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Problem with divison of household labor
My husband and I have been arguing a lot since we got married last spring. We have been together forever and lived together prior to the marriage for 10 years, so it is not an adjustment issue. Right before the wedding, I was laid off from a 15 year career. He had just graduated from law school and was studying for the bar exam and not working. Also, his car died. It was a pretty stressful summer, and we blamed a lot of the arguing on that. I have since gotten an even better job and we bought a car to replace his old one. He is still not working, just waiting for his bar results so that he can start looking once he is a licensed attorney (which was the original plan before all of the other stuff happened).
Lately he has been doing NOTHING at all with his time off-not working out, not working on the house, not going to museaums or reading books or anything? just staring at the computer or the playstation all the time (at least from my perspective). I tried bring this up twice this week-one morning before work I mentioned that maybe he could get some things on the home repair to do list done. I told him I was feeling resentful about it. He got angry at me. When I got home from work, he was still really cold towards me, but he had started work on a project that had been stalled for a few months. Next day, he was fine, like nothing had happened, but then he spent the rest of the week doing nothing.
Today, I did some yard work that he had said he would help me with-instead he fell asleep and I finished by myself. Again, I felt resentful. I am in charge of ALL of the cleaning at our house (laundry, bathrooms, floors swept/mopped/vacuumed, kitchen and all that entails, trash duty) We used to split it more evenly, but over the past year it has become more and more me doing everything or it doesn?t get done. Now I am feeling that the yard work has also become my problem (that used to be mostly his chore). I tried bringing it up to him again and again he got angry. I am pretty sure his anger is because he is well aware that he is contributing nothing right now, but he won?t admit it and he won?t drag himself out of this mood he is in that causes him to sit around and do nothing all day every day.
It is to the point that I feel like I have a child to take care of rather than a grown adult that can be a partner to me. I know he is depressed about not working/making money but I don?t understand how he can feel ok about literally contributing nothing to our household while I work full time and handle all of the household chores. Any suggestions on how to bring this up in a productive manner so that we might solve this instead of fighting? Has anyone been through this before?
Re: Problem with divison of household labor
He's got to pitch in. That's the bottom line.
Can't he do even the simplest things, to make things easy for you: dust, do the laundry, get the dustbunnies out from under the furniture, clean the john, do the dishes and clean the kitchen, to name a few?
The 2 of you need to sit down and calmly discuss the issue of housework like 2 reasonable adults. This means he can't sulk or pull the "But mommy whyyyy" routine or give you sh!t about it in general.
It isn't fair to you to stick you with the entire load. He needs to know that. gl.
I think you're dealing with one of two general scenarios:
1) Being in school rather than working has given both of you the perfect excuse for him to exist in a kind of extended college-hood in which there is lots of free time that, technically, should be filled with studying, but can also be filled with computer, starbucks, and video gaming. Why didn't you do the dishes today? Well, I was busy with class and studying (which DID occur, along with several hours of goofing off.) Now he's out of school and finished with the bar exam, and you're expecting him to begin to pull more of his weight with the household chores. He's in the habit of goofing around a bit more than you are, and he's having a hard time getting motivated and structuring his time. A frank discussion and some time spent planning should set things to rights.
2) Warning...this one is less pleasant, but I feel it's a possibility. He could be checked out of your relationship. This may have been going on for a while with him, but the home stretch of law school and while you were unemployed didn't seem like a great time to deal with it. He's not motivated to do his share around the house because he just doesn't care. Ugh.
Hope #2 is not the case. Either way, a frank "lay your cards on the table" discussion is probably in order. GL!
You need to talk to him if you are feeling this way. He definitely needs to contribute, but nothing will happen if you don't communicate.
GL.
It sounds like a classic case of mild depression given that you stated that he used to be an active partner, and the laziness has developed over the last year and has coincided with his long wait to start the career he studied so long for.
Mild depression breeds apathy and total lack of motivation. He should consider counseling to address this and develop better coping mechanisms. One of the things they might have him do right off the bat is write down everything he does for a week. Every half hour must be accounted for. Once it's in black and white, he might see how he's manifesting his own crappy cycle of laziness>lack of accomplishment>depression>laziness and so on. Once he sees that and is ready to break it, hopefully he will be ready to get back in action and become the partner he needs to be.
You might also try to find a way to let him know that his behavior makes you feel like his mother, and that is not sexy. It's a delicate topic, because you don't want him to feel more defeated, but it needs to be said and understood. His current behavior is unacceptable. Best of luck!
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This exactally. Sound exactally like early stages of depression to me. As sexist as it is, most Men still see themselves as the providers for the household. When they are unable to be the main provider, for whatever reason (wife has a better job, unemployed/underemployed) they lose self-worth. When you lose that concept of worth in yourself (amplified by a wife who in his eyes may seem naggy or not getting it - even if he hasnt said anything) its really easy to become depressed and not want to do much of anything, and then get defensive if he feels like hes being accused of not chipping in. Not trying to say he should get of scotch free, but maybe try and address those issues and find ways to build up his esteem and you might get more the 'desired results' with him contributing more to the relationship and household.
Counselling for him would be a good option if you can afford it (does your work offer any counselling in thier benefits package he could take advantage of?)
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Thank you for the responses everyone. I definitely think depression is a contributing factor and have been trying different ways of addressing things with him this week. I got really happy at him when he put some dishes in the dishwasher rather than saying anything about things that haven't gotten done. Despite the fighting about this last week, I can see that he is making more of an effort this week so something I said must have had some effect even though I don't feel like we had a productive discussion about it.
I also agree completely with the studying/school taking up less time in the day and him not structuring his time in the same way I do and being used to having tons of goof off time. Counseling is a possibility that we are talking about, but it may not come to that based on some other positive changes that should be happening in the next few weeks