I’m copying and pasting this incredible post from another thread. It cannot be repeated enough on Mumsnet. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the original author.
(This post is specifically geared at women in heterosexual relationships.) Ok ladies, we need to talk.
Every few weeks there's a post that makes the admin team spend a day debating if we should say something or not. These posts are always on the same theme; husbands who are not pulling their weight.
Well, after just reading a post from this week were a whopping 4 HUNDRED of you commented in solidarity with the OP I've decided today is the day we say something.
Household chore inequity and child care inequality is a form of domestic abuse. It forces women to work themselves into exhaustion and illness, whilst men buy their free time with female exhaustion.
No one wants to see themselves as being in an abusive relationship. It means acknowledging that someone you love, someone you married or committed to, someone you chose to have children with is taking advantage of you and that hurts on so many levels.
it's heartbreaking to acknowledge, but acknowledge it we must.
If your husband or partner is capable of working at their job without being micromanaged and given extremely explicit instructions, then they are capable of contributing fairly at home without being given extremely explicit instructions and micromanaged. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.
If they were capable of living independently without living in a rat-infested pigsty without any clean clothes and living off pizza, then they are capable of ensuring children are fed and clothed, groceries are done, and household chores are shared equally. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.
If they claim they love you and yet your health comes secondary to their leisure, they're gaslighting you.
If they claim they can't possibly function and it would be unsafe for them to work with broken sleep, but it's totally fine for you to have to work, drive and do all the household chores and childcare on broken sleep, they're taking advantage of you.
If they say they are going to get up in the night and help but when the time comes the pretend to be asleep/complain, they're gaslighting you.
If they don't even actually try to settle the baby and had bub back almost immediately with "they just want you:", they're gaslighting you.
If your health, sanity, sleep, work, or self-esteem are suffering because you are the one doing everything, whilst they leverage your exhaustion into their free time, they're abusing you.
Like other forms of abuse, it will not get better on its own. It's not an accident.
So please ladies. Please stop laughing it off as "just men"
It's not just men. It's purposeful.
It might not be consciously purposeful, but it is still purposeful. They know they can get away with it.
one of you being on antidepressants because your husband won't help raise the children he fathered is one too many. 400+ of you being exhausted to the brink of PND and breakdowns is heartbreaking for us to watch.
You can't fix this by night weaning. Or sleep training. Or bedsharing, or chore charts, or even kicking hubby into the spare room. There are only two things that will fix this - therapy, or leaving.
I am sorry.