DH said he wanted to be SAHP, but he may be regretting it

[IdontlikeVimto]

I'm recently returned to work, we have a 9 month old baby. I'm the higher earner, always have been, in quite a high pressure job. DH is self employed and has been for years, happy taking jobs with big gaps in between to prioritise his hobby. I've always covered the vast majority of household expenses due to higher income. We couldn't live off what he earns on an annualised basis without making drastic changes to living arrangements.
When I was on mat leave, I proposed getting a nanny for DC, for greatest flexibility. DH was v firmly against the idea of another person spending so much 'parenting' time with DC. Said he would prefer to do it and take DC to a creche for a couple of mornings a week. So this is the plan.
Only now we are a few months in to the arrangement (I did some PT work over the summer) both of us are unhappy tired and snappy.
DH is 'only' looking after the baby. No time apparently for any laundry, organised grocery shopping, meal planning or prepping. He can get shopping if I give him a precise shopping list. If I don't, he comes back with cake and cheese, and stacks of Ella sachets for DC. We have cleaners. I know for a fact he spends much of the day watching TV while the baby naps.
If I WFH I am interrupted all day. If I so much as appear in the kitchen for a cup of tea I am left with baby while he 'just does X' which turns into half an hour to 2 hours. If I stay in study, DH and DC appear regularly to talk to me because bored. If I say you need to leave me alone I am told off for being snappy.
If I go to the office I am chased from lunchtime onwards about when I am coming home because he wants his evening free for hobby, and to ask me what do I want to do about dinner. Unless I shop or plan for it, it's takeaway. 80% of the meals I prepare.
He is miserable about not having any of "his own" income and gets frustrated about not being to do any work while looking after DC!! But I am putting a large amount of additional money in joint account each month (far more than I'd pay a blooming nanny) to cover his usual pension contributions etc.
I am miserable because I feel like I have all the pressure of return to work, big job, sole breadwinner plus more than 50% of the home jobs outside daytime child care. Im still BF and having to fit that or pumping around work as well. Am i wrong to expect a little more support from my DH? Or should I be grateful that he wants to spend time with baby?
I'm regularly turning off laptop at midnight and feel like i have no time for myself anymore. DH says he supports me in doing exercise but in reality he prioritises his own hobbies before mine. And his life admin before my work responsibilities- tomorrow I have baby all morning because he has an app with hygienist!! Because of that I'll be working til midnight again 😩
Has anyone navigated this stuff with a DP and what worked for you without having a mega falling out?

And what's the hobby? Is it something he could take the baby along too?

Before you Ltb you need to make changes or he will be classed as the main carer and you will be paying Cms and spousal maintenance knowing his luck... He is a sponging twat.
And a crap df and dh...
Get dc into nursery. And send him down the bloody job centre.

Thanks everyone for feedback and experience. In his defence DH is v good at life admin, one off type household jobs (I.e. MOT, insurances, boiler services) just crap at the regular recurring ones like laundry. I have been losing it more often recently about him pulling his weight and he is shocked at me but starting to do more. We clearly need to have a talk and get childcare at least a couple of days a week so he can do some work. I love DC so much. This is 1st bub, unlikely to have another due to my age, and I want bub to grow up in a happy household. The idea of losing custody if we split fills me with pure dread.

You are giving him a free ride but he's not stepping up to the plate and covering his tasks.

Write him out a plan because he obviously can't see for himself what to do.

If this fails, get a nanny and tell him to resume working.

Kwit Fit and British Gas would also cover his 'talents'...
He needs to be contributing to his dc and dw..

Kwit Fit and British Gas would also cover his 'talents'...
He needs to be contributing to his dc and dw..

I think you’re being a little bit harsh on him sorry, if this was flipped and you were the stay at home parent people would be saying how to be kind to yourself and baby’s are hard work. Give the guy a break he’s probably exhausted and is in some mild state of zombification xxx

I just don't get it ! Why are you with him ?? Do you find that attractive ? A man that you support ?

Him being a SAHP does not mean you'd lose custody. Courts does not consider having a full time job to be abusive or neglectful towards the child.

Get the baby into nursery and do drop off and pick. Up yourself.

if you leave him now, which you should he will claim he is the primary carer and you will pay him maintenance and he will have more right to time with the child (keep breast feeding though as this is an additional tie to your child).

make sure you have hard clear evidence it is you booking shopping, paying cleaner, arranging doctors etc for the baby. Make sure you are the registered person for all of this and child maintenance else you put yourself at risk

but you should absolutely leave him. He doesn’t care about you he is just living off you. But get the childcare sorted first

Sit down together. Write down your work hours, his work hours. Child's needs/schedule, housework needs. Find out the prices of nanny/childminder/daycare (different time variations). Your needs, his needs, what he is expected to do with the child (both your opinions) etc. And come up with a solution

He can't be expected to do everything around the house. But he also can't hand you the baby during your work hours and just fuck off for 2h. I think there is a fundamental lack of understanding of each others work, maybe lack of respect? And totally different expectations of what it means to be a breadwinner/SAHP.

You have a cock lodger not a husband. He's a complete waste of time! You know if you were divorced and had a nanny and he had the child for a couple of days a week your life would be so much better.

This sounds very positive. Try to keep calm during the convo. It'll be hard as both of you are probably wrecked and a little unhappy with how things are at the moment. Don't be panicking about a split. Having a baby is hard work, communicating is very important!

He’s a lazy selfish fucker but I think you already know that.

@IdontlikeVimto Good that you're trying to get this sorry situation rectified while DC is still a baby. I have relative in the same position, and 15 years on it's excrutiating to watch.

She's the breadwinner (WFH) and does bulk of the household chores plus driving DC around to activities. DH is supposedly a SAHP... still... even though DC now a teenager! but spends most of his time indulging his hobbies. An absolute sponger. None of us can understand why she's with him. She has hardly any time to herself.

A better balance would be him returning to work and DC spending at least some of the week in childcare.

I was the male house spouse back in the 80s, there were very few of us then. I was the only father at toddler group where a parent had to be present. We were also somewhat conspicuous waiting at dancing class! It wasn't as much fun as working in the desert with oil-rigs. But hey I'm a bloke! and I'm an engineer. I can do anything.

We decided that if I came home, I would have to do the job as a wife would. Shopping, cleaning, cooking, hospital appointments all my responsibility.

I am now retired, looking back I enjoyed it. @IdontlikeVimto tell your lazy git to change his attitude, get stuck in 100%. Half and half will never work.
I know I was successful because the kids fully approved, we even used to chat together through their teens.
Feel free to PM me

Hi OP. I hear what you say about wanting to make things better, not the default on here of LTB ( next week,,’life is so hard as a single mother’). So I guess you have to play to his strengths.

Life admin would surely cover ordering an online shop once or even twice a week if things like milk are too difficult. It might be boring, but it is possible to have the same order every week, maybe just a bit of tweaking around the seasonal fruit and vegetables. That’s not so different from doing the insurance renewal online. Maybe you have to look at meal boxes ( sorry I have zero experience of these but I’m sure he can find out) so it’s not too hard to put some in the pan/ oven.

If putting a wash in and getting it out is beyond him, could you extend the cleaners’ hours to cover laundry? When we were working night and day in a very big project, we sent the sheets out….

Im struggling a bit, because at bottom I feel that your husband liked his not very demanding life before the child, and he doesn’t like it as much now, so he is basically just refusing to handle the increased workload. I guess you just have to work out a survival mode until your child is old enough to go to nursery/ school and doesn’t require so much attention. Then it can be back to part time work and hobbies for him.

Post this as a man, with a female stay at home mum. See what responses you get

then take the reasonable ones from both threads.

not one of the “he’s lazy, he’s a cocklodger” posters would say that about a woman in his position!

Is he doing a good job of the childcare? If he is interacting lots, playing, going to baby groups taking him swimming etc then I would be more tolerant of the other stuff. Not everyone is good at planning meals and doing laundry. You just have to work out how everything gets done and it is not ok for you to it while he does his hobby.

So many people saying to get a nanny and that he should get a job - will he though, if he barely worked before DC? So OP would be financing everything while he spends his time on a little job that only maybe pays for his hobby?

And I don't agree that answers would be totally different if the roles were reversed. A SAHM, with one child who is also in nursery a couple of mornings, plus cleaners? Can you show me one family where cooking, shopping, laundry etc would be done by the working male partner in such case?

OP in our case it did take a big falling out, when one day after I had been up all night with BF baby, then worked a full day on top and got home to be met with a table still covered in dirty lunch and breakfast dishes. DH re-assessed our contributions to family life and has been fabulous ever since.

And I don't agree that answers would be totally different if the roles were reversed. A SAHM, with one child who is also in nursery a couple of mornings, plus cleaners? Can you show me one family where cooking, shopping, laundry etc would be done by the working male partner in such case?

Agreed.

You show me a post about a SAHM doing as little round the house then! There aren't many. This guy is taking the piss.

I would
The SAHP should do the vast majority of the domestic stuff whatever their sex.

I am genuinely shocked at these responses, unless I’ve missed a post saying this baby sleeps through the night. At this age my DC were still waking making 6 times a night and I was a complete wreck. I am sure I was still living off readymeals myself, and I don’t think I was doing chores (well - the bare minimum) while the baby was napping (I did nap while DC napped while I could). I also craved a break when my partner was home.

I was completely in survival mode. People seems to understand this about mothers so why isn’t this understood about fathers caring for a baby?

I don't believe that the SAHP should be doing all the household tasks and chores, although inevitably they will do more. But I do think that there's huge problem here in that he's not looking after your DC.

DH was a SAHD for a few years. It didn't happen seamlessly but he worked at it. I would have a few really big strong lines of what is the bear minimum for your child's primary carer and if he can't manage that, then it's back to nanny/nursery and he goes back to work.

My boundaries would be:

• you don' have anything to do with baby during the day - he has to organise his life and processes around looking after the baby. No coming in to ak for help or an opinion. No expecting you to cook a meal at lunch for all three of you. No calls insisting you do x/y.
• Hobbies - days should be split. DH was a member of a sports club when he was a SAHP so twice a week we were in full agreement I would be home by a certain time, come hell or high water. One night a week was my default "go out with friends" night. And another was my "work late" night. But you can split it however you like as long as it's agreed, and fair.
• He needs to start putting routine in place - sign up to a few groups or activities, book swimming lessons whatever. So that the baby is getting some actual interaction and socialisation

Then figure out the rest as you go.