Unhelpful husband

[midnytekitty91]

@rubbles YMMV but I threatened to divorce him if he didn't get it together.

I spent 9 months giving it my all to convince my husband that there was an actual problem with the division of labor, trying to get him to see the invisible labor and acknowledge the mental load. The whole time I was getting more and more frustrated by his inability to be proactive and to unwillingness to take me and my needs seriously.

One day it occured to me that it would actually be easier for me to run my house and my life as a single mom because i was not only taking care of work that should be shared but i was also taking care of him. Cooking his meals, doing his laundry, cleaning his fucking shit off the toilet.

I kicked him out. I asked him fly to his mom's house and I called her and said that he needs "some perspective."

He came back a week later, found us a therapist and scheduled an appointment for us. Things are much better now. He schedules the kids doctor's appointments, took over making school lunches (which i had been doing for years), and worked on cleaning up after himself and splitting shared tasks.

I dont know if its going to last or if we'll last. I'm still struggling with resentment. He watched me drowning in motherhood and begging him to help or at least to take care of himself. He did nothing. He tried to convince me that i was just doing too much, that the problem was my standards were too high. For 9 years I had been asking him to do more, and he argued that the problem was me instead of addressing the problem. It's infuriating.

 

[ijay86]

@rubbles Therapy can help with these issues. Having our marriage counselor spell things out for both of us made us both aware of our issues - him not putting the (mental) work in, me treating him like a child. Both caused major resentment on both sides.
Don't treat your grown ass husband like a kid. He's a capable adult who needs to step up.

 

[mjarrett]

@rubbles OMG I could have written this myself.

Having kids really make me resent my husband so much as he doesn't do any mental load at all, and almost everything about babies were done by me. He barely changed nappy ane fed when he got home. This changed after I had to be away overseas for a family emergency. My husband was taking care of 2 newborns when I was away for 10 days. I think he had a good lesson on how hard it is to be with the babies on his own. He definitely helps more now, but still makes rookie mistakes and doesn't do any mental load and I'm not sure if it's something he can change...

 

[calvybull]

@rubbles A few things are going on here:

1. Your husband has decided there is a "tolerable level of permanent unhappiness" (look it up for an informative video) that he is willing to let you live with.
2. He is using weaponized incompetence to not get better at the things he needs to get better at.
3. He is "buying his leisure and relaxation with your labor." And that is abuse. (look up blogger Zawn Villines for more info about this.)

No wonder you're frustrated. I would be, too.

My husband and I used a game called "Fair Play" to help understand and divide up household and child management chores. It has helped us enormously.

 

[megansophia]

@rubbles Have a come to Jesus (or deity of your choice) talk about the fact that if you’re going to do everything except take the trash out and sometimes doing other small tasks that you might as well be a single parent, and that since you’re coming to resent him more and more over the fact that you feel alone in being the adult it’s a possible future.