How do I deal with the inequality in our relationship?

[TheSeriousSanta]

My DH works away every week (leaved before 6am monday, back late Friday night).

We have a 6 month old son, so I have cared for DS alone since he was born. You don't need to be a mind reader to know I don't go out much at all during the week.

We also have a dog and he has two older kids.

Since DS was born, DH has spent many of the weekends at home in a grump, barely speaking. I thought things were getting better, but this week just gone was a bit of a nightmare. On Sunday, we ended up having a ig argument and DH told me that he was unhappy because I don't do enough around the house.

1. I look after DS single handedly and still do 99% of childcare on weekends (nappy changes, feeds, baths etc)
2. We have a dog and I do 100% walking, feeding, toileting etc.
3. I keep the house in a reasonable state (don't have cleaners) during the week.

DH doesn't think there should be any housework (and this includes larger / one off jobs like cleaning the cooker/ oven) nor should there be any ironing.

I have also gone back to work because DH is quite protective of 'his' money and I don't feel comfortable spending it.

FWIW, I help out ALOT with his DSDs when they ar here.

SO, after a horrid weekend, where we have barely spoken (other to argue) I am now in with a (very!) whingey baby who for whatever reason won't settle to anything and he's just called me to say he's off out to dinner and have a few drinks.

I know I'm having a massive rant, but it just feels like I get the rough end of the deal here, and it also feels like DH actually prefers being away to being home at the mo.

How do I try putting it right? I have tried talking to him but he either (i) blanks me (ii) tells me I'm ranting (iii) tells me I'm over egging the whole thing.

I just feel totally fed up with the whole thing and the baby is screaming AGAIN for the twentieth time today.

I took ages reading all the posts yesterday and have been thinking about you serioussanta.

I think it was said earlier on in the thread, but at the risk of repeating someone else's sage advice, it sounds to me as if you BOTH need a 1950's 'wife' to hand you both a very large g&t at the end of a hard week. 'Well done darling, you made it to another Friday'. I do actually think you are both getting a hard deal, your dh away and you at home with the dc and all the house stuff.

It's already been mentioned, so I'll second it. You need a cleaner on Fridays to get your home ready for both of you to enjoy on Saturday and Sunday. Of course you can cope Mon-Fri, but by the end of the week you're tired from everything and need a break. If you can plan something out - lunch somewhere child-friendly etc - it'll give you all a boost.

All that stuff about leaving him to cope alone for a day - not my style, nor yours it seems. I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job with the children, the dog, the home and your job, but you need cosseting sometimes too.

My view is that you either have to be together as equals or be apart. Being together with one partner trying to make up for past mistakes is just awful.

My mum and stepdad live like this. He behaved badly about twenty years ago and has been living like a slave ever since. My mum treats him like a naughty puppy, and acts as if he should be grateful that she tolerates his presence in the house at all, despite him earning all the money and doing most of the housework.

He'll never be able to pay back his 'debt'.

My own view is that they should just clear the air and start as equals as I have no idea how any couple can live as 'master and servant', but all these years on I have no hope that my parents will find any other way of living.

Not sure how relevant any of that is to you santa, but if you're putting up with 'x' becuase you once did 'y' then you will be doing so for the rest of your married life and from my own perspective, it is draining for all involved. I love my mum and my step dad equally but in all honesty I just wish they'd split up. It can't be healthy to live your life in reparation to somebody else.

... also, not wishing to add to the bashing of the OPs DH but there are a few other alarm bells there for me.

I totally understand that often couples agree that one will take care of the home while the other earns the money, and that works well for them. But why then does your DH think of his money as his?

Also, you seem to appreciate how hard he works, and are keen to say how good he is at it and how much stress he puts up with yet he seems unable to see any value in what you do. It just seems very one sided.

Does he tell you he appreciates what you do, and thank you for it?

I don't know if you were serious or not when you said that you couldn't leave him alone with the dog but if you were that is also a pretty big red flag too.

A cleaner on Friday sounds like an excellent idea. I used to have a cleaner on Wednesday, and coming into the house after she had been was such bliss! It is a luxury, but I do think it has an amazingly positive impact, and might reduce the stress levels for both of you.

If you are trying for another baby then really really discuss extra help with your dh, I had my two with 16mths between them, and it was very hard for both dh and I for the first two years (stressed our already stressed relationship almost to the point of breaking). You sound like you are much more together than I ever was (I went to work for a bit of sanity!), but having sufficient support (even just on call) makes a huge difference as to whether life is a pleasure or a chore.

Cleaner on a friday is a good idea. Maybe they can silence the alarm bells on their way out. So it's nice n quiet for your h to come home to after all that noise of tinkling ivories and the soft chink of champagne glasses in the plush bars of his five star hotels.

Women don't like staying in hotels all week working away. A LOT of men actually do. They can't SAY that to their wives/partners though!!! Good grief, they'd get their nuts kicked. They have to come home pissed off and feeling hard done by....and god forbid you suggest they get a job that doesn't involve being away in these ruddy souless plush warm hotels-with-free-telly-porn all week. They would feign shock horror. What?? Come home every night? How could we afford everything if I worked at the chip-shop (they will pick a ridiculous alternative to scare you). After all, YOU don't earn enough for a snickers bar every other weekend. Not that I mind....blah blah.

Sorry santa. You sound like an oppressed 25 year old orthodox catholic.

However I personally love your husband already and am very cross with dittany for daring to try and unpick the jumanji game that is this thread.

Back off dittany...for god's sake. She's deaf. Meet me round the other side of the bar...drinks are on me.

Thanks Bubbleicious. So good to know you have such a perfect little life.

FWIW, I just reported your post. as it's totally uneccessary and offers no help or support, just simply to kick someone who quite clearly feels pretty shit already (I can vouch for that, cos the OP is me.)

As it happens, I AM an Orthodox catholic. Is that wrong? Is that somehow an OK religion to pick on?

I doubt you would get away with it if I were Muslin, or Hindu, and you had decided that THAT was an unfit religion. So what, I am an Irish catholic....

I'm really, really, upset about your post and have contacted MN about it.

I shouldn't have to take this sort of crap, when posting for 'advice'. I can take crap about a lot of things, but don't take the piss out of who I am, what I believe in.

And don't you DARE hide behind you didn't know I was a strict catholic, Don't you dare. THat's NOT an excuse.

I hope you enjoyed yourself 'at the other side of the bar' and I hope you are happy with your callous, thoughtless and pointless post.

ANd, how Ironic it's your one and only post on MN.

Fucking troll.

Ah, some nice old-fashioned anti-Catholicism on an otherwise intelligent thread.

I have put up with this all my life...it just doesn't go away, does it?

It really is still ok to use Catholic as a perjorative term isn't it? I'm fairly fucking furious too.

I was right then.

I haven't kicked you. I am catholic too. I think I just recognised your language. I am a convent girl.
Maybe like you.

Have no idea.

No need to call me a f%^&* troll. I am not anything of the sort. Dont be so rude and fisty-cuffs.

I just tried to inject some much needed anti-chess game humour into your issues/stuff.

Actually you don't have too many issues
I don't think, which is wonderful: maybe you just need a new hoover and less anger in your guts?

You perhaps haven't had enough devastating tragedy and don't understand genuine grief.

( good thing!)

Though if you do I apologise for sounding like a patronising cow.

Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blesssed art though among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
now,and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

How ironic that I have namechanged eh TSS?

GRRRRRRRRR to you.

snore,pass the parcel

'thou' not 'though'

Can you take your boxing gloves off please?.

hiccups are the ruination of an otherwise quite badly thought-out post.

And yes, being catholic clearly renders one useless! Hurrah! In that case, can an atheist please please put together the Woolies half-price swing I have bought for Ds?

Big bolts..alan keys..I can't do it. I will provide beers...

There are so many submissive wives on MN. Lots and lots of threads. But I don't meet ANY submissive wives in RL. Why is this?

Possibly because they are at home? I would imagine that if you subscribe to the housewife type ethos then you are less likely to be working, or have an active social life (I'm not being unpleasant, just thinking things through, that seems likely) the internet must therefore be very important.

bubbleicious sounds inebriated to me. Although I suspect the bit about the way that people feel about hotel life may be at least partly true. Although when my dh spent three weeks working out of a hotel he got very depressed, and ended up working 12 hour days to avoid the hotel. I think it is a very soul destroying way to live, and not a long term option.

TSS is it always the same hotel or does he travel to different places? If it is the same location have you thought about moving closer to his work, or is that not an option? It must be horrendously expensive.

TSS if you go back to the beginning of the thread, and how you felt when you first posted, before you felt under attack, then it might be easier to understand where so many posters are coming from.

You didn't post saying 'We've had a crap weekend, what to do?'. You asked how to deal with the inequality in your relationship.

I can understand why you've felt the need to defend your relationship, but it does seem as though you are in an unbalanced and unfair relationship.

IME the only way to be happy in any relationship is to know who you are, what you believe and what you need. The only way to know those things is to be unflinchingly honest with yourself. Knowing those things allows you to make compromises without making unfair sacrifices; it allows you to draw healthy and balanced boundaries; it allows you to meet your own needs as well as the other people who depend on you.

Quattrocento, I think the reason you don't meet any submissive wives in RL is because we refuse to admit it face to face. I know a number of women who have gone back to their established career after having a child (one of whom is a lawyer and another a doctor) and seem incredibly ballsy outside of the house but as soon as their DH clicks his fingers they go running.
Its like we put up a protective shield until we log into MN - let's face it how many of us want to let on that we have a miserable relationship with our partner? Its tantamount to admitting you've failed - or at least thats how I feel...

I think some womens' home set up could appear submissive to other women.
But as long as the woman and man are actually happy, this means actually happy i.e they have a laugh and a joke together, they trust each other, they're not afraid to tell the other if somethings annoyed them, then there is no problem.
THeSEriousSanta, it doesn't matter what your set-up is like at home as long as you are okay with it. But you have mentioned a few things that you are not happy with, so those things need to change. For example I do think that it is wrong for your DH to behave as though the money he earns is his. Not just because you are the one who enables him to earn it by caring for his child , but also because, as a man, he needs to understand that him earning more than you doesn't give him rights to "HAve" the money in this very childish kind of way of his.

If a woman is a SAHM she should have as much say in what the man does with his money as he does. One reason for this is good old-fashioned fairness. He knows that you are depending on him, so he should give you a lot of weight regarding purchasing decisions (for example if he wants to buy a new CD player but you want to buy a new carpet or whatever, I think he should concede to you because you are the one who is running the home).
The second reason is that because you are his wife he should see the family as a whole unit, and the money he earns belongs to the family, not to him. This gives grace and class to his traditional role of being a provider. He should feel proud that he can provide you with the money that you need for the things that you want and need, but instead he seems to begrudge that he has to hand over his money.
Okay so you love him, so can he be persuaded to see this from a different point of view?
As for you still feeling guilty for something you did years ago, that really has to stop. Just wipe away the guilt feelings and thats the end of that. No-one can make you feel guilty. It has to come from inside you. SO just make a decision to move on in your head. If he is a reasonably person, he will have to follow suit and move on.

Bubble
I'm sure you don't have to be reminded that just because you are of the same colour/race/religion as someone doesn't mean it entitles you automatic protection against appearing insulting. The Jade Goody race argument, ideed.....

It's not racist to insult a religion. Religion is a choice, the colour of your skin is not something you have any control over. Religion is a perfectly legitimate target for mockery, same as political belief.

I didn't shout 'racism'; I have a more developed sense of context than that, I assure you. I made a legitimate comparison.

But I suspect that your theory is only applies as a safe and legitimate target for mockery when the receiver is a middle class adult white female.

NO, I think all religion ludicrous.

oh my God (hehe) sticksantaupyourchimney ,

which world are you living in?????

religion may once have been a perfectly legitimate target for mockery (but then so was race etc ) but in this world in these days religion is an extremely sensitive subject. it is not acceptable or indeed wise to mock religion - mostly because if one is sensitive (and sensitivity makes the world go round) to any one religion, one should be sensitive to all.

and brightongirldownunder , very perceptive.

TheSeriousSants My husband works away as well (although not all the time so my experience might be different) When DH is away we do talk a lot on the phone in the evening, so I know how is days has been and he knows what went on on my side too. I was wondering if you do that as well or if you do not have much contact exept on Week End? He might (really just a supposition here) not realise how hard your day can actually be or how you really feel on a day to day basis rather than a week to week one.

This time Dh is away for 4 weeks and we can only exchange TXTs and it is the hardest thing ever not to be able to went things (because on that instance he really cannot come back any earlier and he would be upset to know if I was having a hard time , two more weeks to go and so far so good, Dcs have been close to perfect).

What I am trying to say is that if you ate putting a brave face on it all week, he finds it a bit diffcult to adjust to the fact that even on a very good week, one can have a bit of ironing left over. I am in no way telling you to complain all the time to him that life is hard but just to let him know how you feel when he is not there as well as letting him express how he is feeling while away from his loved ones.

RE religious issue, I agree with fourkidsmum.

Well I'm not sure there is any resolution possible for this situation, is there?

Wife has adopted a submissive role. She doesn't really like the whole submissive package and probably never will. Despite the slightly manic insistence in later posts that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

Husband likes the submissive deal. He is not going to change his position.

They are both insistent that they do not want to split up.

Bit of a conundrum then. It can't possibly ever be resolved.

I don't think TSS is remotely submissive.

However, she hasn't worked out that her DH expects too much of her at present and she needs to assert her need for some time off to herself.

It's not very complicated.

Are you serious Anna? Because this whole set up looks incredibly submissive from my aspect.