I was going to post this in AIBU, but then I realised that I don't actually care if I am BU or not, and I don't think i am BU. I think I'm tired and stressed and fed up of being used as a fucking doormat.
Housework has been a constant flash point for dh and i since we've been living together. When our dc came along it only got worse because I had less time to do the cleaning/houseworky stuff because of looking after the dc. I think what it boils down to is that he has a much lower standard of "clean" than I do, and doesn't see mess that needs tidying.
So, you know, fine. I can live with doing most of the housework, especially given the fact that he has a very demanding job and I am on mat leave at the moment. But the washing up is a constant wind up for me and it feels like he's doing it on purpose, and it feels like such a deliberate lack of respect on his part.
Our evening routine used to be: dinner at 7 (when he gets home from work), bathtime for dc, I put dd to bed, he puts ds to bed. I would do washing up while he did ds' bedtime (dd goes down v easily). But ds would get so stressed out, screaming for me at bedtime, it was very upsetting for all of us. So we adjusted it to me putting both the kids to bed while he does the washing up.
All well and good you think. But no. First of all, the washing up is rarely done by the time I get downstairs after putting dc to bed. Blood pressure rise number 1. Secondly, when he does do it, he does it with such an air of resignation I feel like ramming the dishcloth up his arse and doing it myself. Thirdly, he does it so bloody poorly I have to do half of it again, and then he doesn't wipe the sides, clean the top of the cooker or put away the clean, dry dishes from the draining board so we get very creative stacking which means that things fall down and break.
So, I wrote a checklist for him, because I know that he's very tired by the time he comes to do the washing up, and might forget to do stuff which seems obvious to me. It has stuff like wiping the sides, the table, under ds' high chair on, and putting the washing up bowl away. Yet every fucking morning I come downstairs to find a bowl of stagnant greasy water in the sink and the (barely clean) dishes teetering dangerously on the draining board.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of Monica-esque clean freak. I have a fairly low standard of house-hygiene and think that germs are good for kids. But leaving stagnant water and dirty, wet dishcloths around the place - especially in this hot weather - is just vile and horrible and I AM FUCKING SICK. OF. IT.
It's not even really about the washing up anymore. It's about the fact that he seems to think it's ok to treat me as his unpaid skivvy, his unpaid childcare, his laundrymaid. Don't even get me started on the leaving pants on the bedroom floor thing. It's a basic lack of respect for me, his wife, and the mother of his children. And I have talked and talked and talked to him about it, and all I get back from him is how miserable he is in his job. How unhappy he is. How tired he is. NEWSFLASH - I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm unhappy, at the moment I feel so shit about myself I can barely look at myself in the mirror without wanting to slash my arms open (deep, unresolved self-harm ishoos). And, yes, he probably is depressed, before any of you say it. And I have suggested countless times that he sees the GP to either sort some counselling out, or get some AD's as a stopgap measure. But he won't.
I love him very much, and when things are good (when he's off work) they're great. He is a good father (when he's not at work) and does stuff around the house (when he's not at work) - it's just that obviously 85% of the time he is at work, and I hate that he can just use that fact as an excuse for being shit.
Sorry it's such a long rant. Coming down this morning after a night of 2 screaming unhappy children (1 teething, 1 just a little shit sometimes - dh decamped to ds' room) to a pile of dirty dishes and a bowlful of greasy water was pretty much the last straw. The only reason I didn't pack my bags and pile me and the dc out of there is cause I love our house and I can't bear to leave it behind. I desperately want my marriage to work, I just don't know how.