Balance in a household

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After some advice please, even though I think I already know the answer.

I have been with my partner 13 years. We've been parents for 10 of those years and now have a 10 y/o and 8 y/o.

my partner was an only child and has had everything done for him. Since we have lived together I take care of food shops, bill management, all cooking, all cleaning, vet care, organisation of clubs...the list goes on. My partner will take the children to after school clubs but very reluctantly will complete any house hold chores if asked.

In June 2025 he got a new job and he now works shifts. The shift pattern is pretty brutal and consist of 12 hour days/night shifts but this also allows 18 days off a month.

when he started this job I thought this was an ideal opportunity for him to start helping round the house and I set some new boundaries about helping. These have not been met and my partners attitude towards this is "you didn't ask me to" or "you should write me a list". His days off may consist of a round of golf, a coffee with friends, maybe a dog walk and he will do the school run/after school clubs. Having to write a list or note often feels like another job I need to do!

I work full time the usual 9-5 shift with weekends off. I try to get as much done before/after work and my weekends now usually consist of housework/food shopping etc. if he suggests an outing on a weekend and I decline it is mostly due to having to catch up or I just don't feel like it after a full week at work.

His lack of help around the help has put a strain on the relationship and has made me quite resentful of the time he has off. I have tried setting boundaries/ tasks for him to do daily but they don't get done and I end up doing them myself. He quite happily watches me doing jobs around the house.

we barely get any time to "date" or strengthen our relationship and I feel like we are not communicating well at the moment due to this.

I really feel at the end of my tether with this. I don't know what else to try. I feel like I have a third child and I don't know how I can make this any better. is this normal?? Am I being unreasonable??

Any advice is greatly appreciated and I also realise I have probably made a rod for my own back by letter this go for so long 😢

Sorry OP but you should have started the way you mean to go on. If you've been doing all the household stuff for 10 years, it's no big surprise that he's not keen to step up - he's had it too easy for too long! If you want him to do his share you need to give him specific instructions, maybe a cork board in the kitchen with everyone's jobs on including yours and the children's? That way everyone is clear about what needs to be done!

Page 2 | Men's view of being divorced for not sharing the load | Mumsnet

Remind him men end up being divorced for not pulling their weight domestically. Explain that having to act as his mother, housekeeper and nanny is a total sexual turn off and that it's making you feel totally unattracted to him.

Stop having sex with him. Stop washing his clothes. Stop cooking for him.

He needs to know that if he doesn't sort himself out he's going to end up divorced and paying child support.

I know this is harsh, but fucking men...

when he started this job I thought this was an ideal opportunity for him to start helping round the house and I set some new boundaries about helping.

I wish people would stop calling it 'helping' .. he isn't 'helping' you, he should be contributing to your household in the exact same way you are, but unfortunately you have somehow set this precedent that you do literally everything and he just goes to work, so it will be quite difficult to get him to change.

What boundaries did you set?

Please stop calling it help. Men should not be helping us run our homes, it is their responsibility too.

If I wanted “help,” I’d hire some. Who didn’t live here and already have a basic responsibility to take care of the home they also live in.

I mean it's a bit late to give my actual advice and say don't marry and have kids with a pathetic manbaby, not like you can put the kids back now.

Make him read She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink

Then tell him if he doesn't start acting like an adult and contributing equally to his own fucking house (don't call it helping he's not helping, that implies that it's inherently your job which it is not) he will be finding himself divorced and he can't say it came out of nowhere or blindsided him because you've told him exactly why.

Shoulda woulda coulda but how come you didn’t set the boundaries when you first lived together? Id have been so furious I wouldn’t have been able to have sex with him in order to get pregnant (plus it’s deeply unattractive and childlike). I think anyone who can sit on their arse while watching their partner run themselves ragged is a bit of a shit person who doesn’t respect the other person. If you’ve stated your requests and the potential seriousness of the consequences (that you’ll leave him) for inaction and he chooses inaction, that sends a message no?

A good piece of advice I read in here was to give a specific job eg laundry and grocery shopping rather than hoping they’ll notice the million and one little jobs and actually do them. Yes it’s shit but change won’t be easy after 10 years

I could never find that sort of person attractive. Not even to date once I’d got to know them. Let alone get married and procreate. Not sure there is a lot to advise now, apart from to look at your relationship and ask if that’s the kind of partner you would want to model for your children and want them to aspire to? Sorry, that isn’t much help, but I would be out of there like a shot.

Do you do his laundry? If so, stop. And stop doing any other chores that benefit him, and only him.

I suggest this as a mimimum, to try to get him to see rhe problem.

But he's got his wife/maid/housekeeper in place and diesn't see a problem.

Oh op. You feel like you have a third child because, well, you do. Of course he doesn’t want to change when you’ve been doing everything for ten years! You need some serious talking, as in divorce-serious, and you need to mean it. He changes or it’s over, believe me life would be a lot easier with only two kids! Or you just put up this shit for another ten years while your resentment builds..

This is a bone of contention in my house at the moment.

I don't know what the answer is, but I am thinking about trying a few petty tactics - such as not cooking his part of the dinner and putting his washing away. I hate myself for seriously considering this but I feel so taken for granted at the moment.

Examples of recent silent seething:

OH said "I've been thinking about doing that postcode lottery." I replied "It could come out of the joint account." OH responded "Yeah, set it up then." How It is automatically allocated to me!? (I haven't done it).

And this one really winds me up - He'll ask what we are eating over the weekend. Once it's finalised he'll say: "I'll go to the supermarket to get the stuff. Me: "Okay, thanks." Him: "Write me a list then." 🫩

I also like to wind myself up by conducting little experiments. The latest one is the box in the hallway. A delivery from two days ago containing pet supplies. I've left it to see if he will unpack it... Still waiting. Feeding said pets is one of his 'jobs.' I am going to leave it there until he is forced to deal with it in order to be able to feed them.

I haven't replaced the tooth paste and shower gel in the family bathroom. There are new ones in the cupboard, but instead I have washed in shampoo because I am having a silent protest, and the toothpaste has never lasted so long! The tube is so mangled where everyone is squeezing the life out of it for dregs!! I might even get the new stuff out to use for myself and then put it away again!

Having a man is like having a computer. You need input the instructions in, to get anything out of it! (Sorry, not sorry). And every so often you need to reboot it by having a hissy fit for it to restart and comply.

On a serious note, OH used to do so much more before we became parents. Or maybe it's because my list of endless tasks wasn't so big that it seemed more evenly split. There are some things he just can't do because of his work hours and I'd be okay with holding those things if he would just take responsibility for the bits I've asked him to take responsibility for. It would really have a positive impact on all of us and our home.

The problem is you started off the relationship living together doing everything for him, the house and both of you for 13 years. He is now set in that pattern and doesn't think he should change. I see this all the time and did it myself. Women do this to get men to commit to them and then turn the tables at some point when they get jack of it/exhausted by it. But you happily took all those tasks on at some point. I would just be honest about that and say look it used to be like this but I can't do it anymore you have to do your fair share.

If I ever get into another relationship I will never start it off like this if we live together it is almost impossible to reverse. The men very quickly start to feel they are entitled to this princely treatment.

I think you should just go nuclear if there’s any chance of fixing this, softly softly and I’ll ask nicely has done fuck all, so tell him that as you have to do most of the stuff around the house you’re not coping and to protect your mental health you’ve decided you have zero time for him, won’t wash any of his clothes, will only tidy his things into a black bin bag, and you aren’t cooking for him anymore. If he picks up some of the family load perhaps you will have headspace to spend time with him again but until then you are only engaging on practical matters and you’ve cleared and labelled a shelf in the fridge for his food, and put up a whiteboard with days of the week on it listing his family tasks , just like a very junior employee who’s failing probation, which is exactly what kind of partner and dad he is.

Ask him if his boss writes him a daily list of tasks to do or whether he just uses his brain to work out what needs doing. I bet he doesn't pull this incompetence shit at work.

He watches you doing the work so he absolutely knows that you will just do it and he thinks this will continue, he is telling himself it is okay to sit there and watch you work. Again, I wonder if he does that at work? Sits on his arse and lets someone else do the work.

I think just be honest with him, point out all of the above and either he does a share of the household tasks or you split because the contempt for him has built up and then he will be responsible for all the tasks at his new place, cleaning, laundry, shopping, childcare for when he has the children.

I agree with everyone, it isn't helping, it is behaving like an adult. Hopefully your children also do chores, stripping their beds, packing a dishwasher, clearing the dining table after dinner, helping take things to the table. It cannot be all on you.

He needs to play the Fair Play card game. Its brilliant.
good luck

I have a husband who has grown increasingly lazy as time has passed. He also has a lot of days off during the month. However he knows he needs to do the laundry on his days off and the food shop and if he doesn’t do those two jobs and I have to step in, he won’t get the food he likes or his clothes washed.

We have also got a cleaner which has made me feel less resentful. I encourage him to do more with the kids on the weekend so I can tackle the house which again makes me feel less resentful.

can you get him to pay for help to come into the house (cleaning, ironing) to take some burden off you?

I write lists. Mainly because I love 'to do' lists and ticking things off them 😬 So the lists were for me initially, but other people in the house use them too. So DH can see at a glance what I have done already/what needs doing, as can the DC.

DH pulls his weight though, he doesn't try to avoid household jobs. If he has a day off he'll go for a run/climb/whatever but also iron the school shirts/hoover/recycle all the coffee pods we get through.