seeking advice
Me (26/F) and my husband (33/M) has been married for 3.5 years and we both work from home. he is a programmer and for the last 5 months I began to learn create some things he need for his game that he’s creating (which he asked and encouraged me to do) so I’ve been experiencing some grate changes (I never did anything with technology I was a writer and a literature nerd before). we shared everything from the beginning and I need to mention he always made much more money than me and even now we are living on his savings which are good. and I always do the cooking and cleaning and laundry and feeding our dog and basically everything around the house.
The problem began when once several months ago when I asked him if he can make his own coffee just once, he argued that he is the one working and trying to make money (I was unemployed at that time) so I should have some responsibility and do the things in the house and I wasn’t doing enough (our dog shed a lot and I didn’t have the time to vacuum yet and didn’t make coffee). I didn’t say anything and agreed that since i’m not doing anything else i would take care of the house. but i’m not always so clean and although i prepare every meal on time but my kitchen sometimes gets messy but the mess wouldn’t stay more than 1/2 days. since then we had this conversation a few other times that the house isn’t always clean enough and I acknowledged I’m a little messy and I’ll try better.
So since I began to learn and create the things he asked in my computer, I had less time to clean the house, also i need to mention I’m not very fast in this new area and my work goes on a little slow. two days ago he was going out for a swim in the pool and at last minute he turned back and said to me: “I wish my wife would surprise me with a cleaned vacuumed floor when I come back” and without any thought I answered: “well you never surprise me with a clean floor when i come home, and i’m doing stuffs too” . he got angry and said “you don’t do anything and left. when he came back he didn’t talk or answer me and angrily went vacuuming and then throw the vacuum with great anger that I thought it’s definitely broken. then I went to bed and didn’t eat for one day, he didn’t even checked if i was alive, not until after he heard me vomiting (i have stomach problem and it happened cause i didn’t eat) and then he called my mom and said: " she (me) is not feeling well can you bring us some food?!” when i asked him in the middle of my pain that tell her not to come and she’ll get nervous seeing me like this he answered:" I want her to come because i didn’t eat from last night at least somebody will cook for me." (he had dinner and launch and was lying to punish me for not cooking). anyway my mom came and i got better and that night passed… I gave him every meal on time yesterday and today and we are not talking at all, not a single word from that night, i just give him food and he eats and he’s not even working anymore, just watching TV with frowning all the time.
I feel so invalid and I wanted to ask is it true that the one who don’t have a job has to do everything in the house alone and say nothing? is he right to demand everything without any help just because we live with his money? I’m confused and I need straightforward frank answers. I feel my emotions has been disvalued in many ways in the last couple of years. I need to know what to do to make things ok, thanks for bear reading this.
PS I think my post isn’t shown, let me know
I was honestly giving your husband the benefit of the doubt until the paragraph about him calling your mother.
I want her to come because i didn’t eat from last night at least somebody will cook for me.
Holy hell, the entitlement is unreal. It put a lot of the stuff above that quote that I was letting slide in a different light.
I take it from your English that your not from America? If not, I’m not sure my cultural background will let me give much relevant advice but in my opinion, your husband sounds like an asshole and he’s wrong for making you think that you should be a house servant just because he’s employed.
Where to take it from here? I don’t know. Here, though, that kind of attitude towards one’s spouse is seen as completely regressive and would need immediate addressing.
Yes English is not my first language, I couldn’t agree more. thank you so much for your answer.
He’s a child and entitled. It’s true that household chores can be split, and someone who stays at home can do some more… But he can’t whine and complain and humiliate you. That’s not how healthy relationships work. I mean you’re not his bulter, or his mom. And why doesn’t he surprise you with a vacuumed floor if that’s what he likes?
(And by the way, I don’t think a 100% / 0% split plus bringing coffee is super healty anyway. I think people should always do at least something. Unless it’s an edge case and they do some super hard labor for 70h a week…)
Yes I agree it’s not healthy. thanks for your answer.
Wish you the best. Maybe if you have good friends (or family) whom you trust: talk to them. I think someone who actually knows both of you, can give some more good advice on your exact situation.
Your feelings are valid.
A healthy relationship would be the two of you working together to take care of the home. If one of you had a job outside the home and the other didn’t have a job, the one at home would have more responsibilities in the home because that is their “job” and they have the greatest time opportunity to do household tasks. That isn’t to say the one working outside the home would have zero responsibilities in the home, but the majority of household tasks would not be their responsibility because they are not home. Things like taking out the trash, feeding the dog, cleaning up messes they themself make, etc. is an equal responsibility that both people need to do when it needs to be done. If both are working, responsibilities are shared 100% or are designated fairly.
A feature of a healthy relationship is doing things for one another that they don’t need to do, like making coffee, and picking up slack for one another as needed when their partner is down. You have each other’s back and care for one another. One is sick? The other helps take care of them and does what they can around the home with the time they have available so the infirm can rest. It works like that because there is mutual appreciation, care, and desire for the two of you to be happy because they make each other happy.
You do not have a healthy relationship. You are expected to do everything for him and clean to his satisfaction. He won’t even make himself coffee or fix himself food, going so far as to call your mother to bring food. He has anger issues, to the point of being willing to destroy property. He resents you so much that he is indifferent to your suffering when you were sick. He wants a tradwife, without being a man that deserves a tradwife. I don’t even like calling what he wants a “tradwife”, because he wants someone to do everything for him and that isn’t what a tradwife is.
He needs therapy and the two of you need marriage counseling, if you honestly feel he is worth keeping in your life. Realistically, he probably won’t respond well to any therapy because he is so certain he is not the problem. It is up to him to deserve you or it is up to you to do what you need to get what you deserve because you deserve better than he is.
Thank you for your answer. yes I think he won’t accept any therapy or help too. He won’t admit he was wrong, ever. thanks so much.
My wife has a lot of medical issues and so I am the sole provider. She has difficulty doing anything except laying down for over a certain amount of time. It varies depending on activity but basically if its under an hour and she can have about an hour to rest it off she could go again. If its multiple hours she might pretty much be out for test of day or have to keep it to 10 mins here or there. Over a certain amount of hours and she will be recovering for days. She does as much as she can and often makes food (which is great because im not good with cooking or really anything else that is spontaneously creative) and vaccums and does most shopping, and now deals with health insurance denials (I have done that and most everything related to finances so like bills and taxes and such and I still handle all the billing aspects but we sort share with the denials now. man if I lived in a first world country we would not be nearly as stressed). She is also trying to declutter. I do dishes and laundry and walk the dog mostly. Otherwise our house is a stye and one or the other of us occasionally manages to clean a bathroom or parts of the kitchen but neither of us blames it on the other. We realize our situation. I don’t really have a point im just giving you a general idea of how our family splits the chores given our situation. One thing to note is I would really like to not have pets as they are a large amount of the cause of our messiness in the house but she literally cannot live without them. If she were perfectly healthy she would either likely do a lot more or be working.
I’m sorry hearing about her medical condition, and thank you for your explanations it was helpful. hope she gets better soon.
Its not something that gets better soon unfortunately but its life and thank you for your well wishes. I just wish the US had univesal healthcare.
It’s a power struggle. He is attempting to get more from you than you are willing to give. It seems like he’s attempting to create an unequal relationship for his benefit.
While selfishness is completely natural, relationships should be equal. And it’s not only about true equality, i.e. “I vacuum the floor” -> “you should also vacuum the floor” and it being split 50/50. A relationship is beneficial because everyone can do what they’re good at, and different things fit different people. By using this fact, it’s possible to create something more than just sharing everything 50/50, because you’re using individual people’s strengths fully while minimizing weaknesses.
How exactly this should be done, what is ok, really none of us can say. It’s up to the people in the relationship. And you are quite obviously not ok with what is happening. And that is the important thing. Everything else is relatively irrelevant.
You have a bunch of options now, you always have. As this is a power struggle, you have to be aware of what power you have. What do you do that he wants? That is the power you have. You can negotiate with it. You can withhold benefits to him. You can use persuasion. You can invoke traditions. You can use other people. You can exploit his insecurities. You can leave him (or threaten to) and look for a better guy. And so much more.
What exactly works in this struggle is for you to be creative about, and for you to decide what you are willing to do. Threatening to leave does not work if you’re not actually willing to leave, for example.
We don’t know your particular situation well enough even with this post you made here trying to explain things. I can just say that you should stand up for yourself and do what you think is right. I don’t think you’re being unreasonable from this post, but also this is your personal story, I can’t see the other side and how accurate and truthful you are being.
For me personally, I would have never married someone that early, marriage just makes it harder to threaten to leave someone. I personally wouldn’t put up with any of this, because I am able to be happy and live alone. It just sounds too selfish to me, and I wouldn’t want to be the one to teach them what is too selfish. I wouldn’t want to be disrespected like this.
thanks for your answer. I don’t know if he is playing this power game intentionally or he just can’t understand and reacts this way unconsciously. you explained it very well. thank you for your time.
