Cannot get rid of resentment around metal load.

[Tadpolle]

I just typed a huge long post and lost it! Maybe for the best! Will try to be brief:

In a nutshell- I cannot solve the metal load problem with DP, desperate for ideas.

Both work full time. Primary aged DC. He does pretty much half daily load of domestic stuff like dc drops/ pick ups, teatimes bedtimes but it ends there and he doesn't THINK about anything. Unless I do it, it doesn't get sorted. Childcare, house stuff (we bought a dooer upper house before I knew he was like this- it started after dc). Holidays, house finances, work done to house, plans, trips, purchases, just everything. All on me. Last week we had no wraparound care for dc because he didn't email breakfast/ after school club having said he would. We'd had a big chat about mental load again and he had agreed to get better at doing shit so he made a point of saying he'd email. Just didn't. I'm the one who WFH so had to rush round for dc. Really messed up my working days.

Its having such a bad impact on our relationship. I feel resentful and he feels attacked if I get mad about it. We've tried list systems, calendar, sharing out jobs according to our skills, he seems to want to get better but it always just slips back to me having to hold everything together.

Has anyone ever actually solved this? Or got any more ideas?
I suggested counselling and he didn't want to but might need to insist.

You should definitely go to counselling and if he won’t go you should do it for yourself.

OK, so you can fully give him total responsibility for childcare and food.

You can't trust him with finances, health or pets.

What else is taking up a lot of time and can be given to him?
Could you give holidays/trips to him and accept that you might not go on any holidays next year (does he enjoy holidays? Did he ever go on holidays/trips before he met you?)
Could you fully hand over house maintenance to him and not get involved?

It sounds like you're in a weird place where you do the mental load that facilitates him doing what looks like a job (e.g. cooking) but is actually half a job (if he does no meal planning/shopping). So give him the entire job (shopping + meal planning + cooking + lunchboxes) and make sure it's something where the job happens regularly, failure is obvious and will actually impact him personally - like being in charge of all things cooking related. You probably won't resent doing the finance stuff and some of the other occasional/and hoc organising so much if more of the big ongoing tasks are being picked up by him, and it's harder for him to "forget" jobs that happen super frequently

Omg I was toying with a post like this tonight. We live mirror lives.

DH does dishwasher, sometimes bathrooms. Im waiting for him to do dentist for kids..

He pretty much does no planning, needs reminder after reminder to do stuff. (Electrician came today after he said he would book him at end Jan. ) Doesn't fill in calendar or mark off stuff he has done. I've decided this week to try to pull back where it only affects him, as suggested. I'm not going to iron his shirts, and I am stopping reminding.
But it is hard to find bits to do this to as most of our interactions are dc related.
I put date night in the diary once a month each month this year. He has babysitter contacts (his family). He has either not noticed or cancelled every single one so far. So there isn't much investing in our marriage going on here..
✊ Solidarity op

Honestly all food related stuff and all laundry stuff is liberating.

He needs to make your Friday, he needs to sort out Hello Fresh, he needs to sort out packed lunches or school dinners.

He sorts out all the school holidays.

He sorts out all his friends and family birthday and Christmas stuff.

Which is how dishwasher becomes the task.

Washing would be interesting!!!

Cooking is hard to achieve as the kids do actually need food.

All this tit for tat must be so damaging for a relationship though.

This thread is so helpful. I have started to feel it's my problem and up to me to work to get rid of resentment but resentment is actually a totally sane and fair reaction.

We tried a terrible solution this week that's backfired badly. My friend suggested it so I though might as well try... I suggested to him we stop the conflict around metal load, just accept I think of everything and that's ok as long as when I ask him to do something he does it. (I was desperate and feel we have failed so many times to sort this why not try a new thing.)
This sort of worked for 1 day then tonight I asked him to sort dc musical instrument out that he wanted to play with (I was chopping veg for my tea- he had done Friday pizza for him and dc already) and he said in a wry tone "ohhh you always have a list for me don't you".
FUCK OFFFFFF
And I am embarrassed I even tried that approach.
Jesus wept. You are ALL right on this thread.

Taking responsibility for particular areas isn't tit for tat, it's dividing the load.

The kids need food - so at 6pm when everyone sits down for dinner and looks at dad, what's he going to say? 'Oh I forgot'.

Fine for him to get emergency pizza on Monday night but everyone is going to get up on Tuesday morning needing breakfast and look at dad again.
It's not a responsibility that can be forgotten or ignored like booking appointments or cleaning the bathroom can be because everyone needs food.

Wtf?!!

Why?!

How many holidays do you get child free?

Why are you putting up with this?

The thing about food and laundry is that it impacts him and the DC and they are essentials so can't be ignored.

You step back, let him fail (or not) and don't rescue him.

DH was brought up on burgers and sausage and chips 🤮 it took a long time for him to learn to cook well and remember veg at every meal but he got there. Same with the laundry started him on darks, then the red/pink/purple then the lights complete with stain treating. I have my own basket for my silks work stuff/bras/random delicates that I deal with.

His nephew who lives abroad gets no cards or birthday or Xmas presents because DP doesn't sort any. I absolutely won't and cannot take his family gifting etc on. He also hasn't sent a new baby card or gift to his best friend who just became a dad.

Last week I had to have a diary/ calendar conference with DP's mum about a complicated visit from their relatives who are coming for a month this summer. My DP wandered off halfway through and left us to it. He was poorly that day but I don't wash my hands of family life when I'm ill. He even said I was hassling him asking him to join in.
I went ape shit afterwards.

You didn't have to join the call at all though.

So why did you not only do it but allow him to walk away during?

Why didn't you just either not do it at all or hang up when he walked away?

@ToK1 I go away without DP and without DC with my female friends for long weekends about 4 times a year. Probably this has helped me deal with this crap as long as I have!

I also take a bit of my AL for myself here and there as well. Also I compress 10 days work over 9 and have alternate Fridays off work to myself. I try to do only stuff I want like walks, friends, gardening, sleeping. Try not to do housework for most of it.

They were at our house sat round the kitchen table not on a call.
I shouldn't have let him slope off though.
I care a lot for his mum and wanted her to be happy with the plans- she gets stressed out.
Lovely emotional and mental work for alllllll the women. Yay.

Sorry I read conference as conference call

Tbh I think that it's a lost cause.

He doesn't care. If he did it wouldn't happen.

He won't change. So you either let go of the resentment and just do everything yourself or you leave

Look at eve rodsky's fair play book and cards

this article I’m posting has been referenced many times on MN and published in numerous places - for a reason. And without exaggeration i do believe insisting my DH read it helped turn my frustrations around.

my DH was a ‘competent at work/incompetent at home’ person. He’d watch me earn more, do more, organise more, succeed more and bloody suffer more too. He lacked empathy and appreciation. He didn’t understand that it annoyed ME that he’d forgotten to do something - remember a birthday, do a chore; if it didn’t annoy him but it annoyed me then that was tough - he couldn’t see it from my view. That I was a full glass and his incompetence was sending it to overflowing. No team work. No appreciation. I was at my wits end. I felt like I had 3 DC not 2 and life would be easier without that burden.

After he’d done something spectacularly selfish and incompetent, I read this out loud to him. Then I asked him to read it again to himself. It’s made a big difference.

sorry it’s a DM link it’s been published in many places too. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10645457/amp/My-wife-divorced-leaving-dirty-glasses-sink-right.html

I had one of these. Nothing worked. I loved him and he loved me so I put up with it. Thought it was annoying and unfair but at least he was dependable emotionally. Thought that as our DC were growing up at least there was starting to be less work, and him not doing his share wouldn't matter so much. When youngest DC was 16 he left me for a younger woman, out of the blue.

That's awful and sad @DontBeMeOP

How are you doing now?

I just checked in on a thread from a few weeks ago where her teacher husband had rested instead of doing anything in school hols and found this- quite good

www.drpsychmom.com/2017/07/17/just-stuff-wife-wants/

This seems really familiar. Have you written about this before?

I think it's a pretty common thing for women to post about on MN. Kind of sad really.

I relate very much to this. My husband has always been forgetful - in every capacity of his life and since I have known him, so possibly a bit different. I also think he has undiagnosed dyspraxia and adhd.

What we have found most successful is to use a shared app. Each day had its own todo list and we assign tasks by colour. I then spend my life asking if he has checked the app as a mantra. I don't mind saying have you checked the app (much better than having to reel off individual tasks). He's pretty good at doing the things and will add things to the app. It is me who organises the app from day to day, but I don't mind that because I'm a bit of a control freak.

I think if you're going to assign individual tasks then you have to agree in advance that you don't bail the other out and that the one who forgets is responsible. He might be a teacher but, if he has to take responsibility for missed childcare, he won't forget again!

Metal load?

100% get the DH on the scrap heap.

Bloody hell @Tadpolle I thought I'd read so many of these types of threads, but that has shocked me. How much annual leave do you get to spend alone, without the children??

I think you definitely need a Come to Jesus talk, and couples counselling, where you thrash this out, and make it clear that it's an absolute deal breaker for you. Honestly I'm not married to him and I want to slap him!!

If he wanted to, he would.