work and expect to sit on his bum all night whilst I still had to bath and feed and cook and tidy etc etc.

Then at the weekends it was sitting down and watching football for him.

Totally innacceptable. All because he worked 40 hours so he was entitled to have the rest of that to himself.

I remember loading the never ending pile of washing at the weekend and thinking, how much easier would it be if I was only doing mine and DDs clothes and not His?

Life was so much easier without him.

My DD is now 8 and that was 7 year ago. I now have a very solid and fair relationship with a lovely man who has a DD6 of his own. We both work full time but he often does extra night work for us to save For a house, and he still comes home and takes all the house load off me. He still tidied up after the girls in the evenings and weekends. And he does not take on any extra work when the girls are at home with us or take work phone calls because that’s his family time and he puts them first. That’s equal partnership and it exists. Your DP has checked out and it sounds like he was never in with the family life in the first place.

"I’m so scared the anxiety will stop me leaving, how did you manage to get the courage to leave?"

A combination of things. I would say sharing with people I trusted IRL was an important early step. I built up a good support base, and started researching rents and universal credit entitlement - I knew my OH would never leave the house so I had to get out. Ultimately I put up with his shit for about 3.5 years, and as it got worse the thought of leaving got easier, because he was making things unbearable.

So in short get support IRL if you can and start actually putting together a plan for how you are going to end it. Be very careful though, as many other women will testify, abuse escalates and its the most dangerous time when they know you are leaving. This was true for me, the one and (thankfully) only time I have been physically assualted was after we split.

Keep posting here as well, whatever hurdle you face you will find someone who has been through it before you.

Flyg I think that’s one problem I have, things are bad then not bad, over and over, sometimes in the space of 5 minutes. I sometimes wish he was horrible all the time it would make it easier to leave.