How many women here divorced primarily due to imbalanced, unsustainable home workload?

Anonymous
Title says it all. I’m not saying that there aren’t other contributing factors to issues in the marriage. But I look at the amount of work I do within the home and it’s simply not sustainable for the rest of my life. Husband does literally nothing in the house and refuses to see that it’s a real issue or do anything about it. The resentment is off the charts. And yes we are in couples therapy.
Anonymous
I quit my job in basically that situation. It came down to one or the other and he was never going to make the professional changes. We were both in biglaw.
Anonymous
I’m about to. We had a talk about it last night and H threw a fit saying I don’t appreciate the one time he cleaned up the yard.

Then I went to empty the dishwasher and he goes “why are you doing that??” Uh, because the dishes need to be unloaded and no one else will do it? Which p!ssed him off, he told me to get out of the kitchen, and made a huge deal by spending two hours cleaning the kitchen down to every last detail to prove I’m not the martyr I think I am.

UGH.
Anonymous
Me. I’m rich so I could do it. My goal in life is to raise my boys not to be like him.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Title says it all. I’m not saying that there aren’t other contributing factors to issues in the marriage. But I look at the amount of work I do within the home and it’s simply not sustainable for the rest of my life. Husband does literally nothing in the house and refuses to see that it’s a real issue or do anything about it. The resentment is off the charts. And yes we are in couples therapy.


Yes. But the fact that I was doing most of the parenting/housework, paying the bills, providing the benefits, and still, no matter how much sex we had, he couldn't be satisfied, let to the resentment which led to his cheating which led to the divorce.

I am glad I'm divorced but if others can avoid it, I always hope they will find a way to stay married. Divorce just brings a new set of problems. But at least I don't have to s*ck the d*ck of a person who is making me so very angry all the time, just to try to keep the peace.
Anonymous
There are only a handful of marriages where I was close enough to the participants to feel like a had an accurate sense of the issues. But I’d say two boiled down to a severe persistent imbalance in spouses’ division of labor - one where I suspect un(der)-treated ADHD, one where he was just an ass. Of course by the time of the divorces tempers we’re running so high that a casual observer might diagnose them with “anger issues” or inability to communicate. But the division of labor was absolutely the root issue (although I suppose you could also say, well, the real root issue is how could the “offending” spouse operate so selfishly or with so little care for the other - so a character issue perhaps…)
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I’m about to. We had a talk about it last night and H threw a fit saying I don’t appreciate the one time he cleaned up the yard.

Then I went to empty the dishwasher and he goes “why are you doing that??” Uh, because the dishes need to be unloaded and no one else will do it? Which p!ssed him off, he told me to get out of the kitchen, and made a huge deal by spending two hours cleaning the kitchen down to every last detail to prove I’m not the martyr I think I am.

UGH.


PP who quit. My DH used to do things exactly like this. He also would accuse me of doing make-work that even he acknowledges today were necessary kid tasks.

In my case I can say now he really *couldn’t* do more at home given the weight of his professional load. I grew up middle class and was really resistant to hiring out the level of stuff we needed to. He grew up UMC and didn’t understand why I was reacting like that. But even for things that just could not be outsourced, I think he got very defensive about it and refused to open his eyes to the reality of 1) how much life stuff just cannot be outsourced 2) how much I was doing. Because if he really saw it, he’d have to admit it was deeply unfair and accept that he was the bad guy in the dynamic, which is a big blow to anyone’s ego. If that’s what you have to convince your spouse of, that they are treating you very unfairly (and in my case that was also hobbling my career which I was just as ambitious about as him) well, that’s just a big pill to swallow.
Anonymous
Because divorce suddenly relieves that workload?

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Because divorce suddenly relieves that workload?



Often, yes.

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m about to. We had a talk about it last night and H threw a fit saying I don’t appreciate the one time he cleaned up the yard.

Then I went to empty the dishwasher and he goes “why are you doing that??” Uh, because the dishes need to be unloaded and no one else will do it? Which p!ssed him off, he told me to get out of the kitchen, and made a huge deal by spending two hours cleaning the kitchen down to every last detail to prove I’m not the martyr I think I am.

UGH.


PP who quit. My DH used to do things exactly like this. He also would accuse me of doing make-work that even he acknowledges today were necessary kid tasks.

In my case I can say now he really *couldn’t* do more at home given the weight of his professional load. I grew up middle class and was really resistant to hiring out the level of stuff we needed to. He grew up UMC and didn’t understand why I was reacting like that. But even for things that just could not be outsourced, I think he got very defensive about it and refused to open his eyes to the reality of 1) how much life stuff just cannot be outsourced 2) how much I was doing. Because if he really saw it, he’d have to admit it was deeply unfair and accept that he was the bad guy in the dynamic, which is a big blow to anyone’s ego. If that’s what you have to convince your spouse of, that they are treating you very unfairly (and in my case that was also hobbling my career which I was just as ambitious about as him) well, that’s just a big pill to swallow.


DP.

I am curious about the things that cannot really be outsourced( other than hugging your kids and having deep conversations with them).

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m about to. We had a talk about it last night and H threw a fit saying I don’t appreciate the one time he cleaned up the yard.

Then I went to empty the dishwasher and he goes “why are you doing that??” Uh, because the dishes need to be unloaded and no one else will do it? Which p!ssed him off, he told me to get out of the kitchen, and made a huge deal by spending two hours cleaning the kitchen down to every last detail to prove I’m not the martyr I think I am.

UGH.


PP who quit. My DH used to do things exactly like this. He also would accuse me of doing make-work that even he acknowledges today were necessary kid tasks.

In my case I can say now he really *couldn’t* do more at home given the weight of his professional load. I grew up middle class and was really resistant to hiring out the level of stuff we needed to. He grew up UMC and didn’t understand why I was reacting like that. But even for things that just could not be outsourced, I think he got very defensive about it and refused to open his eyes to the reality of 1) how much life stuff just cannot be outsourced 2) how much I was doing. Because if he really saw it, he’d have to admit it was deeply unfair and accept that he was the bad guy in the dynamic, which is a big blow to anyone’s ego. If that’s what you have to convince your spouse of, that they are treating you very unfairly (and in my case that was also hobbling my career which I was just as ambitious about as him) well, that’s just a big pill to swallow.


So he was very professionally busy and offered up the solution of hiring stuff out and you resisted? And still complained about the workload?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I quit my job in basically that situation. It came down to one or the other and he was never going to make the professional changes. We were both in biglaw.


I don't get this Biglaw starts at 215k these days. So both of you were making atleast 500k, no.

With 100k in house help, you can pretty much outsource 75% of stuff. Why quit?
Anonymous
I’m not in this situation, but if I was, I’d 100% get divorced.
Anonymous
My mom and my grandmother had jobs as well as doing everything around the house, so stop whining.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Because divorce suddenly relieves that workload?



Often, yes.



So the money you would have spent outsourcing is spent running two households. Except with 2 households your children are moving back and forth. Hmmmm
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