Dh is so lazy - anyone else in this situation?

[Strawbales]

I need to make it clear here I’m not thinking of or wanting to leave but I am wondering what (if anything) to do here as Dh is so lazy.

We both work full time so no problems there. But day to day stuff like loading and emptying the dishwasher, doing and putting the laundry away, all falls on me. And about 80% of Dc related stuff.

So to take this morning as an example. I’m up at 6, get myself showered and ready, DC wake at 645, get them washed, dressed and bags in the car ready for nursery / work. Meanwhile, Dh is snoring away.

Now I could and probably should wake him but the thing is he doesn’t help. Like when he did wake he just rolled over and was sprawled out in the bed so I had to keep telling him to move as I’d put the baby’s socks there! Small things but he just adds to the rush.

If you ask him to do something specific he will but often not for long (so for instance please will you take kids to park so I can do some work - he will take them for thirty minutes then he’s back.)

Every so often he will do a big clean and then be really annoying about everyday mess like toys and so on but he doesn’t seem to see the thousand small things I do every day!

Starting to be a bit fed up.

the problem is that often the "man" jobs are things that are ad hoc and occasional. So sure, he does the car or the bins, but that's not a relentless, daily task.

As for him making more work for you in the morning - at best, this is because he can't be assed to change and you've allowed it. At worst, it's strategic incompetence. But that CAN be changed. Tell him you're not longer getting up 45 minutes before the kids just so that all the jobs get done. Instead, you'll BOTH be getting up at 6:30. You will shower and get yourself ready while he makes the tea, wakes the kids and gets dressed. You'll then take over while he sorts himself out so that you and the kids are then ready to go at 7:15. Or whatever (which is basically what DH and I started doing in a similar situation).

You don't necessarily need to LTB. You just need to be very clear that you're not putting up with such an unequal split of responsibilities. He can then choose to step up or to demonstrate his contempt/ lack of care for you by continuing to shirk his responsibilities.

I would write a long list of what you both do and how much and when you each get leisure time.

Next part of the discussion is him taking on responsibility for things. He gets up with the DC and gets them ready for the day if they aren't ready to leave with you he'll have to sort getting them there.

You give him the mental load and the work of sorting things out. You don't wake him up and tell him what to do he has to get himself up and sort it. Sure you could offer to write a list once the night before but you do need to step back from being the problem solver/doing the mental load for more than him.

If you don't the resentment will grow and grow and you will end up in LTB territory.

I don’t think I’ve said anything different to most other posters. No one is shouting LTB and there are plenty of great suggestions on this thread and opinions on how to divide household tasks. Which I found pretty interesting actually.

@Strawbales

Less damaging than a divorce and broken home, certainly. But that’s my view: I’m not expecting you to share it and tried to make clear in my OP that this is not a ‘LTB’ situation.

Do you really think that he would rather split up than do his share of the domestic load?

Why not keep a tally over the next week of how long you each spend doing home 'jobs', and also how much each of you gets to sleep? Then see where you are?

Broken home . Instead you are reinforcing misogyny and teaching your kid that even if you feel a situation is unfair and you are unhappy with it, just suck it up. Put the poor, lazy man needs ahead of your own. 👌

OK, so actually you prefer being the one getting kids ready and dropping to nursery for various reasons.

Why can't he take over laundry as his job though? What is the worst that can happen? If he tries it and does a bad job needs a few weeks to get the hang of it?

DH took over all the laundry and meal making its bloody brilliant.

Clean and dry laundry appears on my bed, DC sort it out these days but always helped when little. Very little ironing down here.

He meal plans, orders, in for delivery, puts away and cooks! He's not brilliant so I make a few nicer meals most weeks.

I have a similar situation but older kids. I’m at the end of my tether…I stopped washing his clothes and he just does them himself every now and then, when he does wash them he leaves them on the clothes dryer for ever which clutters the space and I have to either move them or ask him to and he’ll move them eventually leaving clothes downstairs for days…..I’m angry just typing this…

So you don’t think it’s harmful for your sons to grow up and behave like their useless father to their future partners?

Or for your daughters to grow up to be an unappreciated domestic servant like yourself?

You are being a martyr though.

It isn’t a choice between divorce and holding his hand while he does the dishes.

You could have a serious sit down talk where you say he needs to pull his weight by getting up, out of bed, and being an equal partner.

However you don’t actually want to do that, you want to do everything? Or you want him to be a better person and decide to be a good husband and father of his own free will maybe?

It’s really depressing the sheer number of women who tolerate and reproduce with pointless misogynists like this. Can’t understand the appeal, surely you dump them once you find out they don’t function?
Good luck getting this slovenly, shit father to do the bare minimum then🤷🏻‍♀️ Sounds like the home is already broken.

I do agree that you need to let him fail, especially where it has repercussions for him alone.

I had the lazy lying in bed thing until the weekend that we were late to a family (MILs family) christening. I didn't do the usual get up sort out toddler DS, wrap present etc and just had a lazy morning. His face when he realised we were massively late was funny. He got absolute hell from MIL as well. So that's what I do - his stuff is his problem.

would say I only need to wake him and maybe I should but then when he actually creates more work it’s pointless.

The minute you spot this kind of 'learned helplessness' I just can't imagine being by prepared to let it continue.

You are essentially blinking first in a staring competition. Your choice.

Nope. No way would I work full time and run myself ragged while my husband did virtually nothing. Why do you put up with it?

What would happen if one day, rather than getting everyone ready and running around after everyone, you just woke up, got dressed and walked out of the house to go to work? You know, the way your husband does everyday...

You have to harden your heart to improve this sort of thing. You are fighting a lot of social conditioning, some of which is inside your own head.

well even if you don't care for yourself, is this really the role model of marriage, of what a man's role is, of what a wife's role is, that you want to present to your children?

I think it's deeply unattractive myself and really wouldn't want to be living with a man like this. But I certainly wouldn't want my children to think this is the norm.

There are a lot of threads like this so you're not alone op.

Personally I don't know why people put up with it! My ex tried it on at start of marriage and I made it very clear that no way was all the chores and household admin gonna fall to me!

With 20 odd years more life experience now and having seen other relationships and how they work on this score I am now of the opinion that it's best to resolve this before moving in together certainly before dc as after that point it gets harder to change as they have you "trapped"

You may find the following links amusing/interesting/helpful

www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sinkb9055288/amp

www.workingmother.com/this-comic-perfectly-explains-mental-load-working-mothers-bear#page-2

m.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQgDwA0BNU

Time for a "come to Jesus" chat with dh to discuss and if he's resistant I see no problem telling him enough is enough, you are one person and cannot do it all yourself and he needs to pull his weight!

Personally I think in extreme cases an absolutely valid reason to leave so don't know why you felt you had to open saying you weren't considering leaving.

It's lazy, disrespectful and selfish!

A strategic strike (not doing anything that only benefits him eg his laundry) might have an effect but really you're 2 adults and parents you should be able to come to a reasonable agreement

Ex and I had an almighty row that led to our discussion. Not the best approach but I was young (22) and lacked confidence to raise difficult discussions which culminated in my reaching an exhausted end of tether moment.

He was at first adamant his way was right and even called mummy for back up - unfortunately for him mummy backed me up!  as did fil!

Then we sat and talked it over and agreed on a chores split that was fair and meant that mostly we could each avoid the chores we loathed and do the ones we hated less and a split of household admin too.

Personally I've found (and again I agree this is unfair/isn't how it should be) that this type of man sometimes is a bit better if they have assigned jobs that are "theirs" that they take ownership of and you're (plural) clear on how often they're to be done (which I won't go into as that WILL start a bun fight on mn!) and don't let his jobs all be the "once a month" 5 minute ones while yours are all daily and hours long!

He's a grown ass adult at heart he KNOWS he is a lazy shit! He's perfectly capable of doing his share

@PlanDeRaccordement idea of splitting if one is a night owl and one a lark makes sense to me - I'm a night owl hopeless in mornings! But very productive at night

Could you do mornings with dc and of an evening he does bath/bedtime, Prep packed lunches in fridge etc? Which would mean less to do of a morning too?

Also - lower standards where possible and accept different people do things different ways. I'm very much "my way is the best way" and had to resist that.

In terms of a reasonable split whatever method you choose it should mean equal down time for each person - no him lounging about while you're still doing chores at 11pm knackered!

Pps are right though the only way he's going to BECOME competent is by actually doing it!

My ex when we first married couldn't cook! Really honestly couldn't. I taught him but really this involved LETTING him make mistakes on occasion and laughing about it! Like the time he thought a "clove of garlic" in a recipe led to him using a whole bulb, or when he was learning to peel carrots and frankly he threw more away than we ate cos of how clumsily he peeled! But he learned and I hear he's a pretty good cook these days

The one thing he never managed was laundry - at least the washing part. At first I got annoyed with him then on a couple of occasions I literally watched him do it and he had done it all correctly and yet somehow there was still shrunk items! I have no idea how! But that was fine I did the laundry and he did the bins and cleaning the kitchen, which I HATED doing.

This WILL impact on dc in a way they notice as they get older and it will impact their views of relationships.

If you have sons they'll expect to be waited on hand and foot seeing as dad does sod all, if you have girls they will likely end up in similar or worse relationships.

Ex and I had couples counselling ages ago (following mc we lost our way a bit as a couple) and the counsellor said the top 3 reasons couples seek counselling are in order: (there was a survey carried out around this time she was referring to)

1 money
2 split of household responsibilities
3 in laws!

I think anyone familiar with mn would agree this isn't really surprising

But I'll admit I was surprised as I expected infidelity to beat out one of those but counsellor said no as people tend to either leave the cheat immediately or decide to ignore and move on.

Bereavement/loss was 5th apparently, 4th was couples facing fertility issues.

If there's to be no consequences for him carrying on as usual he's not gonna change, you have to make it less easy for him to do that really

I don’t understand why you don’t jsut lose your shit and tell him you love him less every day that you treat him like another child and parent your children on your own. Just get up and go to work early for a week. If he sends the dc to nursery without spare clothes they will have spare clothes there, and you can explain that you can’t respect a parent who is incapable of basic parenting when they come home in the nursery clothes. (I did that - with dc1 my dh did the drop off one morning but didn’t pack his bag. It didn’t occur to me that the father of my child would be so incapable so I hadn’t done it for him, and he came home in spare nursery clothes. I lost it at dh, I’m not going to be in a relationship with my child’s parent and still do all the parenting, and I can’t have any respect for him if he doesn’t cover parenting basics. He (dh) understood this was perfectly reasonable and agreed he should parent his child)

@Strawbales

You don’t have to convince me - like I’ve said in my OP, he’s a lazy arse and it does annoy me.

But actually doing anything about it that doesn’t negatively impact on me or the kids is another matter.

Could you tell him this? And would there be things he could do which might make it bare-able?

Sometimes a lazy person can actually be quite enthusiastic over a short period of time-
What if you said:
“Let’s be honest I do 99% of the daily chores and kids stuff
I’m not expecting you to change, but I need something to even it out otherwise the resentment will build and our relationship will end.
What can you offer me?”

Is there anything he could offer that would stop you feeling bitter-
A series of regular holidays on your own, for instance.
I know there are posters who would feel that was ‘selling out’.
But it isn’t if you choose it, and the relationship.

You don’t have to convince me - like I’ve said in my OP, he’s a lazy arse and it does annoy me.

But actually doing anything about it that doesn’t negatively impact on me or the kids is another matter.

You can stop doing HIS laundry. That affects no-one but him.

It kills me that the couple of guys on this thread are opposed to the OP stopping doing her husband’s washing or want her to organise everything as if that wasn’t half the work. Good luck sorting this out OP. I’ve seen friends driven out of relationships by lazy blokes.

And you really need to consider the fact that you are teaching this relationship dynamic to your children.

Would you want your dc to replicate this sexist bullshit in their futures? I'd call that a negative impact on them.