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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Help around the house

33 replies

Joder · 18/09/2022 20:18

Hi
I’m wondering how much help you all get around the house?
at the minute, I get zilch and I’m feeling so stressed and I’m starting to resent my husband!
We have two school going kids and we both work full time. He works two evenings a week and a Saturday, he expects me to do all the cleaning, cooking, washing, grocery shopping, bathing the kids, school organisation etc. etc
he spends his Sundays in bed until 2 or 3 pm!
He cleans up after dinner, takes out the bins and garden work and that’s it!
I’m sick at the moment and couldn’t face the filthy floor today so I got up and hoovered like an idiot.
i tried to talk to him about it just now and his answer was ‘we all have to work, you should be able to manage the house yourself’!
then he said all I seem to do is sit on the couch scrolling on my phone 😫
I feel like a 1950s housewife and I really hate him right now!

OP posts:
Crankley · 19/09/2022 15:36

I wonder how your DH keeps his job if he is so incapable? Or is it perhaps he is fully able at work and only morphs into a professional incompetent when he gets home hoping you will be so irritated that you decide do it yourself the next time?

Crankley · 19/09/2022 15:37

That was to TheLongGallery. I thought I had added your post to mine.

KangarooKenny · 19/09/2022 15:42

I do the vast majority of the housework, and I was wondering how my DH would cope if I died, and I realised that he wouldn’t do the cleaning. He’d pay for a cleaner.

MovingOutofZone2 · 19/09/2022 16:09

KangarooKenny · 19/09/2022 15:42

I do the vast majority of the housework, and I was wondering how my DH would cope if I died, and I realised that he wouldn’t do the cleaning. He’d pay for a cleaner.

Why doesn’t he just pay for one now?

oatmilkicedchai · 19/09/2022 17:29

economicervix · 19/09/2022 13:08

Every day there’s a thread like this. Grim seeing how many women picked scum to reproduce with, and a vile, misogynistic example to inflict on kids.

‘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.

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.

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."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4288463-AIBU-OH-never-alone-with-kids?pg=3’

YES. every. single. word. of. this.

100%!

caracvanning · 19/09/2022 17:35

tickticksnooze · 18/09/2022 20:46

It's not "helping" when it's his own home.

Also, he's a prick. Is that normal for him to treat you like that?

This.

Sorry OP but he is an utter arsehole and you are right to hate him.

You'd have no more to do if you left him and you would not have the emotional drain of living with your justified resentment and hatred of him.

Brideandpredjudice · 19/09/2022 17:36

None at all but that's the norm in my culture and I don't work. Also I went into my marriage knowing this and was happy and willing.

There's the difference, you are not happy or willing so you need to change things. Although if he's working 6 days a week plus 2 evenings I can see where he's coming from.

Do you have room in the family budget for a cleaner?

ChampagneCommunist · 19/09/2022 17:46

I feel for you @Joder because I'm in a similar situation. But my partner doesn't work; he's retired.

It's shit, isn't it?

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