DH says I've turned him into a chauvinist.

[HowDoIMakeHimUnderstand]

Have namechanged...

DH and I have been together 2 years, married for 1 and we have an 8 month old DD.

When we met, he was a laid-back, tolerant liberal man. Very much a live and let live sort of person...especially when it came to gender roles and women.

However, since we married and had DD, he has really started to alter his perception on relationships, marriage, men/women and just about everything.

We have a traditional set-up. I am a SAHM, he goes out to work. He works full time and has his own business, so he works really really long hours. As a result, I do all the housework, cooking and the majority of child-care.

Recently, he has begun to make comments in regards to a 'woman's place being in the home', he doesn't like the 'feminisation of the work-place' and says that when he was younger he was led to believe that there was no such thing as a happy housewife so he gave up thinking he would ever meet one. Until I came along apparently...

I am a v. laid back sort of person. I don't mind picking up dirty socks and towels off the floor, I couldn't give a fig what he wears, how he does his hair and I don't give a crap about clothes/jewelry/shopping etc. I hate confrontation, so if something trivial is bothering me, I just let it slide. Because of our personalities, DH is very much the dominant one in our relationship.

This is just who I am naturally, it is not planned nor is it a conscious choice.

However, it seems that my laid-back, do all the housework and generally let him get on with his business/go out to pub/fix up his cars, attitude is bringing about a really unpleasant side in him.

He now spouts forth that all women should stay home full time to raise their children and that no man really wants to do housework and change nappies...and any man that does so is just pandering to 'his woman' because he has been mis-led by the feminist movement and the media into thinking that he has to act 'like a pussy' in order to keep a woman...

I've tried pointing out how wrong this attitude is...I've argued with him. All to no avail. He just smiles at me and says 'Well, I'm just glad you're not a career-woman type. I go out to work, you stay home...this is how it should be'. He even said our marital set-up has made him a chauvinist.

What should I do? We are fundamentally very happy with our marriage, he treats me really well, is always there for me if I need him and is a completely devoted father. But I'm v. worried about the impact this new 'thinking' could have on our DD as she gets older...

Have I made a rod for my own back here? Should I stop behaving like this? What can I do?

Advice really needed here...thanks if you got this far!

msrisotto is that aimed at me?

I'm afraid so especially after the list of jobs and his priorities.

He sounds unbearable. What happens if you don't get all the chores done?

Nothing happens if I don't get the chores done. He says 'never mind, I understand it's hard being with the baby all day'.

And that's it. Nothing more is said.

msrisotto why am i an a*sehole?

dittany nope, I have not once thought of leaving but from the sounds of it, I am in a minority on that one

That's a biscuit, HDIMU, but the resemblance is unfortunate it's true...

Oh god, sorry! I thought that meant I was an a*rse...I thought it was an insult...

This really reminds me of those old folks (OK, they're not always old) who will spout offensive crap about 'P*kis' or whatever, but happily be friends with and help out a neighbour with a different skin colour because it's not her, obviously, it's those Other Ones.

Very bizarre. There are posters on here whose partners treat them far, far worse (though I realise it's not a competition!) but without coming out with this sort of bollocks.

Is it possible he's getting this off someone at work? You say his workplace is all-male?

HowDoIMakeHim

You asked if you were different from other women/if your marriage was different.

Yes. Putting it bluntly, your marriage is stuck in the 1890s. These days, outside religious fundamentalist groups, women generally have higher expectations of equal treatment - and men generally share these expectations.

Most men would not issue a "list of expectations" to their wife. And most wives would not accept it.

Most men would not expect (or indeed want) to have sex with their wife when the wife didn't feel like it.

Most men would help tidy up or cook dinner, especially if their wife had had a bad day. They would not "say it doesn't matter and buy fish and chips" - they would HELP.

Most men would not expect to have complete control of the finances, and most women would not accept this.

Most men would not expect to make all or most of the decisions in the house. They would expect to discuss things and make decisions together, or divide responsibilities.

Most men would not agree with/approve of that "Help meet" book or its views. In fact most men I know would find such views very scary.

Most women would not say "I'm frightened to rock the boat" in relation to their marriage.

It is NOT normal. It is getting towards being a "surrendered wife." If you actually want to be a "surrendered wife", that is of course your choice, but it seems to me that you are not aware that that that is the way you are heading at the moment.

THOS..I hadn't thought of that way of looking at it.

I don't think he is getting this off anyone particular at work, although he maintains alot of men say this kind of stuff in the workplace but most men feel they need to at least pretend to be PC and 'right-on' whereas in fact, the majority want a nice girl who will stay home, cook, clean, have his babies, sleep with him when he wants, not nag or criticise him ever and generally support him through life.

minipie...I was thinking along the "Surrendered Wife" lines too

but hey...it works for some people (especially for chauvinistic, self-entitled blokes who think women are a class beneath)

just not my cuppa tea

HDIMHU...there are some women who become SAHM, give up their identity to "support" their man, get more and more enmeshed in what he wants rather than what they want

they give up their career, they give up their financial security and the means to support themselves

then after about 20 years of marriage, when she is starting to feel a bit old, a bit past it and petrified to be alone....he fucks off with another woman

or after years of this subtle control and annihilation of your self-esteem (death by a thousand cuts), she wakes up and smells the coffee and thinks "why the fuck did I throw away the best years of my life...on this pompous tosser ?????"

don't be one of those women

I'm sure a lot of men at his workplace do say that. Many of them will not really feel that way but will be going along with it to be one of the boys. Many of them will really feel that way, but would not try to make their wives into an outrightly subservient housekeeper-with-sex-benefits, because they recognise that this is weird and wrong. I suspect most of these men,if they actually know about your H's homelife, privately look on it as a bit odd and scary.

Adults generally like to be in relationships with other adults. This means recognising that other people have feelings and opinions that don't correspond exactly with yours. On the plus side it means sharing responsibility for money, for feeding yourselves and any DC, for cleaning up the normal human messes. Your DH has bypassed this realisation, by casting you as his "woman" who by default has to like or lump performing for him in a domestic, childrearing and sexual capacity. He probably doesn't actually realise that you have feelings of your own, not really.

Have you seen Pleasantville? That bit where the man comes in saying "Honey, I'm home", unable to believe his wife has actually gone out, wandering sadly from room to room. That's him.

The thing is, you may like playing this role. But if your DD doesn't, she will still have it ingrained in her that she should. No-one should think more highly of a child than its parents - that's the way nature works. And yet your DD is growing up with a dad who automatically considers her lacking, fit only to serve half of the human race, by virtue of her gender.

HowDoIMakeHim

Yes, there probably are some men out there who want a meek submissive wife who will do all the housework and have babies and nothing else.

Doesn't mean that that is right, though.

(I mean, I'd like it if my DH did all the housework. Doesn't mean I think it's right that he does it all though).

And as for the not having a career bit... there are actually a lot of men out there who love the fact that their wife has a job/career. My DH definitely prefers it that I have a career (though he'd support me if I wanted to stay at home) and he is not simply pretending in order to seem PC. Apart from anything else he likes the money I earn!

You have to get a job. Right Now.

HowDoIMakeHim - everyonbe wants a domestic servant. Everyone. Howrever, women aren't conditioned into thinking they can have one for the price of a cheap gold band.

Oh Colditz, how right you are. I was resisting writing "well if you asked me if I wanted a servant who would make my lunch, prepare me a delicious dinner at night, wash my clothes and clean up all my messes, before meeting my "wifely expectations" in the bedroom, I'd say yes too!"

Sometimes I like to amuse myself (not) by wondering what life is like for men like the OP's H (or the less blatant kind of sexist). You grow up knowing that you will never have to take care of yourself as an adult human, because there is a handy underclass comprising 51% of the population designed specially by God/Allah/Darwin to cook, clean, raise your children, allow you to fuck them, and never say a cross word at you in return. Just. Imagine.

Well, the consensus seems to be unanimous...

He doesn't make me feel like a servant, or lesser than or any of those things. He encourages me to have interests/hobbies/see family/go out with friends...he'll happily drive 300 miles to take me to see my sister.

He asks me my opinion on everything; the election, what I think of his family, what car to buy...he makes me feel a fully equal partner in the marriage. he says frequently that he considers it his purpose in life to make me and DD happy and build a good life for us as a family.

I just wanted to say all this because I don't want anyone to think that I am in danger or that my DD is in danger...

Feminism...I have of course heard of it. Believe it or not, I consider myself a feminist. I believe everyone (men and women) has the fundamental right to choose how to live.

I just wanted to gauge whether my behaviour has contributed to his views on women, as he says it has. It would seem that yes indeed, I am responsible in a way for how he sees things. I also was hoping there may be some other people here that conduct their relationship along similar lines...but obviously we are in a very small minority.