AIBU To be exhausted by the end of the day and not accepting that kids, cooking, cleaning, etc are my jobs and husband should not treat his share of house work as “help”

[Alison18031]

A family with 2 primary school aged kids and 2m old baby. Husband works 9+ hours a day from home in front of his laptop.

I do:

1. online grocery shopping, meals planning, cooking (I start cooking lunch at 9am, dinner straight after lunch as can only do things in 2 min/5 min intervals in between other things).
2. homeschooling these days (going through what schools are sending, making sure things are done by kids, assisting as needed).
3. cleaning: big clean during weekends, daily tidy ups (no one else is bothered, I hate mess).
4. baby is with me 24/7, not a great sleeper, more like a catnapper. I BF. Baby just lives on me, wouldn’t stay anywhere else for more than 2 min without making a fuss.
5. I manage to get a cup of tea and 5 min to sit down around 10pm and then I crush into bed, every other day I have to get all my remaining energy to have a shower.

Husband:

1. wfh in front of laptop for 9+ hours a day.
2. takes older kids to park twice a day for 1-1.5 hours each time.
3. loads/unloads dishwasher and washing machine if I ask.

I feel like being torn apart every second of my day (running between baby, kitchen, kids), trying to do 5 things at the same time. By lunchtime my back hurts badly from carrying the baby. I’m physically and emotionally exhausted by the end of the day. And here at 10pm comes my husband asking for sex and telling me that I just imagine things and come up with excuses and that he is also extremely tired but he needs sex and if I refuse he would have to find someone else to meet his sex demands. His argument is that he does all he could to help me and I can’t then spend 10 min with him. I tell him that what he does is not help to me but his share of housework and I don’t make up excuses I just genuinely exhausted beyond every limit and it’s unreasonable for him to expect the normal level of service these days.

Am I just a lazy cow and need to get myself together and let my husband do whatever he wants with my body or I can just be tired and can go straight to bed?

Make lunch as simple as possible so cheese sandwiches, egg mayo, tuna basically anything they will eat in bread. You could also consider soup, buttered roll, waffles, fish fingers, pizza, chips, hummus etc. When the baby gets a bit older you can go back to making the kind of lunches you normally do but for now keep it as simple as possible.

Tidy everyday and if the kids are old enough get them to run the hoover around or dust. Even if all they do is tidy away their own toys that will be a big help. I would also cut back on their breaks out, send dh with them for an hour a day max. Do you have a garden where you could join them or watch from the kitchen? The other hours your DH could use to take the baby off you or do bed and bath time with the kids. If it is to much right now bath the kids every other day unless they can do this themselves. Don't do laundry everyday instead do it at the weekend( so your dh can do it or watch the kids so you can) that way you are not knee deep in washing, sorting, drying and folding clothes everyday.

Tell him you need him to take over doing the shopping, if you meal plan tell him what you are having and let him do the shop. If he forgets things off the list adjust and make something else. Don't try to micromanage him if this is a task you want him to take responsibility for.

Put the baby down, in a bouncer or on a playmat etc. so you can get some things done ( a little crying won't hurt). Try not to be harsh with yourself, at only 8 weeks postpartum you are doing incredibly well managing everything.

As for the sex demands, your baby is only 2 months old and regardless there is no excuse. I would make my feelings about that abundantly clear! I would say ltb but if he has enough redeeming qualities for you to want to make this work then take small steps towards making things change.

It sounds as though you are making too much work, tbh.
Your dh should be doing more though.
Does he not put the kids to bed, bath baby, etc?
When he finishes work you should both carry on until everything is done and finish together.
As for his threat of going elsewhere for sex, I'd be showing him the door and wishing him well with that one.

You are not working outside the home and with two primary age kids and baby you should be well able to cope

Why is nothing baby related on your husband's list? Does he literally do nothing to care for his youngest child? He needs to be changing nappies!

Your husband is a sex pest.

Housework is the least of your problems.

@isadoradancing123 really? A 2 month old baby who hangs off you is a full time job in itself!

Does he need to take the kids out twice a day? When do you get outside? Why can’t he take the baby for one of the daily outings?

The sex comment is crap but on the rest of it, you’re both tired and working hard, you expect him to feel sorry for you but you’re not seeing he’s having a long day too. Why aren’t you sitting down till 10?

Threatening to go elsewhere is really grim but is he mentioning the lack of sex as shorthand for no couple time together? Your marriage is the foundation for your family, you won’t do your children any favours by prioritising deep cleaning or complicated meals over spending time with your husband, listening to each other, remembering why you chose each other, having some mutual support and understanding that this bit is tough but it’ll get easier. If you make it a competition you’ll both feel shit and mutual resentment will eat away at what’s good in your relationship till it’s dead. Don’t do that.

Of course she's not woh with two primary kids, nobody is unless they are taking their kids to work, duh!
I'd imagine mat leave, which doesn't mean your dh gets to badger you for sex and not doing his share of the work that needs it.
Why should OP be the one to do it all.
It stinks that he doesn't want to care for the baby.
I agree he should be changing nappies.
He has a two month old and threatening to go elsewhere for sex. Should OP cope with this too?

You need to ditch the effort with lunch and meal planning. Sandwiches or beans on toast. Evening meals can be something easy in the oven most of the time.

I agree he is working hard, you are also exhausted. I would try to make your life easier and make time for him too, he shouldnt be pestering you for sex but it does sound like your relationship is suffering.

@Aquamarine1029

...that he is also extremely tired but he needs sex and if I refuse he would have to find someone else to meet his sex demands.

If my husband ever said this to me it would be game over, marriage over. Tell him he is welcome to go shag every woman in town as you slam the door behind him.

This. There is no going back from something like that and shows that you are married to an utter arsehole who doesn’t love or respect you. All the other crap about housework is background noise, he could clean the house like Cinderella but he still wouldn’t be a fundamentally kind man. I’m sad for you reading this and I hope you can find it in yourself to kick him out.

You are not working outside the home and with two primary age kids and baby you should be well able to cope
She's working inside the home, homeschooling two primary age children. The baby's night wakings are presumably all on her. And she does 90% of the household labour and 100% of the emotional labour – her sex pest husband won't even empty the dishwasher without being asked – and her husband is a sex pesty, threatening twat.

Ok, the thing about sex is completely unreasonable. How dare he threaten to go elsewhere??? Did he have his fingers crossed through his marriage vows or something? Your baby is only 2 months old, DH and I frequently had that gap between dtd in our DDs first year (terrible sleeper). Spending 10 minutes with him, yes that's a reasonable thing to want (but sometimes tricky with a tiny one). But it's ridiculous of him to demand sex. Sex is supposed to be for both people. Would he enjoy it if it was just something you were doing because you felt you had to??? My DH would find that a total turn-off.

Aside from the sex thing, there are probably some things you could cut down on though, but for YOUR sake, not your DHs. There's no way you should be cooking on/off from 9am until dinner! A little bit of beige food every now and then wouldn't be a total killer, and you could make double when you cook so that the next week you just have to reheat. Cold lunch is fine - there's nothing wrong with sandwhiches or a tin of vegetable soup. I think you may be being a bit of a martyr to cooking.

Daily tidy-ups - can you get your older kids to help (or in fact do the majority, as I bet it's mostly their mess! Just build it into the routine as an expectation that it has to be done before they get xyz that they want)

If your DH is taking the kids out (even if just the older ones) for 3 hours a day, that is a fair amount of time on top of his work. There's no way my DH is managing that at the moment! Hopefully you're using some of that time to get a decent break? If you're using that for housework each day, I think you really need to relax your standards for now - you may just need to live with a bit of dirt until your older DC are back in school in September.

As others have said- make life easy on yourself. Easy lunches and easy dinners right now. Dinner should take 30 mins max to prep. Lunch should take 15 mins. I know you don’t like mess but you might just have to let it go a bit at the moment. Relax your standards a bit and know in your mind that this won’t last- the kids will be back at school after summer. Time to blitz the house then.
When the kids are out with your DH (3 hours is ages for them to be out, I never got close to that when I had 3 under 3!) I would slob on the sofa with the baby on my boob and look at my phone or the TV or just rest for a while. Don’t spend that whole time cleaning / cooking. Buy food that can go straight in the oven or bung in the slow cooker.
Make more elaborate meals at the weekend if you want to.
Regarding the whole sex thing- I think this is so so out of order. If my DH said that to me I don’t think I would want Alex with him ever again! Sex for women is emotional and internal. Not just willy in for 10 mins? How the heck are you meant to feel like sex at the moment with a 2 month old baby?? If you don’t want sex he should be supporting you not threatening to seek it elsewhere- extremely scummy behaviour

You are both working from home.
I expect he uses some of his office time to watch the news or check facebook or look out the window daydreaming. He knows this.
He shuts himself in there to avoid seeing all the tasks you are doing.
He takes the kids to the park every day is a bonus point.

You sound as if (forgive me) you are trying to keep standards too high given the demands of a 2-month-old. Don't be so hot on cooking from scratch twice a day. Eat more sandwiches. Do think about how genuinely important each task you do is and what the payback reward is given the time and energy you put into it. Be creative - put on some favourite song of the kids and have a crazy 10 minute dance tidy every evening. Don't spend that time while the kids are out doing it for them.

But.
he is also extremely tired but he needs sex and if I refuse he would have to find someone else to meet his sex demands.
Utterly, utterly unnaceptable.

Good point @AnneLovesGilbert - put that baby in a pushchair next time he goes to the park! Men are notoriously scared of taking babies out on their own and at 2 months there's not a thing that needs to be done except push it around - if it has a dirty nappy or cries it will live!

Why are posters giving OP tips on how to make easier lunches,like every damn domestic thing falls to her?
If she left, or died, this man would HAVE to deal with his kids AND work. Many of us do! In fact hundreds of thousands of women are currently trying to work and do everything else because apparently men's jobs are much more important.. But he thinks he doesn't need to because he has a slave.
OP, if you tell me he spends his weekend s cycling I'm going to tell you to have him killed

He sounds like a rapist. YABU to be married to someone who coerces you into sex with whining and threats. What he's doing is illegal and he's disgusting.

If you hadn't revealed that he was a rapist, then I'd have focused on the fact that you probably need to lower your house expectations and put out sarnies for lunch each day. But as it stands, you issue if that you married a bad person.

I think the sex thing would be an issue for me, you should only have sex if you feel into it and for him to suggest otherwise it's disrespectful in my opinion.

I think the other thing with your day to day is not just the tasks themselves but you also take the full mental load of everything - I.e what needs doing, when it needs doing, who needs to be told what, what can be sorted later, what you need to do tomorrow, the next, the week after etc and that's where the true exhaustion lies because you never ever switch off.

When I explained to my DH about the mental load, that what I was physically doing and what mentally I had to store and think and plan to keep the family going he was genuinely shocked and I think it really opened his eyes to what my 'to do list' actually looked like. I think men can sometimes have tunnel vision and see themselves as helping (which is true they are) but not seeing what else is going on around them and the scale of things actually getting done.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all OP, I think your husband needs to respect and support you more.

LTB and I don't say that lightly

I’m sorry but your DH sounds horrible. I’d be on the phone to the solicitor.

Lay down the law about the dishwasher etc. Don’t ask him, tell him. Say it’s your job DH, you bloody well do it.

Make your meals way simpler. It’s June, you don’t even have to have hot food every day. Get some healthy ready meals and snacks in. If he doesn’t like it he can organise it.

Get a cleaner. An MN cliche yes, but you need one.

Cut yourself some slack with the kids’ schoolwork. Explain that the baby is exhausting you and for a little while you’ll be doing things differently - eg from a lying down position on the sofa.

I too agree that your husband is doing a lot, as I’m sure you are too. Don’t get into fights about who has it harder as you both do, you’re a team.

However I agree with PP that he is bang out of order with the sex blackmail x

If my husband had been asking for sex when my babies were 2 months I'd have told him to fuck off.

Good point made about why should you do all the chores. My DH also works from home every day for 9 hours. When he has lunch, he comes out for an hour and takes over- makes the lunch for himself and the kids (and me if I want it) and he is in charge for that hour. Could your DH do that whilst you take a rest with the baby (if baby won’t leave you?)

he works 9 hrs and walks kids 2.5 hrs so if he gets up at 7 he is free from 6.30 until bedtime. so he should be making/tidying up evening meal, bathtimes, reading bedtime story, or none of that and just carrying baby around for 4 hours.
Get him to do whatever you like least. Possibly just getting him to carry baby around!