Wifework- I don't get it...

[louloutheshamed]

I have lurked here for a while and thought I'd try and boost my feminist credentials by doing some reading. So i read delusions of gender which I loved, I felt it articulated a lot I what I feel and experience in my life.

I have moved onto wifework and I'm just a bit baffled by it. It's Fascinating and coherently argued but the thing is I just don't recognise her description of marriage in my own marriage or those of many of my friends and peers. A typical husband as she describes would be generally accepted as a useless sorry waste of space by me and my friends, we just would not accept it. obviously I know these types
Of husbands/marriages exist but they are generally accepted to be crap. So many threads in relationships describe unequal
Partnerships but then there is always virtually a unanimous Condemnation of this behaviour by other posters.

I accept that I am slightly unusual in that I work full time and my husband went pt on the birth of my son. He does huge amounts of what is described as 'wifework' in the book, probably more than me. Moushart often starts sentences with 'I don't suppose there is a woman alive who hasn't experienced this..." and I am Screaming "well I haven't!!"

Perhaps I am the exception that proves the rule but it doesn't feel Like it in my experience. I don't even recognise my parents or in laws marriages in it as much as she suggests...

I also think, having read delusions first, that Moushart relies a lot on 'essentialist' (not sure if that is correct term) differences between genders rather than social constructs. I find it all a bit negative and bitter. When she describes how when she first got married suddenly felt like she had to be a domestic goddess type-??? I just felt like saying 'more fool you!'

Can anyone enlighten me as to what I am missing?

Such an interesting thread.
I have not read Wifework, because a) I read a review of it and an article about the writer, way back when it came out, and decided that she had made some poor choices in life that she had extended to all of Western womankind; and b) a friend passionately recommended it to me, yet her solution to being married to a man who doesn't see dirt/is never going to take any domestic initiative/relies on her to organise both visible and invisible work at home, was to rush out and employ a cleaner/housekeeper for two full days a week.
I sputtered something about avoiding the issue by throwing money at it, and she tactfully didn't reply

I wonder what people do take from the roles they see their parents in growing up. DH and his brother couldn't be domestically more different, one does anything and everything off his own bat, the other has no real sense of working towards making a sanitary home. My brother and I had different roles placed upon us: as a girl, naturally it would fall to me to take on the ironing etc, whereas he dodged all domestic chores and got away with it. I rebelled. He's very fastidious now. Perhaps it's all about who is trying to tell you what to do, not what is actually getting done.

I don't do stuff for him - I don't iron or any nonsense like that - I don't feel that I do too much or that I remotely wait on him, there is nothing for me to go on strike from, I just think that he is so weighed down by feeling a martyr that he doesn't see that I have no leisure (which he hardly does either)

what it is, is about is the children. I leave the house at 7.30 when the dcs are barely up, if at all, and he gets them dressed and breakfasted and to the CM. then he goes to work, collects them, and looks after them till I get back around 7.30 pm. We bathe them together. Then I used to make dinner but I thought bugger that and we don't have dinner any more. he might have something he makes. I don't bother. I go to bed early and get up at 6.30am and tidy the kitchen, empty the dishwasher, make lunches, do laundry etc before I go out. Because there is all that time in the day where he has sole care of the children he feels deeply put upon (I am now realising). I don't think this is fair because I do not choose to stay in bed while he is doing this, I am gone and out at work. I would say that I have less leisure time in the sense that I go to bed so early (to get up at 6.30) that I have much less evening time, although I have some now I have sacked dinner off, and he has long evenings reading and listening to music that I can't have without feeling a wreck the next day; also, part of the reason I have to get up early is because that is when I get the kitchen etc straight and I can't do that in the evening because he isn't done and I can't bear it if I think I have tidied and there are cups and crumbs everywhere in the morning, I find it pyschologically easier to feel I have only done it once by leaving it to the morning. (to be fair he usually does some tidying while I am doing the final good night with the dcs which takes a bizarre amount of time - that is when he will tidy up snacks, toys etc until I get down when we will finish together unless he has already finished). He thinks I have an easy life because I leave the house without having to have enormous toddler arguments about every bloody thing from shreddies to hair bobbles etc. That hour in the morning is the hardest hour in the day. He has a point. But so do I.

So you see the issue isn't that I live with a man who won't pull his weight but who seems to be deeply resentful about pulling his weight. I can't help, because I don't have any more time or energy. In theory I could say: I do bathtimes alone. But in practice why should I get up at 6.30, dash about all day, do a long commute home and then say "you sit down darling and read the paper" when that is not a luxury I have had and I come home knackered? Plus, even if I agreed in principle, I don't think I can do more. I am always close to the edge in a way that scares me. So what do I do?

Sorry about the essay. I don't blame you if you don't read it but I really want to get some of this out there, I have no one else to talk to

Madamelebean, FlyLady is an internet resource that provides day-to-day step-by-step instructions for keeping your house clean and tidy without feeling that you are devoting your life to it. It is a system that works by doing stuff as you go along, essentially, which has the upside that your house is always clean but the downside that it very effectively "invisible-ises" the work and makes it harder to account for and therefore share

Do you have to get up early and do housework? Could one of you do lunches while the other does baths? You put a load of laundry on it the morning, he takes it out when he gets in after work?

Ah I see. Thanks. I'm sorry to hear that your husband is resentful, I hope it improves. If someone truly believes they do more than their fair share then difficult to change their opinion... Is he perhaps resentful / has chip on shoulder about you having a more demanding job than him so he gets left with the kids which society regards as the inferior role? rather than it being about an unfair amount of domestic work?

Zuts - A man that can see you are ready to collapse from your workload is not a nice man. You are right it will affect your dds so bare that in mind when he tries to guilt trip you. He is not doing his fair share at all. Tell him exactly what you do, and if you are the sends birthday cards and pressies to the in laws and runs around after him do not do any of it.

And good god stop arse licking him. If hes says wheres my praise? Ask him where is yours. He knows you feel bad about him having to do stuff and likes feeling hard done by. Do not do the softly softly approach as it clearly doesnt work. If he wont listen write down what you do and how you feel.

So he does a fair share but constantly whinges about it ?

I would say that amounts to the same thing

I agree present him with the evidence in black and white.. Unfortunately I think it's more about his perception of the situation than hard facts. Sit down with him and make him agree to statement like "one load of laundry and hanging it out is equivalent to giving the kids breakfast" or whatever. Then divide it equally but If he has less time at work the extra house work should fall to him so you have equal leisure time. That's fair.

Yep whining and resenting it is almost as bad as not doing it

I think you need to start a regular hobby, and breezily say I wont be here 6-8 on Monday I am going to.... If he kicks off say he is welcome to do the same, keep calm,dont engage in his rants, and whatever his objections just do it anyway.

I would try to both clock on and clock off at the same time - so rather than you getting up earlier to do housework, but get up at 7am, get ready for work, you leave, he looks after the kids. When you get home in the evening, you take over with the children, he tidies up and gets lunches ready, when he sits down for his evening you sit down too.

If anything can't get done in the hours you are both doing stuff, then either it doesn't get done or you have to both agree to work half an hour later in the evening or whatever.

Maybe if he can see you are both starting at the same time and finishing at the same time, even though you are doing different tasks you are doing the same amount of work?

Ah, thanks Mirai.

Petey, read the post. I can't do hobbies because I work too late. Nor can he, because I work too late to come back and relieve him. You don't get the listening thing, do you? that information is in this thread. Stop offering advice without taking in the facts of other people's circumstances. Just stop doing that. It is annoying and stupid.

There must be something you can do. I used to do zumba 6-8 on a Saturday.I currently do zumba 8-9.45 on a Wednesday as dh isnt home until.7 that day. There are classes and groups on at all times of day

Bit harsh there Zut. Petey is well-intentioned. It is not she who makes you this angry.

I do think downtime is fine, but I often feel its easiest to get it out the house when the kids are awake. Will your dh not relieve you off putting the children to bed for some nights if you do the same for him on other nights? Obviously you dont have to do zumba there is lots you.can do even if its take a book or a kindle and go some some quiet.

We have the same as dh comes home late at 7/7.15 and both up at 6am for work and do long full time hours jobs. What we do though is for alternate nights putting kids down as some times Im out, or vice versa or even one of us stays out of way in bedroom on phone/kindle getting some headspace.

It helps a lot as sometimes you just need a recharge. It sounds like you are both getting stressed as neither of you have a break.

Yeah ok I did enjoy that a bit too much. in a sense it is not she how makes me this angry. People in general who don't listen make me angry. I have to work with them, I have to live with them and I have to be nice to them all the fucking time. However in a sense Petey is the one who is making me angry because right now she is the one who is not listening to me and is dishing out nonsense all the same

I think you arent really annoyed at me its your dh/situation you are annoyed at so I dont mind. I think a few people have tried to personally insult me on this and the other thread, but I dont feel angry and know its because they are frustrated.

Zut, are you saying that you take on an extra burden by being aware of his dissatisfaction and trying to manage that and that he takes no notice of your dissatisfaction. All of which takes up headspace that you simply don't have ?

I can see that there might be some practical things that you could both do to try and take some pressure off but yet again it involves you in having to take responsibility for raising it and trying to find solutions which leaves you with the bigger burden yet again.

I don't have anything to say that won't come across as trite but I really hope you find a resolution as it sounds like you're approaching burn out.

< wrestles zut to the ground and sits on her >

I didnt report that by the way and wasnt bothered if it stayed. This has all gone a bit crazy

No Petey, what you are seeing is an poster who is being driven to distraction and putting her thoughts out there.

You then come along with advice that you may well think is helpful but just adds to her frustration. Zumba is not the answer to inequality and never will be.

Here is a poster telling you that she pretty much has the equal workload thing down to a fine art but the sexism in her household doesn't come from the physical tasks but from the mental ones. She thinks she's equally sharing a burden with her husband and he thinks he's manfully shouldering a burden that shouldn't fall to him in the first place. Add to that that they are both working full time with young children and there isn't room for anything to give.

The expectation would be that she cuts back her hours, spends more time helping out, finds time where there is none. And yet her husband just continues on with resentment. He'll get the credit and praise and she'll be the one having the mental breakdown and yet they should both be doing an equal share of the mental burden as well as the physical one.

And you suggest zumba - you might be reading posts but you're not understanding them.