Last night, (because our cleaner had asked to come a day early this week), I tidied the entire house after a 12 hour day at work as a teacher.
DH was tired last night, so we agreed that I’d tidy/organise the house that night and he’d make the spare bed the following night. He finishes work at 3pm each day so that he can pick DD up from school and be with her. I finish work any time between 5 and 6:30 and have to be at work around 7:30am.
My DD 6 kept me company last night while I tidied and organised the whole house, clearing surfaces, putting laundry away, unloading the dishwasher, clearing clutter, emptying bins etc. We chatted away and she made a lovely mask as I was doing these jobs. When I’d finished, I read her a story and put her to bed while DH lay in bed on his phone.
I pulled out the mattress from under the spare room bed in preparation for my dad and his partner coming to stay this weekend but when I did, I noticed that our cat had used it as a hiding place and there was lots of fur under it. I asked if DH could hoover the mattress and make the bed to which he agreed.
Tonight I got in from work late (6:45) because it was the staff meeting at my school and DH said that we had no milk. I asked DD if she wanted to pop to the supermarket with me and thought that we could get some nice bits for my dad’s stay on the weekend. DD said she’d rather I just went but requested popcorn for our Friday night movie night.
I got home with the food shopping at 9pm and put it away. When I walked upstairs having had a 13 hour day pretty much non-stop, I found DH on DD’s bed with her asleep and him scrolling the internet and the spare bed was hoovered but unmade.
I felt really disappointed that there were still jobs to do, despite yesterday being on the go from 6am-10pm and today from 6am- 9pm and DH had done nothing but put the washing on the clothes horses that I’d put in before work this morning.
He heard me sighing frustratedly and asked how I was. I asked why he hadn’t made the bed and he said he’d “built” the bed (which is putting the two singles together with a clamp.) and hoovered it which had been “really hard”.
I said it’s not fair that I’d only asked him to do 1 thing and he hadn’t even done that despite agreeing to and despite me doing everything else and despite his working hours being more lenient.
He said he’d been making the kitchen floor (a job he stopped doing 6 months ago and he randomly decided to prioritise tonight!) I suggested that finishing the kitchen floor wasn’t really a priority when we have guests staying on Friday.
He then as he always does:
•told me I was in a “strop” repeatedly
•told me I was throwing my teddies out of the pram
•told me it didn’t need to be done that night
•Once I’d made the bed myself with duvet covers, pillow cases etc, he proceeded to grab all of the cushions off the floor and throw them chaotically on the made bed. When I told him that was unkind he said, incredulously, “What!? They just need to be off the floor for the cleaner to hoover!” Not acknowledging or being truthful about the fact that what he was really doing was trying to mess up my made bed.
•He had done a similar thing last week when I got annoyed with him about his hoarding problem starting to encroach on another room in the house. He reacted by getting loads old planks and old doors and throwing them across walkways in the previously clean and tidy kitchen and dining room then denied that this was an aggressive move until he was blue in the face.
•This time I decided to do to him what he’d done to me and went into his hoarding room and pushed a few bits of wood over.
•He got really mad then because his stuff is his whole world.
•He then told me that I’m a bad mother because I swan off for work 12 hours a day and I don’t see our daughter enough.
•I told him I have to work because we need the money and that we’re lucky because I get the whole holidays off so I can spend lots of time with our daughter in the holidays it’s free childcare so he should be happy, on weekends and I am home by 5pm so she’s only missing me for 1.5 hours of the day on those days.
•he said I don’t see her enough and my job annoys him.
• I suggested that it annoys him because when I’m not at home he has to actually do some domestic labour.
I cannot raise a single issue or communicate a single need to this man without knowing that I’ve got to get in the boxing ring and defend myself from his onslaught of nasty, unkind, disrespectful language, attitude and accusations.
Yes- I feel guilty about working full time but when I’m at home, I feel guilty about not getting my work all done. The last thing I need is for my own husband to be guilt tripping me about going to fucking work. It’s not as though I have anything close to a social life or a hobby. This is my FUCKING JOB!
He is now saying he is sorry but I’m so over his shitty, lazy, nasty attitude and behaviour.
I can’t leave because I couldn’t afford to/ it would break DD’s heart and I don’t trust that he wouldn’t expose my DD to her half sister in my absence. A dangerous and unkind young woman, who I don’t want anywhere near my DD.
So here I am - yet another trapped woman with the entirety of the mental load on my shoulders, unable to move away from a man who clearly has no love or respect for me.