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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

PP who quit. My DH used to do things exactly like this. He also would accuse me of doing make-work that even he acknowledges today were necessary kid tasks.

In my case I can say now he really *couldn’t* do more at home given the weight of his professional load. I grew up middle class and was really resistant to hiring out the level of stuff we needed to. He grew up UMC and didn’t understand why I was reacting like that. But even for things that just could not be outsourced, I think he got very defensive about it and refused to open his eyes to the reality of 1) how much life stuff just cannot be outsourced 2) how much I was doing. Because if he really saw it, he’d have to admit it was deeply unfair and accept that he was the bad guy in the dynamic, which is a big blow to anyone’s ego. If that’s what you have to convince your spouse of, that they are treating you very unfairly (and in my case that was also hobbling my career which I was just as ambitious about as him) well, that’s just a big pill to swallow. [/quote]

So he was very professionally busy and offered up the solution of hiring stuff out and you resisted? And still complained about the workload?[/quote]

…yes? I’m admitting we were both wrong. That’s how we are still married my friend. [/quote]

You’re still married because you caved and gave up your financial independence. [/quote]

You sound mad. Why are you mad? [/quote]

NP here.

I mean, isn't it a legitimately angering phenomenon that women often [b]give up financial independence because their husbands won't step up?[/b] [/quote]

Yes but IMO the bolded is the key. Why do they do that? They shouldn't do that. I think women convince other women that this is the solution.

Personally I think that this issue, imbalanced workload in the home, comes down to a frog in the pot situation. I think a pattern starts really early on, when there is no resentment and everything is hunky dory. And you just pick things up because society naturally directs a lot of these things to the woman. And likely EARLY on even before kids. This starts from day 1. It just doesn't feel like a big deal at first that you're cleaning the kitchen every night because there isn't 15 million other things to do and your needs are being otherwise met. But then you have kids and maternity leave means you are alone with the baby for three months and you become just [i]better[/i] at handling kid stuff. Not because you are naturally better, but because you're left alone with an infant for three months and just literally HAVE to figure it out.

And then the stuff deferring to mom really kicks in, the school always calling you first, the pediatrician always calling you first etc.

And you're doing all those little things that you picked up at first that are suddenly much bigger things.

Meanwhile, Dad is kind of blind to all of this. You're in a pot that is slowly coming up to boiling and he's in a pot that is coming up to being warm and is confused because he's not freaking out even though his pot is getting warmer too!

There is a study out there that says that the least sympathetic group towards women with severe PMS is women with mild PMS. Because they don't believe its that bad because they can't get outside their own experience. I think something similar happens with men in marriages like this. They too have had to take on more, so are least able to see the disparity.

I don't have this issue in my marriage. I think for two main reasons. First, I didn't breastfeed (this isn't a knock on breastfeeding but I think breastfeeding sets up a dynamic from day one where mom takes on something really hard that is then continually reinforced unless actively combatted) and we split all babycare duties equally from day 1, wakeups, baths, bedtimes, etc. And I went out of the house and left him with the kids frequently from day 1. I know so many people who do not do this. Forcing dad into situations where he needs to 'figure it out' during infancy is CRITICAL IMO to preventing this dynamic. Second, I think because of #1, my husband realized the moment I was tipping into 'totally overwhelmed' and he voluntarily took over all the laundry. He brought it up, he took it on. 100%. I think think this happened because he was fully in it with me, so understood the burdens of the kids really really well and therefore the fact that the household stuff was on me, it was obvious to him. I didn't have to convince him.

Now I am also certain that there are plenty of guys who are just jerks who are uninterested in taking care of their families, and nothing will help them. There are also women who are perfectionists and have to have things done a certain way and cannot relinquish control and the guy can't win. But personally I think these men and women are in the minority and most are just falling into a terrible pattern not even seeing it happen. But by the time they realize it the wife is in boiling water and the resentment she has at looking at the other frog who just watched her descend into misery without doing anything is too strong to overcome. [/quote]

I don't know PP about this breastfeeding thing as an excuse why some men are just useless.

I had agreed with my DH that we will split feedings, but when my baby came, I couldn't stand her crying ( I was crazy but that's besides the point). So I would grab her from whoever was holding her when she started crying. So DH did not get to feed her. I breastfed for a year, and I stayed home while he worked.

With the second one, I breastfed for a year and a half and stayed home while he worked.

Other than bathing the babies, he did everything else. When he got off work at 5 or 6:30 on the days he went into the office, he started doing everything that was to be done. And he did stuff in the morning too before work.

I would have done the same if he were the one waking up at night to breastfeed. It's empathy. Some men ( and women) don't have it.

[/quote]

So you guys took steps to actively combat the pattern. Which is great, I know a lot of women for whom breastfeeding established an early imbalance in workload. And again it isn't a knock on breastfeeding its saying that if you pursue breastfeeding you should find other ways to ensure equal workload is happening in the beginning. I assume he was doing that stuff because he knew it had to be done and you communicated well about it and by your own account it sounds like you were suffering some post partum mental health issues that likely alerted him to issues early on. I'm not saying there are not bad guys out there though, and that there aren't especially good guys. But there's a lot of people in the middle and it helps to understand the patterns that result in this very very common marital issue.[/quote]

Got you.

My DH is one of the especially good guys, but I have noticed that in many marriages where there is a balance, the women were very outspoken and intolerant to imbalances from the begining. However, these men seem to have more empathy in other areas of their lives unrelated to their spouses. So maybe it's a combination of empathy and communication?[/quote]

I think it is also learned. My husband is also an especially good guy. He was also the youngest boy in a family of three boys with a military mom wife who did EVERYTHING. When we were dating his nephew came up to us with dirty hands asking us to wash his hands and he did nothing and after I helped the kid I was like, what was up with that? You did nothing? And he was like, 'I didn't know what to do.' And I was like, 'you don't know how to help a kid wash their hands what's wrong with you?' And he seemed perturbed. But it sets a tone you know, I never let him do anything like that without commentary. And I never stepped in to help him if he did something not quite right, I let him figure stuff out. My husband IS a very empathetic person, and so I think he was very teachable here. But he had to be taught. He had to be shown a different measurement of what is acceptable. Should I have had to do that? No. But he couldn't naturally understand that being babied his entire life left him with some terrible habits. But being with me, exposed to me (the oldest daughter of four siblings so the polar opposite), exposed to the way I view things, the things I was willing to do and was not willing to do, made him grow up.

So I guess long way of saying I agree, empathy and communication. I think an underrated aspect of this though is that mom/wife/woman/competent partner needs to be able to be comfortable with the discomfort of watching someone else do something you think is important wrong or badly and fail. And learn from that failure. I think one thing that I have seen happen in marriages I have been close to is that one person cannot let the other person take something on fully. They will have opinions on it, critiques, etc. And so the husband feels like he's not doing anything right and shuts down. And shutting down is as bad as the nagging. I'm not saying it's an earned reaction, but both people are acting badly there. When I was first home with my newborns I didn't do everything right always the first time. And I cannot imagine what I would have done to someone following me around correcting me in that high stress situation. So you need to communicate, and you need to let him do things his way, as long as its essentially acceptable, and believe that just like you perfected things as you practiced, your husband will too. And again, there are of course exceptions to this rule, total jerks and total harpies who are outside the lines. But I really do believe most people are somewhere in the middle, confused by why nothing they do seems like its working, and not seeing years of baggage and habits and patterns contributing to every aspect of it[/quote]

NP. [b]We have three kids [/b]4 and under and my husband doesn't know how to change a crib sheet. He doesn't know how to properly change a diaper. And by properly, I mean so that the crib sheet doesn't have to be changed every single time he diapers the baby. He doesn't know you're supposed to throw away disposable changing pads if they get poop on them. He doesn't know how to put on kid socks. Yesterday, I watched in stunned disbelief and he put two left shoes on DD to go out.

He has two or three things he needs to do in the morning while I get DD ready. He did his list once last week. He has done it once this week. So, I do it all while he regularly sleeps in then gets up 45 minutes late and makes himself a cup of coffee. We're supposed to alternate dinner. He did 1 last week, zero so far this week. So, I do it all while he's on social media or whatever. I am so tired of asking, begging for help.

It sucks and, yes, I resent him so much.[/quote]

Why did you continue to have kids with a man like this?  This is just as much on you.  If you don’t want to end up in a situation like yours then you have to have your husband doing 50/50 before you have more kids.  I understand having the first kid and then finding out your DH is worthless.  But to then go on and have two more kids with him?  [/quote]

The work load was much less with one and second pregnancy was twins. But thanks for being so helpful.[/quote]

I am not the PP but the one you responded to originally. I feel like your comment here gets to what I was saying. The imbalance starts as not that big a deal, and so grievances go unspoken. I mean how does he not know how to change a crib sheet? How does the crib sheet impact diaper changing? Does he just walk away leaving poop? Did you just let him get through your first child's infancy without having major discussions about this?

I am not blaming you, I'm sorry you are in a difficult situation. Honestly you sound past the point of no return, the resentment has set in. And 100% possibly you are just married to an unredeemable jerk. But for your own good in subsequent marriages you should think about what part you played in this dynamic emerging. That doesn't mean its your fault, but you let yourself become a doormat and that doesn't happen overnight its a death by a 1000 cuts. You need to yell at the first or fifth cut, not wait until the 900th and flee because you're near death.[/quote]

But PP, this is locking the barn door after the horse has run off. Why do you think this is helpful? She has 3 kids. She can't go backwards now. Her DH is not helpful. Perhaps she let things go at first. Many, many women do this. We're groomed and trained to do this, to be helpful and considerate and to pick up after others. But with 3 kids, one person can't do it all. You must outsource but that's not enough. You need a partner to pick up half the work (half, ha ha, even 1/4 would be a great start), and most men simply won't do this. They don't see it as their responsibility. They don't see all the little tiny things women do every day to keep a house running: Wiping off a dirty counter, picking up shoes scattered in the front hall, sweeping up dirt clods dropped by kids' boots, putting stray dishes into the dishwasher, calling to set up playdates, sending notes to teachers, picking up birthday gifts for DD's friends, etc. etc. It's exhausting doing all this little stuff. [/quote]

Previous PP, you say you are not blaming me but that is exactly what you are doing. I did nothing to encourage my husband's laziness. We discussed raising children at length before marriage. I was explicit: I want an active and engaged father for my children. He vehemently agreed. He was a feminist, went to all the rallies, had all the t-shirts, had all the liberal friends... With the first baby, the division of labor was pretty fair. Not 50/50 but he was trying. After the second pregnancy, he just tapped out. The workload tripled and he just decided, meh this isn't for me. Rather than face the grind of three young kids, he decided to just relax instead.

[b]It really pisses me off that people are so quick to ask what the woman did to cause her husband to be an ass.[/b] Some people are just selfish asses.[/quote]

This. As a mom and wife, I can’t even put my kids in mismatched clothes without people screaming I’m a terrible mom. But when a dad completely checks out, it’s always the wife’s fault.

Like, if you went to a coffee shop, ordered a drink, and the barista sat scrolling on their phone instead of making it, and when you asked what’s up he replied “you might tell me I did it wrong so better to just not make it at all”….you’d recognize that’s insane. If you had to baby them and ask repeatedly over an hour before they made it, you’d recognize something is severely wrong with them. Because it’s literally their job. Same thing with husbands - pitching in at home is their job. [/quote]

I get why it seems misogynistic and unfair to even remotely blame the woman.

However, anecdotally, every woman I know with a helpless husband has majorly contributed to the problem!

One of the driving factors I see with the imbalance begins with the woman staying home after having the baby while the husband returns to work.  It sets the tone that the woman is fully responsible for the kids and house and the husband just needs to go to work.  But then a good number of women decide to quit their jobs and stay home.  They also breastfeed which means they can’t leave their baby without again, doing significantly more work than the man.  It also means they are fully responsible for the mental work of storing and doling out pumped breastmilk.  I admit I order the cans of formula but that’s all I do.

The biggest thing I notice is how differently these women live their lives from men.  They often don’t work, don’t go away for the weekend and won’t leave their children.  Whereas I’ve never had any issue leaving the house for the entire day and not providing my husband with any instructions.  If I were to ask these women if they have left their kids with their husband for the weekend and how it went, they would tell me they can’t do that.  But they have never done it so they don’t know that.

To a new mom I’d say if you don’t want to end up resentful and angry then when you’re six weeks postpartum leave the baby for the day and head out.  Don’t leave instructions.  He won’t kill your baby.  Also don’t breastfeed.  [/quote]

Oh stuff it. The NB period was the only time our household approached any kind of equity. And that had nothing to do with me - it was the only time period where it was obvious to my STBX that he had to step up and he was socially expected to (paternity leave) somewhat. All downhill from there. [b]Was it my fault that he decided to start staying at the office until 9 pm when the baby[/b] was 2 months old? I didn’t have the opportunity to “just leave.” He literally did not show up.

Suggestion for you - don’t make assumptions about things you know nothing about. [/quote]

It’s not your fault he did this, but I certainly wouldn’t have put up with this.  I would have hired a sitter every single day from between 6 PM and 9 PM.  I likely would have left the entire weekend since I was stuck at home every weekday.  [/quote]

Where would I have gotten the money for an extra 15 hrs of childcare? [/quote]

why would you SAH if your finances were so close to the bone? And please don't tell me you don't have your own money to spend because you're a SAH.[/quote]

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