If H takes this job, it’s going to break me.

[Anonymous]

focus OFF

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait it out my fanny. Are you some doormat SAHM who's congratulating herself on how much crap she put up with for decades? Sorry but allowing yourself to be mistreated ks not a solution, it's a failure.

Um, no, and I'm not sure what your vaginas has to do with this.

So your advice is for OP to do all the work herself, allow herself to be treated disrespectfully by a lazy and irresponsible man, let him waste their money, this goes on for decades, and at the end what's the prize? Still being married to a jerk who's slightly better? No thanks.

He sounds immature. That tends to improve over time.

Where I'm coming from with this is, I did have a husband that didn't do as much housework as I felt he should and also was irresponsible with money. At some point I decided to stop nagging and just accept the situation. It was not easy and it was not fair. Fast forward about 10 years- he is now a much greater contributor to the household-- does all cooking, shopping, schlepping the kids around, and a non-terrible amount of cleaning. (I still do more cleaning.) And, his income is now extremely high, high enough that he is still able to make silly purchases or lose money in predictable ways and it doesn't impact us at all. I dislike clutter, so I don't love this trait, but it isn't a crisis like it was before. So yes-- people can and often do have a difficult time in the first part of marriage and then go on to have a great marriage.

It sounds like she's done and is leaving him, and that's also a path forward. But this is something that is a fairly common problem in relationships, and if you read the research on it, it does tend to improve with time, and in later life actually flips, with men doing more housework than women in retirement age.

But what if he didn't improve? What if he never made money? Would it be worth it then? Seems like a big gamble, especially if retirement security is on the line.

Yeah, that was a gamble. My retirement wasn't on the line though, we were financially okay in that department, along with paying for college, etc. After devoting a lot of time reading studies on the division of housework in modern American families, I decided that it was likely to improve and focused on that. It's hard to visualize the counterfactual, how I would have felt if we were still dealing with this. But I tend to be data driven and the numbers for married people are generally better than unmarried.

If my husband never made money at all, I wouldn't have married him. Financial security is a huge factor to me. He was always a good earner, just an even better spender until he made so much it'd be difficult to spend it.

So you married an immature man who treated you badly, but that's ok because money?

He treated me poorly in a way that the majority of men treat their wives poorly. In most American households, women do the majority of housework. So, uh, yeah, like most women in hetero couplings, who stay married, I tolerated this suboptimal yet common condition until it subsided. My decision to do so was less about money and more about wanting to be married to a man.

Okay no. It may be true that in most couples women do the majority of housework, but for a lot of them it's *on purpose*, agreed to, and peaceful.. It's a smaller proportion of couples who have that dynamic because the man is immature, lazy, disorganized, disrespectful, uncaring, etc. Stop acting like those marriages are the same, they aren't.

It's sad that you felt you needed a man that badly. I'm sad for the younger version of yourself.

You think that women just *want* to do more work? Like they walk in and say "no, Chad, don't do the dishes! I want to!" It is peaceful because women know the deal- that men are not likely to pull their weight in that regard, and they are tired of beating a dead horse. It's always disrespectful, uncaring, etc.

Thank you for your sympathy.

If they are SAHM or work part time, yes I would think that is definitely and explicitly the deal. The question is not "In how many households does the woman do more". It's "In how many households does the woman do much more despite working full time and going to therapy and constantly exhorting her DH to do the things he explicitly agree to do?". And that's a far smaller proportion.

On the contrary, when women outearn their husband, they do even more housework than in couples where the woman earns less. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/

Are these women just like, obsessed with working? Is that it? Has nothing to do with the fact that men are cultured to regard it as women's responsibility?

I don't know, probably some of them are unahppy and others of them have their reasons, but I do know it's abnormal for a.man to behave like OP's husband, being lazy and yelling and doing hardly anything in the face of therapy and repeated requests.

I suspect that OP is more persistent about this issue than most women, as I also was before I made peace with it. Can we at least agree that it is not normal to write love letters thanking your spouse for cooking dinner? That's an unusual level of engagement on this topic. And, like most men are cultured not to do housework, women are cultured to do it. So this is probably not an issue that is brought to the surface in the way it is in OP's (and was in mine at first). So he sounds like a prick but maybe a lot of marriages would look like this if women weren't all out there cheerfully and consensually doing more than they should have to.

The "love letter" sounds like a desperate move from someone who's trying really hard to save her marriage to a man-baby who needs a cookie every time he wipes his own bum.

OP. So please tell me if this is abnormal...

On Wednesday, I was supposed to pick up DD1 from daycare, pick up DD6 from after school care, take DD6 to practice, pick up the dog from dog daycare, handle dinner, while H had....nothing, because he told me he wants to come home from work and have some time alone to unwind. I realized this was ridiculous and told him to pick up the dog and do dinner since he would just be sitting around while I drove kids around. And that's why I wrote the note, because he did it, and I wanted to show that I'm grateful.

But I'm also like...wtf. The reason the dog goes to daycare is H refuses to wake up half an hour early to walk her, he needs to sleep in until 8am instead while I wake up at 6am to get the kids ready. The reason we didn't have groceries for dinner is he said he would handle groceries that weekend but didn't. So why the hell should I be thankful for him doing basic household things when I'm on my feet from 6am-9pm?

Omg he is an idiot. He won’t wake up at a normal time so you have to pay to kennel a dog for $50-100/day.

What happened when your kids start school at 9am or 8am, or later 7am? He just ignores and neglects everyone and everything?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's absolutely possible to find a husband who doesn't dump all the work on you. My brother has been a SAHD and is the primary caretaker for his kids (his wife's job requires a lot of travel, he works remotely part time). My husband and I share childcare equally. When I drop my kid off at preschool half of those doing dropoff and pickup are Dads.

Yeah, it's possible. But there are still norms and averages. Most women get shafted, taking on more than the man. Getting back to OP, though, she is in a situation where its not just inequitable, it's *entirely* on her. Its a rare circumstance where divorce may be the rational solution. He seems to be functionally not really a husband already so formalizing it and moving on seems sensible.

And we've discussed this on here before. On average, men work more hours than women overall, when taking into account both the home and outside work: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/

"On average, married fathers’ time in paid and unpaid work totals 55.5 hours per week, 1.4 hours more than that of married mothers."

So, yeah, women don't get shafted. They might work more at home, but, on average, they work fewer hours overall and make less money overall.

On one point, I agree: OP's husband sounds like deadweight and should be booted from her life.

That report isn't making the point you seem to think it is making.

It definitely is. Married men work more hours than married women. Not as much in the house, but more outside of the house, which more than makes up for the deficit at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait it out my fanny. Are you some doormat SAHM who's congratulating herself on how much crap she put up with for decades? Sorry but allowing yourself to be mistreated ks not a solution, it's a failure.

Um, no, and I'm not sure what your vaginas has to do with this.

So your advice is for OP to do all the work herself, allow herself to be treated disrespectfully by a lazy and irresponsible man, let him waste their money, this goes on for decades, and at the end what's the prize? Still being married to a jerk who's slightly better? No thanks.

He sounds immature. That tends to improve over time.

Where I'm coming from with this is, I did have a husband that didn't do as much housework as I felt he should and also was irresponsible with money. At some point I decided to stop nagging and just accept the situation. It was not easy and it was not fair. Fast forward about 10 years- he is now a much greater contributor to the household-- does all cooking, shopping, schlepping the kids around, and a non-terrible amount of cleaning. (I still do more cleaning.) And, his income is now extremely high, high enough that he is still able to make silly purchases or lose money in predictable ways and it doesn't impact us at all. I dislike clutter, so I don't love this trait, but it isn't a crisis like it was before. So yes-- people can and often do have a difficult time in the first part of marriage and then go on to have a great marriage.

It sounds like she's done and is leaving him, and that's also a path forward. But this is something that is a fairly common problem in relationships, and if you read the research on it, it does tend to improve with time, and in later life actually flips, with men doing more housework than women in retirement age.

But what if he didn't improve? What if he never made money? Would it be worth it then? Seems like a big gamble, especially if retirement security is on the line.

Yeah, that was a gamble. My retirement wasn't on the line though, we were financially okay in that department, along with paying for college, etc. After devoting a lot of time reading studies on the division of housework in modern American families, I decided that it was likely to improve and focused on that. It's hard to visualize the counterfactual, how I would have felt if we were still dealing with this. But I tend to be data driven and the numbers for married people are generally better than unmarried.

If my husband never made money at all, I wouldn't have married him. Financial security is a huge factor to me. He was always a good earner, just an even better spender until he made so much it'd be difficult to spend it.

So you married an immature man who treated you badly, but that's ok because money?

He treated me poorly in a way that the majority of men treat their wives poorly. In most American households, women do the majority of housework. So, uh, yeah, like most women in hetero couplings, who stay married, I tolerated this suboptimal yet common condition until it subsided. My decision to do so was less about money and more about wanting to be married to a man.

Okay no. It may be true that in most couples women do the majority of housework, but for a lot of them it's *on purpose*, agreed to, and peaceful.. It's a smaller proportion of couples who have that dynamic because the man is immature, lazy, disorganized, disrespectful, uncaring, etc. Stop acting like those marriages are the same, they aren't.

It's sad that you felt you needed a man that badly. I'm sad for the younger version of yourself.

You think that women just *want* to do more work? Like they walk in and say "no, Chad, don't do the dishes! I want to!" It is peaceful because women know the deal- that men are not likely to pull their weight in that regard, and they are tired of beating a dead horse. It's always disrespectful, uncaring, etc.

Thank you for your sympathy.

If they are SAHM or work part time, yes I would think that is definitely and explicitly the deal. The question is not "In how many households does the woman do more". It's "In how many households does the woman do much more despite working full time and going to therapy and constantly exhorting her DH to do the things he explicitly agree to do?". And that's a far smaller proportion.

On the contrary, when women outearn their husband, they do even more housework than in couples where the woman earns less. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/

Are these women just like, obsessed with working? Is that it? Has nothing to do with the fact that men are cultured to regard it as women's responsibility?

I don't know, probably some of them are unahppy and others of them have their reasons, but I do know it's abnormal for a.man to behave like OP's husband, being lazy and yelling and doing hardly anything in the face of therapy and repeated requests.

I suspect that OP is more persistent about this issue than most women, as I also was before I made peace with it. Can we at least agree that it is not normal to write love letters thanking your spouse for cooking dinner? That's an unusual level of engagement on this topic. And, like most men are cultured not to do housework, women are cultured to do it. So this is probably not an issue that is brought to the surface in the way it is in OP's (and was in mine at first). So he sounds like a prick but maybe a lot of marriages would look like this if women weren't all out there cheerfully and consensually doing more than they should have to.

The "love letter" sounds like a desperate move from someone who's trying really hard to save her marriage to a man-baby who needs a cookie every time he wipes his own bum.

OP. So please tell me if this is abnormal...

On Wednesday, I was supposed to pick up DD1 from daycare, pick up DD6 from after school care, take DD6 to practice, pick up the dog from dog daycare, handle dinner, while H had....nothing, because he told me he wants to come home from work and have some time alone to unwind. I realized this was ridiculous and told him to pick up the dog and do dinner since he would just be sitting around while I drove kids around. And that's why I wrote the note, because he did it, and I wanted to show that I'm grateful.

But I'm also like...wtf. The reason the dog goes to daycare is H refuses to wake up half an hour early to walk her, he needs to sleep in until 8am instead while I wake up at 6am to get the kids ready. The reason we didn't have groceries for dinner is he said he would handle groceries that weekend but didn't. So why the hell should I be thankful for him doing basic household things when I'm on my feet from 6am-9pm?

It's abnormal, he sucks, and you need a divorce. Sorry.

Why can't he wake up, have you tried being extremely loud?

I would threaten divorce unless he gets an ADHD eval and sleep apnea exam.

He sleeps through it. His alarm goes off for like 45 minutes every morning and he just keeps hitting snooze.

When I bring it up, he just says he's tired and sleep is important for mental health, so apparently he is entitled to sleep whenever he wants. On Thursday he went to "put the baby to bed" at 6:30pm and slept until 9. Meanwhile I had to make dinner, clean up, take care of DD6 and our dog. He stumbled downstairs around 9pm, ate the dinner I cooked, left his plate on the counter, and then had the nerve the next morning to point out I left a pot unwashed. Rather than just washing the damn thing himself.

Then he stayed up all night doing god knows what and slept in the next day. It's not ADHD, it's not sleep apnea. He just does not care. He wants to live like he is a bachelor, and he thinks it's fine because "the kids like me".

He has autism too. That said, sleep apnea study, eating healthy, exercise or even walking, bed at 10 or 11 and wake up at 6-7am would all help.

Get him a nutritionist coach and execu functioning coach for a couple months at home. He is really mismanaging his time and making bad habits.

Does he drink a ton of coffee and soda each day too? He is essentially self stimulating then then crashing later.
But he’s doing the chemicals in part because of his stupid schedule )nap6-9pm), up late to watch tv, sleeps in, goes to work and pretends to be normal, comes home crashes, weekend crashes.

Write down his hourly schedule and his hourly food/drink and email it to his doctor.

Get the full neuropsychology.

During divorce process you can order/demand this as well. At least you’ll know what youre coparenting with and to watch for in kids. Highly genetic unfortunately

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP back with an update.

YOU GUYS. I dug up his financial stuff (we’ve always kept it separate on his insistence) and he makes TWICE what I thought he did.

WHERE IS ALL HIS MONEY GOING???

I’m floored. I thought this was just a case of mismanagement but now it’s clear he spending his money on something or someone, and it’s not his family.

Agree with a PP who said, show documentation to your lawyer and see what he or she says.

OP, expect your DH to gaslight you and claim you aren't remembering that he actually told you exactly what he makes and where it goes. "I showed you ages ago! Is there something wrong with you that you don't remember it?!" If he tries that approach, know you are being gaslighted (made to feel YOU are misremembering/your reality is not valid/he knows what really happened but you're nuts and forgetful/etc.). If he does this, you know things are much worse than issues with housework.

Not sure what form of evidence you found but be sure the $ isn't going into legit things like 401s, 529s, other places like that. But if he makes twice what you last knew of, it's hard to believe that ALL that difference in income is going into those legit places, though. Just be sure you can't be walloped with "See, if you'd really looked, you'd have seen it's going into the kids' college funds" etc.

It's a red flag to me that he insisted from the start of marriage that finances be separated. I KNOW, some on DCUM do this with success in good marriages, but in your case it sounds as if he was intent on maintaining his own single guy mind-set. Which would track well with his disinterest in all household stuff, his tendency to spend free moments playing around, his refusals to help with even kid stuff like taking a child to an activity. He has no real INTEREST in his children as people, in being part of a household beyond himself, etc. The separate finances track with that mind-set, OP. But for now? Stop dealing with Fair Play cards blah blah and focus on the financial deception (after you are rock solid sure that his money has indeed been vanishing and not going elsewhere). Lawyer with experience in financial forensics for you, now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I'm in my mid-50s, married 20+ years and have 3 older teens. My DH has ADHD/depression. He also is terrible with money, buys takeout all the time while I'm always packing lunch/coffee - to the point that we have had serious financial problems. He makes a fraction of what I make and our combined HHI is about $150K and we can't afford to outsource anything. Even when he's not cycled into a depression, I carry a far more substantial load. When he's cycled into a depression, it's far, far worse.

The biggest difference between my DH and yours is that my DH doesn't blow up like yours and treat me so disrespectfully. My DH also recognizes his limitations/challenges and will actually do the stuff he's been tasked with and he appreciates a list. We came close to divorce (I'd consulted with an attorney and communicated my intentions to DH) when he'd been in a long term depression and refused to seek treatment even though I'd made appointments for him and was willing to drive him. I had reached the point that I realized things were not going to change, that I didn't want our kids to think this was 'normal'. I needed to be separated from him and our kids needed at least one healthy parent and healthy home environment. My own mental health was suffering and I 'caught' his depression.

Clearly, your husband isn't going to change. Household work is not the problem. The problem is you don't have a respectful, emotionally regulated partner. Whether or not your husband takes this work opportunity, your life isn't going to get better. Are you willing to accept that? If not, I will remind you that the only person you can control is you and your reactions. Hugs.

Agree. Laziness is one thing. Laziness + the yelling, being defensive = the problem

Lots of depressed anxious aspergers men who work and slack at home have developed ODD - oppositional defiant disorder, as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Blowing up at questions, blaming others at home, yelling, raging, never listening, talking over… soon it will be totally delusions…. It’s very abusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD6 does not need to be driven to practice. DD6 doesn't need an EC. Certainly eliminate that. You shouldn't be driving these kids anywhere that's not absolutely necessary. They walk to school or they take the bus. Maybe you shouldn't have a dog. Drive thru McD's and pick up dinner once in awhile if you have to ~ All of this is better than divorce.

Ah yes.

Have everyone stay and sit at home since their father is a loser and needs quiet time and no responsibilities.

No lessons, no dog, no sports, no trips because their father is a temper tantruming albatross dragging them all down.

Accommodate his dysfunction. Absolutely.nOT

Leave him by the wayside Op. he won’t even care. So don’t expect natural consequences with his type. He’s developmentally 2 yo. Remember that.

[Anonymous]

He wants to live like he is a bachelor, and he thinks it's fine because "the kids like me".

OP, you wrote the above line in one of your recent posts. Please re-read it to yourself. Over and over. You nailed the core issue with this one sentence. Separate finances, sleeping when he wants, carping over a dirty pot when he just dumps his dirty plate on the counter, playing games, leaving the dog to your care blah blah a thousand times blah blah....

He's a bachelor who happens to cohabitate with a woman and children. Not a husband, lover, parent and partner. Not an adult.

I am not advocating divorce (at this point) but with the recent financial revelation about his income PLUS the suspicion that his "important position trial period" at work migiht actually be a performance improvement plan because he's in trouble....It's time to lawyer up and script your talk to him about the financial deception, the utter disregard for the children's schedules and lives, and the lack of communciation about his ACTUAL work situation and why it sounds shady even if it isn't (because, again, no communication). Do not get into chore cards and other household crap. You are past all that, unfortunately. Deal with the financial questions first and immediately and find out where his salary is really going. I would tell him that since you can't trust what he says, you and he must go to a financial adviser or lawyer to sit down with his actual work pay documents and walk through them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait it out my fanny. Are you some doormat SAHM who's congratulating herself on how much crap she put up with for decades? Sorry but allowing yourself to be mistreated ks not a solution, it's a failure.

Um, no, and I'm not sure what your vaginas has to do with this.

So your advice is for OP to do all the work herself, allow herself to be treated disrespectfully by a lazy and irresponsible man, let him waste their money, this goes on for decades, and at the end what's the prize? Still being married to a jerk who's slightly better? No thanks.

He sounds immature. That tends to improve over time.

Where I'm coming from with this is, I did have a husband that didn't do as much housework as I felt he should and also was irresponsible with money. At some point I decided to stop nagging and just accept the situation. It was not easy and it was not fair. Fast forward about 10 years- he is now a much greater contributor to the household-- does all cooking, shopping, schlepping the kids around, and a non-terrible amount of cleaning. (I still do more cleaning.) And, his income is now extremely high, high enough that he is still able to make silly purchases or lose money in predictable ways and it doesn't impact us at all. I dislike clutter, so I don't love this trait, but it isn't a crisis like it was before. So yes-- people can and often do have a difficult time in the first part of marriage and then go on to have a great marriage.

It sounds like she's done and is leaving him, and that's also a path forward. But this is something that is a fairly common problem in relationships, and if you read the research on it, it does tend to improve with time, and in later life actually flips, with men doing more housework than women in retirement age.

But what if he didn't improve? What if he never made money? Would it be worth it then? Seems like a big gamble, especially if retirement security is on the line.

Yeah, that was a gamble. My retirement wasn't on the line though, we were financially okay in that department, along with paying for college, etc. After devoting a lot of time reading studies on the division of housework in modern American families, I decided that it was likely to improve and focused on that. It's hard to visualize the counterfactual, how I would have felt if we were still dealing with this. But I tend to be data driven and the numbers for married people are generally better than unmarried.

If my husband never made money at all, I wouldn't have married him. Financial security is a huge factor to me. He was always a good earner, just an even better spender until he made so much it'd be difficult to spend it.

So you married an immature man who treated you badly, but that's ok because money?

He treated me poorly in a way that the majority of men treat their wives poorly. In most American households, women do the majority of housework. So, uh, yeah, like most women in hetero couplings, who stay married, I tolerated this suboptimal yet common condition until it subsided. My decision to do so was less about money and more about wanting to be married to a man.

Okay no. It may be true that in most couples women do the majority of housework, but for a lot of them it's *on purpose*, agreed to, and peaceful.. It's a smaller proportion of couples who have that dynamic because the man is immature, lazy, disorganized, disrespectful, uncaring, etc. Stop acting like those marriages are the same, they aren't.

It's sad that you felt you needed a man that badly. I'm sad for the younger version of yourself.

You think that women just *want* to do more work? Like they walk in and say "no, Chad, don't do the dishes! I want to!" It is peaceful because women know the deal- that men are not likely to pull their weight in that regard, and they are tired of beating a dead horse. It's always disrespectful, uncaring, etc.

Thank you for your sympathy.

If they are SAHM or work part time, yes I would think that is definitely and explicitly the deal. The question is not "In how many households does the woman do more". It's "In how many households does the woman do much more despite working full time and going to therapy and constantly exhorting her DH to do the things he explicitly agree to do?". And that's a far smaller proportion.

On the contrary, when women outearn their husband, they do even more housework than in couples where the woman earns less. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/

Are these women just like, obsessed with working? Is that it? Has nothing to do with the fact that men are cultured to regard it as women's responsibility?

I don't know, probably some of them are unahppy and others of them have their reasons, but I do know it's abnormal for a.man to behave like OP's husband, being lazy and yelling and doing hardly anything in the face of therapy and repeated requests.

I suspect that OP is more persistent about this issue than most women, as I also was before I made peace with it. Can we at least agree that it is not normal to write love letters thanking your spouse for cooking dinner? That's an unusual level of engagement on this topic. And, like most men are cultured not to do housework, women are cultured to do it. So this is probably not an issue that is brought to the surface in the way it is in OP's (and was in mine at first). So he sounds like a prick but maybe a lot of marriages would look like this if women weren't all out there cheerfully and consensually doing more than they should have to.

The "love letter" sounds like a desperate move from someone who's trying really hard to save her marriage to a man-baby who needs a cookie every time he wipes his own bum.

OP. So please tell me if this is abnormal...

On Wednesday, I was supposed to pick up DD1 from daycare, pick up DD6 from after school care, take DD6 to practice, pick up the dog from dog daycare, handle dinner, while H had....nothing, because he told me he wants to come home from work and have some time alone to unwind. I realized this was ridiculous and told him to pick up the dog and do dinner since he would just be sitting around while I drove kids around. And that's why I wrote the note, because he did it, and I wanted to show that I'm grateful.

But I'm also like...wtf. The reason the dog goes to daycare is H refuses to wake up half an hour early to walk her, he needs to sleep in until 8am instead while I wake up at 6am to get the kids ready. The reason we didn't have groceries for dinner is he said he would handle groceries that weekend but didn't. So why the hell should I be thankful for him doing basic household things when I'm on my feet from 6am-9pm?

No, this is not normal, at all.

I do though think that people get so overscheduled that it just destroys families and individual happiness. Life would be so much better if you could drop the daycare, drop the dog daycare, drop the practice for a 6yo. If only one of you worked and you dropped the extra stuff, you would not feel so stretched. Of course, you'd probably have to live somewhere cheaper. People get on this crazy treadmill, and the truth is, very few people have the executive functioning skills and energy to keep it up AND BE HAPPY. Of course, you are in the situation you are in, and assuming you don't want to make a radical change of lifestyle, it is probably better to get divorced than to continue on with this resentful relationship.

OP. Practice is twice a week, and DD loves it, so I don’t think it’s fair to make her stop because H wants to watch football.

DD1 needs daycare. I work. What else am I supposed to do? The dog needs to be exercised, and H won’t do it. I can’t keep a dog cooped up all day, and H refuses to walk her.

I get that she likes it. My kids like lots of things that I don't let them do because it is expensive or intrudes on family time or is just a hassle. It is really a perspective thing. I firmly believe that kids SHOULD be bored sometimes. It's healthy. And yes, I think that your husband wanting to watch football instead of her going to practice (for what even?) twice a week is totally reasonable. She is a kid. Let her play in the yard, draw, ride her bike, whatever. And more importantly, if it is creating all this tension and stress, drop it. She will be happier overall if her parents are happy and together rather than going to whatever practice this is.

The dog? Do you have a yard? Do you work from home? Dogs don't need daycare. So, yes, your husband should walk the dog. Honestly, it is a mistake to get a dog with young kids. I don't know why people do it.

The daycare for your youngest is unavoidable unless one of you quits working. I get you don't want to quit, nor would I in the precarious situation you have with your loser DH. I was more talking about how we have these overscheduled two working parent families without the ability to manage that amount of hectic scheduling.

Here is the deal: you married and had kids with a guy who is lazy and a slob, maybe has ADD, and maybe has a phone addiction. You, as a family, cannot afford to have all this scheduled activity. It is no different than if you wanted a mansion but didn't make that much money. You need to cut back on all this extra stuff and spend your leftover time and money on making your lives more manageable. Seems worth it to try that before getting a divorce. Or just divorce the loser. But it sucks for your kids.

Not OP, but to the PP -- how old are your kids? The "let them be bored, they don't need extra activities even if they like them" talk on DCUM tends to come from parents of younger kids. Whatever your kids' ages, you do not comprehend that OP is talking about one, twice-a-week activity. That leaves plenty of time for the DD to get all that valuable boredom you prescribe, ride her bike, play outside, whatever. And Daddy should show he gives a s**t about his own child's interests and personality by supporting her with an occasional ride at least; he might learn his DD is an actual, interesting person, not an inconvenience.

And as DD gets older, is she also supposed to stay home and not have any activities until, I guess, she's 16 and able to drive herself to them? That's limiting. It's actually punitive, saying the kid can't engage in something she finds interesting, even enriching, because daddy plays on his phone rather than making one run a week so mom doesn't have to do both runs.

You truly do not know the difference between overscheduled and healthily engaged in something that isn't schoolwork or just being at home. Yes, kids need to be able to entertain themselves. What OP describes is not at all a kid who is being hauled to endless activities. DD shouldn't give up her ONE outside interest just because dad makes it stressful due to his laziness. Dad should step up, instead.

My three kids are in middle school and elementary school.

The problem is that OP married a lazy slob and had kids with him, so maybe they should try living within their means (timewise and moneywise) as a family before getting a divorce.

And the daughter is not going to suffer from missing a twice a week activity that "she finds interesting." That's just silly. This obsession with activities for little kids is nonsense. Yes, I'm sure that they do find all this interesting. But OP's family obviously doesn't have the wherewithal to do it, so why not just cut it? Is her daughter suffering?

And the slippery slope nonsense about what if she is 16? Just take it slowly. Maybe the situation will be different by then.

But what is clear is that OP's family cannot handle everything. And it is crazy to divorce rather than give up some team -- still curious what that is -- for a 6 yo. And dog daycare. Just get rid of the dog. It would be happier with a family who could walk it then being carted off to dog daycare. Ridiculous.

So the DD is supposed to stay home because daddy's an immature a-hole and can't even muster the energy to drive her somewhere once a week while mom does it the second time each week. Got it.

"Just take it slowly. Maybe the situation will be different by" the time DD is a teen--? Are you for real? OP is supposed to stay with this DH and the kid is supposed to hang around and draw and ride bikes at home until "the situation" with lazy and entitled bachelor-dad improves?

You're advocating --though you won't see it -- for the world to revolve around the DH here. If you think twice a week for one activity is overscheduled, you truly do not know what overscheduled is. It's fine and any kid should be able to have one activity he or she enjoys. As for affording it, if you've kept up with this thread, it looks now as if the DH might have been hiding money and lying about his income, so...maybe the family will find money for this one activity, after OP finds out what's really going on financially with her DH who has insisted they always keep finances separate.

You seem to want to put the OP and the kids second to the DH's self-centered bachelor ways. It's not about the child's activiy or team or whatever. The issue really is the DH's living as if he's a roommate who's vaguely inconvenienced by this woman and these kids who are in his space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's absolutely possible to find a husband who doesn't dump all the work on you. My brother has been a SAHD and is the primary caretaker for his kids (his wife's job requires a lot of travel, he works remotely part time). My husband and I share childcare equally. When I drop my kid off at preschool half of those doing dropoff and pickup are Dads.

Yeah, it's possible. But there are still norms and averages. Most women get shafted, taking on more than the man. Getting back to OP, though, she is in a situation where its not just inequitable, it's *entirely* on her. Its a rare circumstance where divorce may be the rational solution. He seems to be functionally not really a husband already so formalizing it and moving on seems sensible.

And we've discussed this on here before. On average, men work more hours than women overall, when taking into account both the home and outside work: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter-6-time-in-work-and-leisure-patterns-by-gender-and-family-structure/

"On average, married fathers’ time in paid and unpaid work totals 55.5 hours per week, 1.4 hours more than that of married mothers."

So, yeah, women don't get shafted. They might work more at home, but, on average, they work fewer hours overall and make less money overall.

On one point, I agree: OP's husband sounds like deadweight and should be booted from her life.

That report isn't making the point you seem to think it is making.

It definitely is. Married men work more hours than married women. Not as much in the house, but more outside of the house, which more than makes up for the deficit at home.

That would be a reassuring explanation, except that women who make more than their male spouses average more housework than women who make equal or less. So the more women work outside the home, the greater their burden inside the home. https://studyfinds.org/women-earn-more-housework/

Look, it's just reality. Men are picking up more at home than in the past, but men dont exactly lean in. Most people kind of expect this and so men feel justified and women feel glad that the men cover portions of the work. In no way, though, do most men do an equal amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A grown man "chilling", any way he wants ... while he financially supports his family ...

yes, he gets to "play on his phone". How much money do you make Op? How much money does he make Op? People need down time.

So he gets to sleep in until 8am while OP gets the kids ready. And he gets to chill in the late afternoon after work while OP is picking up the dog and kids. So when does OP get “chill” and just play on her phone?

Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of the dog. You don’t have the time or the money to take care of it.
Use the doggie daycare money to hire household help. Go to the grocery store and get some toilet paper and toothpaste.
Get rid of the Fair Play cards and stop trying to fix your marriage with internet pop psychology.
Accept that this is the husband you have and the marriage you have. Your marriage is never going to be the way you pictured it, and you can’t force it.
Apologize to your husband for calling him lazy and tell him that you believe in him and will support him with this job interview.

No to the last one for sure

Just ignore him. That’s what he wants anyhow.

Plan your exit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This must be a troll. The weird financial split, the cartoonishly lazy and selfish husband, the "am I the bad guy" OP. I just can't believe there is any real debate here. Tell the guy you are leaving if there is no attempt to make it work, and then if there is no attempt, leave.

I believe it.

I have the same lazy, pig, disrespectful, self centered, neglectful parent, accident prone, 4 diagnoses husband but he makes high income. As do I. But he’s manipulative and lies to the lawyers, courts and doctors too, to protect his fake Great Guy persona.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This must be a troll. The weird financial split, the cartoonishly lazy and selfish husband, the "am I the bad guy" OP. I just can't believe there is any real debate here. Tell the guy you are leaving if there is no attempt to make it work, and then if there is no attempt, leave.

I believe it.

I have the same lazy, pig, disrespectful, self centered, neglectful parent, accident prone, 4 diagnoses husband but he makes high income. As do I. But he’s manipulative and lies to the lawyers, courts and doctors too, to protect his fake Great Guy persona.

DP. When I read this I sincerely hope your kids are getting old enough you can plan your exit for the instant your youngest heads to college. You mention his lies to "lawyers and courts" so have you tried to divorce him but he's managed to keep you there by creating lies that would impoverish you if you divorce--?? Whatever the situation, I'm sorry. It's no way to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait it out my fanny. Are you some doormat SAHM who's congratulating herself on how much crap she put up with for decades? Sorry but allowing yourself to be mistreated ks not a solution, it's a failure.

Um, no, and I'm not sure what your vaginas has to do with this.

So your advice is for OP to do all the work herself, allow herself to be treated disrespectfully by a lazy and irresponsible man, let him waste their money, this goes on for decades, and at the end what's the prize? Still being married to a jerk who's slightly better? No thanks.

He sounds immature. That tends to improve over time.

Where I'm coming from with this is, I did have a husband that didn't do as much housework as I felt he should and also was irresponsible with money. At some point I decided to stop nagging and just accept the situation. It was not easy and it was not fair. Fast forward about 10 years- he is now a much greater contributor to the household-- does all cooking, shopping, schlepping the kids around, and a non-terrible amount of cleaning. (I still do more cleaning.) And, his income is now extremely high, high enough that he is still able to make silly purchases or lose money in predictable ways and it doesn't impact us at all. I dislike clutter, so I don't love this trait, but it isn't a crisis like it was before. So yes-- people can and often do have a difficult time in the first part of marriage and then go on to have a great marriage.

It sounds like she's done and is leaving him, and that's also a path forward. But this is something that is a fairly common problem in relationships, and if you read the research on it, it does tend to improve with time, and in later life actually flips, with men doing more housework than women in retirement age.

But what if he didn't improve? What if he never made money? Would it be worth it then? Seems like a big gamble, especially if retirement security is on the line.

Yeah, that was a gamble. My retirement wasn't on the line though, we were financially okay in that department, along with paying for college, etc. After devoting a lot of time reading studies on the division of housework in modern American families, I decided that it was likely to improve and focused on that. It's hard to visualize the counterfactual, how I would have felt if we were still dealing with this. But I tend to be data driven and the numbers for married people are generally better than unmarried.

If my husband never made money at all, I wouldn't have married him. Financial security is a huge factor to me. He was always a good earner, just an even better spender until he made so much it'd be difficult to spend it.

So you married an immature man who treated you badly, but that's ok because money?

He treated me poorly in a way that the majority of men treat their wives poorly. In most American households, women do the majority of housework. So, uh, yeah, like most women in hetero couplings, who stay married, I tolerated this suboptimal yet common condition until it subsided. My decision to do so was less about money and more about wanting to be married to a man.

That's pathetic. Why would you even want to be married to a man if you think the majority of men treat their wives poorly?

OP has since clarified that her situation is substantially different from mine. I had garden-variety housekeeping issues that are normal. Why would I want to be married when being married sometimes produces conflict, unequal balances etc? Because I consider these things to be part of the human condition.

Well, that's convenient for these useless spouses, because they do not. Men don't stay in relationships that make their lives more difficult.

Au contraire. That’s just it. They didn’t understand that adulting and raising children and maintain a house was actually a lot of constant effort. But they stay in these “relationships” that have more responsibilities, but don’t ID them or do them. Their life is more difficult because their wife and kids keep asking them to do stuff. But they won’t do it, and they certainly won’t do it proactively or on their own accord.