My wife divorced me because I left glasses by the sink

[SpaceOp]

I just reread that blog post. It really resonates. I love dh so much and I know he loves me. And he's actually a wonderful husband and father who does loads. But....

I am just so tired of doing all the bloody thinking. I just want him to stop and think or plan or consider. Today, it was yet another minor situation where he didn't think. So small. So petty. But it really is death by a thousand paper cuts.

The list of things that wouldn't happen if I didn't think, plan, research and execute is endless. And as the main breadwinner and the one who works full time, I resent it even more. From birthdays to play dates to extra curricular activities to health care needs. Its all on me. He says he will do the cleaning but either it isn't done or its half hearted. And so I get to spend my time in a dirty house or clean it myself because if I suggest a cleaner he freaks out and says he will do it and I should stop being so controlling. He literally cannot understand that seeing the dirt is painful for me. Instead I should be grateful if he remembers to do the bathroom and the washing (even though there are constant piles and i have to deal with his stress when he realises hes done 4 loads but hasn't bothered to make sure he has done ds' football kit since the previous saturday).

He loves me, I know this. But he really can't see my.perspective.

I dont really know what I expect from this post. Just to get it out I suppose. I did contact a counselor. But haven't been able to bring myself to take it forward at an individual or couple level. Not sure why.

This honestly killed my marriage. It created so much resentment, and I just couldn't respect him anymore. I worked one day less but earned more, and he appears competent at his job. This indicated to me that "wifework" wasn't important enough for him to consider.

Even outright asking him to take on some of the mental load didn't work, and he was done with my nagging and frustration. Me not doing his washing or cooking was viewed by him as passive aggressive, which it was.

He actually still expects me to do the double thinking now we are separated in regards to childcare etc. Nope!

Just because other men are worse doesn't mean he's not shit. He is. He's shitty shite like the majority of married men.

I think it pisses you off because it makes you feel like he’s hanging off you instead of being a partner.

This ended my marriage too.. lifes too short for that shit.

@SpaceOp
Sounds like a lot of this is him having different cleaning/organisational standards to you and being more laid back. Some people (men and women) are just more untidy and disorganised than others. Neither is right or wrong. It doesn't seem like he's doing it to spite you but you're taking it personally since your style is different.

Children grow up quickly so it won't always be like this regarding mental load. While some people love pretending men and women are exactly the same (despite the fact women for example are radically different in terms of being the ones to carry/birth baby and unique role in early years caused by all the female hormones), men and woman tend to each have particular strengths which complement each other. Women tend to have a particular strength around the "thinking" part of the family and running that aspect of home life. Your problem seems to be that you're also the financial.breadwinner too and do other things.

Could you swap.roles so he becomes the main earner (and accept sacrificing some things that not absolutely necessary- if financially viable) and you stay at home with kids/work significantly reduced hours? You could also try giving him more 'practical' jobs to do so that at least if you're taking on more of the mental load, he's doing more in other ways too.

If I were you I would definitely pursue couples counselling at this point tonfind a balance that works for you both before your resentment worsens. Ultimately you'll both have to compromise, which is what marriage is all about.

@quizqueen

I find it hard to believe that women and, in general it is women, can't see and predict how their partners are likely to behave before they agree to live/marry/have kids with them. So I have little sympathy for those who have find they have chosen badly when all the warning signs have probably been there all along as to how these men and, in general it is men, will behave in future.

I have to agree with this. I've never understood this either and has always baffled me to no end on mumsnet and in real life too. I always wonder what on earth these women where doing when they were dating the men...just sleepwalking the whole time??

The whole point of dating is discerning that person's character from the signs you see and then deciding whether you want to commit your life to that or not, including discerning the impact those traits could have on family life. It's actually extremely irresponsible not to do this, considering many relationships bring innocent children into them who will.alwayd be badly affected by relationship breakdowns/unhealthy dynamics.

Even though I wouldn't have chosen them myself, sometimes I feel sorry for the men involved because the women in question partnered/married them that way and then down the line split with them when they've always stayed the same person they chose and married!

Selfish traits for example don't magically appear as soon as a child is born, they're always there some form. From what I see, the woman just ignored it at the time because she decided to focus on the fun or other aspects of the relationship, or didn't care about it since it was directed at other people previously.

I agree with the other posters, he doesn't sound great to me at all. he sounds awful.

Life's too short. Why do you want to stay married to someone like this?

@quizqueen

I find it hard to believe that women and, in general it is women, can't see and predict how their partners are likely to behave before they agree to live/marry/have kids with them. So I have little sympathy for those who have find they have chosen badly when all the warning signs have probably been there all along as to how these men and, in general it is men, will behave in future.

To be honest, this is one reason (not the only reason) why I don't have kids with DP.

He cannot cope with too much information or detail (he is like this at work too, although at work it's actually to his advantage). He copes by putting in as little effort as possible into things he doesn't care about. He does not care about cleaning.

I have copied by giving him his own tasks he has to do every week, getting an Alexa he can use for reminders, roomba etc. I can just shoot cope with it being the 2 of us but I know if we had kids the mental load would fall to me. Luckily I am ambivalent about children anyway, but if I did really want them then it would be an issue.

Dh has always had all school holidays/inset days in his calendar, he put them in not me. He often took an inset day off work as we could go places during term time.

He also has all birthdays/anniversaries for both our families in his calendar with a reminder alert set up beforehand so he has time to get cards or organise presents.

Re the house, your Dh needs to see it and treat it like a job. Stuff needs to get done, he needs a list or system. That is for him to figure out which one will work for him though, it isn't your job. I guarantee that he does not need prompting at work to remember stuff so you need to talk to him about why he finds it acceptable to constantly piss you off with his lack of action. Has he read the glass by the sink article. Even my teenage sons have read that!

I am a long term SAHM and I had a schedule, including laundry so that everything gets washed, all rooms get tidied and cleaned. It is relentless but podcasts massively help.

To all those blaming me (and other women) for not magically realising what would happen, please, go away. I understand the thinking and even agree at times up to a point but a) it's not really helpful now is it? And b) in this case, quite frankly I had no idea how much thinking came with children. I thinking was perhaps naive but i am not sure any of us are prepared. I had no idea about the constant worry about whether ds needs a tutor or an OT or both, the need to consider what extra curricular we can afford and they will enjoy, that birthday party logistics can be more complicated than a 100 person event in the City.

What this thread IS helping me with is reminding me of all the times I have made dh step up and he has - to sort himself, his family etc. Hes not perfect but he has made efforts before. I think I had forgotten. And I have also forgotten that ds has some executive function difficulties (planning) and I am fairly certain it's inherited from his dad who, clearly gets it from his dad....

So thank you all for that and for reminding me. I recently told dh he has to take charge of the dentist. He hasn't done anything about it yet but I feel relief that its off my plate. The cleaner starts soon. So now I have to hand off a few more things.

The day to day thinking wont change. I actually don't think he IS capable (and no, not at work either. The jobs he has excelled at are definitely not ones that require any sort of planning and organisation. A mix of routine and creativity, with a healthy dose of customer engagement work best for him). So I need to actually accept this and work within his limitations, knowing that he genuinely is a good man who can and does take things on. If I died tomorrow, he kids would be fine but he would not magically do more. They would do fewer extra curricular, eat a less varied (but still healthy) diet etc but they would be fine. I find that mildly frustrating but it helps to remind me this is who he is.

I would love a period of being more part time. But I earn 80% of our income. A swap would be catastrophic for us. As it is, dh is incredibly supportive and happy that i dont earn as much as I could if I went back to working in the city. I would hate it. He would hate it. The kids would hate it. We are all happier with less money and more time.

I'm pissed off because I have remind him to rearrange his life during half term to look after our kids...

Have I got that right?

So actually your soul inconvenience in this is reminding your husband who is the one to actually take the hit at work and take responsibility for the kids.

You do realise if he didnt reorganise his life you wouldn't be able to work the hours you do? Life would be a hell of a lot more challenging than reminding someone else to do the work.

Maybe the rest of your life doesn't fit this pattern, but this feels like a case of are your diamond slippers on too tight.

No it wouldnt. Op is working the most and doing pretty much everything at home. Ot would be much less stressful to organise extra childcare than look after a grown adult.

Crikey op. It does sound as though you settled with someone who would never be your equal. However in the context of mutual capability I guess in the context of input, a smaller input requires more than its sum in the context of effort from your dh. When the adjustment is considered it may be that your mutual inputs are roughly equal.

The only other thing I would add is how well parented and organised your dh was as a child because he may still be catching up. I had to teach DH about the joy of giving and receiving presents because his parents were so bloody mean.

Self righteous posters with 'couldnt you tell before you married him' please stop. It really doesn't work like that for a lot of people. I was young and madly in love, overwhelmed wtih exciting plans for our future, a student and living in a small flat, plus I'd been raised to believe (subtly) that women looked after men.

17 years down the line I'm still in love, but we have 2 young kids, a large house, busy jobs, bills, bills, bills, no free time, and now in my late 30s my experience and expectations of my husband are not the same as they once were.

Were I meeting someone now I'd choose someone tidy and capable in the house but I didn't. I still love my DH for the qualities I did choose him for.

And as for 'just get a cleaner' it's not really the same thing. We have a cleaner and a mother's help and the house, kids, meals, clubs, etc is still hard work. I feel angry and resentful towards DH because of the perceived differences between our lives.
He works a lot more hours than I do and finds that difficult. 'Get a cleaner' doesn't solve the fact he leaves his pants on the floor and a trail of crumbs around the house eating toast, doesn't do the shopping and never has to think about kids pick up times. The house has to actually be ready for a cleaner and has to function for the hundreds of hours a week they're not here.

I get you OP. DH and I are working on it together but it's hard and there have been times I've felt like packing it in.

I suppose the one difference in would say OP is that I work fewer hours than DH whereas you obviously work more. That's massively unfair. When I'm not doing my paid job I'm doing house/kids stuff and take all the responsibility for that.

Partial solution- get a whiteboard or a list app, whatever is easier for you. Note on it random chores you remember need addressing- ie school holiday cover, dentist. Once you've written on it, you forget about it. You don't need to ask him, remind him etc, you've outsourced it.

His job changes from 'trying to remember/work out/do all the things Space would want me to do' to 'stay on top of whiteboard'.

It's really hard to get inside someone else's head and imagine what they need doing.
I realise these are things he should be able to work out, but he doesn't yet.

Here's the blog
www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288

How do you stop caring though? DH is like this in that he doesn't "see" mess

Oh I guarantee he does “see” it. He just doesn’t think it’s his responsibility. All that gender conditioning which people say doesn’t matter, this is the pay off.

I always cite my friend as an interesting example of this. When she got pregnant, she had a full time job and a time consuming hobby she had no intention of giving up. We were chatting and I mentioned how after children a cleaner saved my sanity.

She told me oh no, there was no need for that, her house pretty much kept itself clean, she kept on top of it easily.

Turned out it was her husband. Putting that cup left on the surface in the dishwasher. Taking the washing up when he went to the loo, running the hoover round when he noticed a bit of something. A million tiny acts that added up to a clean and tidy house. Friend just hadn’t noticed him doing all of this.

Second point, friends husband, and the two other men I have known who have been like this have all sadly lost their mums at a young age. They didn’t have that dynamic where things just get done, they learned to do it themselves.

Tell him he's on last chance or you stop everything. He has to put reminders recurring on his phone for the stuff he has responsibilty for. No excuse then. I have everything on my reminders, couldn't live without it, from running my business to which colour bin is which day and it pops up the day before, then the day itself so I don't have to think about it. A couple mins setting it up is all the input he needs then he can forget about it.
He really has no excuse, because yes he forgets, but thats no excuse iff an app is there to prompt him.

My ex was like this. I wish I had a solution for you, but I don’t.

It’s so frustrating feeling like your “partner” doesn’t seem to think about things that need doing. Honestly I’m happier doing it all myself as a single mum.

I once sent my ex that comic strip about the “mental load” of housework and how much emotional labour it is, and he said “Oh can’t you just sum it up for me?”

This post is bringing to mind a scene on a TV programme that for me totally explained this kind of situation in one sentence.

It was around Christmas - the mother in the family had been seen rushing around organising costumes for a kids play , buying gifts, organising Xmas food and working. The couple sat down in the evening and the husband says "You look exhausted - you do too much" Then the wife simply replies " If I don't do too much - not enough gets done!"

At least in this scenario the husband had noticed that the wife was tired - but at no point did he offer to lessen her load - just seemed to think that she could do less - and like she says if she did less - then some things wouldn't get done.

@LostInTheLingerieSection - you raise a very important point. The truth is that compared to most men, DH is amazing. My female friends are constantly dazzled by how much he does. I may get frustrated about elements of the cleaning, but he absolutely is tidy and does his share to keep the house livable on a day to day basis. And while I don't think he does the washing very efficiently because he doesn't think about it, he does do the bulk of it. He doesn't cook, but does not expect it of me and can pull together something (basic) if I announce I'm not cooking.

There are also lots that he absolutely does take on - bins, gardens, DIY, household bills.

So perhaps my expectations are too high - I want him to take on all the things all the part time working mums I know do. Ie all of the above, but ALSO the childcare planning, the birthday present buying, the play date organisation, the extra curricular organisation, the school uniform and general clothes purchasing. As I would if roles were reversed. But if I'm totally honest, I'm also pretty sure that if I was the part time worker, I would not take on bins, gardens, diy, household bills. So maybe I really am being unfair.

It's funny, lots of people are telling me how awful he is but it's really helping me to see that actually he's not that bad! . He has a genuine weakness in planning and organisation - this is actually a fact, not just a pathetic man thing - but he really does try. Which I think I was starting to lose sight of in the frustration and hurt that he doesn't seem to care or notice the other stuff I do. But even that, on some stuff I think he has no idea how much effort it takes. But on other stuff he does notice and acknowledge it. So again, perhaps I've been blinded to the good by the things that I've found so frustrating.

Oh, and to the PP who mentioned how he was parented. Such a good point. I get on okay with PIL but there's no question they were terrible parents. As a result, his brother is a disaster as a person and as a parent. His sister has tried hard but cannot extricate herself from a terrible, possibly abusive, relationship and her DC are loved, but not always well parented. And in fact, one of the things I love and respect about DH the most is how he has grown and evolved and overcome a lot of the programming he got as a child.

SpaceOp we are the same in that whilst I feel like I do a lot of the daily grind both housework/laundry and kids stuff (birthdays, clubs, uniforms, pick up, childcare) and house stuff (shopping, furniture, toy clearouts, etc) he does things I don't have to think about like car stuff, phone stuff, bill payments, holidays etc.

I do tell myself to appreciate those things but at the same time, renewing the insurance happens once a year; pants need washed every day, children need fed roughly 20 times a day etc...

The grind of daily life can get you down, absolutely. I have no shame in trying to make it easier for myself (hence the cleaner and mother's help).

It's not an easy topic with a one fix solution as every couple/family is different but hopefully you can move forward positively together to try to make life a bit easier. I do think he should be picking up more of the planning and organising as the part time worker.

Actually the average man's brain IS biologically different from the average woman's but I can see that wouldn't suit the mind set of many women on here.

OP my DH is very disorganised and untidy. We've been married a long time but looking back previous boyfriends were nothing like as bad in that respect as he is. The previous two were actually good at all that practical stuff and one would pull me up sometimes for not sticking to his standards. (I'm not the tidiest person in the world either)

No, I didn't think about the repercussions of marrying someone like that - shock horror, I could not predict the exact way the future might evolve. We were late 20s when we met. We got on very well, never had any disputes etc. When I first saw his bedroom I was amused by the mess. I realised I had been frantically tidying my place everytime he came round and that he wouldn't have noticed. I saw my former bfs as over fussy and didn't see it as something attractive about them, although it had its uses.

I think things weren't bad at first in that respect. We had a house that was too big for the two of us (3 bedrooms in anticipation of a family) so plenty of space to store things. He was at work for long days and I got home earlier so did the cooking. At weekends we went out and had fun. It was 9 years before we had our first child and a few years after that he started to work from home. He has always been good at booking holidays (I've only booked one that I can recall) and did projects round the house like putting in built in wardrobes etc. He also took responsibility for the cars.

Fast forward a number of years. We had two kids and a cluttered house that had by then had a loft extension where he worked. Issues with one of the kids schools due to their needs. We moved to a bigger house that had several empty rooms at first but is now full. I regularly take stuff to the dump but it is still cluttered. The kids are teens and messy too. I work longer hours and more days so housework isn't my priority when I get home. DH does try, no doubt about that. Better since the first lockdown. He now shops and cooks regularly, makes more effort to tidy and do the garden, puts washing on (but never a full load unless I direct him??). For years he took the kids to school, and attended school meetings, appointments etc because he works for himself and can be flexible.

I still get irritated that washing up is left near the dishwasher, not put in it, that rubbish isn't put in bins (we have a bin in every room!), that the kids copy his sloppy habits, that all surfaces become cluttered and things that fall on the floor stay there.

But after 30 years I've probably got as far as I can with improving his domestic skills. And although it's a biggie for me, I have to admit he does pull his weight in many other ways - eg he is the main one to ferry the kids around which gives me chances to have time alone at home (blissful as it is so rare).

So I think compromise is in order unless there are other things about him that bother you. I really don't get posters who advocate leaving a long term relationship over one thing - do they really find someone perfect or just ditch the latest guy every few years?

It has never once crossed my mind to leave DH because of his disorganised approach to much life, but admit it has made me CROSS!

@Onelifeonly @DateXY the reason why that argument doesn't fly is because these are all men that are very capable with everything else not pertaining to family/house life. They are great at planning, project managing, forward thinking at work - they are brilliant at organising their pals stag dos, golf weekends and can put so much effort and planning into their little hobbies. They just don't apply any of those same TRANSFERABLE SKILLS at home because it is deemed to be beneath them and something that inevitably gets sorted by mummy and later wifey - so why bother.