Just accepting unequal division of labor

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:And remember that he may need things that are routine and really obvious to you, spelled out for him, and reiterated several times.

Crazy.

This, folks, is why you shouldn't medicate and coddle your kids with executive functioning deficits. Stop with the special treatment in school and at home. Because then they grow up to be adults who can't carry their own weight. They need to learn how to succeed on their own, and that takes hard work and brute force a lot of times, and you cannot expect a spouse to run a 504 plan for another spouse, especially when kids are involved.

I wrote the remark you responded to, an d the two above it, and I am a high-achieving, late-diagnosis 2e ADHD adult that fully carries my own weight. I succeed via hard work, brute force and surrounding myself with the right people, who are nothing like you. Maybe I could have worded what I said a little better, but it’s not about “being coddled” - the fact is that people with ADHD often have a processing speed issue. So if you’re giving long, complex instructions, I’ll be totally following along, but then if I get stuck trying to understand something in the beginning part of what you said, I might end up chewing on that and will completely miss—as in literally just not hear, at all—something you’ve said after the fact. I’m very direct and proactive about stopping people to ask for clarification, and people often just assume I’m hard of hearing. And it works. Sometimes we just need things repeated a few times. At any rate I was just trying to share with OP practical things that work for the way my brain is wired. You probably will never even bother to try to understand, and that’s fine—we’re used to it. I reciprocate your contempt in that I have no tolerance for hardline people like you and others in this thread, and your over-generalized, incorrect conclusions, who think shaming and name-calling is going to do anything for our productivity. Out of self-respect I learned to cut people like you out of my life early, and figured out how to get my engine going in a way that works for me. I am fully motivated around the house by love and admiration for my partner, as well as their kindness and understanding—we notice and appreciate each others’ efforts, and it makes me do and be more. All that said, I do agree with others that some of what OP describes seems to have been unfairly attributed to ADHD.

You are responding to me, and I'm not so concerned about your contempt. I too have ADHD, so I get it. It sounds like you have figured out ways to overcome, which is exactly what I was talking about. So, yes, I agree you could have worded what you said a little better, which put the onus on the spouse to give special instructions to the ADHD partner. We aren't talking about brain surgery here. 99% of household tasks should not require someone to reiterate things several times, nor are they rife with hidden problems that are obvious to those without ADHD. I am basically sick of a whole culture of shifting the burdens onto others to compensate for issues that people need to learn to fix for themselves. Sounds like you've learned, so not sure why you are so defensive, but I know that's also part of the ADHD complex of issues.

DP. It’s great that you have sorted out your ADHD issues, but you clearly have some anger issues. You should work on that because I am certain your anger is causing an emotional burden to those you interact with in your real life (based on the tone you take with anonymous strangers). And it’s really not fair for others to have to deal with it when you can and should fix it yourself.

[Anonymous]

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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.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously

DP. Actually it shows why you are making excuses for your preconceived order of things. Because you know quite well that the issues related to birth are so time limited.

I think it’s about power and perception. OP makes 4x her husband; she has much power in her relationship than she is willing to exert. I find that most women are not willing to exert power because they want their husbands to still think of them as nice and feminine. They will take fake harmony over making waves. I don’t worry about such things, so I may be more of a harpy but I don’t have the issues that flood this thread.

Sorry.

Power is doing exactly what you want, when you want.

And if you wants are always 100% about you- not your kids, spouse or house - you are pretty f’d up and self-centered.

For example, Op does whatever he wants. Everyone and everything else be damned; he doesn’t care and can’t handle it. Everyone else can pick up the prices. Every day.

That’s power. Focusing only on yourself. Not caring about anything else. Not doing anything else for others. Dumping responsibilities on your spouse and kids all the time.

It’s power, and abusive.

Strawman. Who ever said anything about focusing only on yourself and not caring about anything else. Who is dumping responsibility on spouse and kids all time? Nice deflection though!

OPs spouse does exactly that.

He has the power.

He doesnt want to be involved with his wife, kid or house, so he isn’t.

Is there a way to *make him* be an active, involved, functional member of the household? No.

That’s power. His selfish decisions make it up to his spouse, Op, to make up for the lack of a father and parent. She has a huge burden and no good options. That’s power.

You are forgetting the power of exiting. Why live with such a disrespectful person who apparently isn’t a good father?

[Anonymous]

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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!

You…hope your spouse doesn’t resent you for knowingly treating them unfairly? That’s not ADHD that’s delusional.

There are about 100 ways you can manage executive function without expecting your spouse to do it for you.

Yes I hope my spouse doesn’t resent me for not being as capable in as many ways as they are. They certainly don’t seem to. I put forth a good faith effort every day and do what I can, but I still struggle. And I am trying all sorts of strategies to manage my mental health issues, but in the meantime my spouse actually tries to HELP ME. But, my spouse is not a petty scorekeeper like so many of the folks posting their complaints here.

I wonder if some of you would treat your kids this way. Do you think there is some magic age where all mental health issues disappear, or are suddenly no longer issues that people struggle with or suffer from, but are instead now conscious choices to be lazy and worthless? And do you know what’s ALSO exhausting? Having a mental health issue! Maybe try a little compassion?

Do you see how silly the comparison is to a child?

No. I do not. That’s because I am not aware of an age at which mental health disorders magically disappear.

I am simply saying that if you wouldn’t talk about your child with a mental health disorder this way you shouldn’t talk about your spouse with the exact same disorder this way.

You are responsible for your child’s health. Your spouse is responsible for your spouse’s health. It is gross and infantalizing to assume you should speak of an adult not managing their ADHD like they are a child.

I think you (and PP who responded ip thread) just fundamentally can’t read or are completely lacking in the ability to comprehend what you read. I am not comparing adults and children in terms of their life responsibilities or their need to be cared for. I am comparing them in terms of their mental health disorders. And I am not advocating that anyone should remain married to or manage their spouse who struggles, I am merely suggesting that they stop trying to make it out to be some sort of moral failing on their spouse’s part. It’s an illness. That doesn’t mean you have to choose to live with someone who has such an illness, but the absolute venom with which people describe their spouses is appalling. So I will repeat: if you would not TALK ABOUT your child this way, do not TALK ABOUT your spouse this way.

You write an unclear post and get all pissed off. We don’t want to caretake our able bodied spouses while recognizing we need to scaffold our children.

[Anonymous]

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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.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously

DP. Actually it shows why you are making excuses for your preconceived order of things. Because you know quite well that the issues related to birth are so time limited.

I think it’s about power and perception. OP makes 4x her husband; she has much power in her relationship than she is willing to exert. I find that most women are not willing to exert power because they want their husbands to still think of them as nice and feminine. They will take fake harmony over making waves. I don’t worry about such things, so I may be more of a harpy but I don’t have the issues that flood this thread.

No one in a marriage should think they have more power, let alone feel entitled to “exert” that power, simply because they make more money. That is a completely unhealthy and borderline abusive dynamic. And if that’s how you feel relationships should function then you should simply not get married.

There is a power dynamic in every relationship. You can claim agency over your life or you can pretend you are trapped with a partner who is unable to manage the children, house, or earn money. You may not like the phrase “exert power,” but I absolutely recognize that I (and many others) have options. Some of those options come from earning power. Men implicitly recognize this. No one would ever say a man who recognizes it shouldn’t get married. But you say I, a woman who recognizes it, shouldn’t be married. I guess you just focus on nice and feminine for women.

I don’t think you should get married because you clearly don’t understand or approve of the concept of marriage. Not because you have earning power.

Quite frankly you sound abusive and possibly insane.

You have not contributed anything besides name calling. That’s speaks volumes.

[Anonymous]

OP, time for direct honesty. Tell him the imbalance is overwhelming and it's making you question the marriage.

[Anonymous]

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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.

I'm honestly curious. Was he helpful with all these things before you got married and had a baby?

He actually was! It still wasn’t 50/50, but it was at a level I was comfortable with. After we got married it started going downhill. When I had my C-section he was amazing and took care of everything. After I recovered, it was like I was on my own.

At least he does nights and weekends. Mine doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work part time because I take on the mom load. I think more women should advocate for that. But to be honest I care more about it being done in a specific way so I want to take more of it on anyway. And yeah the kids would be alright if it was just dad. They would miss out on some things but be more independent in many ways. We have three kids so there is plenty of work to go around. My kids are more attached to me not sure if that’s good or bad.

Do not fall for this I care more BS. That is just another way to get us to do it all.

[Anonymous]

My big thing is no one gets to “relax and unwind” until the work is done, and then we can both do it.

So if one of us is doing kitchen cleanup after dinner, lunches etc. the other damn well better be flipping laundry, walking the dog, taking out trash, encouraging kids along bedtime, etc. if that all gets done come back in the kitchen to help the first person wrap it up so we can both “relax and unwind”

Not a perfect system and there are nights where one person shrugs it off bc of work stuff or hobby stuff or feeling overwhelmed or whatever. But overall we’re happy with this.

It took about 5 years from when I first articulated this strategy to my ADHD spouse (medicated but not daily) to today, improving along the way, but we’re here. Now to hold the line…

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:And remember that he may need things that are routine and really obvious to you, spelled out for him, and reiterated several times.

Crazy.

This, folks, is why you shouldn't medicate and coddle your kids with executive functioning deficits. Stop with the special treatment in school and at home. Because then they grow up to be adults who can't carry their own weight. They need to learn how to succeed on their own, and that takes hard work and brute force a lot of times, and you cannot expect a spouse to run a 504 plan for another spouse, especially when kids are involved.

I wrote the remark you responded to, an d the two above it, and I am a high-achieving, late-diagnosis 2e ADHD adult that fully carries my own weight. I succeed via hard work, brute force and surrounding myself with the right people, who are nothing like you. Maybe I could have worded what I said a little better, but it’s not about “being coddled” - the fact is that people with ADHD often have a processing speed issue. So if you’re giving long, complex instructions, I’ll be totally following along, but then if I get stuck trying to understand something in the beginning part of what you said, I might end up chewing on that and will completely miss—as in literally just not hear, at all—something you’ve said after the fact. I’m very direct and proactive about stopping people to ask for clarification, and people often just assume I’m hard of hearing. And it works. Sometimes we just need things repeated a few times. At any rate I was just trying to share with OP practical things that work for the way my brain is wired. You probably will never even bother to try to understand, and that’s fine—we’re used to it. I reciprocate your contempt in that I have no tolerance for hardline people like you and others in this thread, and your over-generalized, incorrect conclusions, who think shaming and name-calling is going to do anything for our productivity. Out of self-respect I learned to cut people like you out of my life early, and figured out how to get my engine going in a way that works for me. I am fully motivated around the house by love and admiration for my partner, as well as their kindness and understanding—we notice and appreciate each others’ efforts, and it makes me do and be more. All that said, I do agree with others that some of what OP describes seems to have been unfairly attributed to ADHD.

You are responding to me, and I'm not so concerned about your contempt. I too have ADHD, so I get it. It sounds like you have figured out ways to overcome, which is exactly what I was talking about. So, yes, I agree you could have worded what you said a little better, which put the onus on the spouse to give special instructions to the ADHD partner. We aren't talking about brain surgery here. 99% of household tasks should not require someone to reiterate things several times, nor are they rife with hidden problems that are obvious to those without ADHD. I am basically sick of a whole culture of shifting the burdens onto others to compensate for issues that people need to learn to fix for themselves. Sounds like you've learned, so not sure why you are so defensive, but I know that's also part of the ADHD complex of issues.

DP. It’s great that you have sorted out your ADHD issues, but you clearly have some anger issues. You should work on that because I am certain your anger is causing an emotional burden to those you interact with in your real life (based on the tone you take with anonymous strangers). And it’s really not fair for others to have to deal with it when you can and should fix it yourself.

I think various of the previous posters, actually lots of posters in this thread, are just sick of the people who think the world needs to coddle them and invest tons of extra time and energy to accommodate issues that they should learn to handle themselves. Garden variety ADHD is something that can fully be conquered through simple organizational strategies. The coddling starts at home, and in school, and people don't cultivate the mental toughness to handle their own issues. There are lots of people who have been raising kids without regard for how they are going to be able to cope as adults. I get the frustration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My big thing is no one gets to “relax and unwind” until the work is done, and then we can both do it.

So if one of us is doing kitchen cleanup after dinner, lunches etc. the other damn well better be flipping laundry, walking the dog, taking out trash, encouraging kids along bedtime, etc. if that all gets done come back in the kitchen to help the first person wrap it up so we can both “relax and unwind”

Not a perfect system and there are nights where one person shrugs it off bc of work stuff or hobby stuff or feeling overwhelmed or whatever. But overall we’re happy with this.

It took about 5 years from when I first articulated this strategy to my ADHD spouse (medicated but not daily) to today, improving along the way, but we’re here. Now to hold the line…

Right. I'm not sure this is even an ADHD issue. It is a "being a good team player" issue. I think that it takes lots of couples some time to figure out the right approach, but if both are on board with achieving harmony in the home, it is entirely doable.

[Anonymous]

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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.

So, are you saying that women should never have time-consuming jobs outside the house? Can men have jobs that bring in 4 times the salary just for "fulfillment" and "independence"?

My husband is exactly as capable as I am of doing everything for our children, house, and pets. Other than giving birth, he's done it all (our twins were formula-fed because of their premature birth). He fed them as babies. I fed them as babies. He feeds them as third graders. I feed them as third graders. He can do laundry. I can do laundry. He can read a calendar. I can read a calendar.

Stop enabling these helpless man babies and stop showing them family dynamics where it's fine if they come home from work and then do nothing else around the house.

Well right there you just mentioned a major inequality—you can give birth and he can’t. You fed them in their infant years, he fed them once they were older and less helpless. The crux of my argument is that it is almost always the case that women will end up with a so-called inequal load, in some way, in the home. It’s just a fact of reality. It’s up to each individual person how they will deal with that fact of reality—some women mommy track, and some women intuitively understand this and avoid marriage and children altogether in order to pursue those time-intensive goals. A valid choice, and IMO better for her than running herself ragged trying to “have it all”.

Life is about tradeoffs for everyone, male and female. I would advise a man who is killing himself working a high-flying job at the expense of the well-being of his wife and children to do the same—take a step back. But that’s a different conversation for another thread.

Sorry, disregard the fed them older thing, I skipped a part reading obviously

DP. Actually it shows why you are making excuses for your preconceived order of things. Because you know quite well that the issues related to birth are so time limited.

I think it’s about power and perception. OP makes 4x her husband; she has much power in her relationship than she is willing to exert. I find that most women are not willing to exert power because they want their husbands to still think of them as nice and feminine. They will take fake harmony over making waves. I don’t worry about such things, so I may be more of a harpy but I don’t have the issues that flood this thread.

Sorry.

Power is doing exactly what you want, when you want.

And if you wants are always 100% about you- not your kids, spouse or house - you are pretty f’d up and self-centered.

For example, Op does whatever he wants. Everyone and everything else be damned; he doesn’t care and can’t handle it. Everyone else can pick up the prices. Every day.

That’s power. Focusing only on yourself. Not caring about anything else. Not doing anything else for others. Dumping responsibilities on your spouse and kids all the time.

It’s power, and abusive.

Strawman. Who ever said anything about focusing only on yourself and not caring about anything else. Who is dumping responsibility on spouse and kids all time? Nice deflection though!

OPs spouse does exactly that.

He has the power.

He doesnt want to be involved with his wife, kid or house, so he isn’t.

Is there a way to *make him* be an active, involved, functional member of the household? No.

That’s power. His selfish decisions make it up to his spouse, Op, to make up for the lack of a father and parent. She has a huge burden and no good options. That’s power.

You are forgetting the power of exiting. Why live with such a disrespectful person who apparently isn’t a good father?

Coparenting with someone like the above, for life, isn’t a true exit. Unclear if it’s better for the kids, or the grandkids; they will need to set firm boundaries of their own.

[Anonymous]

op - I will give an example. Today I was on calls from 8a until 7p and then had to work until 9p. During this time our kid had a friend over and he was drinking beer with the friend's dad. when i finished my work I asked him to book this flight (a very specific flight that just involved the act of booking) that we needed for me so I could relax and it ended up in a huge fight and he stormed out. I find it really hard to get past the idea that if you see the person you are married to working for THIRTEEN HOURS (and I should stress I was working on something relating to the Israel/ Gaza conflict that was extremely high stress with as you can imagine many feelings) then if that person says can you take this thing off my plate then surely just say yes? Like - you really want to sit there watching tv while I do it? Something is very wrong there it feels like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP: Ha at least does not get annoyed if you remind them. You guys are lucky. My DH with ADHD does not remember does not want to do lists and if reminded blows up and rages at me.

this

[Anonymous]

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.

I'm the PP and while sometimes this is true, it's also true that men wield that "sometimes" as a weapon against their wives. It is very easy to say "you should just chill, the dishes can be done later" and "you should just chill, the kids don't need baths EVERY night" and "you should just chill, it's okay if Larlo is a little behind in math, he'll catch up" and "you should just chill, that rotting step on the back deck isn't that big of a deal -- we'll get to it eventually" and "you should just chill, we don't have to plan out our whole summer in January, camps surely don't fill up that fast," and "you should just chill, of course Larla can go to school today, it's probably just a cold," and so on and so on and son on.

A dynamic where a mom who worries about anything at all is "uptight" and has standards that are "too high" will always be an unequal dynamic, no matter how many things that mom decides to "just chill" on because her DH is using the dynamic to ensure he never has to do anything or worry about anything. He's relying on his wife to be NOT chill, and make sure that step gets fixed and research math tutors online and create a bath schedule so the kids don't go got school filthy, and know that actually, yeah, camps do fill up by February so you need to get on it, and Carla does not just have a cold since she's running a fever and can barely get out of bed so one of you (mom, obviously, since she's the not chill one) needs to stay home to take care of her. And the not chill mom will do all the stuff all while being told she's a helicopter mom and she worries to much. And DH gets to be soooooo chill and relaxed and roll his eyes at mom, sometimes in front of the kids and other parents. Lol, moms, amiright? They worry so much for no reason.

It's called "Weaponized Incompetence".

Who hasn't seen their husband doing something incorrectly for the 40th time and so we say "Forget it! I'll just do it!" and he says "You do it better than me, anyway". That's weaponized Incompetence.

They think by complimenting our prowess, that we'll forget and be fine with doing literally everything.
Men quickly learn if they want to get out of doing something, just flub it intentionally, negate they know we want it a certain way, that we'll ride on in to the rescue and do it ourselves.

Break the habit now... let him struggle, no matter how much it raises your anxiety, let him do it

[Anonymous]

* because, not negate.