Totally fed up with my dh's lack of help around the house. Feeling very sad and undervalued right now :-(

[Fedupandhouseproud]

OK, NCing regular here.

Dh and I usually have a good relationship, he's a great father to the dds and most of the time things are fine.

However, there are times when I feel like banging my head in despair when it comes to getting him to do more around the house. This weekend I have emptied the dishwasher countless times, been up early twice with the dds, hung washing, sorted washing, cleaned, cooked, changed bins and picked up about half a million random things left lying round and put them in their rightful places.

I asked dh this morning (politely, I've learned not to ask him too forcefully ) if he would mind doing more today. I find weekends really hard work when it comes to keeping the place in order, and bank holidays can be hell!

I then went out for five and a half hours, with the dds, and asked him to put a basket of washing away while I was gone.

When I called him to say I was on my way home I asked if he'd put it away to which he said no. When I got back he had put his stuff away but left the rest in piles. He knows where our drawers are ffs.

Then followed an argument whereby I accused him of being sexist as he sees domestic chores as unimportant. I told him he doesn't respect me, just expects things to get done by some magic fairy.

I said he could put the dds to bed, give them dinner, tidy up afterwards and put the rest of the damn washing away. I'm not lifting another finger. Well so far he's fed them, bathed them and washed their hair, but our bedroom floor is covered in toys and the f**king piles of washing. The dds are also running riot downstairs. He is watching TV. Neither of us has spoken to one another for a couple of hours now.

I work pt. Our dds are VERY energetic and full on and aged 3 and 5. I am permanently exhausted. I'm sitting here crying actually because I just feel completely powerless and walked over. He comes from a traditional family where his mother devoted her life to doing everything for him and his three siblings. I didn't. I hate inequality and like to feel that we work as a team with a joint goal. I don't want to feel like a doormat.

I just need some advice really, maybe I'm being hard and demanding, maybe I'm just fed up. What the hell can I do to get the message across any more?

I'm so unhappy!

CLV Actually you do have a point: I am of the opinion that it's only worth cleaning things that look dirty, and a bit of mess won't kill anyone, so I would say that sometimes the woman needs to relax her standards a bit but that's not going to work if the man continues to do fuck all and then criticize the woman. So agreeing what chores matter the most is a good start but, again, you need to be careful that the man doesn't immediately bag all the ones that only need doing once a month or can be put off indefinitely ie he is still doing no work and though there is less work the woman is still doing all of it on a day-to-day basis.

Okay, have calmed down a bit now. Girls are at a friends' house. My house is clean and tidy. I admit I am a bit OCD and my standards are high therefore it's understandable that others (i.e. my dh) may not share my enthusiasm for keeping the place immaculate. As SGB says, perhaps I do need to chill a bit and not get so stressed about it all.

DH popped in at lunchtime, asked if we were 'friends'. Then followed a more reasonable conversation. He is adamant that he was feeling ill yesterday so needed a break. I don't massively buy that, and said so, but to be fair he does work hard at his job, and during weekends he does an awful lot of diy stuff (in fact in the last year he has added an extension to our house and re-landscaped the garden ) so maybe I am being a bit of a battleaxe.

I am still pissed off that he didn't do the one job I asked of him yesterday, and even more peed off that he didn't seem to care about how much that upset me. But I think we're going to go round in circles on this one. He did seem to take on board what I was saying today though and he also apologised.

He does sound quite similar to you CLV in that he has different priorities. I am really whenever it comes to matters that could be unjust or unequal (bloody Libran side of me) and I'm terrified of him becoming like his father so perhaps I am unnecessarily twitchy on this matter.

Thank you all of you for your advice, I'll go through it all again now.

I always think that you can't get a man to agree to do specific chores - you have to get a man to agree that he needs to pull his weight then, as pointed out by CLV, you have to work out together what is and isn't appropriate.

Reading these posts it often seems to me that the men involved genuinely think that because they're doing the 9-5 thing, they are pulling their weight evenly. They have to realise that they're not before anything can chage.

In this case, OP's DH doesn't seem to see that he needs to do anything which is a far bigger problem than that he doesn't clean up the kids toys. If you can sit him down and make him understand that might help.

Someone on here (or elsewhere) often makes the point that it's fair if you both get equal amount of time to sit on the couch doing nothing. That's a bit simplistic, but I think it's reasonable and should be relatively easy to understand.