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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

That's why you see so many SAHMs. People assume they aren't capable or are lazy but they pick family's cumulative sanity.

Why does a woman have to do all the scutwork to save the family's collective sanity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.

This is what I did too and while DH appreciated it for a long time, now that the kids are teens he is pressuring me to go back because I have "so much time" and yet he has no desire or willingness to change anything about his behavior. He's trying to make it about the money even though he makes 3x what he made when he was totally fine with my staying home, and we own our home and have college and retirement fully on track. Its quite the pickle and I'm not entirely sure how it will be resolved.

Well, do you have more time? Can you go back to work part-time? I have high schoolers and they require a lot less parental time than kids in elementary school.
I don't get your point. Your DH is working the same amount of hours, but your hours taking care of the kids has decreased. The amount of time taking care of house-related stuff presumably has stayed the same. So, the only variable that's changed is that you have more free time on your hands. Just own up to the fact that you don't want to work because you like not working and leading a leisurely life.

Why should she go back to work, when they have enough money and her DH likely still wouldn’t contribute to running the household? Then she would be in the exact situation we’re discussing here.

Why would anyone work? DH makes $2M+ and I still work and we have two children. I've always worked. If you can't find a part-time job in DC that is intellectually or emotionally fulfilling, especially when you don't need the income, then I would assume that you are limited in some way (intellectually, physically, emotionally, etc.). A grown woman, particularly one who has the benefit of a great education and no need for high income or benefits, should have some sense of, oh I don't know, giving to her community if she is capable. I have friends who are in their 50s with kids now in high school or college, who have not worked since having kids, and they are floundering. Women often need a higher sense of purpose beyond keeping track of the household in order to live a full and meaningful life.

Amen and two thumbs up

How is it any of your business what other women do? I have no desire to judge other women’s choices, I only need to be happy with my own. Many SAHM are dedicated volunteers and make meaningful contributions to their communities, indeed making for a “full and meaningful life” as you describe.

I'm on two not for profit boards. Just pointing out you can make meaningful contributions to your community while holding down a paid job. Everyone can of course make their own choices but you don't have to be a SAHM to volunteer.

Lol I like how you think this is a meaningful contribution.

Yes, I do. Other than raising kids, what do you think is a meaningful contribution to society?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's definitely tough...I work from home while DH goes in to the office so a lot of stuff falls to me, especially on days when the kids are home.

I miss those early pandemic days when I worked from home and he was out of work and took care of everything around the house.

I have WFH full time for a long time so I've always done the bulk of stuff at home, even before we had kids, because it's just really easy to build stuff like laundry, food prep, and cleaning into your day when you have no commute and you are home all day.

However, during Covid he started WFH, first full time and now just a couple days a week. And I resent how little he does around the house when he is WFH. I don't expect him to do as much as I do when it's just me, but he does NOTHING. He doesn't even rinse his dishes and put them in the dishwasher, which I know is something he does in the office. And during the time that our then-toddler was also home with us all day, he did significantly less childcare and when he did do any, he was constantly asking me if I could take over so he could get back to work. Again, I work full time, but he's myopic about this and seems to think his job is more important even though we make similar salaries.

I have come to resent his WFH days because he feels like dead weight. He works in the dining room (we don't have a home office), he is on calls all day, he doesn't clean up after himself. I know he likes not commuting and I like that for him but I used to love WFH because the house was so quiet and clean and I feel like it ran really efficiently. Now it's like I'll go to do some meal prep during my lunch hour but I have to stop and clean up his breakfast and lunch messes first so that I have counter space to work in. I can't run the vacuum during a break because he's on the phone, etc.

If he lost his job I feel pretty confident I'd still be doing the bulk of the housework and childcare somehow.

Reading this makes me so mad for you.

[Anonymous]

[list]

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

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

UGH.

You’re a martyr. You complain about the amount of work you do in the house, then leap at the opportunity to do work in the house before anyone else can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's definitely tough...I work from home while DH goes in to the office so a lot of stuff falls to me, especially on days when the kids are home.

I miss those early pandemic days when I worked from home and he was out of work and took care of everything around the house.

I have WFH full time for a long time so I've always done the bulk of stuff at home, even before we had kids, because it's just really easy to build stuff like laundry, food prep, and cleaning into your day when you have no commute and you are home all day.

However, during Covid he started WFH, first full time and now just a couple days a week. And I resent how little he does around the house when he is WFH. I don't expect him to do as much as I do when it's just me, but he does NOTHING. He doesn't even rinse his dishes and put them in the dishwasher, which I know is something he does in the office. And during the time that our then-toddler was also home with us all day, he did significantly less childcare and when he did do any, he was constantly asking me if I could take over so he could get back to work. Again, I work full time, but he's myopic about this and seems to think his job is more important even though we make similar salaries.

I have come to resent his WFH days because he feels like dead weight. He works in the dining room (we don't have a home office), he is on calls all day, he doesn't clean up after himself. I know he likes not commuting and I like that for him but I used to love WFH because the house was so quiet and clean and I feel like it ran really efficiently. Now it's like I'll go to do some meal prep during my lunch hour but I have to stop and clean up his breakfast and lunch messes first so that I have counter space to work in. I can't run the vacuum during a break because he's on the phone, etc.

If he lost his job I feel pretty confident I'd still be doing the bulk of the housework and childcare somehow.

Reading this makes me so mad for you.

+1
Like WTF

[Anonymous]

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

Do you have a job outside the home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

That's why you see so many SAHMs. People assume they aren't capable or are lazy but they pick family's cumulative sanity.

Why does a woman have to do all the scutwork to save the family's collective sanity?

Usually because she makes less money. At least that was the reason iny case.

One of my friends made more money as a doctor, so her dh stayed at home with the kids.

[Anonymous]

How well do you actually know these divorced couples? My SIL and BIL divorced due to addiction and infidelity. A very close friend divorced due to emotional abuse along with husband's ongoing mental health struggles with medication resistant depression. Those are the only two I'm confident in saying why they divorced. I still have two close friends who had low conflict marriages, and I still can't really figure out why they divorced. They say it is due to imbalanced home workload, but these couples both have teens. They are well beyond the heaviest of the workload years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.

It only works if you don't value having a career. I do, so I didn't quit. I just didn't do things on the second shift that had no value to me, and outsourced a lot. Of course, I did only have two children, which helps a lot with domestic workload.

It also only works if you have money. As the child of a mother who stayed home, and was perpetually anxious about her financial security which (in part) led to her staying in a bad marriage, I worry about leaving the workplace. I have these issues with DH described on this thread, and tbh, I’d don’t love my career and would rather be with my kids, but I worry it would end up worse for me if I quit. Also, what if he gets sick and can’t work, or leaves you, or dies, etc….Yes, there’s life insurance, but what about health insurance, retirement, college savings, etc. Maybe I worry too much….

[Anonymous]

Me again (PP), and I make more, brought more $ to the marriage, helped pay off his student loans, do the bulk of the mental load stuff for the kids, and the household stuff (e.g, we fought a lot about things like dishes - he was of the do them when the sink is full ilk - and laundry - his idea of done laundry was if it made it into the dryer, from which he thought it was just fine to pull wrinkled clothes over the course of the week - eventually I gave up arguing and just now do it myself). So I feel like not only do I carry the financial load for the family but also the bulk of the rest. But even though I know my life would be easier if we divorced, I won’t, because it would wreck my kids and frankly it would kill me not to see them every other week or holiday or whatever is the norm in a divorce. So I stay and try really hard to keep my resentment in check. I guess will reevaluate how I feel, once they are grown.

I also think it’s easy to say why did you marry him. But the reality is that it’s not so easy to foresee just how much things change once you have kids and how hard this all becomes.

[Anonymous]

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

Gray divorce yes.

He was a narcissist who did nothing for anyone.
Only spoke or took action for his immediate wants and needs - his sleep, his food, his office work, his tv time, his ego.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.

It only works if you don't value having a career. I do, so I didn't quit. I just didn't do things on the second shift that had no value to me, and outsourced a lot. Of course, I did only have two children, which helps a lot with domestic workload.

It only works if your Paycheck Provider spouse is grateful and thankful for you doing everything on the homefront so he can mainly focus on his job and career, and saying HI to the kids when convenient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.

This is what I did too and while DH appreciated it for a long time, now that the kids are teens he is pressuring me to go back because I have "so much time" and yet he has no desire or willingness to change anything about his behavior. He's trying to make it about the money even though he makes 3x what he made when he was totally fine with my staying home, and we own our home and have college and retirement fully on track. Its quite the pickle and I'm not entirely sure how it will be resolved.

Well, do you have more time? Can you go back to work part-time? I have high schoolers and they require a lot less parental time than kids in elementary school.
I don't get your point. Your DH is working the same amount of hours, but your hours taking care of the kids has decreased. The amount of time taking care of house-related stuff presumably has stayed the same. So, the only variable that's changed is that you have more free time on your hands. Just own up to the fact that you don't want to work because you like not working and leading a leisurely life.

Why should she go back to work, when they have enough money and her DH likely still wouldn’t contribute to running the household? Then she would be in the exact situation we’re discussing here.

Why would anyone work? DH makes $2M+ and I still work and we have two children. I've always worked. If you can't find a part-time job in DC that is intellectually or emotionally fulfilling, especially when you don't need the income, then I would assume that you are limited in some way (intellectually, physically, emotionally, etc.). A grown woman, particularly one who has the benefit of a great education and no need for high income or benefits, should have some sense of, oh I don't know, giving to her community if she is capable. I have friends who are in their 50s with kids now in high school or college, who have not worked since having kids, and they are floundering. Women often need a higher sense of purpose beyond keeping track of the household in order to live a full and meaningful life.

Amen and two thumbs up

How is it any of your business what other women do? I have no desire to judge other women’s choices, I only need to be happy with my own. Many SAHM are dedicated volunteers and make meaningful contributions to their communities, indeed making for a “full and meaningful life” as you describe.

I'm on two not for profit boards. Just pointing out you can make meaningful contributions to your community while holding down a paid job. Everyone can of course make their own choices but you don't have to be a SAHM to volunteer.

Lol I like how you think this is a meaningful contribution.

Yes, I do. Other than raising kids, what do you think is a meaningful contribution to society?

I help provide energy that pretty much powers everything in your life - groceries, hospitals, farms, textiles, transportation etc. It's a really important part of our culture and I have a pretty big role in that. What do you do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women have to really think hard if they themselves and the guy they want to marry is really family material or not. To be fair, so should men. Every person isn't cut out to be a good partner or a good parent.

True. This discussion needs to be had when getting engaged.
At a minimum, at least you’ll know sooner and more clearly that you married a liar.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm not really getting a sense of how these marriages, especially long term ones, evolved from what originally were satisfactory relationships into intolerable ones. All these posts are pretty much "I've been married for 10 15 or 20 years" to this guy who is useless around the house, doesn't meet my expectations, and never did.

The wives seem to be saying that not only do they place a very high priority on having a very clean and organized home and.family life. It has to be clean and organized in a particular often idiosyncratic way. The husband is also required to share that same sense of priority. Further, the wife's expectation seems to be that the husband must contribute exactly the same level of effort, passion and commitment as the wife determines is required.

It's almost as if all these expectations were created by attending some kind of women's study classes in college, or discussions with third wave feminists, or assumed as the default, but we're never actually discussed, much less negotiated, with their husbands at any stage of the relationships. No, demands aren't negotiations or discussions.

Everyone is entitled to set priorities as they see fit. However, it is unrealistic to assume your partner will have the same priorities or the same investment in fulfilling them.

Basically the job, whatever it is, belongs to the person who cares the most about it. Getting angry that your spouse simply doesn't care as much as you think he should about living in a dirty house is not only unrealistic, it misunderstands the real issue, which in all these cases seems to be about the frustrated spouses sense of lack of ability to control her lazy spouses behaviors. Well that's not something you are ever going to be able to do. And you shouldn't be angry about it. The answer to a spouse who won't clean the house isn't to get divorced, it's to clean it.yourself or hire it out. Don't pretend you were unaware he was a slob when you married him. You married him for other reasons and you know it.

Why do you think marriages were satisfactory? My grandmother was miserable and had a massive anxiety problem because of the demands placed on her, but it was a time when there were zero other options for women.

Women have options now and can demand better.

I expect that my H will prioritize our marriage and family above everything else. And that means being a fully functioning partner, and maintaining a minimum of the same standard he holds himself to at work. If, at work, he is able to accomplish tasks on time and to completion, not pawn his work off on anyone else, and clean up after himself, I expect the same behavior at home. To do any less is a clear message that he respects and values his colleagues more than his family, and that is not acceptable to me.

I do not believe the job belong to whoever “cares” about it. It’s not about caring about the dishes. It’s about caring for your partner and your family, and wanting to do the absolute best by them.

People who do not hold themselves to this standard, who cannot treat their family with value and respect, should not get married nor have children. No one is forcing these men to get married, and if they prefer to be selfish and think only of themselves, they are free to remain single.

While I agree with you, many times it does boil down to one partner "caring" sooner about something. The dishes will eventually bother my husband, just not as soon as they bother me. He rejects my assertion they need to be done after every meal.

Your assertion is literally false. Dishes don't need to be done after every meal. You want them done after every meal, but it is clearly not a necessity. No wonder you are having issues with this stuff.

So did you discuss all these.things before marriage? Did you screen potential husband's for diligence and responsibility in terms of doing housework?

How often is doing dishes a necessity? Does it depend on when you can see bugs crawling in the sink, or is it more that you only have to do dishes once you run out?

Well the food dries and sticks in overnight and the smell sinks in whiting a day. But keep letting it pile up. After all, watching tv is a great source of pride and reward for having such a productive day and adult habits. Definitely watch tv instead.