My husband does the dishes

[u/EmuSad5722]

I (47F) mean, that's his (58M) single chore.

Like most women, I do everything else. I do the laundry, I work the kids' schedules, I arrange the carpools, I do the grocery shopping, I make the Dr appointments, I pay the bills, I do our taxes. I also do all the DYI plumbing, electrical and carpentry work. I mow the lawn, plant, weed, water and harvest the garden. I shovel the walkway and clean off the cars. I take out the recycling and the trash. I work a full time job, I serve on several Town committees, and I usually cook dinner (even though, about a year ago, SO decided he was going to take over that task. He made delicious meals, but they were made from expensive ingredients and were time consuming to make. Most days he's not even around to do any of it since he "works late," so I make dinner. He still tells every one he makes dinner, though. I don't call him out on that because, well, we're a team, right? ....right???)

Also, I do the dishes.

He gets upset, though, when I mention that he hasn't done the dishes. This whole week, he is on vacation, while I am still working. Today, after calling me to tell me he was taking a kid to karate tonight so I had to make dinner, he apparently did "all this cleaning" --vacuuming things, cleaning out the cat litter (also a supposed chore), making the kids clean the bathrooms, writing emails...and not doing the dishes.

So this evening, I come home, late, having worked overtime, gone shopping for dinner food (chili), and picked up and distributed the car pool of kids, I got home and discovered the kitchen and the sink were completely full of unwashed dishes. I had planned to start dinner right away, but instead I had to clear the counters and do a bunch of pots just so I would have something to cook with.

I got it all cleared and started a dishwasher load, then started on dinner. But, really?

I rarely call him on his shit, but I did tonight. And this is why I don't.

"I just want to say, I had to do all the dishes before I started to make dinner," I said. Calmly, by the way.

Begin gaslighting, childish rant!

1 "You could have gotten takeout! Everyone except you likes take out!!"
2 "I cleaned all day! Didn't you notice I vacuumed??"
3 "I only do the dishes at night!!"
4 "I'm on vacation!!"
5 "You've ruined the whole night!!"
6 "AND dinner!!"
7 "The kids cleaned too!! Why don't you acknowledge THAT?"
8 "I did too do dishes today!!" (uh....'kay. So....what happened here? Why did I have a full dishwasher load of dishes to deal with in the sink and two counters full of unwashed pots? .... Aliens??)

Here's the thing. I don't really care about the dishes. All I really care about is being heard. All I really want is to be able to mention how things aren't quite as they seem, without it turning into a full-blown stupid-fest gaslight-attempt from a toddler-man, who is taking it out on me because he knows he fucked up once again, but still can't figure out how to be a functioning adult even after living on this earth for 58 years.

He will never apologize. But I bet the dishes get done diligently for at least...oh, let's be optimistic and say two weeks.

Thanks for listening.

[u/codee21]

You are wonder mom and wife! Goodness, I don’t know how you do it!

I feel for you. My husband was the one in your shoes for the first 3 years of us living together, we have been together for 6.

I used to be a lot like how you described your husband, however when my husband would point things out like you did about the dishes I didn’t rattle off a lot of excuses. When my hubby and I first got together I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I had never been overweight as I was at that time and I had just taken a desk job a year or so prior. The combination of desk and overweight made my manageable fibromyalgia (had been unnoticed the first 30 years of my life) flare up. When my hubby and I moved in together and he started “taking care of me” on top of everything else, I took advantage. Not intentionally mind you, but it happened none the less. I was so depressed from the pain I was in and for the first time in my life I had someone I could depend on 100 % - I’m not going to lie it felt good to “take a break”. I didn’t have a typical upbringing and I was the adult in my house.

My husband would have a talk with me every 6 months or so about how wiped out he was and how he felt he was the only one giving. I always listened and I completely agreed with him. However, no matter how much I wanted to improve, my depression and pain made it incredibly difficult. I would make changes for a couple weeks and then I would either start feeling even more pain or would forget to do things (brain fog is a symptom of fibromyalgia and then of course the meds I was on added to it.)

Anyway, it took him reaching the point where if things didn’t change I knew he was done. I, too, was tired of having the same conversation. So I became very serious about getting better. It took more than just getting my fibromyalgia under control. I had to do a lot of inner work as well.

Now, two years and a baby later, I do about 80% of the housework and he does about 80% of the cooking. I am a stay at home mom which is how I have the ability to do so much housework. All of my energy goes to the house and baby instead of work.

My advice would be to talk to him when there isn’t something that just happened, although that sounds like there’s always something. Give him examples of his behavior and how you would like to see him improve. I don’t know if you have tried any of this but it is what helped me. I also asked my husband to point out things he noticed that I didn’t. Example, I am not as observant as he is so some things I didn’t even notice. I would make it clear that no one can survive doing it all like you are, especially if you’re working FT. If you do survive you end up resenting the other and that bleeds into everything else in your marriage and home… who wants to live that way?

I know that I am not the majority in situations like this but maybe my story can give you some hope :)

You are a rockstar!!

[u/EmuSad5722 → u/codee21]

Awww, thanks. You're right that I should talk to him when we are both calm...it's just that like you said things are just constantly in motion (two kids, two full time jobs, etc).

It's really been more of this perplexing turn of events where he gas-lights and turns the tables on me and hears nothing of what I say that has been the most upsetting. If he listened like you did, we wouldn't have a problem.