Fighting - who is in the wrong?

[Anonymous]

Spouse and I are fighting. DH is an essential worker and works out of the home with non-flexible hours, 50-60hrs a weeks. I am home with the children, ages 4-9, we are moderately cautious with regard to Covid, children are in virtual learning... I handle pretty much all the school stuff, household stuff, cooking, shopping, laundry, cleaning, and home maintenance/renovation. He comes home, dinner is cooked and ready, he sits on his computer either doing work stuff, or futzing around doing personal stuff. After we eat, I am cleaning up and doing dishes, and he is back on his computer while semi hanging out with the kids. I start the kids with their bedtime. Sometimes DH finishes bedtime with them, which usually involves playing an audiobook for them on his phone and then falling asleep. After they go to bed, I usually finish cleaning up and fold laundry while watching tv.

DH has been expressing frustration at how slow I have been to address home maintenance and renovation projects. He has a whole entire list of home improvements he wants to have done by contractors that I need to find and call and schedule. For one, I'm exhausted. Secondly, it's really not my area, and frankly it's just not at the top of my priority list. I have been taking care of the most pressing maintenance issues - and that has been slow not through any fault of my own, but because contractors have been very slow to respond to one-off fixes. So DH has been really annoyed by the slowness that has been happening. He's also been annoyed that none of the other home improvement projects have progressed at all. Since the pandemic, yeah it pretty much dropped off my priority list. And I think if it's that important to him, he should just take care of it. He says he can't trust me to take care of these things on any acceptable timeline. He blew up at me because I did not spend my Saturday morning actively searching for a contractor to take care of the home improvement project, and I had made plans to walk with friends in the afternoon. He was annoyed that I had made other plans and wasn't taking care of things.

That pissed me off because I've been working my ass off every day. And he's angry with ME, when he could have just as easily spent HIS saturday morning doing just what he wanted me to to do.

So who's in the wrong? Me or him?

[Anonymous]

Wow, he is really self centered. He should be thanking you every day. Most households have had to really cut their work hours and responsibilities given they are now their children’s teachers and are parenting all day and night. Plus the west and tear in the house all day, every day.

He’s dumping on you, and a work addict.

Come up with the same priorities and he needs to pitch in.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to know, without hearing his side. How many hours do you work each week? Maybe he feels like the total number of hours each of you are putting in is more equal than you are thinking. Maybe you could make a list of chores and divide it out more equitably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to know, without hearing his side. How many hours do you work each week? Maybe he feels like the total number of hours each of you are putting in is more equal than you are thinking. Maybe you could make a list of chores and divide it out more equitably.

He does very little chores and I'm generally fine with that. He takes out the trash and recycling, he loads his own laundry into the washer, and he *usually* empties the dishwasher in the morning, he handles our investments, and 2 years ago, he finally took over doing our taxes because I stopped working. I do EVERYTHING else. Would it be nice if he helped clean up after dinner - yes, but that's my only semi-complaint.

The real problem is his anger annoyance at me for not prioritizing the home maintenance/improvements to his level of satisfaction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, he is really self centered. He should be thanking you every day. Most households have had to really cut their work hours and responsibilities given they are now their children’s teachers and are parenting all day and night. Plus the west and tear in the house all day, every day.

He’s dumping on you, and a work addict.

Come up with the same priorities and he needs to pitch in.

Yeah I think his longer work hours are putting a stress on him and us all. I'm not sure if he can cut back though. But if we had the choice between having him take a 25% pay cut with 25% less hours, I think we'd both take that option.

[Anonymous]

I'm 100 percent on your side with regards to this.

That doesn't really help you deal with this situation though.

You need to come up with a compromise with him. Ask him to take the kids out to breakfast on Saturday am while you catch up on phone calls to the contractors in peace without having to juggle distance learning, housework and childcare at the same time.

It's one thing to be a stay at home mom, but it's another altogether to manage that plus distance learning in a pandemic. He needs to be more flexible and understanding, both on the demands you are facing and on the demands that the contractors are under. Everything is going more slowly due to covid precautions.

Both of you should be making an effort on the weekends to allow your spouse to have some alone time, self care time or friend time.

[Anonymous]

Team husband. You are home all day and kids are in front of a screen. You can’t make a couple phone calls in your day? Surely you take a shit once a day. You can’t call while on the toilet? If it’s important to him then I think it’s fair that you atleast try to get stuff done that he wants. Putting a phone call off for more months is a bit ridiculous in my eyes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 100 percent on your side with regards to this.

That doesn't really help you deal with this situation though.

You need to come up with a compromise with him. Ask him to take the kids out to breakfast on Saturday am while you catch up on phone calls to the contractors in peace without having to juggle distance learning, housework and childcare at the same time.

It's one thing to be a stay at home mom, but it's another altogether to manage that plus distance learning in a pandemic. He needs to be more flexible and understanding, both on the demands you are facing and on the demands that the contractors are under. Everything is going more slowly due to covid precautions.

Both of you should be making an effort on the weekends to allow your spouse to have some alone time, self care time or friend time.

For me, the compromise would be for him to either realize that stuff is no longer a top priority, or to take care of it himself. Ok, so maybe not so much a compromise, but that would solve the problem (for me at least).

He's not going to want to take the kids out for breakfast. He's not home for the whole week and so on the weekend, he wants to be able to just be at home and play with the kids. And by the weekend, I am itching to have a moment to get out of the house and take a little break from doing house stuff. I'm just so tired. And it sucks to be told by my DH that I'm not doing enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team husband. You are home all day and kids are in front of a screen. You can’t make a couple phone calls in your day? Surely you take a shit once a day. You can’t call while on the toilet? If it’s important to him then I think it’s fair that you atleast try to get stuff done that he wants. Putting a phone call off for more months is a bit ridiculous in my eyes

DH, is that you???

[Anonymous]

He need to do the home improvement stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team husband. You are home all day and kids are in front of a screen. You can’t make a couple phone calls in your day? Surely you take a shit once a day. You can’t call while on the toilet? If it’s important to him then I think it’s fair that you atleast try to get stuff done that he wants. Putting a phone call off for more months is a bit ridiculous in my eyes

Ok, dad...

[Anonymous]

You are a doormat and now you want to complain. Nope, this is how you got him, kept him, and will need to continue.

There's no way you can change at this point other than to do a 180. Get a job in a year and look for a more equitable arrangement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are a doormat and now you want to complain. Nope, this is how you got him, kept him, and will need to continue.

There's no way you can change at this point other than to do a 180. Get a job in a year and look for a more equitable arrangement.

Also, if you are a SAHM, most of your list are things that you should do. I know what's its like to do it all and work 50 to 60 hours. It's exhausting, get a small job, maybe 10 to 15 hours and split some things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team husband. You are home all day and kids are in front of a screen. You can’t make a couple phone calls in your day? Surely you take a shit once a day. You can’t call while on the toilet? If it’s important to him then I think it’s fair that you atleast try to get stuff done that he wants. Putting a phone call off for more months is a bit ridiculous in my eyes

Dear lord, I hope you are being sarcastic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to know, without hearing his side. How many hours do you work each week? Maybe he feels like the total number of hours each of you are putting in is more equal than you are thinking. Maybe you could make a list of chores and divide it out more equitably.

He does very little chores and I'm generally fine with that. He takes out the trash and recycling, he loads his own laundry into the washer, and he *usually* empties the dishwasher in the morning, he handles our investments, and 2 years ago, he finally took over doing our taxes because I stopped working. I do EVERYTHING else. Would it be nice if he helped clean up after dinner - yes, but that's my only semi-complaint.

The real problem is his anger annoyance at me for not prioritizing the home maintenance/improvements to his level of satisfaction.

This is going to bite you eventually. He makes the money and is controlling it- and rightly so, since he earned it. You need to earn and control your own money because when this marriage goes south, you are going to be screwed otherwise.