Resentment is eating up my marriage. How do I/we get out of this toxic whirlpool?

[ElfinsMum]

DH and I have lived together twenty years, over ten of those married. We have three kids, 10 yo-baby.

When we first met, I was young and I thought our families were very different. I was from the south and posh (posh enough that we weren't allowed to use the word "posh" because it was common 🤦‍♀️). He was from (a very poor part of) the North East and lower middle.

However, with years of hindsight, our family dynamics were actually much more similar than it seemed on the surface. And one area they were very similar was that mum owns and runs the domestic sphere, at most Dad helps out.

As soon as we moved in together, when I was still young enough to find playing house fun, this played out in our relationship/marriage. Ten years and three kids in, my resentment levels have finally reached toxic: I don't think I can carry on doing 90% of the laundry, shopping and cooking, 50% of the cleaning and close to 100% of the family mental load just because I have a fanny. You won't be surprised to hear that I also do probably 70-80% of the child rearing because obviously I have the boobs too.

DH would argue that he does some chores - more than his dad ever did certainly - and helps me when I ask for it. But this is also enraging. There are whole aspects of domestic work my super intelligent DH still has no idea how to do: when I was being wheeled to the ambulance bleeding heavily at 34 weeks pregnant with my now toddler, he said "Do I have to clean the toilet now?" to which I replied dripping with scorn "Would you like me to just jump down from this trolley and scrub it for you?". Most enraging of all is that whenever he does chores, especially if he does them unprompted, instead of being pleased I feel like a failure.

I want these learned gender stereotypes to just fuck off. Failing that, I want to find a way to either accept the "female" work without the toxic resentment or redistribute it more evenly without feeling like I've failed as a wife and mother. How have others squared this circle? Practically but more so emotionally. Is it possible to recover and be a happy couple again?

@timeisnotaline He did have to handle all of that by himself for several weeks while I was in hospital on bed rest (after the ambulance took me away in the middle of the night as I mentioned in OP). He stopped working completely because he couldn't manage the house, the two school aged kids and his then PT job (and visiting me nearly every day tbf). He quite often likes to remind me that the kids got to school every day with clean clothes but there were significant short cuts: they ate the exact same lunch everyday; the house was never cleaned; several friends dropped dinners/shopping round on a rota to help out. And - this utterly depressed me at the time because it told me everything about who he really thinks should be keeping house and doing childcare - he counted down the days until his mum could arrive and step in. (He doesn't even like his mum)

I'd honestly like every woman who is at the beginning of her 'partnership' to read this, because there's SO many women who post on MN about

''How can I make my H/Partner to take on 50% of the chores/childcare/mental load ?''

Every single bloody DAY these threads pop up ! It's actually monotonous ffs !

And the almost always say ''Don't tell me to LTB, because I'm not about to end my marriage over this'' !!!!

And every time posters will say ''It gets SO much worse the longer you put up with it. The resentment only grows !''

Correction: i mean he did clean the toilet. Not much choice really given that it looked like a horror movie in there when they wheeled me out 😂

I think it's definitely worth spelling out how unhappy you are and exactly what you want to change and why/how. Yes it would be better if he realised for himself and got in with it because its the right thing to do but that's not going to happen.

He may well feel surprised and indignant because you are proposing to change what has been "the norm" (ie gender stereotyped roles) since before you had kids. You say yourself you were happy to "play house" and look after him domestically. I'm not saying you are unreasonable to want to share the load, definitely not, but you will need to spell it out. Three kids hugely increases the load domestically whilst his role (working FT and ironing his own shirts) has never changed. It should be obvious but he's either oblivious or it has suited him to pretend to be oblivious.

My husband has always done a fair share domestically but having kids was something I was keen on and him less so. After a few months of having our first I asked him to do one of the night feeds and bathtime once a week. He happily agreed but was astonished as he "thought I loved doing it all" because I wanted a baby so much. I had to communicate to him that I needed him to share some of it, as he hadn't seen my need for himself (annoying but that's how it was.)

Enlighten him. If nothing changes you can then decide whether to put him in the bin or not.

[quote ElfinsMum]@Hrpuffnstuff1 I think our situations are probably quite different though. If your partner has her own dog and you have kids from a previous relationship, I am guessing you moved in together as mid life adults.

As I mentioned in my OP, I think our problems stem from the early days of our relationship when, as very young adults with no previous experience of living with a romantic partner, we fell into an old fashioned, highly gendered pattern that we had both gown up with at home.

If I were moving in with a new partner now, I would do things very differently of course. Actually, I'm not sure if I would even choose to live with a partner again.[/quote]
'Actually, I'm not sure if I would even choose to live with a partner again'.

I think when you live alone, this organizing oneself becomes the go-to defacto standard. Both I and her lived separately, her for 7 yrs, and me for 2-3 yrs. It takes a great deal of internal management to not become pissed off.
Her old dog is incontinent atm, wears a nappy, but we do have accidents especially in the kitchen at night.
Sometimes I come down in the morning and my anxiety goes thru the roof. I just think bloody dog.

What I'm trying to say is even when it's split, and shared the other person never do the tasks as you or they miss something
Another example, my girls stay a week on week off, they'll only eat Warburtons white bread, so for some ungodly reasons, she's started buying Hovis. It's really pissing me off, I can't bring myself to say anything.
I do scratch my head at these situations, I don't understand why some men are so lazy or inept in the house, it's difficult to be tidy, considerate, and muck in really. Maybe their mothers did everything for them. Personally, we had tasks to do, beds, vaccing, help with meal prep, helping my dad with house renovations, etc.

Living alone not having to deal with another's shit, habits sounds like bliss.

Not difficult.

Stop doing stuff for him. Do what you think is fair.
You can have a big talk with him, ask him why it all falls to you and explain yourself and how hard you work but it’ll probably go over his head.

Just stop doing it. Loudly. Say that you are not his maid and he needs to learn how to look after himself. Don’t remind him about occasions or birthdays on his side of the family. What you allow him to get away with, he will keep doing.

Yep @Hrpuffnstuff1 my mil did everything for them. Fast. She keeps up an absolutely amazing pace around the house and no one would dare get in her way. Ironically, as a FT working mum, she argued she didn't have time to leave the chores to others.

She was sufficiently stressed to barely sleep back then though. Looked under control from the outside and she would have told you she loved family life but she now sleeps almost double the hours per night since she retired.

@ElizabethinherGermanGarden this sounds amazing.

@Gargellen

How can you not leave him? The comment as you were being trollied away would kill the whole thing stone dead for me. I would never want to wash a spoon he had used let alone get back to facilitating his life in every respect. Leave. Pay for help. Have a lovely life is the answer here. He is not due the tiniest bit of respect.

This. This all over.

He doesn't see you as an equal. He sees you as a maid.

My own DH is far from as domesticated as I am. But when I was carted off to hospital whilst heavily pregnant with his child, he told me to relax and look after the baby. And I came home to an immaculate house without needing to ask.

Nothing to do with OP, but @Hrpuffnstuff1 - if your daughters only eat white Warburton's... why don't you buy it in for when they stay?
Why are you relying on your wife to do that?

Anyway, @ElfinsMum I can completely understand how it gets to this point. My situation is almost identical.

I'm not relying on anybody, she's decided to change what she buys off her own back.😳
She does the shopping.
😆

Lower your standards.
Decide what you really dislike most eg my DH does the supermarket shop thankfully
Get cleaner/s
Save for when the DCs leave and you can move out

Don't you care that your children get the food they prefer? I don't get it.

Interesting - my OH had a brain like a planet and was a bit obsessional and he used to do lots of the housework because he could not cope with mess - whereas my mess threshold was much higher, so he always got stuck in. Mind you his planet-like brain fell down when it came to DIY - I could barely watch!

All my sons-in-law are great round the house and they cook. I would not have been able to cope with a man who did not get stuck in on the household chores or the parenting.

Ask him what he would write on an Internet forum about your marriage (if privacy wasn't an issue). Worth knowing what's on his mind.

A mumsnetter who doesn't post here any more (I think) used to have an annual family check in about how things were, what had changed, plans and goals for the future. A kind of contract renegotiation. You got together very young; of course things have changed. The world has changed. You have three children. Can you find someone to be around so that you can both decamp to the pub for a couple of hours for a heart to heart?

@Vampiricouncil

Op. I understand you completely.

For us the tables turned when my dh began working from home and I continued my 50 hours a week working out of the house.

I had seething resentment as prior to that, I worked 50 hours a week and did 95% of everything else.

Now, my house is a shithole, takeaways are numerous but the kids are where they need to be club/school wise.
I don’t have a day off. Before my regular night shift, if I don’t clean then the house remains filthy.

I’m often just too shattered to move.
Still have seething resentment but being out of the house so much means I don’t have to look at it or him.

Wow. This is bad. 💐💐💐💐💐.

@ElfinsMum This is where I'm at:
If I were moving in with a new partner now, I would do things very differently of course. Actually, I'm not sure if I would even choose to live with a partner again

3.5 yrs ago I left my husband, mainly because of his emotional affairs but one of the other reasons (which I cited in the divorce) was his lack of contribution to household tasks.
My ex husband mainly relaxed in the evenings and watched TV/slept on the sofa all weekend while I ran about doing everything having also worked a full week.
He would mow the garden every few weeks and one period when he had a change in anti-depressants he had OCD and would clean the house day and night,the house was immaculate but alas his mental health nurse weaned/counselled him out of his OCD and that was the end of that.

Ever since we split I always said I'd never have a relationship ever again because men are such hard work (and I have since recognised the marriage was emotionally abusive), i do now have a partner but we never plan to live together, one of my reasons I always give to anyone who asks is housework/household tasks, I never again want to discuss housework with a man who I live with, I'm happy doing housework as long as its only mine and my kids mess, having an extra person in the house adds to the mess and I'm not prepared to risk a partner not stepping up.
My partner has his own house and its tidy, he maybe could wash up more often( usually goes 2 days) but other than that he has his housework/household tasks sorted so likely would be a good bet to live with but I'm not risking it (plus I love living on my own, I have 2 adult kids who do their own thing, 1 is at Uni so is not hear much)

I want to find a way to either accept the "female" work without the toxic resentment or redistribute it more evenly without feeling like I've failed as a wife and mother.

@ElfinsMum I'm not saying this to imply you're bonkers but more on a self-improvement level and making your life more as you want it to be- therapy might be something that helps you feel less like it should all be your responsibility etc, and help you get things balanced out and stick to it without feeling bad.

@CovidPassQuestion

Don't you care that your children get the food they prefer? I don't get it.

I used that as an example to show the people you live with can exhibit annoying behaviours. She and myself have bought the same bread for over 2 yrs. Why on earth she's changed brands is beyond me.

I can't bear always buying the same stuff - it drains all the pleasure out of life when every week looks the same. I got to the point where I wanted to puke on food I used to like. Perhaps she is finding the lack of flexibility stifling.

No answer op as I have the same issue! Definitely a cleaner is a god send. And I don't iron anything of his, have stopped buying card etc for his family and while I don't purposely not wash his clothes I don't specifically check if he has clean undies a couple of times he has asked me where the clean ones are? I've asked him where my clean bras are and he sort of got the point.

I also let him fail at stuff that MIL thinks is important as she then nags him.

But yes the mental loads with kids is a hard one ( and I only have 1). H came in one night last week and asked where DS was. He was at a school thing which we both knew about - but apparently none had told him! I asked who he thought told me about this stuff? Does he think the head rings me personally or something? No I read the bloody newsletter like all the other mums!

Dh and me have been living together 15 years. It’s been a slow learning curve, tonnes of built up resentment that escalated into full blown arguments in a 3 month cycle. What changed?
I stopped doing everything. One day 5 years ago, I stopped cleaning the bathroom, stopped cooking dinner, stopped doing anything that was communal. Then I started working full time and kept working an evening part time job so I was rarely at home, and dh had to step up and start picking the kids from school. There was no discussion, because he was already coming home at that time; so it fell on him.
What resulted was my dear dear husband, ended up becoming cook and cleaner every week day. He was forced to become “mum” during holidays..I’m sure he went crazy that one summer but didn’t admit it.

I think he learnt his lesson well. He still cooks almost every evening, deep cleans the kitchen on his days off. I do the laundry, occasionally do the bathroom, do all the kids homework and things, so still a big chunk, but these are the things I WANT to do. I cook on the weekends occasionally.

OP, if you have an otherwise loving relationship, your husband will want to change. I know they say a leopard never changes his spots, but my dh did. It’s really hard keeping quiet when something has not been done right, but at least it’s done? I really had to lower my standards too.

You need to start working towards these changes by telling him straight out that enough is enough.

He sounds very like my husband. Yesterday I had the children’s school uniforms drying on the line and when I came home from food shopping he said ‘look I took the clothes in for you’. I said for me? I don’t wear them. Wants a medal if he does anything 🙄