Anyone else feeling wifeworked over by Christmas (and DH)?!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Yes, this is a bit of a whinge thread. But I can't be the only one. Eleven months of the year I'm not that fussed but at Christmas I do care. Selfishly. For me. Because I don't actually enjoy having no decorations, a messy home and no Christmas meal.

Do you find that it's worse at Christmas? I think it's partly the expectations that come from outside, and all the tradition - it makes it that much harder to get away from traditional expectations both of what I should be doing and what, in total, should be done for a good Christmas.

Btw, if you can get us out of this pattern please tell me how: since the Wifework thread a while back, I've been doing a lot less and DH has been doing a little more, and the mess has been driving me nuts. We'll muddle along until I crack and point out x hasn't been doing in weeks, and could he please get his finger out - he'll insist he does do it/was about to do it, all evidence to the contrary, and we'll row. Then he'll admit he hasn't done it, but he'll get better. And then he doesn't do whatever it is, though he'll often do something else, something obvious like hovering. And I will feel 'why should I do this job, he said he would'.

It is a crap pattern.

Anyway, right now I have a tree and nothing else, and I am not feeling full of Christmas cheer because there are half a dozen things he's said he'd do that still aren't done. If I do them it undercuts the whole point of trying to get him doing stuff; if I tell him (again) it's possible three of them will get done ... but for the love of God does it have to be like this?

Whinge with me, and remind me Christmas is not about the little stuff, please?

Oh, no!

I'm sorry, that was an awful typo LePrune.

Forgive me?

Not really. Im still working but DH is on his hols already. I am not doing any cooking cause I cant cook. DH is running around for all the last bits we need but he drives and I dont so that means I get out of a lot We put decorations up as a family, as I used to with my mum and dad.

I have just got in from an afternoon at Wetherspoons with my best mate whilst DH looks after DD. Christmas comes but once a year and why ruin it by getting stressed and running around.

OK then

I know just what you mean. I don't want to be the person who like my mother has slightly unhinged fits of awfulness. For me it coinincides with pmt (boring but true) - someone once told me she'd read that women can only be truly honest when they have pmt and though I think that's a dodgy road to go down, for me it feels true.

molly that sounds like you've got it sorted!

I think you're right about driving - I drive and DH can't, and I am just counting the days until he turns 25 because insurance will go down then and he'll be able to start learning.

Mind you, that reminds me of yet another thing he's not bothered to check despite about 1000 reminders - which is how much it'd cost to insure him on the car once he's passed. Grrr.

prune - honest, I just hit the wrong key!

I don't think PMT does that to me - I think I just spent so long being told by my family that I had an awful temper (I'm a woman, you see, like my mum, and all women are the same ...), that it was good to realize I actually don't, I'm quite a calm person. It's easier on the nerves to be that way.

DH and I have split the Christmas chores into who is actually good at/vaguely interested in doing it.

I do all the pressies and cards (although to be fair DH did buy some stuff from Toys 'r' US).

DH and the boys buy the tree and we decorate it together as a family. We really don't bother with any other decorations.

DH does all the food shopping and cooking. (He is a chef and TBH I hate shopping and cooking).

I will never drive. I have a licence but you cant drink, you are responsible for doing everything that involves driving and I just dont see what the plus points are.

Ahem, some men

I do think it's getting better. Looking at my DH, all my male friends, none of them are like some of the guys on this thread.

oh sorry, that was to Thunder's saying 'it shows how long men have been directly resisting women's attempts to make the division of domestic labour fair.'

Yes, I'm sure it's getting better.

If I look at my parents' marriage, I can see that!

I'm just so keen to get this sorted now if it's possible, because even though I can say it's better than lots of people's marriages I know, it's still not equal and that's what we're here for, isn't it?

I do find it difficult to equate being a SAHM and wifework principles. I do think my main job is looking after the children not the house but I am now child free for 11 hours a week (in the rare week the neither kids sick) in term time. How much should I expect DH to do for christmas, every week. We moved into this house 7 months ago he has still yet to clean a toilet and probably has picked up the vacuum cleaner less than 10 times.

He does do all the DIY (he likes this as it is ad hoc and not repetitive), washing up most days (20mins max), bins once a week (20minutes). He comes home by 6.30pm. Worst things he complains about the bathrooms needing a clean, floors needing a vacuum etc...

next year I am taking the "tick off and initial'' approach to Christmas tasks too. It bothers me that I bought all the nieces and nephews' presents (due to the logistics of getting nice things to various far-flung locations, some had to be bought in June!) - not because I minded doing it, I rather enjoyed doing it, but because DH hasn't thought: wow, she really saved me a lot of thought and effort by doing that. So next year there's going to be a list, and I will damn well highlight what I've done. And he will probably do more of the in-home prep, in recompense.

LRD it does sound like you're dealing with someone who doesn't know how to maintain basic hygiene in a living space because someone has always done it for him. Tragic for him, but even more for you if you don't do a real black-and-white intervention. And seeing things in writing will work better than "why is she so upset with me/always nagging?" will, because he won't be able to rationalise that he was 'about to do' something that was due last weekend, and still hasn't been done.

With DH I just text him a list and then he will do it. Send it bits at a time so not to write too much at one time. men love that kind of thing according to my dad as he always says a wives job is to boss their husbands about

chestnut 11 hours is really not a lot - he should be doing a fair bit IMO.

I do think an adult who never cleans a toilet is disgusting - no question.

black - FWIW (not much perhaps since I am the one with the issues here!), we took a day off and did Christmas shopping for family together, and IMO it works really well - we more or less did get it all done in one day, and it was easier choosing stuff together, and felt less horribly like a chore. But we did also take the time to sit down and brainstorm what we'd try to buy and what shops we'd got to.

Anyway - he should be home soon, and I will get him to draft that list with me.

The thing is, LRD, how do you articulate 'equal' in this context?

After I had lived with DH for a bit, I found myself a bit annoyed that he didn't do more cleaning I thought it wasn't an equal setup. When we talked about it, it turned out that he wasn't just looking at the cleaning but at all the household stuff that needed doing shopping, cooking, paying bills, etc. And he did a lot more of that, so he'd thought everything was pretty equal.

As an academic (yes even if you haven't finished yet!) you must be familiar with scope -- what is the scope of the household stuff you are looking at?

Does he make up for lack of cleaning in some other way? Is it possible he's looking at things with a broader scope?

Not making excuses, just throwing out some ideas...

I actually don't aim for equality in this context -- I aim for happiness, which tends to come when things are balanced, but not always. Sometimes things at home are very unequal, when we're going through certain circumstances, but it's okay.

It might be good to think in terms of: how much more work would he have to do around the house to make me happy?

If you want certain things, a certain way and DH doesn't then really its not fair to be annoyed with DH. FWIW, my DH got DDs writing xmas lists in October, he then reserved presents (I picked them up, he was going to do it but had an emergency op), we wrapped together, he bought all his families, we bought tree and decoated together with DC (he retrieved decs from loft), he will happily cook on christmas day (we are doing M&S). The split is usually 95/5 in his favour.

I've got rather depressed reading this thread. I have tried pretty much all of the tactics suggested on here:

• text reminders - he claims he didn't get them, then I have to tell him again which I feel defeats the purpose of the exercise
• drawing up a list together - he loses interest after approximately 30 seconds, then never looks at it anyway
• note on fridge - ignores
• email - ignores
• meltdown - tells me I'm mad to get annoyed about small things.

One concession has been to get a cleaner. This has solved most cleaning issues, but has thrown up a new issue in that I have to remind him every single week to get out money to pay her!

Sorry LRD didn't mean to hijack your thread. In response to your OP, this year I admitted defeat well ahead of time and bought all the presents (for everyone except his father and me) and wrapped them with the DDs. I bought and decorated the tree with the DDs. We will go to his parents for Christmas so I don't have to shop or cook. But much of this has been facilitated by my decision earlier this year to leave my job and work from home, partly because I hated commuting, but mainly because I was the main carer for our DDs (aged 5 and nearly 2) and I was getting stressed out at always being the one who had to leave work if anything happened, juggle the holidays, and do everything else I do (run the house, organise the social calendar etc). In DH's defence, he has a well paid job and works quite long hours, but...

I read a ridiculous article today, about how mothers are critical of their daughter's / daughter-in-law's attempts to cook Christmas dinner. No mention of sons / son-in-laws doing this. Yes, it was in the Telegraph, so what do I expect? (I didn't buy it, my mum showed me as she knew it would make me cross). I pointed out that my brother always cooks Christmas dinner for his family, but apparently "that's different because he's a chef".

I have posted on an AIBU thread about present buying for his family - which I admit to doing, although I know I shouldn't. However, I look on it as something that I'm better at than him, rather than a chore - we have a pretty fair distribution of jobs. In fact during term-time he does more than me, as he has managed to fit his work around school runs. We're sharing the wrapping over several glasses of gin tonight.

I honestly don't recognise this "wifework" stuff , DH does as much, if not more than I do , regarding Christmas ( and everything else ) .
He's independantly (with zero input from me) bought some presents for our nephews and he's bought a couple for DD too. He's wrapped everything
(apart from his own pressies) , he puts the tree up and the lights , I put the decorations on ( because everything has to be completely symetrical), he does all the veg for xmas dinner , all I really do is make the gravy.

He made a fab, very boozy xmas cake a few weeks ago and is feeding it copious amounts of rum .

He also works more than double the hours I do.

Sorry, I know the thread has moved on, but I just wanted to second this from blackcurrants:

"do NOT have a baby with a man who hasn't got into a 'every week, whether you think it needs doing or not, you clean and mop the whole house' mentality."

So so true. I did - and it was a huge mistake.

Sorry, just had to say EndoplasmicReticulum I love your MN name! Dare I ask if you are rough or smooth?!

Crumbs! Clean and mop the WHOLE house?? Every week?? Even if you don't think it needs doing?? A tad inter-personally oppressive??
Well, there's a challenge....

bigblue you weren't hijacking at all! Part of what I wanted was to share a good whinge ... it's very comforting IMO to get it all out.

dreaming - it's a thought, but I doubt it (the 'wider scope' argument). There are things he does that I am deeply grateful for - he does do a lot of the money stuff that I cannot do (I can't remember anything over 3 digits so online banking isn't a thing I can manage). But then, if we run out of money it is me who works out how to juggle it, me who goes to the bank, etc., because I'm home all day.). I drive everywhere because he can't; I cook about 50% of the time, I do at least 50% of the shopping (more!) as a result of him not driving.

He does one-off lovely things, like bringing me coffee in bed every morning, so he is far from useless, it's just not perfect.

mal - nice to hear. Were the two of you always like that, or did it come with practice?

endo - that reminds me of my mum! She is a good cook and we like cooking together, but she thinks it's one of the nine wonders of the world that DH can cook a meal. She has a habit that if I visit her and dad without DH, she will tell me to say thanks on her behalf for DH for 'taking me away for the evening' and will ask every time 'is he ok without you? Is he feeding himself?'. This is despite the fact she brought my two brothers up to cook and knows they are both better than their (female) partners.

BigBlue - I'm smooth. Most of the time.

LRD - My mum has accepted that my husband cooks, but his family still think it's very odd. They are of the "women in kitchen, men on sofa or in pub" persuasion. When grandma-in-law phoned up the other day and I told her my husband was busy making Yorkshire puddings to go with the roast he was cooking she didn't believe me.

In my family its the opposite I would never cook a roast and the whole idea of having my family round mine for a meal I cook is incomprehensible. My mum wouldnt cook an xmas meal though either, its mainly a mans job either at home or at a restaurant.

I think they ( the men ) don't care because they aren't judged on the 'success' or otherwise of Xmas. There's almost even a macho competition to see who can leave shopping until the absolute latest.

If the dcs don't get fed or get presents then it's the mum who'll get the blame, not the dad.