AIBU not cooking or washing anymore

[Shinesun14]

Me and DH have only been married and living together for 5 months. I have two dc (13 and 15) here most of the time bar eow. Dh has dss (8) who is here 40%.

Since he moved in his outgoings have gone down and we are 50/50 - I work ft as a social worker with a very high risk case load and dh has his own engineering business (both stressful jobs but different).

Dh parenting is a bit shit sometimes and he guilt parented. Dh understands that that's not actually the type of dad he wants to be and is working on it. However, I feel he has resentment towards me for picking this up after we married and projects onto my dc.

Dh has found it quite hard living with teenagers, they are emotionally healthy and adjusted teenagers with no attachment issues and both are doing well at school and have interests outside. Dss has a few challenges but is mostly well behaved like my dc are mostly well behaved.

My dh has started leaving more and more housework to me alongside cooking ect and has started being critical of me. I feel he's projecting as he isn't doing what he's supposed to be. He also has his own kitchen cupboard with his and his sons food in. This is because twice my dd (15) used the last of the Nutella and didn't tell him so dss couldn't have his spoonful of Nutella in his morning porridge. We are quite different in that I buy my dcs treat food like Nutella and when its gone its gone until I next do a big shop. Dh likes to be more organised than that. But I hate that he has a seperate cupboard just for him and dss, its divisive imo.

I also need to lose a stone so I've said from now on I'm not cooking for him or washing his clothes as its not appreciated. I've arranged another cupboard for my dcs food, they're more than capable of making basic meals for themselves and they were a bit about him and dss having a cupboard full of their food. I'm also not doing his washing anymore as he doesn't do his jobs around the house after we decided when he moved in who's doing what. He's now bought a washing basket for himself . He's not very happy with me and is saying I'm taking things too far and I'm unreasonable as he needs to know what food his dss has and needs his own cupboard to do that. I think if I can go back to only washing for 3 people and not cooking most days I'm on a winner. Why should I pick up his slack. He's now saying that he's not going to buy us a new family car since we're living so seperate and is saying he's also annoyed about paying 50/50 on bills (even though his outgoings decreased by almost 50% moving in with me).

So AIBU to continue the seperate theme, why can't my dc and me also have seperate cupboards? Or am I being petty?

@Shinesun14

I said I was a SW for validation that I have a stressful job. I'm not sure why I needed that validation but I do. I have a large case load of complex and vulnerable YP and having his extra shit on top of what was only mine and dcs is really getting to me. My life is stressful enough just by the job that I'm in.

I'm going to ask him what he wants from this marriage, what he thinks a marriage should be like and see if we can get it together a bit more. I had fallen in love like I'd never fallen before but it's falling apart and I'm daydreaming about single life because of this and other issues we have. What a mess.

I don't think it is just the marriage , that would be simpler if that was all it was . The family life does not seem to be embraced by either you or you Husband .

He wants a traditional 1950s marriage by the sounds of it. I actually think you're better off going back to how it was asap with him in his own space. All too much for him. Don't be going off projecting, you'll just ruminate on the why, which is pointless. Cut to fix, which is separate households.

@SakuraEdenSwan1

And you say you are a Social Worker?

First of all social workers are only human too, and second of all, it’s probably why she’s noticed that his behaviour has shifted so quickly after marriage. At least she’s noticed now.

You sound like a very strong capable woman. Well done on refusing to do his stuff, he’s choosing not to contribute to the household so his choice to sort himself out.

I also do the ‘if it’s gone it’s gone’ to food and don’t police it. Get in or get none!

can you tell him to go back to his flat. Maybe you were better living seperatly

I'm going to speak about living separately, if we can't share and get onboard with being a family, which we obviously can't then thats the only option left.

I don’t mean to trivialise underlying big issues, but about treat food being all consumed before your stepson arrives and gets to share it: can you buy a few treat things that are set aside out of kids’ radar to appear in the cupboard the day he arrives? Even just a spare jar of Nutella? Sometimes people remember to leave a share of something for others, sometimes they don’t; saving back a few items that people have special fondness for, to appear when everyone is present, seems like a thoughtful idea.

OP, I think that there is nothing wrong with you husband wanting a cupboard to keep staples for his son. If he is organized enough to buy those items that are things that his son may think of not as treats not but as a breakfast staple. then he should be able to assume that those items will be there when his son is ready to use them.

You say that he pays half of the expenses in the home, but you provide 60% percent of the effectively full time occupants. He is certainly capable of washing and cooking for himself and his son.

However, I do not know that I would expect a husband of 5 months to pay for a family car if I found it to be too much trouble to wash his clothes or cook his meal.

Tell him that if he will wash your clothes that you instead will purchase the " family car." He might be willing to make that kind of trade off.

It sounds as though he is being expected to do the heavy financial lifting in return for in-kind services of cooking and doing laundry.

I would guess that leaving together requires an adjustment for all of you and maybe you should have a group speak where you all get to articulate your thoughts and expectations.

You cannot whip up a cohesive " family structure " simply by saying "I do.". He and his son may have very different ideas of family and expected contributions than do you and your children.

Ideally, these group speaks would have happened before marriage.

@Tiredoftattler I do see your point, however dh outgoings by moving in with me have decreased by almost 50% as he's not private renting anymore. So whilst what you say about him paying 50/50 isn't quite equal in terms of who lives in the house more, overall he's better off by quite a lot each month.

In terms of the car - dh has an audi tt and a work van, I have a mum type of car that hasn't got a big engine and has a few dents in ect. I'm not particularly fussed about a different car, my car fits in all my dc sport equipment, if I'm moving a YP in work my car is big enough ect and its reliably gone through the mot for the last 5 years. Dh doesn't like being in my car as its not a fast show off type of car and wants to get either an x5 or a 5 series as the family car with a big engine as his car doesn't hold all of us and he doesn't like mine. I feel like if he is embarrassed about being in my car then it is up to him to get another but I will take over the running costs of it.

I had no issue when we divided up our jobs on who did what and my load was more, but dh has never kept to his side of that deal. He told me last night that his job is more stressful and physical so thats why he doesn't do his jobs. I work longer hours and have a very stressful caseload. I work longer hours than him and my stress is different, he wouldn't accept this last night and said its my fault for choosing the job that I do.

I hear what you're saying about not being able to whip up a cohesive family unit straight away. Maybe my expectations are wrong as it is a blended family and not a normal one.

You’re all being a bit petty, honestly OP, tit for tat is what I see.

He gets his own cupboard, you get yours, to retaliate and ‘get one over on you’ he says he’s not paying for a family car. Can you see how simple and straightforward this is. War going on here? This is not a marriage.

By the way, you sound fairly reasonable and he sounds like a twat.

I would have nipped this in the bud earlier on and said to him don’t be daft you don’t need a separate cupboard but I’ll be mindful of the Nutella in future if it’s such an issue to him. This is where the majority of this started from my perspective, with the Nutella. It should have stopped there.

You’re having separate cupboards and shit you might as well still be living separate!

You need a serious chat about the housework and what your life is slowly becoming, and he needs to listen and take that on board. It also sounds like (indicated in his behaviour change) that there is something going on in his mind that he is not happy about. Maybe he is not adjusting to living together after having his own space and he is struggling with the new situation? You need to listen to his needs as well as the other way around to make this work. It’s not a great start is it but hopefully you can fix this, but it needs to be full effort from both of you and not just one. At the moment you are both fighting against each other and not working together.

I work longer hours than him and my stress is different, he wouldn't accept this last night and said its my fault for choosing the job that I do
I’m going to Mumsnet the hell out of this guy.
He knew what he was getting into when he married you. If he can’t handle the stress of cleaning his own home and dishes and pants what on earth did he think was going to happen? Didn’t he do these things before he moved in with you? Why can’t he do them all of a sudden and why does he think you should do these things for him when you are working longer hours?
He knew he was becoming part of a team, now doesn’t want to play his part.
He knew he had a heavy physical job and he chooses to stay in it, now judges you for also having a stressful job.
He’s behaving like a sexist twat that just stumbled in out of the 1950s, only he’s not willing to stump up the cash for you to be a stay at home little wifey darning his socks and polishing his pipe. I think he’s a bit confused.
I’m with him on the cupboard as it happens. If your kids are eating his kids food then that would get very annoying. I hid crisps during the first lockdown when we had DSD for the duration. All three of us like our own flavour of pack of 6 each in the weekly shop. I like to spread mine out over the week, DSD was finishing hers in a day of two then starting on mine.
DH wasn’t happy but I just told him I wasn’t keeping them back for DSD to eat, I was keeping them back for me to eat when I felt like it. They were my crisps and they had their crisps. So I sympathise with the Nutella incident.

You have an incredibly difficult and stressful job op, if anything you need a wife to take the load off you!

Getting married has made him complacent and he is being completely unreasonable and selfish.

If you own your own home and have married him he will get half the assets so half of the value of your home.

Can you put the house in your children's name to protect your assets?

You need to nip all this in the bud. He should be washing and cleaning and cooking for you. I really don't understand this expectation it's your work?

Once the resentment kicks in there is no going back so you need to extricate yourself from this marriage asap.

Your DC must come first and their peace in their own home is being ruined by this man and his ds. No doubt the pair of them are ruining the atmosphere in your home.

Tell him it's not working. Since he has his feet firmly under the table you can't just kick him out. If he won't go then you might not have any choice but to sell up to get him out.

Please don't put up with this scenario for a moment longer. What happened to the dss' mother? Were they married? Did that partnership fail because he was lazy 1950s entitled?

A lot of men put on all the charm and helpfulness with the aim to get their feet under the table and then it all changes once they get husband status and they expect wife work to be done for them uncomplainingly as default.

I know some married couples who live separately. It works for them. It's worth considering, for sure.

With my dc eating all the food - it was literally Nutella that ran out twice and then we said seperate Nutella for dd and dss which turned into the seperate cupboard. My dc have never eaten dss food when it was all in the shared cupboard. They all have their own favourite crisps that get bought ect ect.

I do feel like he expects me to be a 1950s housewife without the funding for the SAH part. I cannot clean up his and dss mess on top of my own. My dc do not generate the same mess as dh and dss, dd washes her own clothes already and they both clean up after themselves and do jobs to help out. Dh and dss leave their muddles everywhere, I'm also a muddler but my own muddles get sorted by me and don't annoy me like his does!

With my dc eating all the food - it was literally Nutella that ran out twice and then we said seperate Nutella for dd and dss which turned into the seperate cupboard
I was assuming it was a last straw kind of thing. That’s a complete over reaction in that case. A sharpie to the jar lids would have been sufficient. Sympathy revoked!

The separate food cupboards, washing etc doesn’t sound very healthy.

I think for this relationship and family blending to work going forward you need to re-establish some family ground rules. At the moment, it seems that a lot of point scoring and marking your territory is going on.

Why is his job an excuse but yours is your fault for choosing it?

Hi OP,

I think you both need some urgent help here. You're not communicating well and there is a feeling of unfairness in your marriage (for both of you).

I don't agree with the other posters and think all is not lost, you don't need to move out immediately or any such rubbish. I also don't think you've married a bad man as his perspective is probably seeing this all very differently.

What I do think however is that you have blended two families without having the framework in place properly.

You said you had a big talk on your childfree weekend so obviously you both want things to improve. Prioritise finding a really good marriage counsellor. Don't stick with one that you don't feel is helping and don't cancel appointments if something else comes up. Myself and my partner had great success with ours, we just hadn't been hearing each other.

@Newstaronhorizon my house is already protected. Dss was a result of casual dating between dh and her.

I've always joked about needing a wife to do the wife work, I actually loved my job before lockdown and marriage. I feel like I can't be a good wife and be good at my job and be a good mum to my dc. I don't have the emotional resources to do it when I'm picking up his slack and being made to feel like its me not pulling my weight.

I know dh is struggling with a lack of space and my dc being around most of the time. He's also finding it hard balancing family needs, dss needs and my needs. But he's so defensive and anything I try to talk to him about leads to him pulling apart what I say to win the argument as I'm not good at quick thinking. We've become really disconnected in the last couple of months and his selfishness is coming out more and more, leading me to retreat and not give anything back.

Get him out.

It would be interesting to know if this is what happened to previous relationships, him doing less and less when he’s got someone to do it for him.Perhaps this is just ‘him’.
Get a divorce quick - he’d get less from you for a short marriage - and get your sanity back 💐

the relationship itself, as adults, was great. But you are incompatible when you mix your own children in, each of you. separate, great. Living together, isn't working.

I also need to lose a stone so I've said from now on I'm not cooking for him or washing his clothes as its not appreciated.

I don’t follow the logic here.

@ThatOtherPoster sorry I wasn't clear. I don't want to cook big meals on a night anymore because I'm trying to hit my macros and can't eat what I'll be cooking.

We've been ok this morning - until he just asked me why I didn't put his teabags in his cupboard, I said back that's cool you can have your teabags and he's now said I'm biting and until I stop biting we'll keep being seperate.

Divorce already. I'm depressed and annoyed just reading this, let alone living it.