I like for us to do things together and rely on each other. Every partnership needs a healthy level of codependency and knowing that if you fall, someone is going to catch you instead of asking you to take full responsibility of your fall.

In my marriage things have generally worked, because my husband isn’t a jerk and was also 38 when we met. He already owned a home that had to be clean, he had to feed himself, etc.

The truth is that he literally doesn’t cook other than bacon and eggs for breakfast, but he certainly understands food must be served. But from the day we married, he has always done the laundry. I literally never think about it other than on a rare occasion where I have to ask him to do it during the week because we will be packing for a trip, etc.

We also play to our strengths. I’m the master of conception and planning so he does much, much more of the execution. Also, since I’m filling out the forms, his name and number goes first on all the kid paperwork and he gets the calls before me. He knows he is the first call to pick up a kid from school, etc. I also group text for all things kid related. This is important because we have a kid with special needs who cannot communicate. Every communication about her includes him. Teachers, church, etc know to text us both.

Our one major crisis was when our special needs kid was about 8. She doesn’t sleep through the night. She is cognitively a baby so she sleeps like one. In the early years, I took more nights shifts because he needed more sleep than me. As I aged, I needed more sleep. He simply couldn’t understand that he had to start splitting this with me and thought it was ok to get up (unhappily) when I shoved him and told him to get up. I could not take it. I was pretty unhappy about it for probably a year. So, I told him I was going to figure out if it was cheaper for me to get a studio apartment or to stay in a hotel a few nights a week. I wasn’t mad, I wasn’t separating, I just needed sleep. And I started looking at studios online. He basically immediately started doing every other night. It has now been this was for about 5 years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with a communication coach on how to speak up, have boundaries, and say no.

Example: yesterday I was WFH and H popped in to ask if I wanted him to make me lunch. I said sure. He then kept popping in and out to ask me what I wanted, what we have, do we have XYZ ingredients, etc.

VERY distracting and irritating since I don’t like to be interrupted while working.

I told him that I wanted him to take full ownership of this task and see it through by himself, because if I had to carry the mental burden of stopping work to tell him how to make a lunch, I would rather just order DoorDash or make something myself.

He huffed and said “fine I just won’t make anything” but 10 minutes later walked in with a burger.

He’s fully capable of figuring things out, he just doesn’t when I’m easily accessible and will answer him or help him out. So I just don’t.

Ugh, I hate this attitude. My DH responds in this way as well sometimes.

What helped me was explaining that completing a task means taking full ownership of the Conception, Planning, and Execution (this comes from Fair Play).

H would take charge of “cooking dinner” but expected me to pick the recipe, get the groceries, and answer all questions he had on how to cook. That’s the mental load part - the Conception and Planning. If you only do Execution, you’re only doing 1/3 of the task.

H still gets huffy when I point this out but he usually follows through and later admits I’m right.

Thanks for this reminder. I had tried to do that for a few necessary but annoying things that require planning but don’t need to be amazingly timely (vet appointments, kids dentist appointments). This slipped after we moved and I started conception and planning, leaving the execution to him in some cases. Which now means I have to explain/justify the “why” and remind him (even if it’s on the calendar) and he thinks he’s doing 100% of the task.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t back down about the unfairness and unsustainability of it.

I kept asking for help in a nice voice, things like “can you please handle X while I handle y?”

I started having conversations about trivial decisions out loud and asked for help deciding.

I wrote down every task that had to happen to keep our house running and suggested a schedule to distribute fairly and asked for feedback.

I was open and vulnerable about my inability to handle it all and begged for help to avoid a breakdown.

I gently defended the necessity of “unnecessary” things like purchasing children’s clothing at regular intervals and bringing small gifts to the children of relatives when visiting.

It was exhausting and took years, but it did work. I also make a pretty high income and work hard, and I know my spouse did not want me to stop working or work very little, so I think that helped.

Gifts to children whose houses you visit is really and truly unnecessary. Most of us parents don’t even want you to do that!

This is VERY cultural - not necessarily ethnically, but regionally/what people just “do”.

And yes, it’s not necessary. But neither are thank you notes and setting out towels for overnight guests when they could just grab them from the closet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with a communication coach on how to speak up, have boundaries, and say no.

Example: yesterday I was WFH and H popped in to ask if I wanted him to make me lunch. I said sure. He then kept popping in and out to ask me what I wanted, what we have, do we have XYZ ingredients, etc.

VERY distracting and irritating since I don’t like to be interrupted while working.

I told him that I wanted him to take full ownership of this task and see it through by himself, because if I had to carry the mental burden of stopping work to tell him how to make a lunch, I would rather just order DoorDash or make something myself.

He huffed and said “fine I just won’t make anything” but 10 minutes later walked in with a burger.

He’s fully capable of figuring things out, he just doesn’t when I’m easily accessible and will answer him or help him out. So I just don’t.

Ugh, I hate this attitude. My DH responds in this way as well sometimes.

What helped me was explaining that completing a task means taking full ownership of the Conception, Planning, and Execution (this comes from Fair Play).

H would take charge of “cooking dinner” but expected me to pick the recipe, get the groceries, and answer all questions he had on how to cook. That’s the mental load part - the Conception and Planning. If you only do Execution, you’re only doing 1/3 of the task.

H still gets huffy when I point this out but he usually follows through and later admits I’m right.

Thanks. This is actually super helpful.

DH and I just got into an argument about handling the scheduling of dog walks, and this would have been helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with a communication coach on how to speak up, have boundaries, and say no.

Example: yesterday I was WFH and H popped in to ask if I wanted him to make me lunch. I said sure. He then kept popping in and out to ask me what I wanted, what we have, do we have XYZ ingredients, etc.

VERY distracting and irritating since I don’t like to be interrupted while working.

I told him that I wanted him to take full ownership of this task and see it through by himself, because if I had to carry the mental burden of stopping work to tell him how to make a lunch, I would rather just order DoorDash or make something myself.

He huffed and said “fine I just won’t make anything” but 10 minutes later walked in with a burger.

He’s fully capable of figuring things out, he just doesn’t when I’m easily accessible and will answer him or help him out. So I just don’t.

Ugh, I hate this attitude. My DH responds in this way as well sometimes.

What helped me was explaining that completing a task means taking full ownership of the Conception, Planning, and Execution (this comes from Fair Play).

H would take charge of “cooking dinner” but expected me to pick the recipe, get the groceries, and answer all questions he had on how to cook. That’s the mental load part - the Conception and Planning. If you only do Execution, you’re only doing 1/3 of the task.

H still gets huffy when I point this out but he usually follows through and later admits I’m right.

Anonymous wrote:I worked with a communication coach on how to speak up, have boundaries, and say no.

Example: yesterday I was WFH and H popped in to ask if I wanted him to make me lunch. I said sure. He then kept popping in and out to ask me what I wanted, what we have, do we have XYZ ingredients, etc.

VERY distracting and irritating since I don’t like to be interrupted while working.

I told him that I wanted him to take full ownership of this task and see it through by himself, because if I had to carry the mental burden of stopping work to tell him how to make a lunch, I would rather just order DoorDash or make something myself.

He huffed and said “fine I just won’t make anything” but 10 minutes later walked in with a burger.

He’s fully capable of figuring things out, he just doesn’t when I’m easily accessible and will answer him or help him out. So I just don’t.

Ugh, I hate this attitude. My DH responds in this way as well sometimes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t back down about the unfairness and unsustainability of it.

I kept asking for help in a nice voice, things like “can you please handle X while I handle y?”

I started having conversations about trivial decisions out loud and asked for help deciding.

I wrote down every task that had to happen to keep our house running and suggested a schedule to distribute fairly and asked for feedback.

I was open and vulnerable about my inability to handle it all and begged for help to avoid a breakdown.

I gently defended the necessity of “unnecessary” things like purchasing children’s clothing at regular intervals and bringing small gifts to the children of relatives when visiting.

It was exhausting and took years, but it did work. I also make a pretty high income and work hard, and I know my spouse did not want me to stop working or work very little, so I think that helped.

Gifts to children whose houses you visit is really and truly unnecessary. Most of us parents don’t even want you to do that!

Yeah, I thought that was odd too.