Struggling with intimacy when I feel overwhelmed by work and housework

[BeGreyWriter]

Husband is tired of me not initiating alone time or being intimate. He said it’s very concerning.

I haven’t been feeling great this week. I’ve felt off and just generally can’t cope with the mess and disorder in my home. Have two kids, they’re great but they make a fair bit of mess. As any kid would. My issue is that it’s just left there. It doesn’t get cleaned until I do it. It seems the tidying of anything waits for me. Putting the dishes on, getting the washing in and out, putting the clothes away, clearing the table after breakfast once I’m finished work. Little things.

for context. My husband works full time but only half the year. I work full time from home. Where it feels like I’m working and doing the housekeeping at the same time. I start work at 8am. My husband sometimes wouldn’t wake until 10am, so the kids naturally wake up early and I’m having to work and deal with them at the same time. It gets to me. Cause it’s affecting my work.

while working, i make breakfast lunch and dinner. Get the clothes ready for the day including his. Clean all the spaces that needs cleaning:

I can’t function in a wrecked place. It does something to my mood and my brain. I can’t cope.

I’ve asked him to help me to alleviate the load and I won’t be as tired. He said he’s the provider and we all have our roles.

i don’t voice out my feelings to him anymore cause im afraid of how he’s gonna mansplain or fix it or tell me to get a grip and pull myself together.

hed like me to be more intimate and to initiate sex, how does one feel like having sex after all of this? Am I just not coping or am I being a b!atch? I don’t go out with friends anymore. He doesn’t drink so we don’t do anything like that. Am I doomed?

“He said it’s very concerning.”

What’s concerning is that he’s a lazy, entitled arse!

Sorry but this really does not sound like a good or equal relationship. He sounds like a shit husband. What’s he like as a father…

It's not divided by salary, it's divided by time. You both work full-time, and he doesn't work for half the year?! So he should be doing more than you, clearly.

And why are you laying his clothes out?!!!

Hes not a provider if you work full time. Why does he want that kudos when he doesn't do anything to deserve it? Why are you laying his clothes out? That's so weird

You lay his clothes out? I wouldn’t want sex either with a man who couldn’t sort his own clothes out!

He sound repulsive. No wonder you don't want sex with him. You work full time, do everything in the house and you even lay out his clothes for the next day like you do for your children! He is an entitled and pathetic baby who thinks that because he earns more, he doesn't need to do anything else. That's not how marriage works.

He has isolated you from your friends and it doesn't sound as though you have any other support.

There is no way you should be having sex that you don't want.

You lay his clothes out?! Hell would freeze over in my house before I did that for a spouse. Try laying divorce papers out instead. Put them right neat and tidy next to the bed for when he wakes up at 10 am.

Aww my ex was the same, he was in his words “the provider (of stress I should add)” and my role was the house, the kids, school, work, appointments , shopping and basically everything:) I felt so resentful and didn’t want to be intimate with him as well. He left the house to look for someone younger and not so tired ( basically someone else to babysit him). I’m so happy and relieved now, house is clean and organised and I only have to care for my 2 biological kids, not the grown up ass baby. :)
Good luck, think carefully if you want to spent your life like that, as I guarantee you, he won’t change..

So his day ends at clocking out tme at work
When does your day end
He's a lazy bastard!

Stop. Don't put his clothes out, don't do his washing and ironing. Don't ask for help, tell him. Being a selfish slob is a very unattractive trait.

You have a husband problem, not an intimacy problem. Who’d want to have sex with someone who behaves this way?

The 'provider of stress' . 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Surprisingly, he’s great with them, just acts like one of them

😭stress provider. The sad thing is I’m sitting here reading all of your comments and I’m thinking, what have I done wrong? Could I be doing anything better?

I also feel terrible for thinking of walking away, how does that affect the kids? Could I survive being a single parent? What does it do for them?

in my head, is it just my hormones? Am I asking too much? I’m justifying his actions to being a man and his parents as his example? Or could it be me coming from a broken home in the first place that’s causing our issues?

im not from here, i moved here from southern CA. It wouldn’t be as easy for me to start over somewhere surrounded by his friends and family.

Guys,l need a therapist lol

Tell him to look around. Tell him it’s concerning he doesn’t see all the shit that needs to be done and when your house is chilled do are you and then you’ll have time for anything other than house crap

He's the provider...so you can quit work then and he will 'provide'?! He sounds like an idiot who's taking advantage of you so he can do as he pleases. And please OP...stop laying out his clothes! I don't know you but I know you are too good for him.

Is there any way you could work elsewhere? There is literally no division between work and home and so domestic things are going to be in your face all the time.

Your husband is ridiculous - “he’s the provider” indeed pfft. Sounds more like he’s lazy and pompous. I’d stop doing stuff for him as a way of reducing the to do list.

I would also think about trying to lower your standards a bit at home. Good enough is good enough. Getting stressed about housework just feels … a bit unnecessary. It might take some of the pressure off - and that’s important for your wellbeing (not for the benefit of your DH’s sex life).

The provider? Is that a way of getting out of doing any adult chores? He would have to work and do housework if he was single. There would be no one to do them for him unless he paid a cleaner. He has you instead. You are just as much a provider as you work full time. He has half a year off and does nothing even then. You would have so much more peace, headspace and calm in your home not being harassed for sex on top of everything else if you called it a day. Being one of the kids is not being a good father btw. Anyone can do the fun bits. Why do you need a therapist? So you can make peace with being a literal slave to your husband? To make do with him not giving a shit about your feelings as long as you do as you’re told and put out? Come on now. Is that a marriage? Is it a partnership? You’re not a team. It’s just you. Holding it all together.doing it all. Whilst he has a lie in and god forbid you raise any dissatisfaction. Can just imagine how that goes down. Can you do this forever more?

Ignoring the fact that your husband is bone idle...
while working, i make breakfast lunch and dinner. Get the clothes ready for the day including his. Clean all the spaces that needs cleaning
Is your employer happy for you to be doing all this when you should be working?

Why are you putting his clothes out????

He sounds repulsive you poor thing. Tell him your lady parts have dried up due to his entitlement.

OK if he's such a provider, why do you have to work full-time, why do you have to work at all?

He can't have it both ways. He's failing bigtime on the providing front.

If he wants a little woman at home doing the housework and childcare, he needs to be earning the big bucks. He can't expect 1950s housewife and present-day dual income family.

(Not that I'd advocate for you giving up work, as it sounds like he's an arsehole and you should maintain your employability and own income).

He sounds like an entitled lazy sexist and very unsexy. Who would want to shag him?

What was life like before the kids? Who cooked dinner? Cleaned the bathroom?

You’re not doomed, you sound very capable. This marriage is doomed because your husband’s a selfish shit.

“The sad thing is I’m sitting here reading all of your comments and I’m thinking, what have I done wrong? Could I be doing anything better?”

I’m furious for you. What you’re doing wrong is countenancing his vile sexist Billy big bollocks swinging dick bullshit. This is not how functional British men are supposed to behave - if you were raised in Southern California, you may not know this.

He’s also deluded. He’s not the provider. You work full time (which is good, btw, because this isn’t a man to stay married to as things stand). And he only works part-time. So he just means he shouldn’t have to do this stuff because he has a penis (which he wants you to service on top of everything else you (wrongly) do). Repugnant thinking.

But even if he were the provider and you were an SAHM, he should still be sharing the housework and parenting when he’s not working. That’s what decent working parents do. I was born in the late 1960s. My mum was an SAHM when we were little; as soon as my dad got home from work, he would start parenting. He would do housework. I have friends now who are or were SAHMs. Husband joined in the parenting and housework when home.

Another thing you’re doing wrong is asking him for “help”. That suggests that this is all your job and his involvement is optional. But it’s as much his job to parent his own children and run the house as yours. You’re not asking him to help; you’re asking him to step up and do his parenting and household tasks, as he should be doing. You shouldn’t really be making anything but the most perfunctory lunch (for yourself) if you’re working. Why are you laying out his clothes and doing his washing etc? You’re not his mum. And on top of all this, he wants you to be energetically servicing him, the lazy, selfish, sexist manchild prick? Of course, you don’t want sex with him. He’s making himself repulsive.

This horrific, sexual bullshit is a bad model for your DCs. It’s not normal and it’s not right. Unless your H is able to hear and act on some painful home truths, i would say walking away from the marriage would be good for your DCs as they shouldn’t be growing up thinking this is normal.