How much does your partner help you?

[Ole]

I don't know if I have unrealistic expectations, but I get to do all the chores, all the admin, all our finances, all the tidying/cleaning/sorting, all the logistics (trips, appointments, contractors), buy all the food, cook most meals, work part-time and look after our son the rest of the week. I am also chief nagger, organiser, and risk analyser. I timetable our weekends and holidays, I decide where we go, how we are going to get there, what we are going to eat there, how long we are going to stay there. I pay all our bills, make sure we have enough in our account and shop around for bargains. I do our weekly/monthly/year budgeting. I source everything we need, find the best deal, haggle where necessary and arrange pick-up delivery. Sometimes he will come up with an activity/timetable but he will sulk if I point out that it is inappropriate/inconvenient/flawed.

My husband is the main breadwinner and pick our son from nursery two days a week and prepares dinner those days. We will take turns in getting son ready for bed and reading him stories, and he usually gets him up in the mornings (when I mean get up I mean open the curtains and start making breakfast, and some weekends will wash and dress him while I have a shower). Sometimes he will take him out to he park when I need a couple of hours work (I freelance) and once or twice he has taken him out for a whole day when I have needed to work long hours at the weekend (said freelance work). He has been known to hoover and dust occasionally, but usually he pulls such a long face and makes such a fuss I'd rather not ask him. He is very good at taking the bins outside and picking up bits and pieces (bread/milk etc) from local shops when we run out.

I have always thought of him as a wonderful husband but now I am starting to think I am being taken for a ride - after all it is his son too but I do so much that I default to feeling grateful when he takes our son out of my hands for a few hours so that I can get on with my work/cleaning?

He is forever telling me to 'stop doing things and relax', but if I don't make the phonecalls/write the letters/make the appointment/sort out those bills/clean the bathroom, it never gets done, and when I tell him to do some light DIY he pulls, a face, blows his lid off and calls me a nag to the point where I dread if there is anything that needs doing that is too heavy for me to move/do. In the evenings he goes on and on about me getting an early night to rest, but he does not get that after the whirlwind that is my typical day I need to flop somewhere for a bit and unwind before going to sleep.

Is it me or is it him?

Answers on a postcard please.

[GinaG3]

Snap! Apparently, apparently, we have the easy life.

[etta166]

Sounds pretty similar to my life, except that I'm the main breadwinner too. But... I could write something about my set-up that conveys the same information and does not sound so negative. I find it more helpful to think of the things that my OH does do, rather than the things he doesn't.

Try to make a list of things that you do, things that he does and then both sit down and see if there's any way you can both agree to even things up. Your OH may not even realise half the things that you do or why they need doing.

Also, if he does come up with plans and activities at the weekend, why are thay flawed? Because it's not exactly what you would have done? Or it doesn't fit with your idea of the daily routine? So what, let him do some "flawed" acitvities with your son and see if they really have the consequences/problems that you predict. That is the only way for both of you to learn what can and can't work.

You are never going to look after your children in exactly the same way, especially if you are super organised (sounds like you are) and your OH is more implusive and not a planner. Let him take over more stuff for a while and see what happens.

And I've also noticed that my oH and I get along better if we go out with each other regularly and leave the kids at home.

[oimissus]

my husband works full time, and at busy times will have to put in pretty long days, but mainly he leaves the house at 8 and is back by 6. For 2 years I was a stay at home mum (not out of choice) and did odd bits of freelance work around the baby. When she turned 2 (beginning of this year) she started nursery 2 days a week and I do freelance work on those days.

I do all the food shopping and laundry, and most of the cooking, which I like doing, but if I'm knackered he will knock up something - he can cook, and would do more. I wash up through the day for me and Miss Oi. I mainly get her up, husband mainly does bath and bedtime. He is far tidier than me so does all the proper cleaning (I'm a surface cleaner! I never MOVE anything, just go around it . . .) but we both hoover, tidy - he's much better at doing the bathroom and washing floors.

Weekends we do stuff together mainly - though he loves taking Miss Oi out on his own, and I think will do more of that. I have to organise him a bit, make sure he's got nappies, snacks etc - but I can do it more quickly as I'm more practised - he's perfectly capable.

Bills are mainly direct debit, otherwise he sorts them. Holidays we always plan together.

To be honest, I think you need to make it clear to your husband that you are BOTH parents 24/7. He may leave the home to earn money, but you do that too, as well as do the job of caring for your (the both of yours) son, which is very hard work! He sounds a bit childish from your post? But I would also lower your standards a bit (I'm dreadfully slovenly), and you sound a little controlling, do your weekends need to be 'timetabled'? Do you not just wake up, see what the weather's like and then decide what to do? Other than a weekend away that's what we do.

Having read a lot of these kinds of threads on Mumsnet (first time I've seen one on the EDF!), other than feeling relieved that this isn't my life (sorry!), I do wonder why women put up with these kinds of men? Did you do all the running around before you became parents? Are you not perhaps enabling his behaviour? My sister is like this, her boyfriend is frankly pretty lazy and from day 1 of their relationship she has done pretty much everything (though he is good at DIY, I'll give him that), and I just do not understand why???

In short, I think he needs to get on board a bit more, and you need to relax a bit more!

[Ruth_Baldock]

Mine was the same until Lex arrived but now I think he actually does more than

me, especially at weekends!

During the week:

He makes breakfast for us all and we eat together before he leaves for work, does the washing up and tidying from breakfast. I get the children (I know you know how old they are, but for everyone else, S is 2y5mo and L is 9mo) dressed. After he leaves for work, I'll start prep for whatever lunch will be and attempt to stop the babiea from fighting. Around 9:15, Lex has a nap, and when she wakes up we will go out to the park/friends/playgroup, back for lunch and Nap (1-3, usually). Afternoon, we tidy and play, then I will make dinnee, which will be thrown on the floor. Tidy up from dinner, tidy toys, bathtime. Then bedtime. Nick comes home around 6:30 in the middle of bathtime and will do a few bits about the house, then make dinner.

Nick has OCD and hates the way I do cleaning. So he does it all (bar when he'a not here and I need to hoover a bit or stuff like that). He does all the laundry, I put it away. We food plan together, he does the weekly shop and pays for it. At the weekend, he takes over with the babies and does all mealtimes, and bathtime. I generally organise what we do at the weekends, I think.

he is the sole breadwinner, my contract wasn't renewed in June 2011, a few weeks before I went on mat. leave. So, I am a SAHM for now...

d

[susyp]

Ole my set up is similar to yours - although my husband does the finances and is mainly in control of the endless building work we seem to have. However, the big difference is that I don't work. I think if you work part time then it's not a fair balance. I have on many occasions questioned why my day starts at 630 and I am still clearing up at 9 - he gets up at 8 and is home at 8. But now that my daughter sleeps through and is at nursery 3 hours a day I am less concerned about this.

HOWEVER, I am currently looking for a job and we will swap roles. I FULLY expect my husband to do exactly the amount I do - and all hell will break out if he doesn't! It will be tons easier for him to as daughter will be in full time school from Sept and we will have a better functioning kitchen (read dishwasher) and so there will be NO EXCUSE for not having a completely immaculate house.

hem hem

I have to say I don't think you can change people. Either they are OCDish or they are not. If I were you, considering you work part time, I would get a weekly cleaner. My last boyfriend who I lived with for a long long time did sod all and I got a cleaner even though we didn't have kids - as it wasn't fair that that I did all the cleaning!

Susypx

[Monkey]

My husband does the nursery run in the morning and I do the evening run. He cooks dinner every day while I take care of the evening routine (bath, stories...) We have a cleaning and an ironing lady. We shop together at the weekend. I find it's a good balance.

[Ole]

when I say timetable I don't mean a rigid school-type timetable, I mean wake up see what the weather is doing and come up with some form of activity and work it around lunchtime/nap time and a reasonable bedtime hour.

An example of a flawed activity which led to a helluva argument was the time he suggested we go to scoop in melbourne grove for some ice-cream and walk to goose green as we eat it. I pointed out that there is no way our 2.5 year old is going to walk and eat the ice cream without tripping over and that the ice-cream will end up on the floor. So my husband started with the the sulky thing so I said, 'ok let's go and do it'. So we get the ice cream and 5 metres away from the shop my son trips and the ice cream falls on the floor. My son is in hysterics 'mine ice-cream, mine ice-cream!' while my husband tries to scoop back into the cone the bits not touching the floor. I just knew it would happen!!!!!! When my husband suggested the trip I visualised the pathway and realised there was a high risk of the ice-cream ending up on the floor (I didn't really have to think hard about this one, the risk just kind of slapped me in the face).

[oimissus]

but it's not a disaster, is it? It's just a little thing that went wrong. I think you have to be wary of shooting down in flames everything he suggests, even if it is a bit daft, otherwise he will become completely disengaged.

I was very anal about Miss Oi's schedule up until quite recently; now, well, if she misses a nap, or goes to bed a bit late every once in a while, it doesn't matter if it means we can do something a bit different. I am a great believer in routine for little ones, but veering from it every so often is actually a good thing, for all of us.

I think you should let your husband have your son for a day, let him plan it and execute it - and deal with any fall out that may (or may not) happen. Chances are it will be fine! I find that even if what my husband has suggested does sounds like a slight recipe for disaster - if I'm not there it's not my problem (I'm very 'out of sight, out of mind') and they always have a whale of a time, and I get to go shopping/read/watch whatever shit telly I like. Lovely!

[Ole]

No you are right it wasn't a disaster. I don't want to give the idea I am super strict about our routine. I am mediterranean and I take a very mediterranean approach to routines. Our son may or may not have a nap depending on what we have decided to do, and as much as I would love him to be in bed by 7-7:30, often he is still up at 8-8:30.

Since I am putting all my dirty laundry out in public I might as well add that for the first two years since we had our son on top of working full time he has been doing a distance LLM (now thankfully completed, with distinction I might add) meaning for the first 2 years I spent most weekends on my own and I think that we have never quite recovered from that. My son was more than 2 years the first time my husband took him out for the whole day on his own and has only done it a couple of times since. Part of me is not being able to let go, but another part is maybe I sense a lack of enthusiasm on his part which might have resulted from him spending so little time with our son alone when he was a little baby (or I could well be reading too much into this).

But anyway, this is detracting to my complaint that I do all the household work and admin. I would not mind looking after our son 24/7 if he shared some of the chores on a regular basis rather than 'on demand'. I guess what is really frustrating me is having to constantly ask him or remind him to do stuff, and which would be Ok except that he then gets sulky with me (something he would hotly deny though....)

[midivydale]

Hi

Not for one minute pretending to have all the answers but is it possible to sit down and re assign house hold chores? we decided what chores should be done by each of us. In this case (we have a newborn) i do majority of baby stuff and cleaning, he does all shopping and most of our cooking.it works for us and it helps that we both know what is expected to be done. My oh is very good at shopping and cooking i might add which is a godsend!

I find it a work in progress i guess as we are getting used to parenthood- but we are trying!

[oimissus]

wow. That is a lot of work, for the both of you, and I can see that it will take a while for you all to re-adjust. Before all this, was he good around the house - i.e. has he always been like this, or has he got used to it whilst working and studying all hours?

on the admin side I am incredibly impressed with your organization - a yearly budget! It sounds like you are very good at that side of things so maybe keep that on yourself.

On the chores front - I dunno, either you could draw up a rota, or just frankly not do it for a while and see how he gets on with no clean shirts and no food - do it for you and your son but leave him to fend for himself and maybe that will get him to pull his finger out? Both sound a bit crap though! Or, as others have suggested, get him to pay for a cleaner. You do the budget, so tell him you have factored that in. Will a couple of hours a week break the bank? (it would for us unfortunately, I would bloody love a cleaner). But also, tell him that it is not playing the game to sulk when asked to do a few basic things about the house, that is ridiculous - tell him his son is learning to tidy up his toys, it would be nice to see Daddy setting a good example!

[susyp]

also my daughter is nearly 4 and i think my husband has only taken her out for the day once. He would say that is because I am a control freak - and yes he didn't do it as I would have done it - didn't take a lunch for her (she has a milk allergy) and so all she had was chips in MacDonalds. But I think she loved it. Very soon I am going to visit my sister for 5 days in Wales and leaving him home alone with her. I think they will have a whale of time but it certainly would not be how I do it. You sound quite similar to me. Lesson I have learnt - too late really - is not to criticise anything he does with her. I am hoping after a few days on their own together he will have the confidence to take her out more. You only learn from experience and if hubbies work full time they just don't get the experience or the chance to make mistakes. Plus my daughter loves telling him off if he does things wrong. I also think its good for her to be challenged with someone doing it differently. Taken me 4 years to get to this place mind. Neurotic, helicopter parent me.

Susypx

[Saila]

Snap snap snap

i am main breadwinner too - not that that makes much difference to those who aren't but it takes that 'excuse' away

tbh - i rarely see set ups that go against this 'norm'

depressing

i try not to mind and just get on with it - EXCEPT we have a BOY and i see it as my responsibility for the cycle to be stopped HERE and NOW- and boys generally learn their behaviour from their fathers.

so for the sake of my son's future partner/wife/g-friend i will continue to try and reason and change my OH

who, to be fair, WANTS to be equal but is still miles off....

after lots of nagging we're at this point:

'can you email me what needs doing at the moment?'

'yes, of course'

*thinking*

why dont you think of the list yourself - i'm not the house-manager

[Pickle]

First thing I would do is get a cleaner - at least that way the cleaning gets done every week by someone and avoids tensions around those types of chores. I'm a stay at home Mum and have one who comes for 3.5 hours a week, she cleans the house and irons 5 work shirts for Mr Pickle. Sorted.

In our house I do all the cooking and childcare during the week. Hubby leaves for work at 7am and is generally home by 6:30pm to help with bedtime for the older kids leaving me to focus on the baby. I do the washing, bit if he notices the washing machine is finished he will hang it for me, and he empties the dishwasher most mornings before he leaves for work. He does the washing up of pots etc. after dinner.

Bills I tend to deal with, but 99% are direct debit. Holidays are joint decisions.

In the weekends he is brilliant and willingly takes over most of the childcare, and will always offer to take all 3 kids to the park so that I can have an hour "off".

We both get the opportunity to do the things we enjoy, I go out to rehearsals twice a week and go for runs in the evening when i can, and he has hockey/squash/football. I think we have the balance right, which is brilliant.

I know people who have partners who get home from work and spend the rest of the evening playing computer games, and weekends they do the same, god only knows why they put up with it!

[womanofdulwich]

I really think its telling to know what your partners parents do / did and compare to your own.

[oimissus]

I think susyp has a lot of good points - it's very easy for us who do these things as second nature to criticise our partners when they get it 'wrong', and so it's more understandable if they give up or get grumpy. Ask your husband to hoover the living room - but don't mention it if he misses a bit. Get him to take your son out, you can help by packing up a bag of essentials, but just let him get on with it and don't comment on what he's planned to do. In the early days of being parents I was dreadful at hovering over Mr Oi, telling him he wasn't doing it right - blah blah. Unsurprisingly he told me to shove off and let him do it his way! Which, eventually, dragging my heels all the way, I did. And hey presto, nearly 2 and a half years on, Miss Oi is just fine and dandy.

I've been thinking about why Mr Oi is, generally speaking, pretty good at all this house stuff, and I think it's because, before meeting me (which was when we were about 30ish), he had mainly lived with girls (not girlfriends, female pals) - most of his friends are girls - and knowing them as I do now, I doubt any of them would take any shit about lack of housework etc - it's easy to say that to a mate rather than your partner, isn't it? They would have taken the piss out of him endlessly. So he was pretty well trained when I came along. But he probably wasn't at 22!

Now, would you look at the bloody weather. There's something we can do sod all about, grrrrrr.

[oimissus]

womanofdulwich - yes, I think that affects both partners' expectations. Mr Oi came from a pretty trad set up, stay at home mum, working and uninvolved(ish) dad. But, as I said, good training from female housemates pre-me. Both my parents worked, dad full time from home (freelance), mum part time out of the home. Chores were probably split along gender lines to an extent, but my dad could certainly cook and always did the washing up, and also did all the gardening and DIY. So he certainly wasn't sat on his arse whilst my mum zoomed about doing everything.

I remember when I was in the 3rd year at uni and had to live at home for a term. My mum had gone away for some conference overnight and had told me to make a lasagne for dinner. I was a bit late getting back (prob went to the union for a pint!) and when I rushed in my dad had started making it. I said 'sorry I'm late, I can finish it off'. He fixed me with a withering stare and said 'do you assume I can't make a lasagne???'. Me: (backing out of the kitchen) 'no, no, of course not, you carry on'. That told me. It was yum. Not as good as my mum's though . . . !

[Convex]

My husband is much tidier and more organised than me. I hope he thinks we have the balance right, but our agreement is that we both work Fulltime - him at work and me on maternity leave looking after the baby. When he gets home try to split the work fairly so we both get time with the baby and time away from the baby. We aren't militant about it though, eg on the weekend I was finding things really hard for example and I just went and had a nap while he looked after the baby. Then on Sunday he had someone over to do some stuff and I took the baby.

He does all the cooking and finances. I do laundry, baking, nighttimes with the baby, and try to keep the house tidy and on top of chores during the day which is hard as I am naturally messy and have a high tolerance for it! We have a cleaner once a fortnight so worst case scenario everything gets cleaned then.

I'd like to do more cooking I think, I'm not very good at it though.

We both have our faults. Its easy to get bogged down in who does what, but as I'm generally happy with the split I tend to let most stuff slide when I'm annoyed and I know he tries to do the same. Also on those days when the baby is super high maintenance and the house is a bomb site he has yet to comment!

Also we don't hold each other up to doing it like we would. So if he does something and i think it's not right, I don't say anything (unless its REALLY not right.... Like he's shrunk my brand new silk top, for example... But that was years ago.....!)

[etta166]

WoD - I agree with you. How you were parented erally matters. I try to bear in mind that my OH had a SAHM who did everything other than work for money outside the house and a father who only worked for money and did NOTHING else. My OH is a paragon of equality compared to that.

On the other hand, I had 2 working parents who shared cooking and childcare (and no-one did much else in terms of house-work except my Mum did the laundry).

I would like things to be split more equally, but for that to happen I need to be less of a control freak and I probably need to educate OH about why I do so many things he doesn't even realise need doing. Like other posters have said, he's great at helping out if I tell him what needs to be done.

Communicaiton is key, and IMHO you need time away from the kids to communicate on a adult level. Preferably every 2 weeks or so, a date it a good time for a grown-up chat.

[Ole]

yes I guess our backgrounds have pretty much set us for for unrealistic expectations.

Me: father academic, mother stay at home who did all the house admin too and kept a pristine household

husband: father vet with a very successful practice and working all hours and not very involved in child rearing, mother stay at home

so i guess we both grew up in an environment where the father brings home all the bacon and the wife gets on with the assessing, storing, preparing and cooking of it. My complication in that I want a career too but I also have the 'pristine household' principle imprinted on my brain, so i am going to have to compromise on something pronto before I explode (unless we throw money at it but unfortunately our choice of careers are not of the moneyed type).

God I feel like I have featured one of those 'a session with Dr Persaud (was that his name?) type articles' in Cosmo of old! Thanks for all the advice, I think I will leave my boxing gloves at the door when I get home from work today and try to have a sensible discussion about the splitting of chores.

[Pickle]

My 28 year old sister moved home for 3 weeks while my Mum was in the UK visiting me. To look after Mum's cats and our 60 year old able bodied Dad who doesn't even know how to boil an egg (let alone keep 3 cats alive). A very typical kiwi bloke, but to give him his dues he was great at doing things with us when we were growing up, just not the domestic type.

Funnily enough he will spend hours cleaning his cars yet claims he doesn't know how to apply those skills to the house.

[Convex]

Hopefully not too typical nowadays Pickle!

[Otta]

If you've got time to post on here, you're obviously not busy enough. Back to the kitchen with you all!

[Pickle]

Convex Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hopefully not too typical nowadays Pickle!

Hmmmm, I think there are still a lot of kiwi men like that unfortunately. My brother, for one (like father like son) and a number of my friends are in very traditional relationships. One in particular can never plan to go out for a whole day when her children are at school as her husband comes home for lunch and she has to be there to make his sandwiches... :-S

That's why I moved away and married a Scot!

Oh, and Otta, you cheeky sod - dinner was already made and waiting in the slow cooker. Domestic goddess ;-)