How do I get DP to buck his ideas up?

[PigglePuggle]

I’m currently 28 weeks pregnant and have PGP. I woke up feeling like death yesterday and tested positive for Covid so called in sick for work. I spent most of the day napping on the sofa as I felt so dreadful.

DP got home from work and asked if I’d done any washing, I hadn’t so he asked me to ‘help’ him put some on. Despite me showing him how to use the washing machine numerous time he claims it’s too complicated because it’s done via an app, yet he manages to use apps for everything else.

I went up to bed early as I felt so rotten and ddog followed. DP stayed downstairs watching football. He came up to bed a short while later, got into bed and fell asleep. This meant I had to get out of bed to take ddog downstairs and put him in his crate. Got downstairs and DP had left all the lights on.

This morning I got up to let ddog out and realised he’d also left the washing machine on and the back door unlocked.

Leaving the lights and washing machine on wouldn’t normally bother me if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s so anal about me ‘wasting’ electricity e.g. having a moan if I put a lamp on at dusk!

These things all seem so insignificant and petty so I don’t know whether I am just being a bit unreasonable and irritable where I’m unwell but I’m just stressing about what it’s going to be like when baby arrives, I just wish he would step up a bit more and support me when I need it. I don’t know how to get him to do this without moaning/nagging, any ideas?

Oh dear.

He is who he is. Presumably he’s always been a bit of a man-child/self-centred? Did he want the baby? What are his redeeming features?

you can try the traditional ‘talk to him’ but that rarely works.

Alternatively
a) go nuclear - absolutely lose your shit and tell him unless he grows up fast he’s going to find himself a single dad and/or
b) stop fixing stuff for him, make him do it. Wake him up,to,put the dog away and turn off the lights. Don’t do any of his washing so he has to learn how to do,it. Etc etc.

Shortly, you're going to have two babies. And you will bitterly resent the big one who goes out to work.

Stop looking for tricks to con him into doing his share.

Tell him straight, you expect him to take on more than half of all duties or responsibilities in the home, now and for the next nine months. After that, it can be fifty-fifty.

If he doesn't shape up by next weekend, throw him out. He won't, so use the week to plan your future without him.

@LadyGardenersQuestionTime

I’d pick a and b

All I’ll say is, it won’t get any better.

Have you spoken to him about his being irresponsible?

We only moved in together in February and the baby was unplanned. Was a shock for us both but he’s very excited to be a dad now.

He has a lot of redeeming qualities, in pretty much every other way other than when it comes to these sorts of things around the house so i’m reluctant to just walk away. I know if I just stop doing stuff he will eventually do it but I just find it so hard to do. We both come from families where our mothers took on the traditional housewife role of doing all the cooking, cleaning, washing etc and i’m finding it heard to break as I assumed that role too when we first moved in so now feel I’ve made a rod for my own back!

Don't stand for this treatment. He should be helping you while you're sick and pregnant, what a selfish manchild. Tell him what your expectations are of him and if he doesn't like it he needs to leave. This is so unacceptable.

My dh and I have had our rough patches for sure, but when I've been sick he has completely taken the load of all house work, kids and cared for me, while working. It's what partners do. We each do laundry when we see it needs doing and have the time, we cook equally, and I know that if I dropped dead he would know exactly how to run the house and take care of our kids. This is what we should expect of our partners, not to take the role of their mum or live in help.

Demand more, he's taking the piss.

Imagine how much more annoying his raging incompetence will be once you have an actual helpless baby you have to look after - probably mostly or totally by yourself given he claims he can’t wash some fucking clothes.

How deeply unattractive.

Presumably he coped before you were there to wipe his arse for him?

Stop letting him mug you off.

Washing machine is too complicated, christ alive he must think you are extremely stupid to have fallen for that one.

Stop washing his clothes and see how fast he learns!

God sorry you're having a baby with this man yes he needs to "buck his ideas up"

@Blobblobblob well he lived at home and is an only child so everything was done for him!

Yeah I think I am going to have to, he has miraculously managed to put another wash load on this morning without my help!

They rarely change.

If you leave the mess it will keep piling up and it will become intolerable for you long before it’s intolerable for him.

You could speak to him, hope he will try harder. Raging at him in exasperation can sometimes create a temporary change but it will slide back and become a bone of contention that he will push back against.

You could try tracking how you both spend your time and say to him “I’m spending an hour cleaning now” then set the oven timer.

After that say something like “Oh, that was an hour of cleaning, I’m going out now”.

Walk into the room before you go, busy and with your phone pinging with a text or two.

Don’t be “her indoors”. Maintain your independence.

Can you get a cleaner for a couple of hours?

I bet you have to listen to him a lot talking about what interests him - don’t!

Say “I’d love to listen, but so much to do here, isn’t there, talk to me whilst we’re clearing up”, if he doesn’t budge and says he will do it later, ask him what it is that he plans to do. Give him the benefit of the doubt and then go out. See if it gets done. A lot of people don’t like being told what to do so it may be that he doesn’t want you standing over him.

Really, if you can afford to, get a cleaner, hit his pocket! Oh and make it a good looking male one!!

Ask him what his colleagues at work would say if he continually asked for help at work with basic everyday work tasks??

Tell him that it is deeply unattractive. I’d laugh in the face of someone who couldn’t use an app to work a washing machine but can use apps to order food/ banking etc.

And yes I’d go nuclear.

Stop enabling this nonsense. I’m annoyed just reading it.

The daily thread where a woman chose to reproduce with a total loser who’s mugging her off pretending to be incompetent because of having a penis. ‘I thought he’d change!’ they always say, inexplicably.

Can’t use boring household appliances or see dirt because the penis prevents it. 😄 can’t understand what’s attractive about these specimens, can’t imagine wanting to move one in, serve him and sexually service one. Repulsive.

Ah well, good luck trying to get this one to function on a basic level as an adult. That’s his job to figure out, but he won’t bother, limping on, resenting each other till you inevitably dump him years after your kid thinks this misogyny is normal. Like clockwork.

This meant I had to get out of bed to take ddog downstairs and put him in his crate. Got downstairs and DP had left all the lights on-incorrect. You did not have to. Here’s a copy and paste you’ll think ‘aww he’s not that bad’, but reconsider when you’re parenting alone and waiting for boyfriend to ‘change’ 12 months down the line:

‘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.’

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

Perfectly put, except you missed a bit....

'Limping on, resenting each other, until he has an affair because 'her indoors is a nag and doesn't give me any sex'....'

And, lo, click on active...

Ive been you and I'm afraid to say there is no happy ending.

Fast forward 12 years and you'll be plotting his death.

He won't change, and you'll drive yourself mad trying to lure him/persuade him/show him/pressure him/threaten him to. I think the only thing that can sometimes work in this situation is being no nosense Bossy Mum, but who's got time for that? You're a better woman than me if you want to spend your life managing your partner into doing basic adulting. It also puts you in a parent/child dynamic which is death to your sex life.

In short, he is taking the piss, you need to decide if you can ignore it in light of his other many redeeming features (lets hope there are MANY) and bring up two kids when you've only given birth to one, and the other wears man sized pants.

Also with a second child in tow and pregnant with a third. Every time. But he’s a ‘great Dad’ because he has plays with the kids for half an hour at the weekend whilst she takes a shower.

So he’s great apart from the key behaviours that make him a competent adult who cares about his partner and looks after her when she’s sick….

Well you have a real battle on your hands trying to get him go unlearn all his bad ways. This isn't minor, it's a predictor of how useless he is going to be when the baby is here. Given you have covid and pregnant, he didn't even seem the slightest bit bothered about you and this baby that he's oh so excited about and instead asked you to put washing on! Wake up op, you're in for raining two babies.

Yes same old, same old. Don't feel sorry for these women as they enable and excuse this behaviour.

Agreed. Resentment is a relationship killer.