Just accepting unequal division of labor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What would change if you divorced? You would still be doing everything yourself and making all the money.

Someone always comes on these threads to say this, and I always wonder if it’s the same person that walks around the house leaving a trail of dirty dishes. How is it not obvious? What would change is that she would clean the house, and it would stay clean. She wouldn’t be picking up cereal bowls from beside the bed. She wouldn’t be living some with someone who is actively watching her spin her wheels while he sits on the couch scrolling on his phone. She would have a peaceful home with some control over her environment. Would she be single? Yes. And likely have to negotiate custody? Yes. For many women, that’s preferable, and that should explain how intolerable her current situation is. She’s already working and outearning her husband. I swear, the absence of expectations of men is appalling.

What would change if she got divorced? Their kids would be spending half of their time with their Dad where they would be unwashed, not fed properly, wearing dirty clothes and spending most their day looking at some kind of screen. Not the end of the world, but I wouldn’t want my kids living that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry. I have no advice because I’m in the same boat. I have accepted that my DH must have executive dysfunction.

I’m a stay at home mom, so it’s A LOT more manageable than your situation, but it still sucks. I’m literally never off the clock. I think I’m working harder than ever. It’s sad that I actually prefer when he’s at work because when he’s home I’m just constantly picking up after him. He leaves dirty clothes, dirty diapers, dirty dishes scattered all over the house. He doesn’t even follow our baby’s schedule when he’s with her after work and on the evenings, making my life even harder.

Somehow he doesn’t see when the dishwasher needs to be loaded or emptied, when the dogs need water, when the refrigerator needs to be cleaned out, when the counters need to be wiped down, when the trash needs to be taken out, when laundry needs to be done or just put away, when bottles need to be washed, when the diaper bag needs to be stocked, when literally anything needs to be done. On the rare occasion he has done a load of laundry he has left it in the washer for days (he’s done this multiple times). Oh, and this week. (And too many weeks to count) he failed to bring the trash to the street. Out of pure laziness. I also do every single night waking.

I’m trying so hard to be the perfect wife and mother for him. Dinner on the table when he gets home. He even has the nerve to ask me to make his lunch in the morning while I’m caring for myself, our two dogs, and our baby.

He tells me to tell him what to do, like, hello!? Open your eyes!? I tried telling him that this is more mental work for me. He just doesn’t get it and I don’t think he ever will. Other times when I do ask him, he tells me he’s too tired (I’m tired too!) or that he will get to it later (Surprise, later never comes). Lately I’ve been fantasizing about separating/divorcing.

Well, before divorcing, just try growing a backbone.

Believe me. I have tried. I don’t know what else to do except accept the situation or eventually divorce.

Have you thought about a separation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the long post from 9:39. Especially this part, which is what my DH is lacking:

"Third, my parents raised me to internalize the idea that if others are working, you shouldn't be sitting on your a@@ watching. I teach my kids the same thing. If I am clearing the table, they damn well better be helping, unless they are doing homework or something like that. OP's DH needs to accept that that is the case. No one relaxes until everyone relaxes."

I agree that this is important but it’s not at all about ADHD; it’s about courtesy and team work to/with your family members

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You two sit together and make a pact to be intentionally kind, fair and helpful. No keeping scores, just try to be a good team.

DP. Yeah, tried that. Just does not work with someone with weak executive function. Structure works. Good intentions do not.

Good intentions make all the difference, structure only helps execute them. Unless one understands and feels genuinely concerned about unfairly overburdening their partner, nothing would change.

So for the first time in their life they will simply *feel* bad for dumping on their wife and suddenly function like a true adult??!!

Ok.

No. Thats why you date and live with one you intend to share a life, kids, home, finances and chores with. You make informed decision of if they'll make a caring partner or not. You may decide their shortcomings are worth it or not.

Lol.

As if living in an apartment and working until 7pm with a male who owns 5 shirts, 3 trousers, and a subway pass is any indication of how he will deal with a needy kid, 4 Br house and yard, 4 people’s work, school and sports schedules, and two sets of grandparents.

Yeah. Keep not processing that answer everytime someone answers your exact question.

+1. For some reason there is a subset of DCUMers who NEED to believe you can accurately predict what kind of husband and father a man will be mid-career based on what kind of bachelor and boyfriend he was early career. It’s obviously asinine if you just think about it a tiny bit.

My husband used to plan and cook for large dinner parties as a bachelor in grad school. Now he can barely make himself toast.

NP. I'm one of these people, I guess. Obviously life got harder and more complex, but when I look at my husband and all my friends husbands... yeah. I could have accurately predicted who would have been a partner in childrearing and home keeping and who wouldn't. And I would have been pretty close to right. Not perfectly, some stepped up more, some stepped up less. But the dude whose apartment was filthy... is still not cleaning. The dudes who shrugged their shoulders at wedding planning and said "whatever" are still shrugging their shoulders about anything household or kid related. The ones who happily took on a large chunk of life responsibilities (like, who did all the cooking for their GF when they moved in together, not just on special occasions, but the regular day-to-day grind) are now cooking for their families of four. The one who could not get their act together to plan a vacation or who was always dreaming about the next big thing... can't handle any kid logistics and has four unfinished house projects going at any given time, most of which will never get completed.

The real difference I noted is that some women cared about this stuff and those who didn't seem to notice or care because (as you note) - when you're young and single, this stuff doesn't matter much. But the signs were there, in most cases, if you were looking for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

It is annoying but you’re overstating it IMO.

I agree. I’m the person with the ADHD husband, but he actually does a lot around the house. There are certain things he does that require zero reminders from me — trash, laundry, sweeping. But, the reality is that I need to sit with him once a week and go through the schedule for the upcoming week. He is simply never going to remember all the one off scheduling changes that happen. And I cannot make an offhand remark about a change and expect it to resonate. But, if I sit down and have him put it all in his calendar, we are good. Does it sometimes annoy me to have to talk him through the calendar? Sure. But, I do lots of annoying things too. On balance, we are very happy and have a very strong marriage.

I have mixed feelings on this. I am a woman with high executive function; my husband has great executive function as well. The idea that anyone could be expected to hold tasks (particularly schedule changes) in their brain and not a calendar is puzzling. Our teenager are expected to put schedules and updates on the family calendar. If a teenager is telling me about a schedule change and that requires updates or additions to my schedule? Said teen (not me) better be the one to put it on the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

If we really believe that women need to run the domestic show because it is essential to society's infrastructure, then we also need to believe that their work in the domestic sphere should be compensated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Are you arguing that the solution is for women to just stay at home and not work? If so, I respect the point of view but it’s not realistic for most families especially now so women should just stop asking for help from men? I don’t think that’s the solution either.

It’s not fair that women are being asked to compensate for broken society. Food system full of junk food? Just plan healthy meals and prep them every day! School rundown? Just join the PTO and plan lots of enrichment.

It never ends. We don’t have a safety net we have women.

No, but a good idea would be to drop the rope on the compulsion to be breadwinner 4 times over just for “fulfillment” and “independence” that leaves a woman burnt out on both ends. It’s certainly a difficult conundrum, but we have to start where we can and work with our strengths, not labor upstream against them. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we dream it could be.

Then re-work the economy so that a single salary can support most families.

And FYI, most of us, including I, work to support our families and not for fulfillment or independence (which are valid reasons and as such do not need to be put in sarcastic quotation marks). In fact, I make 3X what my DH does and our family would be on the street without my income.

[Anonymous]

Correcting myself: ^^^ Then re-work the economy so that a single salary can support *all* families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You two sit together and make a pact to be intentionally kind, fair and helpful. No keeping scores, just try to be a good team.

DP. Yeah, tried that. Just does not work with someone with weak executive function. Structure works. Good intentions do not.

Good intentions make all the difference, structure only helps execute them. Unless one understands and feels genuinely concerned about unfairly overburdening their partner, nothing would change.

So for the first time in their life they will simply *feel* bad for dumping on their wife and suddenly function like a true adult??!!

Ok.

No. Thats why you date and live with one you intend to share a life, kids, home, finances and chores with. You make informed decision of if they'll make a caring partner or not. You may decide their shortcomings are worth it or not.

Lol.

As if living in an apartment and working until 7pm with a male who owns 5 shirts, 3 trousers, and a subway pass is any indication of how he will deal with a needy kid, 4 Br house and yard, 4 people’s work, school and sports schedules, and two sets of grandparents.

Yeah. Keep not processing that answer everytime someone answers your exact question.

+1. For some reason there is a subset of DCUMers who NEED to believe you can accurately predict what kind of husband and father a man will be mid-career based on what kind of bachelor and boyfriend he was early career. It’s obviously asinine if you just think about it a tiny bit.

My husband used to plan and cook for large dinner parties as a bachelor in grad school. Now he can barely make himself toast.

NP. I'm one of these people, I guess. Obviously life got harder and more complex, but when I look at my husband and all my friends husbands... yeah. I could have accurately predicted who would have been a partner in childrearing and home keeping and who wouldn't. And I would have been pretty close to right. Not perfectly, some stepped up more, some stepped up less. But the dude whose apartment was filthy... is still not cleaning. The dudes who shrugged their shoulders at wedding planning and said "whatever" are still shrugging their shoulders about anything household or kid related. The ones who happily took on a large chunk of life responsibilities (like, who did all the cooking for their GF when they moved in together, not just on special occasions, but the regular day-to-day grind) are now cooking for their families of four. The one who could not get their act together to plan a vacation or who was always dreaming about the next big thing... can't handle any kid logistics and has four unfinished house projects going at any given time, most of which will never get completed.

The real difference I noted is that some women cared about this stuff and those who didn't seem to notice or care because (as you note) - when you're young and single, this stuff doesn't matter much. But the signs were there, in most cases, if you were looking for them.

Again, you are making the mistake of thinking that all other women are just clones of you making different choices.

All those women who married guys who don't cook or clean or help -- what are their dads like? What were their childhoods like? What were their ex-boyfriends like? What were their lives like when they were dating these men? How is their self esteem? Their mental health? What are their jobs like?

Different people have different options, outlooks, contexts, etc. It sounds like you were someone who had a very clear idea what married life with kids would look like and require of you AND your partner. Great for you! Many women have no idea because they grew up in dysfunctional homes or had parents with very old fashioned divisions of labor. Some women have low self esteem and might notice that their boyfriend isn't perfect but convince themselves that it's the best they can do. Still other women just don't realize how much work and logistics kids will take. And yet other women don't have great options -- they may not have the looks or the charisma or the background to attract the kind of men who will be great partners. And so on and so on and son on.

Congratulations to you for just knowing more about life and being better at picking a spouse and also having the right choices and the ability to select a partner who can show up in that way. Seriously -- I'm happy for you.

But judging women who didn't know, didn't have the backgrounds or context to know, didn't have the same choices, made do with what they had and hoped for the best, because they are not sufficiently like you, is just arrogance and myopia. You basically have nothing of value to offer others because you have an outlook that literally everything about life from dating to retirement is predictable based on signs that you can read and others can't. Yay? You can show yourself out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you two sat down together each day and divided what needed to be done, would he be able to do it?

I'm the ADHD spouse and I make myself daily lists of what I need to do. DH and I also sit down weekly to discuss the upcoming week and who is doing what when (dinner, taking DS to practice, etc).

My lists are pretty much the only way I'm able to function. I put EVERYTHING on there, even just emptying the dishwasher.

+1

I know it’s not fair to my spouse, but I make it clear that I absolutely need them to TELL me what to do, and then I will do it. It’s not fun for me either and I am trying my best. I hope my spouse doesn’t resent me!

[Anonymous]

As a woman with severe ADHD, I can't stand when anyone uses it as an excuse. Since becoming a wife and mother ( a LONG time ago), I have designed work arounds, reminders, etc. in order to be able to a responsible, functioning adult despite whatever deficit my brain function has. I have also suffered from severe depression on and off in my life, and continued to take care of everything that needed to be taken care of. If I needed to hire help, ask for help, etc, I did that.


Maybe because even growing up I had no one to count on, depend on, that I needed to be strong enough to do it myself? Maybe I knew there was no back up plan that I just made it work.

Bottom line...it's not an excuse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

Nobody wants to live in that world, including men, but they have learned from experience that women aren’t going to live in a pigsty and eat cereal for dinner, nor are women going to divorce and leave their kids 50% with a man who lives in a pigsty and eats cereal for dinner. It becomes a game of chicken like a PP said. Men don’t do it because they don’t have to.