How much ‘load’ does you partner take?

[Dzz1923]

I’m writing this as I’m sat in my car having missed a hair appointment (which has been in the diary for a month) because my husband was late home yet again from his work.
I do 90% of school and nursery drop offs and pick ups as well as work 3 days a week and have my 15 month old the other 2 days while 4 year old is at school.
Husband has his own construction company so I do understand he has long hours but I rarely feel like he takes on any of the household / day to day boring stuff! EVERYTHING is on me, what we do on weekends, organising the kids, what clubs they do, the food shop, the cooking etc
He never offers to take them out one on one so even at the weekends it’s full on family stuff which is all fine as I love our time together but I just want him to be aware and appreciative of how much I do! We’ve spoken before about love languages and that I just like to feel appreciated and I just feel like I’m always the last to be thought of and missing out and more often than not am the hired help!
I would love to know how involved your husbands are in family life and the usual things like pick ups etc?
Anytime we try and talk about it he gets defensive as ‘he’s working for our family’ which I’m appreciative of but I’m feeling so under-valued!
On a side note, before the kids I had a good career and salary and have supported myself through 2 maternity leaves so we’re fine for money - I’d rather he earn less and have more time with us and I have more support!? Is that unreasonable?

DH is working for the family but I would say takes about 70% of the load. When our DC were little we did 50/50 including night feeds, etc.

It’s not unreasonable to feel frustrated and put upon and worn out. I’d say that at the age your kids are, I felt very much the same. My DH was not that great at that point.

However…
I’d rather he earn less and have more time with us and I have more support!? Is that unreasonable?
I do think it’s unrealistic, even if it’s not unreasonable to feel that way. Your DH is self employed with a business to run. Construction is notoriously tricky for taking time off - jobs run over, things go wrong, the boss is needed on site. He could ‘work less’ but in that business you don’t want to be turning jobs down. It’s a lot of pressure.

It’s not to say he couldn’t do better. He definitely should take the kids out of a weekend and give you time off, he definitely could schedule in doing more drop-offs and pick-ups as that’s part of a routine he could build into his working time, and he shouldn’t have let you down today. You can also organise it so he picks up a click & collect order for the shopping and commits to cooking a fair amount, or whatever.

That was I think deliberate on his part re your missing a hair appointment. What other things have you missed out on, things for you alone that have been sidelined due to him being unavailable ?. When was the last time you had time to yourself let alone visit somewhere like some shops on your own?.

Why did you support yourself through two maternity leaves, how is he re your access to money day to day?. Does he actually regard his earnings as his and his alone?.

DH does all school drop offs (shared with another dad). He does at least 50% of pick ups and activities, food, washing, schoolwork etc. I wouldn’t be able to work away 50% of the time if he didn’t.

Have always resisted either of us becoming a default parent. Always worked full time. Always given him the opportunity to do every part of child and house care. My having a vagina doesn’t make me better at housework.

U need to go out more on your own. A whole day a month go out with friends. Go shopping on your own. Do anything but make sure it's on ur hubbys day off and it's for the entire day. Not just a couple of hours. Don't set stuff out, don't prep anything. He needs to be doing this more and spending more time with the kids by himself or he will never appreciate you. Don't get anyone to help either eg grandparents, aunts etc.
He thinks it's fine because your doing it all. So what if he works busy hours so does majority of the country. Including you. If he doesn't factor time for you in then u must take it. And if u don't then u cant complain. Does he go out with friends? Hobbies? Footy? U should sit him down and tell him this is happening or your are gonna end up mega resentful and burnt out. He can have a day to himself once a month too it's not unreasonable but please stop doing it all .

How many hours do you each work?

DH does everything in the holidays (including childcare). I do close to everything in term time. DH is a teacher in a boarding school that does Saturday lessons and sport. The split was the same before we had DC.

We can do this without much resentment because I work FT, out earn DH and we pay significant money for extremely good childcare (close to nanny but not quite). We did discuss DH becoming a SAHD but decided against it because he wasn’t certain he wanted to. Yes, my haircuts have to be slotted around his work in term time but I can hack that safe in the knowledge that in the holidays he fits around me.

Some really interesting responses - thanks all!

We’ve been together for 20 years and I love the man to pieces and I know he loves me too and this is the first time he’s created something in his business that he is hugely proud of (as he should be) but on top of his work he trained for an endurance marathon that he was gone for 2 weeks for in April and likes to workout / exercise in the week as much as he can before another iron man in august. (I therefore went to see my family in LA for 5 days and am seeing family again in Cyprus for a few days in sept so it’s not all take take).

I workout in the day and put son in crèche so I get he wants his time too but on top of everything else I am becoming a bit resentful and I don’t like who I am because of it. I don’t want to cook for us then eat dinner alone several times a week.

I got a good redundancy payout in Dec (that I requested) and have been contracting to fill gaps on CV for 21 hours a week and I’m thinking I want to go back to work so I’ve got something for me but we don’t have family that helps so it’s a case of putting kids in a big increase of childcare.

it’s the first time I’ve sat and thought about it so I’m babbling 😂

I’m just contracting at my old company 21 hours and he’s full time and beyond

I think a key principle is that when all the work inside and outside the house is done you should have roughly equal amounts of free time.

Yes, equal leisure time is a good measure of an overall fair split of everything (earning money, household chores, childcare, life admin etc.) that needs to be done.

I'm a SAHP (one toddler, one older child), my husband is a surgeon. He does all drop offs on his way to work, he gets the kids up in the morning and does their breakfast while I'm in the shower and then we swap and I dress them. I cook, he washes up (generally, we're pretty flexible in just cracking on with it). I do more tidying and admin stuff because I can get in the phone during working hours but he does a lot when he's on annual leave (he's just sorted out home insurance for example). He does bath time while I do laundry. We do one bedtime each.

So really it’s that he is prioritising fitness goals over time with his young family? Business being full on is one thing, but he can’t also have Iron Man and ultramarathons at this point in his life. Focus there.