I’m breadwinner, dh asked me to help with side hustle

[Anonymous]

If his side hustle is so great, he should be able to make it profitable even with admin help.

But you should just be able to tell him that like a normal person without all these histrionics.

[Anonymous]

I guess I don’t think any of the side hustle stuff matters. There is so much contempt that your marriage is in a code red situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

[Anonymous]

This reminds me a lot of my husband - at least he didn't ask me personally to help with his side hustle but he did ask to take off hours and hours from home to go pursue it even though it is an unpaid invention idea. He has tons of inventions in his mind that never pan out and can keep his regular jobs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This reminds me a lot of my husband - at least he didn't ask me personally to help with his side hustle but he did ask to take off hours and hours from home to go pursue it even though it is an unpaid invention idea. He has tons of inventions in his mind that never pan out and can keep his regular jobs

DH invested in an idea to create new apparel category that flipped the script on shirts, using them as pants. Armholes as pant legs; neck hole as breeze feature.There was a lot of enthusiasm at the outset but sales did not follow. Now we are left with 3,600 of them and only pennies. Heartbreaking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, nobody so far noticed how horrible OP is? Bravo, women on dcum! Not a single correction that she is insane and holding him responsible for not earning more money, and she is calling it all me; I earn my money.

Is every single person ignoring that OP in addition to being the breadwinner is also the default parent and household manager? What is this husband doing to help? It sounds like nothing, and now he wants her to be HIS default parent in addition to everything else she does around the house....I am still team OP here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe OP is b****ing about her husband not earning enough when he outearned her for years and years! The hypocrisy!

It's not about income, it's about dumping all the childcare and household work on her. You don't treat your working spouse like that.

So if he made $500k/year this would still be an issue?

No. Because it is about the income.

Because if your spouse makes $500K a year while you are the primary parent/adult AND working you can

1 - afford to outsource/pay for convenience

2 - not be terrified that you will lose your job and the family will take a significant financial hit

So yes - it’s about the money when that’s the only thing one partner has ever “brought to the table”.

There’s also something galling about being the primary earner and the primary parent while your spouse sits around and bemoans their situation without making your life any easier by taking charge of SOMETHING.

My husband whines that I am “making” him work in a job he hates.

When he was unemployed for 9 months he maybe made dinner once or twice, didn’t plan anything kid related (they stayed in aftercare and full time summer camp), and totally failed at keeping the house clean - even with cleaners it was messier than when he went to work, because he was home all day.

But if I said anything - the DRAMA.

He knew he wasn’t pulling his weight and instead of motivating him to become Mr. Mom, he did even less than he used to.

OP, I am sorry to say it, but you have to save this marriage, because otherwise this man is going to try to take you to the cleaners in a divorce and get alimony and child support. Get into therapy and Jedi mind trick him into somehow doing better, because I doubt there is any begging, pleading, or reasonable discussion that will get a lazy person like him to come around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the most enraging post ever on DCUM. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t walk out on him tbh. We have several young children about two years ago I decided I would never go back to full time work while there are children in the home. It is patently obvious that women, careered and not, do the vast majority of childcare and home-related tasks. It is a recipe for resentment to require a wife to bear the burden of income generation and also do most of the childcare. When we divided up the labor into two - my DH makes a great salary, pays all the bills, I work a small part time job and take care of the kids - my respect for him improved dramatically and our marriage got better. People are outraged and will call women gold diggers who expect their DH to pay the bills when they have children, but I’m a believer now that I’ve seen the incredible benefit to the marriage relationship when a man focuses on making money and his wife takes care of the children.

So you decided for your entire family to halve your HHI? Until your youngest child is 17? But you are upset that other people may call women gold diggers because theyre sitting on their a$$ while their final kid is in HS? GMAFB. You are a gold digger - is that not the literal definition?

My DH decided to halve his contribution relative to mine in childcare and home tasks. It’s a simple matter of math. There are only 24 hours in a day. Why would I choose to work more than he, earn more than he and then do all the childcare in addition? I swear people think women are idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

But some of us care about our kids and what they like to do and the fact that they are much happier with certain conditions (e.g. access to indoor facilities for hot days) and enjoy going to camp with friends. None of that is strictly necessary but I consider it a good use of my time to find a camp that provides specific instruction they are looking for and to coordinate which weeks they will do various camps with their friends parents. I don’t find it particularly burdensome but it’s a task on my list like a number of things that I chose to do well.

If you don’t care I can understand how you could do camp sign up extremely quickly. Like giving your kid a happy meal for dinner every night. Easy peasy, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

But some of us care about our kids and what they like to do and the fact that they are much happier with certain conditions (e.g. access to indoor facilities for hot days) and enjoy going to camp with friends. None of that is strictly necessary but I consider it a good use of my time to find a camp that provides specific instruction they are looking for and to coordinate which weeks they will do various camps with their friends parents. I don’t find it particularly burdensome but it’s a task on my list like a number of things that I chose to do well.

If you don’t care I can understand how you could do camp sign up extremely quickly. Like giving your kid a happy meal for dinner every night. Easy peasy, right?

NP here. It’s not at all the same. I prioritize good nutrition. But with camps, we go with what we’ve heard is good through word of mouth. Or if someone asks us to join them for a week at a particular camp and my kid agrees, then I know exactly what to sign up for.

Similarly for shoes, as PP said, find a brand or two that fit your child and then just order from there. Or if your child comes home saying asking for X, then no research required, just buy X.

Some of you waste your life in researching and claim it makes you a “good parent” whereas in reality it makes you stressed out, snappy, and a terrible parent and spouse.

[Anonymous]

The best news is, you have proven you don't need him. You make a great living, handle all the kid logistics, and maintain a home. Let that man go.... he sounds like he's dragging you down. Why on earth would a lawyer need a side hustle??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, no offense OP but it appears that you are married to a common tool.

I mean, you are the main source of support for your family while he is not holding up his fair share of duties at home!!? 😞

It sounds like you have a ton already on your plate & now your husband is asking you to do more…..??!
Seems he has gone + lost his damn mind if you ask me!

He has zero right to ask for your help in regards to his new side hustle.
And yes, he may be gaslighting you to get you on board but you obviously know better.

Let him figure things out on his own.

Good luck!

It sounds like OP and her husband both work full time jobs but because she makes more money than him she expects him to behave like a grateful servant at home, all while she belittles him and calls him a useless loser.

If the sexes were reversed people would be (rightly) outraged at a husband having such a lack of basic respect for his wife.

This is an amazing take about a post in which the husband has, in fact, asked his higher paid wife to become an unpaid servant to his “side hustle”. But sure hang in there with the victimized man theory it’s really resonating.

[Anonymous]

You aren't being gaslit. Your husband is just an idiot. You live with him; you must know this.

He coasted on mediocre man privilege until the world figured him out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will full admit that if he were the breadwinner or even matched my salary, I wouid have zero issue being the default parent.

I am not ok with

Researching + piecing together summer camps
Doing forms and paperwork for camps
Paying for the camps out of my money
Noticing that the kids need new shoes and
Paying for the shoes out of my money

Sorry, if these are the tasks that are just *overwhelming* you I don’t think you ARE capable of being a high school level admin for him anyway. Seriously, researching camps takes like 10 minutes. Filling out the forms? 10 minutes x number of kids. “Noticing” the kids need shoes? 30 seconds? Then ordering a size up online is another 5 minutes x number of kids x number of half sizes their feet grow per year.

So generously we’re talking maybe three hours of effort per year, and you’re whining about it. It’s obviously just about the money. Sorry you’re not actually RHDC the princess you thought you were going to be 8 years ago…

Anyone who actually thinks researching camps is a 10 minute task is high, a crap parent, or has never actually looked into summer camps.

Medical forms take longer than that.

Shoes also take longer than that once a kid is over 5 and cares what kind of shoes they are wearing.

But I am guessing you know that and are just trolling.

No, I have three kids ages 8-14 who have always done summer camps and gone through countless pairs of shoes.

I believe that some of you can spend infinite time on these extremely simple tasks, but that does not make the tasks inherently time-consuming.

Maybe it’s because I’m a professional research scientist, but whenever someone describes “researching” summer camps as though it’s some arduous thing it is a red flag that they are some combination of inefficient and incompetent. I mean really, what exactly are you researching? My research consisted of 1) what camps are available near our house, 2) what are their hours, 3) which of those have space available for the weeks we need (summer break minus our vacation week), and 4) of those still standing which ones would the kids like best?

I cannot fathom how it would take longer than 10 minutes to fill out a medical form. I guess maybe if your kid has lots of allergies or is on a bunch of medications?

Shoes also aren’t difficult. Stride rite for the little kids and jordans for the older ones. My kids have big feet so we just order online. And this will probably blow your mind, but once kids are capable of looking stuff up on the internet (elementary school) you can just have them send you a link to the shoes they want. So there are maybe two or three years where a kid is old enough to care what shoes they’re wearing but unable to pick them out on their own. So for those cases I’ll concede that it’s maybe a 10-15 minute task. Happy?

oh ffs “research scientist” - do some research on how much time it takes if you do ALL the “10 minute tasks” and the man does none of them. It’s called addition, maybe you learned about it in research scientist school.