Mental load row is going to end marriage

[LouKJ]

We've been together 18 years, married for 15, two children. He works 12 hour shifts, I work weekdays 8.30-5.
I do the vast majority of the household load, including cooking, cleaning, washing, plus I do all of the kids activities and school stuff. He doesn't have any of the apps for school info, wouldn't even know how to book breakfast club or pay for a school lunch.
I've been away with work for a week. The day I got back we had a huge row where he told me that he'd enjoyed being at home alone (my parents had the kids Monday-Friday because of his shifts) because he wasn't "getting criticised permanently". He said he wanted the marriage to be over. We talked and he said that he feels that its my job to all of the household chores and kids activities because I don't work 12 hour shifts and his days off should be complete rest days where he doesn't have to do anything.
I admit, I criticise him for not pulling his weight but I get so frustrated that he can't see the demands of my job and everything I do in the house. He does not understand the concept of "the mental load" at all.
The day after the row I suggested marriage counselling, he said no. I wrote some statements on paper to explain how I feel and what I think I can do to help our marriage. He refused to do the same. He claims that he would be more productive in the house if he could move to day shifts, but that would be a drop in wages that we can't really afford. He blamed me for this because we want to do home improvements and he said they're my idea so its my fault we can't afford the drop in wages.
I don't really know where to go from here - it doesn't matter how I try to communicate or phrase it, what language I use - he doesn't seem to understand my feelings. Now I'm really worried that at any point he might just decide to walk out. I love him very much but part of me thinks that if I was on my own it would be easier - I'd still be doing all of the work but the frustration would be less.

Call a solicitor he's made his view clear.

The main issue for me is that he refuses to even talk about this. Sure, it's easy for us to say LTB and I do get where people are coming from when they say to fight for the marriage, but the fact remains that OP would be doing all the "fighting".

You can't save a relationship that only one of you wants to be in. And, sucky as it is, he is perfectly entitled to end the relationship for whatever reason he sees fit.

Personally, I think his reason is idiotic. He's seen a glimpse of life with few responsibilities, and thinks this is what it will be like for him if he leaves.

He's in for a rude awakening.

I would look at the home budget, and maybe he can switch to days with the understanding that he will do more around the home.

Sadly, having been together so long he has got used to you taking the mental load. If you really love him and you think he does really love you, maybe you could make some time together to rediscover why you fell in love and he can move to a daytime schedule and you can both find some way to share the load.

IMHO, I always think divorce is a good option for people who are not happy together etc. However, your issue seems to be with him helping around the house, and money coming in. Divorce will not only not fix these things but will make them both worse. he won't be at home to help in even minor ways and your joint income would need to pay for two homes not one. I'd find a way to make it work if you do really love him and he loves you.

I have a DH who works long hours too so I can understand this to an extent.

You have two options

1. get a cleaner
2. divorce

He said he wanted the marriage to be over

The only next step after someone looks in your eyes and says this is to separate. There's really no way back

I think you need to accept that your marriage is over. You sound like you're at a point where you just resent each other and neither of you is happy.

He's being a dick to suggest his days off should be 'complete rest days' where you do all the parenting and run the household.

He may, however, have a point about having to do night shifts because you wanted costly home improvements that he perhaps wasn't bothered about. I only say this because I've seen a situation with someone in my own family where someone who worked night shifts was also expected to do as much during the day as his partner, which meant he barely slept - but his partner insisted he keep doing night shifts for the money it brought in, because she wanted financial support for various plans she had.

Either way, night shifts are pretty brutal when combined with family life. That doesn't mean that he gets to do nothing on his rest days, though! He's not being at all fair, clearly. Plus, if night shifts are wrecking him he's had plenty of time to make that point before rather than waiting until things were at breaking point.

I'm really sorry, OP. This must be a horrible thing to go through.

Another separated person here agreeing.

Fundamentally, how he is behaving is wrong. He is not pulling his weight in family life and it’s not good for your children to witness this or unhealthy communication styles.

However, divorcing does bring a whole new set of problems which will also impact your quality of life and also your children. It isn’t easy at all.

Maybe a trial separation may be a good idea. Ultimately, if he doesn’t want to save the marriage (which he will regret) then there isn’t much you can do except move forward knowing you’ve done everything you can (far too much for far too long) and you’re a good mum and will be a great partner again one day to a more deserving man (although you will see on posts here most of the fish in the sea are rotten, and dating will be challenging anyway with kids so be prepared to be single for a very long time).

It sounds like he now knows he has the gp’s lined up to sort childcare if you split, which is why he is now considering it.

He's refused marriage counselling

Wonder why that is...

Imagine you started a job share. Then imagine how long it would take to sit down with your colleague and run through every single task and divide it up based on each of your strengths and weaknesses.

Have you both taken the time to do this and then check back with each other every few weeks to see what is or isn’t working?

Or have you just argued periodically when neither of you have put the work into properly sharing out the huge amount of life admin and jobs needed to run a house and be a parent.

To properly share all life admin, all children admin and all domestic chores. It takes multiple lists and multiple hours of 1-1 time with your partner when neither of you are cross.

The problem is that
1- she has tried but he isn’t engaging
2- he is the one to say he has enough

Righteous anger has a place Imo. Even if it’s just to highlight how crap things are and that she doesn’t have to automatically accept he is right.
And no leaving just because some internet strangers told you so would be stupid.
But So is spending years and years trying to sort things out with someone who doesn’t want to and will advantage if tte fa t you want to make things works at all cost.

It would be nice to see what you’d propose the OP does that she hasn’t tried yet.
Apart maybe stopping the ‘nagging’ and simply accepting he is never going to step up. After all that’s tte situation most women are in right? So why simply nit accepting it?

@Canisaysomething it also take TWO people willing to work through that list and share the work.
This man has already stated he isn’t going to do that. He has clearly said he thinks all that work is tte OP’s, not his.

i agree with this.

Divorcing will be hard, but you have a choice to make between one crappy thing and another crappy thing. Continuing the way you are will be awful, and permanent. But taking the leap and making the decision that this is not what you want in life will be a massive upheaval - but temporary.

I know, I'm in the same position as you. Hanging on for the sake of not wanting the kids to have to go and spend time on their own, god knows where, with a dad who has no idea how to be a dad. But it is killing me mentally to carry on this way, and I am intending to end it. Especially as we had a recent discussion where I said to him I just have no feelings for him anymore, and he said the same to me. It sounds like he is saying this to you too, and there's no coming back from that.

Not to mention the 17 hour days that I've always done. Up, school, work, school, home, home jobs, bed. There is no rest. Apart from when I visit my brother in his care home. That, for me, is my break. DH went away for a week recently, and it was like a holiday for me. Mentally and physically refreshing. I still had everything to do but it was 100 times easier.

Yes, lots of us are quick to jump to the LTB, but in this case I think it's the right conclusion.

jsku · Yesterday 13:30 all makes sense unless the OP's husband has already checked out in his head (however that looks, from any arrangements to leave to a pre existing extra marital relationship). In which case don't tell OP to "work on it".

It takes 2 to "work on it" jsku.

I, on the other hand have been with my partner for 4 years who has recently moved in with us. He helps me with the cleaning every week, contributes financially

I just read this and noticed the language. ‘Helps me with the cleaning’. Do you mean he does his fair share of the cleaning of a house you now both live in. I think the language we use is so telling of just how socialised we have been, as women, to take this on as our role that men chose to ‘help’ with or not. Like when it’s called ‘baby sitting’ when men look after their own children. If you are still holding in mind what needs cleaning and when and he is just ‘helping’ then that might be ok for you, but it’s not true equality.

Surely her being unreasonable about home improvements depends what they are? We all know that since Brexit costs for builders and tradespeople have gone up exponentially - it could be that these are urgent repairs that have been waiting some time and may actually be causing their own issues in the family dynamic. Now costs have gone up it may have doubled the time needed to save. I don't think expecting a wage to cover basic costs of running a house is too much to ask of either partner and while I recognise shift work doesn't pay well it does seem a bit much for him to not earmark some salary for house-upkeep just because He doesn't deem it necessary. Some people can function without heating all winter because they are particularly miserly, thinking nothing of the damage it does to the house with mould and damp for eg.

Bloody hell OP, your bar is on the floor.

He is an absolutely piss taking waster.

Your poor children with such an utterly selfish man for a father.

You have more patience than I do. It also sounds like you want to save the marriage a lot more than he does.

Honestly, if it were me, I'd say "okay, go for it - we can get divorced but you have to administrate it". My guess is he won't lift a finger.

Yes, you probably have a point as I guess I used the word 'helps' as it was something I always did on my own and was made to feel like it was MY job. My partner lives in my house with my teenagers and I so that might be another reason for the word. Actually though, If I say "thanks for helping", he has a go at me and tells me he's not helping, he is doing his fair share. I have just been conditioned into feeling that way but I do know that yes, he should also clean the house he lives in.

Is he truly prepared to move to day shifts and pick up some home slack? Are you truly prepared to put the home improvements on hold?

The car payments seem to be an issue too.

Sounds like you're taking on another mental load - that of your future divorce!

Just get on with it. Set yourself free!

OP I echo what some of the posters have said about the reality of divorce. It's not all "klck his butt out the door" becasue once you've done that, you are left with the vast majorty of the burden, a smaller house, less money and no adult to offload on. He is not hearing you and you are not hearing him.

The week alone has given him a FALSE impression of what it would be like to be alone. He was relaxed and unburdened and that has tempted him. But the reality for him is that the payoff for that would be all the things mentioned above: less money/smaller house/not seeing the kids as much/no adult company/marriage breakdown etc etc

The disparity is what I think of as Mental Google Tabs. Your DH has three tabs open: Work/Bills and Time-off. You have 46 open Work/Kids/Dinner/Laundry/Errands/bills/school/clubs/kids parties etc etc. You are constantly moving your mouse across them all and trying to get them finished so you can close one of the tabs whilst he has a nice clean desktop with more structured tasks.

This is why you feel resentful. I know it's mad, but could you try to explain it to him in Google Tabs? I did it to my DH and he did actually get it.

You're already doing everything yourself.

Totally agree with this. It seems his refusal to work on things will only result in OP having to adjust her own expectations and behaviour, compromising her happiness, if they stay together.

I’m reading the recent posts about how it would be hard and even harder to leave because lack of money etc…
And I’m thinking how the CoL crisis has changed people’s attitude in a crazy way. Even two years ago, someone saying they were staying because of money would have been shot down. Anyone suggesting she should be pondering to him ‘because he is doing 12 hours shifts’ and nothing else would have been told off big way.

Posters coming and saying ‘you need to see the reality of what divorce means because it’s not that easy’ and yet has anyone talked about what the cost is of staying instead?

Because I stayed. I thought marriage was something that you were supposed to work on. That things are not always easy and it’s normal. I thought I was somehow my fault because I was nagging/getting angry at carrying the whole load etc… so surely the answer was for me to change right?

The reality was that DH was inflexible and selfish. He is doing things that fits him and it so happens that the HW and the mental load isn’t part of it. He didn’t make a huge fuss out if it, he just didn’t do things and waited for me to step up.
So I stayed. I tried many ways of explaining I needed more help - the Google tabs, making lists whatever. Guess what it didn’t work. See inflexibility and not wanting to do it. It’s near impossible to change things when only one person wants the change and is willing to make an effort. Instead he got resentful I was even bringing all that up. Again. (That’s nagging right?)

I tried to change myself, got counselling etc… because surely it was wrong of me to get angry right? I needed to see his pov. Be compassionate, things were hard for him too. Well I still got deeply hurt when he chose himself again and again rather than his dcs or me. Death by a thousand cuts, some deeper than others. I just didn’t feel I was allowed to show it anymore. And talking, explaining, none of that had any impact at all. Nor did being assertive. Because well… see above.

So now many many years down the line, I’m still there. I have been hurt so many times, deeply hurt. I don’t trust him to have my back, ever.
He is resentful. Because you know what, I have my own boundaries. They are very very low but now we’ve reached those boundaries and me saying NO isn’t acceptable.
I dint think there is any love left at all from either side.
The dcs did get a childhood that was comfortable rather than being poor. But was it worth it? Only they could say that. Personally, I’m not sure. Because of what they learnt from it. Because of the constant PA in the house (DH, not me) and the tension.

So looking back, can I say that was better than getting a divorce? Tbh I don’t think so. The emotional cost to me has been huge. The stress which made my chronic health issues 100x worse.
Now I’m a shell of myself and it’s taking me a lot of effort to find myself again, even down to what I like and dislike - because it’s hard to know when you are always last in the list and you never have the opportunity to explore those interests.

Dont ever underplay the cost of staying when one partner is taken for granted like this.
And don’t ever underplay the importance of NOT been seen, listened to, being cared for by the person who is supposed to do that.
And don’t ever ask a woman to put up and shut up, take her partner needs into consideration ‘oh poor him, look he is tired/depressed/whatever’ without also giving the exact same importance to her own needs. Not whilst also expecting her partner to give the same consideration.

And tbh just now, the OP has a DH who simply doesn’t listen to her, doesn’t want to change, doesn’t want to make an effort. And he us saying it. I think she should believe him.
And she deserves to know that staying isn’t always easier. Far from.