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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wasn’t yesterday a holiday? Was there some reason he couldn’t spend some time on the couch? The OP’s whole post has the feel of just shitting on the spouse as a form of stress release.

OP, what if you just told your spouse that next Saturday you’ll be gone all day because you’re going with a friend to a show. What would happen?

What if you just didn’t cook? What if you ordered out? What if you just announced that you would no longer be cooking on weeknights? What would happen?

I just feel like you’re wanting to *talk* to your husband about this problem that you perceive but you’re not taking any *action* to change the dynamic. You and your spouse are in a dynamic. It takes two to tango. You could change your behavior dramatically. Your complaint is that your spouse does whatever he wants when he wants it. Well, maybe you could stand to do a little bit more of that yourself.

“But the house would fall down!!!!” you cry. Really? So everything has to be done just the way it is now, and what you need is for your husband to basically do some of the stuff you want done? Maybe he does not want to spend his Saturdays at the playground. Maybe he thinks it’s OK to play video games and to let his kid play her own games in her room. Maybe that’s actually OK. Maybe what’s making you unhappy is not his failure to act for others but your failure to act a little more selfishly.

As long as the only story you’ll tell yourself is that your husband —the man you married!— is just inexplicably selfish and bad, you are not going to get anywhere. I would stop trying to talk to him and just start changing the way you act. Book a weekend away by yourself, stat!
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Op here. Sure, relax some, but not from 10am to 8pm without budging. Particularly when he took off Friday and did pretty much the same thing that day too.

I’ve tried various versions of things you mentioned - no cooking, no cleaning, etc. and he just does not care. But I don’t want to live in a pigsty, nor do I think we should eat out for every meal ($$ wise and from a health standpoint). The house doesn’t have to be perfect, and we certainly don’t eat every meal at home, so I’d say I’m already pretty lax.[/quote]

OP, ignore these people trying to blame you. There is no excuse for a grown adult with a kid to act as your DH does. I struggle with this with my DH as well. He doesn't sit around watching TV/playing video games like yours does, but he does not help around the house at all and he totally ignores many basic parenting duties. On the holiday on Monday, he felt he'd had a busy day because he practiced his Spanish, tried to go for a bike ride and then discovered his bike needed a new tire, went to REI to buy new tires and then deemed them too expensive, came home and ordered tires on Amazon, and then, at my prompting, took DD to the playground for 45 minutes and stopped at the grocery store on the way home for 5 items.

What he doesn't realize is that MY day was taking care of DD all day while he did all these things for himself, planning dinner, and then having to coax him into taking DD to the park for a little while and grabbing a few items we still needed for dinner while I prepared it. I did nothing for myself on Monday -- the entire day was childcare, food prep, and then listening to DH complain about how annoyed he was about the bike issue. Oh, and when he got back from the park and grocery store, he complained about that, too.

It is very hard to be married to someone like this. And if you point out the inequities, they immediately get super defensive and attack you, so nothing ever changes because there is no openness to the idea that the way things currently work might not work for you or DD. If it works for him, and it does, that's how it has to be.[/quote]

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