Am I unreasonable?

[wangle99]

I feel I need to get this off my chest so thought I'd ask for opinions along the way...

DH works full, I am sort of a SAHM to two (7 years old DD and 18m old DS). In the term time I teach Sing and Sign and it takes up an awful lot of time plus in holidays I'm doing all paperwork for next term!

I do all the housework, child care etc. DH generally remembers to put the rubbish out, he did choose to do the washing as his job but I have just put 8 loads away after waiting 5 days with it piled up in the lounge.

Here is my dilemma, because he works full time out of the home should I just be doing all this housework etc? I feel like a slave and then I feel guilty for feeling like this. His Mum used to do everything for him (and still does for his dad - we live next door to them).

I feel like I'm sinking, DH moans I never seem happy - too bloody knackered to feel happy.

We've been married for 10 years, been together for 14 years. Just cannot imagine being like this for ever....

Sarah

No You are right to feel the way you do, you have a lot on your hands with two kids and your job so you deserve a break. You are entitled to a life too!! I think your DH should lend a hand, let him know how down you are and that you need some time for yourself. Maybe draw up a rota so the housework is shared fairly i know you will end up doing a lot, your a woman and god knows we do things better than men!!

I think this is definitely not fair, Sarah. Dh is taking advantage IMO. And I think the first step to changing that is to move house! Living next door to your in-laws must be dreadful for you if their outdated attitudes are the main force behind your husband's unwillingness to contribute to home life. Oh dear- not sure that's too helpful but I honestly could not stand that situation, I'm afraid. Hmm- more pragmatically- what are the weekends like? Are things any more equal then? Do you both get a bit of a lie in at some stage, for example?

WWW is usually very good on this type of problem- I'll email her and see if she has any advice for you.

Chin up, hon- first step to change is recognising the problem so you are on the road. All you have to do is get DH to recognise the problem too now!

yes agree with previous posters. don't try and get too hung up on convincing DH of your reasonableness as conforming to an objective standard of reasonableness - it's your happiness at the end of the day. you aren't his mum. his mum might be happy doing everything (but probably didn't work??) but you aren't. your happiness is important.

I just get so bloody angry when I see threads like this that describe women being treated as skivvies because nobody recognises that domestic work and child-rearing is work too. Your DH is not the only person in the house working Sarah - you are doing at least double the amount of work he is doing.

I simply do not understand how someone who claims to love you can assume that your job is to be his personal servant. Are you his servant or his wife? I can't understand how this sort of thread is so prevalent after forty years of feminism.

Sorry to rant at you, and perhaps it's not very helpful to you, but you are so not being unreasonable, your DH is. Anyone who thinks that they don't need to pull their weight in the home they live in, and who assumes that the method of them pulling their weight is to work outside the home to bring in money, while ignoring and de-valuing the fact that the person they purport to love is working inside the home, is totally unreasonable!

Was talking to a friend ofmine the other day and she lives in a shared house and they dont have a rota for jobs. What they have is a list of daily and weekly jobs down the side of two pieces of papaer and across the top the dates. If you do a job you sign to show what you have done. this way they can see who does what and when and its very noticable if one person is slacking. You could maybe try this this to show your dp how much you do and how little he does. Might make the point???

I think you need to write out a list of all the things you do, no matter how trivial. Then you should write down the things that you are prepared to continue doing & those things that you want help with. Show him the lists, discuss it with him in a constructive manner and ask him what he thinks he could do.
If he is not prepared to help, threaten him with the cost of a cleaner!!!!!!!!
Remember you are his wife, lover, partner etc - not the unpaid domestic slave.

It came as a great shock to me in my twenties when sharing houses with/living with guys that even the new men types mostly had very traditional views on doing housework! In my innocence I expected they would do an equal share to me.

I worked full time after dd was born and eventually gave up to be a sahm when ds1 arrived, one of the main factors being that my dh does a similar amount around the house to your dh and my resentment of this was affecting our relationship. I decided I wasn't going to go back to work unless we had a cleaner and the cost of this plus childcare meant it didn't make sense financially to go back.

Now that I don't work at all outside the home, i am more or less resigned to doing the lion's share of the housework. Dh puts out the rubbish, mows the lawn, irons his own shirts and does a bit of washing up at weekends (thinks that don't go in the dishwasher.) I went off on a girly weekend in November, hoping he would get a feel for how much I do, but he got his mum and sister to come over to help!

I have to say that all my friends, working or not working outside the home, moan about how little their dh's do. This doesn't mean yours should get away with it though. How about saying to him that you don't expect him to do 50% but you do want him to take on specific extra tasks (I think you have to be specific with men, most don't seem to notice what needs doing.) If he'd not happy with this, say you are going to get a cleaner and he has to pay!

My DH was pretty much looked after at home and I think it came as a shock to him when I expected him to do a fair bit of the domesticery. Of course, when we got married we were both working full time with no kids so it should have been 50/50. It wasn't but he did do certain things, tidy up, half the cleaning, the grass, all the the washing up and as time as passed I now work 3 days and him full time with a pre-schooler and a baby and he does more then he has ever done, but so do I! So you need to start plugging away at him because it is not acceptable.

Oh good god no! That's a big fat NO to am I unreasonable? You do ALL the childcare, housework, cleaning, cooking? Bloody hell, your husband must think he lives in a hotel with housekeeping and childcare thrown in! Sorry, but I've been a sahm and a wohm and dp does half of everything in this house and always has, I wouldn't accept anything less. Because it's HIS house too, not just mine and responsibility for the children and the house is his as much as mine. Your dh's mum's got a lot to answer for imho! Have you seen this book, Wifework? The cover says something like 'men get one thing out of marriage that women rarely do: a wife.' Sorry, but being a sahm IS WORK. And bloody hard work too. If you paid a nanny she would only do childcare and a few child associated house things, she absolutely would not do all the stuff you do. Please, please don't spend the next 14 years like this! Go away for as many days as pos and leave dh in charhe (WITHOUT calling his mother in, how you'll manage that if she's next door goodness knows, maybe she won't have time to do her H + yours + grandchildren?) so he gets it and understands how unacceptable it is to expect you to do everything. Blimey, some men don't know they're born. Sorry for all the caps but this stuff makes me so cross, I thought the 50s were long gone. What you do IS WORK, it is, it is, it is! I've worked outside the home (in relatively senior jobs) and I still came in and did half of everything, just so you know I have put my money where my mouth is on this. And IMO (and I can only speak for myself of course) for ME, working outside the home is a damn sight easier than working within it.

sorry I ranted too! Dd was heading in my direction so just typed random thoughts on your post as fast as humanly possible and no time to preview!

WWW what is a WOHM - work ? home mum?

Buy yourself a cleaning lady service!

Wangle99, I have to say that your story sounds familiar to me: Dh works full time, I am a SAHM, we have been married 10 years and known each other 14. I have 4 kids though. My dh does absolutely nothing in the house except look after the children (grudgingly) for short periods of time when he is not at work. I feel as I suspect you do: that as dh is working and I am not, I should do everything in the house and usually that works OK but I loathe the expectation that everything in the house must fall to me, even when dh is home. He works long hours I admit, but I am on duty for 24 hours and it is the lack of a break that is so wearing.

I suppose the thing I think is that when my youngest (aged 2) goes to school, I will go back to work and things will change. Can you see that happening for you too?

Work outside the home mum

Why do any of you consider that it's only work if it's PAID outside your house though? It is still work! Some of it is pleasurable (as is a paid job), sure, I love my children and we all do, but it's still work!

Oh God WWW, my brain must be completely mush. I don't think I wuld have got WOHM if you had given me all day to think of it! All I could think of was worms. I'll never get another (paid) job!

And if women weren't prepared to give up the status and ease of paid work (compared to the low status and difficulty of unpaid work) men wouldn't be able to go to work because they'd have to look after their children, shock horror! (Although they'd probably fob it off onto someone else like their idiotic mothers and sisters - I cannot imagine going around to my brother's house and cleaning it up for him. What? What sort of woman is she?)

Thank you for all your opinions and thoughts. I guess this has been going on for quite a while I couldn't really see clearly anymore.

I just don't know what to do, DH says he wants to do more but is 'forgetful', he never picks up after himself (he wrapped a parcel for ebay last night and I just picked up the empty tape roll, remains of polystyrene etc), that is just an example. I can't make him remember to do stuff - I'm sure he's very clever and has sussed that of course I will do it because I can't stand living in a pig sty.

Do I want to leave? Not sure? Hate the thought of the children being without their father but somedays I think can I put up with this for ever?

I tried the chore list, he just never bloody looked at it!

Thanks for making me feel that it's not all my fault because I certainly felt like it this morning.

Sarah

Perhaps you should be forgetful too. Forget to iron his shirts, forget to cook his dinner, forget to do his laundry, forget all the other hundreds of ways you make his life easier.
I'm sorry but I am so angry on your behalf. I think your husband is behaving like a pig, not your partner. It shows an utter lack of respect for everything that you do, not to make an effort to help you. Shame on him.

Is every bloke like this? Why should he be considered a martyr just cos he goes out to work? He's taking the piss, pure and simple.

Poor you Wangle, I know exactly how you feel (except I don't work) My DP dosn't even hang his towel up when hes had a shower. When I confront him he tells me to stop moaning. Yes, he brings money into the house and has a physical job and works long hours, its the fact that all the work us mums do isn't even appreciated!!! Even if he told me he thinks I do a great job it would be something. He does cook dinner sometimes at the w/end and puts the kids to bed sometimes but thats it. Why can't they see that we work really hard too?? Aside from all the housework, it is so tiring trying to occupy preschool aged kids all day and dealing with their tantrums etc. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Take the bugsy route. Don't iron, don't cook his dinner or tidy up after him. I had a particularly obnoxious bf in my dark and distant past who attempted that sort of behaviour. I used to leave the dirty dishes, wet towells and bits of rubbish in his bed.

i'm angry on your behalf too. I agree - stop doing things for him. Also threaten him with a cleaner/ironer. if you can afford it, get a cleaner - even if it's just a couple of hours every fortnight, it does help.

I too reached a low point a few months ago when I felt I was doing everything. My solution was to be very specific. You have to give him his own special jobs as if he were a child (which it sounds like he probably is...). If you just say "I need you to do more around the house", he takes that as nagging and he'll ignore you. I told my dp that it would make all the difference in the world to my happiness and wellbeing if he could just wash and sterilise the bottles every night. He didn't see this as a big deal and now does it happily every single night, and is proud of "his chore". Yes, it's childish but there we are. It worked for me. Once he's got into the habit of doing one chore, you can introduce another. Avoid accusing words like "I'm so unhappy because you never...." or "You always..." Be positive and say, "I would feel a lot happier if you could just do such-and-such" Then of course you have to thank him and praise him for doing it so nicely..... I know, I know, you shouldn't HAVE to talk to your man like this, but just remember - men are kids!!! Good luck!

Ooops, just noticed this thread is nearly 2 years old.... Oh well!