Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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

Original poster

Argument with DH. But what do I WANT?!

58 replies

BrassicaBabe · 03/02/2024 21:29

DH works a million hours a week. Or close to it. So it's fair and reasonable that I do more overall.

I work FT from home. But I reality by skills or by luck I have more hours available. So I do ALL of the book work, HR, paperwork stuff for DH family business. (MIL and SIL now do 100% feck all. MIL older so fair enough. But SIL lazy and incompetent which is never going change. I really SHOULD just accept that.)

We have a side business with me/DH and BIL/SIL. BIL and DH do a similar amount of work. SIL still does FECK ALL.

Home. DH does a bit. But let's face it with a million hours a week a work it's never going to be 50/50.

So far in 2024 I've felt 100% overwhelmed, isolated and only own. This has ended up with an argument with DH. I've cried. I never cry!

There is nothing DH and I can do about SIL. So we just need to plug the gaps and get on..

I've said how much I feel on my own, responsible for EVERYTHING etc etc. DH asks (in frustration) "what do you want me to do"?!!

I've got no fecking idea?!!

He can't do the book work etc. he's always busy. He can't do the stuff that SIL should do. We all know that SIL is crap.

But yet I feel so sad and isolated. If I can't ask for what I want/need how can DH possibly stand a change?!!

OP posts:
MysteriousInspector · 04/02/2024 13:59

I suppose your DH's family have to keep the business open, or what else would they do?

But not by exploiting you.

You can't change other people, all you can do is change your own behaviour. So what do you want to change it to?

dimllaishebiaith · 04/02/2024 14:31

BrassicaBabe · 04/02/2024 09:19

DH is part of a family business: mother, father, brother and him. No formal role for me and SIl. Or better put, my BILs wife? This is DH main source of income.

Then a separate business, much smaller than one above where me/dh, bil/sil are equal. It's a side hustle I guess. (A formal business though. Not a tax dodge)

I have a FT job. My income matches DH.

DH and BIL are plenty busy enough which is fine. So I DO have more "spare" hours than they do.

SIL does not work! She shares the hands on work of the side hustle with me 50:50. But them takes no part in the admin (web, customer stuff) which I do 100% of.

SIL is.... well I honestly struggle to truly understand... lazy? Incompetent? Lacking awareness? She operates at a fraction of the pace that i do. There is never any speed or urgently. She cannot be relied on. She has zero initiative or drive. She is a nice person socially. But it's hard to set aside my feelings of being left hanging.

When I'm not losing my shit like last night, I try to accept her weaknesses and work within them. Mostly I just get on with stuff. If I ask her to do something I then have to remember I've asked her so that at a point in the future I can check that she's done it.

I've tried to directly address the problem. I'm not sure how to describe the response. Stonewalled? A discussion in the car for example, she'll look away and just not engage. An email? She just will not answer.

DH tries to help but he's been beaten down by dealing with her for far longer than I have.

SIL is.... well I honestly struggle to truly understand... lazy? Incompetent? Lacking awareness?

No no no

Your SiL quite frankly is the sensible one in this senario.

She is not working for a company that doesn't employ her, doesn't pay her and would have nothing to do with her in the event of a divorce

The idea that people's wives should be willing to perform unpaid labour for a "family business" is crap, and you moaning about her shows how deeply you have been sucked into this unhealthy attitude towards the family business

You cannot say she doesn't work when she does 50% of the hands on work for the "side hustle". She does work, she just doesn't try to juggle a multitude of jobs like you are doing.

And quite frankly given she also has a DH who probably leaves her all of the housework, and probably all the parenting if there are children involved, then why should she do more.

Your husband is buying his freedom to work as much as he wants off the back of your unpaid labour both in the business and in the house. Despite the fact you earn the same money. There is a mysoginy in there that's fairly glaring. As is the blaming the SiL for not being willing to pick up some of the unpaid labour as well.

Never mind the fact that you and the SiL do 50% each of the hands on work and you do 100% of the admin, so it sounds like the DH/Bil do nothing yet its the woman you are moaning about and saying she does feck all for the side hustle.

Honestly given the aggro, wind up the side hustle, employ someone to do the family businesses books and go back to doing one well paid job, and stop taking on unpaid labour for a family firm which doesn't respect you because if they did they would treat you with greater respect and monetary compensation instead of assuming that they will get free unpaid labour from any random women who marry into the family.

redastherose · 04/02/2024 15:04

If sil is ok at the hands on stuff but rubbish at the admin just give her all my he hands on stuff to do and you concentrate on the admin side. Each person is then using their skills appropriately.

Tiswa · 04/02/2024 15:19

So your problem is that your brother in law wife has decided (agree sensibly) that she will share 50/50 of the hands off but leave the admin - probably because she couldn’t win could she. She as seen you take over from her MIL and suspects I think rightly that whatever she did would t be good ebough

the problem isn’t with her or your BiL it is with you and potentially your marriage

you are doing too much. Either outsource or get your DH to step up or close down the side hustle

your SIL simply isn’t the issue

ChocoChocoLatte · 04/02/2024 15:36

You have a DH & BIL problem here. Your SIL has set her boundaries and that's that.

Get a cleaner / gardener etc and stop running yourself into the ground.

Original poster
BrassicaBabe · 04/02/2024 15:43

@dimllaishebiaith ouch. But something I will think on

OP posts:
Natty13 · 04/02/2024 16:07

dimllaishebiaith · 04/02/2024 14:31

SIL is.... well I honestly struggle to truly understand... lazy? Incompetent? Lacking awareness?

No no no

Your SiL quite frankly is the sensible one in this senario.

She is not working for a company that doesn't employ her, doesn't pay her and would have nothing to do with her in the event of a divorce

The idea that people's wives should be willing to perform unpaid labour for a "family business" is crap, and you moaning about her shows how deeply you have been sucked into this unhealthy attitude towards the family business

You cannot say she doesn't work when she does 50% of the hands on work for the "side hustle". She does work, she just doesn't try to juggle a multitude of jobs like you are doing.

And quite frankly given she also has a DH who probably leaves her all of the housework, and probably all the parenting if there are children involved, then why should she do more.

Your husband is buying his freedom to work as much as he wants off the back of your unpaid labour both in the business and in the house. Despite the fact you earn the same money. There is a mysoginy in there that's fairly glaring. As is the blaming the SiL for not being willing to pick up some of the unpaid labour as well.

Never mind the fact that you and the SiL do 50% each of the hands on work and you do 100% of the admin, so it sounds like the DH/Bil do nothing yet its the woman you are moaning about and saying she does feck all for the side hustle.

Honestly given the aggro, wind up the side hustle, employ someone to do the family businesses books and go back to doing one well paid job, and stop taking on unpaid labour for a family firm which doesn't respect you because if they did they would treat you with greater respect and monetary compensation instead of assuming that they will get free unpaid labour from any random women who marry into the family.

Show quote history

I agree completely with this. Perfectly said.

Given the choice between living like SIL or lovong like you (who sounds close to totally burning out) who would choose to be you in this scenario? SIL sounds like the sensible one here.

If you sat down with her and told her how overwhelmed you feel doing all the books, admin etc on your own as well as half the hands on stuff, what do you think she would say?

mewkins · 04/02/2024 16:25

MysteriousInspector · 03/02/2024 23:04

So how did they manage before you came along?

Exactly. If it was running before you, revert back to that. If it makes less money, that's for them to solve. You have a job already.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread