DH is a passenger in our marriage. Is it too late for us to change?

[Heli1copter]

Its suddenly hit me in the last few days that DH is a complete passenger when it comes to family things.

He will quite happily organise his own life, work, hobbies etc but does nothing for the family. Take this weekend as an example, I booked a trip away. He wants to go fishing so he's arranged a day of fishing for himself near to where we are staying. He wants to go running while we're away so has planned a route around where we're staying. He has packed for himself. I booked accommodation, organised all activities for family, looked up restaurants and shopping locations, paid for everything so far. Currently packing for myself and DC while he complains about why its taking so long to get ready.

Its like this throughout the year. He organises things for himself but never asks if we want to go out as a family. I am the default family organiser. I am so fed up of it feeling like he's a passenger but I have no idea what to do about it. If I told him how I feel he'd claim he does loads for the DC and around the house and that I'm being unfair and critical of him. If I stopped organising family things we'd never go anywhere.

We have quite a good work/life balance. I work 4 days a week (25 hours) and every other weekend.

On the weekends I am in my DH is in charge of our son (who is now 15). Sometimes he takes him out somewhere. On my weekends off - about once a month or every 2-3 months we can plan something as a family.

Sometimes we just enjoy relaxing at home on our weekends off and have nothing planned. Maybe a walk around our picturesque estate/canal/in the park.

Too much fun too often can also wear us out. I understand when there is a commitment to go to clubs on the weekend, then we have to go and take our child(ren) every weekend.

But when your DH has a family, too many hobbies every single weekend take too much of his time away from his family. It looks like he prefers to escape from family life without a fair compromise and to leave all this down to you.

I would still make sure I find the right time to talk to him about how it makes you feel and what compromise he is willing to make to save your marriage and family.

In general, he is a good, loving, caring husband and dad (more caring than not caring) with his own strengths & weaknesses and I personally wouldn't ruin a marriage like that and keep talking to him in a loving, patient, grateful (for everything he does for you, your family & your children) way.

Sorry for the sin of not reading the whole thread but is there a reason why you haven't been to couple counselling?

It sounds like you need a space to tell him your thoughts and feelings without being dismissed.

It could be very powerful.

On the other hand I can see why you might want to just ignore him and carry on using him as your au pair 🙁.

I have suggested counselling in the past but he seems to think its a bit wishy washy and not for him. His attitude to parenting is the same, and quite different to mine. I will accept guidance and counselling and have used it a few times in the past, and its been very helpful. He thinks he knows best and that he can't learn anything from a book or a counsellor. I am looking into a relationship counsellor for myself now although it seems like its only addressing half the issue

@Heli1copter ‘he thinks he knows best and that can’t learn anything from a book or a counsellor’….oh for any sake 🤦‍♀️ Have you ever made a list of pros and cons about your relationship? The only useful thing he does is those early starts when you work away, otherwise?

DH is away for a couple of days for his work so its been quiet at home just me and DC. I don't mind the quiet but I do miss having another adult around as I'm literally doing everything now with no break.

DH doesn't do much without me asking but he does at least do a couple of bedtimes for DC every week and when he's around I can spend one on one time with each DC which is really helpful.

tldr the whole thread….but I had similar problem. I made him read fair play by eve rodski ( rodsky, maybe?) it explains how to achieve a fair distribution of labour. It has cards you can distribute so everyone can see who’s doing what and what they are responsible for. Each participant has to take full mental load for their tasks. It’s been amazing! Dh had no idea how many tasks I was solely responsible for as he was adamant he did enough round the house. They showed him so clearly how wrong he was. He stepped up. Now i do food purchase, meal plan and prep. He does laundry, beds, kitchen clean up. I do living rooms and bathrooms, he does kids rooms and garden. I do kids birthdays he does Christmas. He does baby bottle am, I do bedtime bottle. It works for us now.

Thanks @Greenkitten I've not heard of that before.

From a lot of the comments on the thread it does still seem like its always the women that take the initiative or have to push their husband/partner into making it a more equal share. Where are the men that do their fair share without being prompted?

I can imagine what will happen if I suggest to DH that he has to take cards from a pack. It'll be like the time I said we needed a better system for keeping the house clean and asked him what he was going to do. He was utterly dismissive of the whole thing, refused to listen to me or engage at all because he would rather "do things when he has time and not on a schedule" which basically means he never does anything apart from when its urgent at the last minute. Its infuriating.

At the time I thought OK well I'm not doing it all myself so the result is that we live in a much messier house than i want and things get lost in the clutter all the time. DH is also perfectly capable of buying new stuff for himself but never for DC when they need new clothes or shoes. Again, it would be me asking him to get something, then he'd get the size wrong or whatever and blame me for him not knowing what to get.

So basically he feigns incompetence.

Have you any respect left for him at all?

Haha sometimes I find it hard not to show my resentment! I respect his career, his commitment to his hobby but it comes at my expense. As a family we all suffer for the fact that I am left with the burden of say 80%+ of family related admin, the usual mental load stuff and it is making me burnt out.

I would love for a more equal share and for him to be more enthusiastic and take the initiative on family life but its like he's totally blind to it and is happy just to benefit as a passenger without any effort. I don't know how his mindset will ever change, and I don't think its right that I try to make him change, which would probably not have effect anyway. Maybe I'm asking too much?

You aren't asking enough.

I think you should start going away EOW and leave him with the DC and no prep done and tell him that xyz needs to be done whilst you are away for the DC.

The resentment would kill any love I had tbh. I'd rather be on my own.

Are you actually asking anything though - you seem to be so pleased that he does the bare minimum

Show your resentment - why are you scared of doing so. That you lose the little he does now?

I think you should start going away EOW and leave him with the DC and no prep done

Tempting but DC will end up eating processed shite ready meals the whole time and going to their activities with half their uniforms missing etc. And no chance of him buying gifts for when they are invited to friend's birthday parties or arranging playdates. It'd be DC that suffer not DH. I guess I'm willing to try it and be proved wrong but it would be a worry

I don’t understand why you think you could be asking too much? Have you not read any of the replies on the thread?

You seem happy enough to continue to set this misogynistic example of servitude to your kids, so good luck with that that. I’m out.

A good bare minimum standard would be to not stay with a bloke so disinterested in his kids that he makes them ‘suffer’ by being so slack and failing so hard.

@spohn I hear you but the reality is if we split up DC would suffer, probably more than they do at the moment. Its not as simple as walking away from DH.

My husband can be very passenger like. He has ADHD and so gets massively overwhelmed by having to organise anything.

I can't imagine the resentment if he could happily organise things for himself but considered the house, children etc all to be my domain.

Someone upthread asked if DH has ADHD due to his lack of organisation. He's never raised this and there's no family history of ADHD but he is really bad at timekeeping (late for everything) and sometimes has no awareness of time passing at all as he goes off into his own little world.

HOWEVER, his job is a project manager in which he is responsible for delivering large scale projects on time within budget and he manages to do this well enough. He can manage the minutiae of complex budgets and make sure that things are delivered on time at work so I'm pretty sure its not beyond him to remember the DC shoe sizes or what day of the week they go to afterschool sports, but its still like a surprise to him every week when its time to take DC8 swimming. There's only so many times I can facepalm before getting pissed off with him.

He doesn't bother to remember this stuff because he believes it's all your job.

it's not incompetence.

presumably he could talk to someone about the minutiae of his bike(s) for hours?
so it's not a lack of capacity to learn information.

and he obviously doesn't lack organisational skills.

what does that leave?
the things at home are just not important enough to him - that's basically it.

you say that making a big thing, or leaving him will have an impact on your children.

so will doing nothing - your resentment will continue to fester and grow, and your children will become more and more aware of it as they become older. it's impossible to hide, and the more frustrated and resentful you get, the less careful you will be about hiding it.

much better to see 2 happy (separate) parents, than 2 miserable together ones.
he'll step up as a single parent, or he won't, and then he'll lose them.

they'll be fine - not least because they'll have a happy, positive, strong role-model, who provides them with consistent practical and emotional support.

and they'll know that unequal divisions of labour/responsibilities in relationships are not to be tolerated, which will serve them well in their own.

@DiscontinuedModelHusband yes agree its not that he can't, just that he doesn't. My view is that its mostly selfishness. Not sure if DH is aware of how it comes across.

He'd refuse to accept me saying he's selfish, he thinks he has massive amounts of empathy because he often says he "uses his empathy" but I don't think he and I understand empathy in the same way.

If someone can recognise their selfishness and not want to continue, then surely its not too late and they can do something about it? I think he'd be upset to lose his relationship with the kids. He's seen first hand how much damage it did when his DPs divorced and the lasting result its had on him and his siblings. Why on earth would he willingly walk into the same situation?

@Heli1copter ‘he’d refuse to accept me saying he’s selfish’ - like he refuses to go to counselling/therapy as ‘he thinks he knows best and he can’t learn anything from a book’ etc as you previously said. So where does that leave you? Back at square one. He thinks he’s great. You know he isn’t. HE won’t change cos , you know, he thinks he’s great. You think the kids will suffer too much if you split up. To change the dynamics of a relationship takes two, but if he won’t engage then only you can change the situation. And will he do his share of parenting if you do separate do you think?

And will he do his share of parenting if you do separate do you think?

speaking from the experience seen in a close family member, he'll probably revel in the freedom for a year or so being a Disney dad and living the single life, but not really building any sort of depth in his relationships with his children.

(while also moaning/being frustrated that they don't really listen to him, or that he doesn't have as much control over their development as he'd like)

then something will happen to make it all go to shit, and he'll panic and realise he's fucked up.

whether it's too late by then will depend on how old/mature/aware OP's DC are.

DC are still young (primary/nursery aged) so a year is a long time in their little lives.

If he disappeared for a year then frankly it'd be too late, I wouldn't want him to bother at that point as it would just confuse DC why he disappeared then reappeared. Considering what he went through himself as a young teenager I don't think he'd stop contact for that long, I think he'd try to see them every couple of weeks but I just don't know and if I bring it up it'll just open a massive can of worms about why.