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?

Instead of showing some understanding and feeling sorry for me he says that he is also very tired

Feeling sorry for you? Presumably you chose this life too, why should he feel sorry for you? He's working from home 9 hours a day, spending 2-3 hours a day out of the house with the older kids, chipping in with the housework. I'm not sure what else you expect really. I also don't really understand why you find it annoying that he might - shock horror - also be tired? It's not a competition

As everyone else has said you are doing far too much for someone who has a 2 month old baby! 1) can you afford to and get a cleaner? 2) can you afford to or order ready meals Eg from Cook 3) can you meal plan to simplify. Finally, your husband does sound quite busy too and it is quite common for men to use sex as stress relief. Suggest to him that he does hard core exercise instead (lots of high intensity stuff online). Finally, could you lower your standards re the older kids to introduce more tv/quiet reading time and less homeschooling and once a day in the park is enough. If you can’t afford a cleaner/don’t want one during covid then your husband should clean during this time and kids watch tv. Cleaning is physical work too which could minimise sex pestering further...

We could debate all the household stuff but there's no debate about someone trying to coerce you into having sex with them. They are a dick.

Yanbu. Kill the lazy fucker.

I really don't understand all the posters saying that the husband is 'quite busy too'. He sits at a computer for 9 hours a day. That is nothing compared to what op does!

I do agree with all the comments on this thread about the sex thing / threat though. That really is terrible.

I think there are 2 separate issues here.

YADNBU re. the sex thing and if my DH ever said that to me, the relationship would be over.

But I think YABU around the division of labour otherwise. No one would argue that being a SAHM is easy, but if your DH is working full time plus taking the older kids out for 2-3 hours a day, he is also doing his share. Having a newborn is really hard, but maybe you should plan on going back to work and paying for childcare in future?

If you are exhausted beyond what you would expect (having had a 2 month old twice before) then consider getting a thyroid level and iron level checked. Both very common to go out of whack after child birth, both cause extreme exhaustion and fuzzy headed thinking

Also can you focus on getting more sleep. Can the baby take a bottle of baby milk or expressed milk last thing at night, then you go to bed at 7pm and DH is on baby duty with the bottle until midnight. Any baby wakings after that you deal with and DH gets to sleep until the last possible minute before work (which is later than usual as he wont have a commute)

Everything is easier to handle if you are getting more sleep

WTF!

OK so he works for 45 hours a week. There are another 123 hours in the week. He ought to be doing his 61.5 hours per week childcare, not the 21 he's doing now. That extra 40.5 hours works out to about 4 hours a day plus one night shift. Or I suppose he could do 2 hours during the week and 9 hours per weekend day?

Likewise, he is physically in the house as much as you, he needs to be responsible for half the housework.

Also you HAVE A NEWBORN. He doesn't get to ask for sex for at least another six months (preferably not ever).

I wfh currently, and although it's not physically tiring, it's mentally exhausting. I'm not just sat on my arse doing fuck all.

I'm not sticking up for him overall- the sex thing is the biggest thing to me.

But with 1 parent not working from home and 1 parent working 9 hours a day from home I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to be changing nappies and doing a share of child care in those 9 hours.

Of course he should help with them outside his work hours though - and it seems that he does take sole charge of the oldest 2-3 hours a day.

Do people really clean every day? Aside from wiping surfaces/dishwasher/getting the laundry on.

I'd definitely stop cooking hot meals twice and day and doing more than basic cleaning during lockdown. Are the kids old enough to be given basic chores like tidying/sweeping?

@SeaToSki Thanks, thyroid is definitely part of an issue, my levels were checked last week and I’m apparently on to much thyroxine, had my dose lowered a bit, hope it will help with me feeling broken into pieces all the time

I really don't understand all the posters saying that the husband is 'quite busy too'. He sits at a computer for 9 hours a day.

That’s just silly though isn’t it. Loads of people “sit at a computer” and do complicated, stressful, responsibility-heavy jobs. Sitting down while you work doesn’t negate the stress of the work. MN is awash with women sitting at their desks at home working at the moment getting stressed, strung out and exhausted. Not once have I seen them told to suck it up as they’re on their arses all day long. Women who are working while their husbands are furloughed or unemployed aren’t told they can’t complain about work stress because their husbands are juggling the kids while they’re stuck wrangling colleagues and deadlines. OP gave birth two months ago which complicates things but that’s irrelevant to this man’s work responsibility.

I’ve had several stressful jobs which involved sitting at desks. I’ve also had primary age step kids running riot and a small baby. The jobs aren’t less stressful because they’re sedentary. There are different types of work and different types of stress and exhaustion. Let’s not start devaluing office type work while valuing domestic work. It’s not either or.

Your husband is completely unreasonable to be pestering you for sex, especially under threat of infidelity. The rest of it pales into insignificance compared to that monumental dickishness.

I mean it sounds like you're both working as hard as each other.... I mean

But your DP is being a sex pest and an arse.
@burritofan 9 hours a day is quite normal... my scheduled day is 8 hours but often things come in late and can't wait until the next day so you do 9 or 10 hours

Obviously the sex thing isn't acceptable, but as far as the rest is concerned, you do sound like you are making things harder for yourself than needs be tbh. Simplify meals, cut down on the cooking and crucially, either your husband takes baby to the park as well, or times it so baby is sleeping or you use a sling so that you can make the most of the time he's out.

When my youngest was that age, give me an hour alone or two with baby in a sling and the household stuff could get done ok. I have no idea tbh why you can only do stuff in 2 minute chunks.

It sounds like you've both got your hands full. I'm not sure when he would actually have the time to fit in more, so I guess the fairness on split of jobs depends what he does at the weekend when he's not working.

His view that sex is his right, that your body is there for his pleasure, that sex is his rewards for 'helping' in his own house with his own children, without any regard to your wanting it or not, is misogynistic and frankly vile. And as for his threats about getting it elsewhere that would be a deal breaker for me. Consent gained by threats and coercion is not consent and there is a word for men who have sex with women without their freely given consent. Plus even if you disagree with this viewpoint surely there is nothing less likely to get you in the mood than being threatened with being cheated on. I hate the narrative that some men have that sex is a need not a want and they are therefore entitled to cheat or use prostitutes as otherwise theyd be forced to rape...has he never heard of wanking?

Is there any reason why he can't put the baby in the pram and take to the park, if you time it between feeds?

We don’t have a garden and kids are very active hence the need for 2 walks a day.

We normally have a nanny and a cleaner but they are furloughed atm as one DC has an underlying condition and we just can’t risk it

@yearinyearout Older kids got used to pram from early age and I walked hours and hours with them as babies. Now I would have to take older kids with me, they would walk for 10 min then start fighting, screaming, weening, etc. And the baby is not used to pram, seems to hate it and would not stay quietly in it. I take baby for a walk once a day for 20 min up and down the road

Apart from the sex comment nothing else is unreasonable.

You would not be U to ask him to leave if the sex pressurising is a situation you're unhappy with. I could not (and would not) want to live with a piece of shit who, 8 weeks after I gave birth to a child, felt compelled to tell me he'd look elsewhere for sex if I didn't cater to his whims. That's manipulative bullshit of the highest order.

But regarding the other responses op, can't you relax on the cooking and cleaning?

Lots of people have made good suggestions that you haven't acknowledged.

Presumably if you both usually work ft and afford to have a cleaner and a nanny can you get a take away once or twice a week?

Why can’t he take the baby in a sling when they go out? Good for him and the baby to have time together, you get a proper break.

Why are you making complicated meals that take hours to prepare? If you’ve got 5 minute chunks of time, make a meal which takes 5 or 10 minutes. You’re saving money on your furloughed staff, throw some of it at food that needs no effort.

Get the kids tidying up.

My theory is that such an attitude to me starts from my mother in law. She used to work full time, sorting kids and then cooking/cleaning once everyone including her husband were in beds.
Every time she comes to stay over I feel like a bitch. If I ask my husband to help with laundry for example she would jump, tell him to just relax and would run to do it herself. She raised him as a prince who is not expected to do anything around the house and that all the chores are women’s job.
But unlike me she is the sort of person who never runs out of energy, even in her 60s she is much stronger than me in my 30s.
Took me lots of arguing, persuading, etc. to get my DH to do some work around the house and he would often slips to doing nothing.

I’ve often felt for women who have tiny babies, or who gave birth during lockdown, with primary DC at home too. You don’t get the peace to snooze while the baby naps or just sit as you would if they were at school. Add in the homeschooling, extra mess and having to prepare food during the day, I don’t envy people in this situation at ALL. My neighbours are in the same situation and I can hear (late at night with windows open) that it’s really tough!

Do your DC really need to go out twice a day, if you have a garden? Tell your H to do one outing and the other hour and a half, he has all the DC while you have a bath or a nap undisturbed. A sandwich, or egg and beans is fine for lunch or hotdogs with pepper, carrot and cucumber sticks. I’m sorry but with a newborn I have no idea why you are cooking for lunch as well as dinner . When times have been tough, I’ve (4 DC) always lived by the mantra do what you have to do to get through, everyone’s fed, no ones dead so the day went well! Lockdown in a pandemic, a new baby, worry about job security, no school etc, is one of those times.

Your H must take a lunch break, tell him you’re going to be taking turns to prepare it?

Is he getting up with the baby at weekends to give you a lie in. He’s gained time he would be commuting, so he could take the baby for an hour in the weekday morning too?

Only you know if the sex threat was said in stress/anger during a row and he didn’t mean it or if he is an nasty twat who has no respect for you at all in which case I’d be making an exit plan over the coming months before he blames you for him having to have an affair. The fact you’re only two months post partum leads me to think it’s the latter.

But you shouldn't have to ask him to do stuff! It's his house too! They are his kids too! I am doing everything in my huose plus working FT. Weirdly no one has to tell me what to do..
Yes, lots of people are doing full time jobs and getting stressed about it right now but you sound like you are doing a full time job (hello 2 kids and a newborn!) all the time, whereas he gets to clock off!