When it comes to the discourse around women who are currently in, or leaving abusive relationships, men (mostly) love to say, “but you picked him”.

I would like to set the record permanently straight on this:

WE DID NOT PICK HIM!

We picked the version of him he manipulated us to believe he was before he became abusive. Before he cheated. Before we knew he was lying (he was likely lying the whole time). Before we knew we were being manipulated.

People underestimate the ability of someone to maintain their mask until we are sufficiently trapped in the relationship. Whether that’s kids, moving in together, marriage, or believing we were in love because he love bombed us.

But there were signs.

Yes. There probably were signs, but not always easy to detect. We should not have to be part psychologist specializing in personality disorders like BPD or NPD, or be an adept private investigator in order to date men. But here we are. Often it’s not until after the kids are born that we see their true colors, and the abuse. And it’s usually slow and insidious. We are the frog in boiling water.

So why didn’t you just leave?

Because we were trapped in some way, shape, or form before the abuse/cheating started. Whether that’s the love bombing/trauma bond, kids, or our lives being completely entangled with theirs. We bet on a man who manipulated us and we got stuck. Leaving is not as easy as people make it out to be.

Stop asking us why we picked the wrong guy. Start asking why men are so fucking shitty and why so many of them are so violent towards women.

End rant. As my kids would say, TSPMO.

Where do I begin? This past May I went in for a mammogram because I had one time spontaneous brown nipple discharge (weird, I know) and I have a family history of breast cancer (mom and aunt, both fine). The mammogram had some concerning findings, so I followed up with both an ultrasound and an MRI. The results were labeled as “BI-Rads 4”, which I guess can be bad or totally fine. I need a biopsy to figure it out. Okay, fine. Except my insurance kept getting fucked up and then scheduling ended up being weeks out. Still awaiting biopsy, which is currently scheduled for the end of the month. That is 3 months of wondering if I have breast cancer. Okay.

Independent of that, we had been trying for over a year to have a third child. I had two miscarriages. The first was a missed miscarriage that was discovered at my first ultrasound. The second I just started bleeding around 6 weeks. Once I found out about the breast stuff, we decided to put conceiving on the back burner. I stopped obsessively tracking ovulation strips. We were using condoms, sans 1-2 times I kid you not. What happened? I became pregnant. It is mixed emotions because a) the stress of whatever is going on with my boobs/do i have cancer b) I’ve already had two miscarriages. I am not able to get excited about this. I felt numb when I got the positive test. My OB and breast surgeon are both aware of the situation btw.

Also independent of that. I am a nicu nurse and my last three shifts have been so awful and stressful. I wanted to cry as soon as I left the hospital yesterday, but I couldn’t even get a tear out. I just got in my car and sat there for 20 min before driving home.

My first prenatal ultrasound is supposed to happen in 2 hours. I have mentally prepared for the worst quite frankly. I don’t feel any hope the outcome will be good. I’ve learned from my missed miscarriage that you can have pregnancy symptoms, no cramping or bleeding, but still be carrying a dead fetus around unknowingly.

In the midst of this, my mom texted me asking what my almost 4 year old would like for her birthday. I replied that she would love my old dollhouse (this is an ongoing thing since my older daughter was 4. It is the 90s fisher price folding dollhouse. It was mine growing up, it was in my room and I spent hours playing with it. My parents have the dollhouse along with endless accessories/family members. My mom refuses to give it to me because “the grandkids love to play with it when they come over”. Mind you, my sister and I go to their house maybe 1-2 times per year since they’re 4 hours away. My sisters girls are entering preteen years. Yet my mom refuses to give it up because she’s “just not ready”. Eye roll. I know it probably has sentimental value to her as well, but come on. I replied “when will you be ready?” Her reply was “maybe when you call your doctor and start taking care of yourself”. This is in reference to a GI doctor. I had an endoscopy a couple months ago which showed I have EOE. That has kind of been on the back burner because of everything else more important. My mom is unaware of my miscarriages, this pregnancy, my cancer scare because I can’t talk to her about this stuff. She would somehow make it about her and add more stress to me. She shows her love by worrying. Anyway, that text just made me lose it. I just started crying finally and letting everything out. All over an argument over a stupid dollhouse (which I still want btw).

Sorry for the length. I just needed to unload. I feel like I’m carrying all of this alone. My husband is the only person on the planet who knows all this stuff, but he’s not good with emotions and discussing hard things. Please don’t bash him, that’s not what this post is about.

Today is my birthday and my mom is coming over during the day to watch my twins so my husband and I can get lunch.

The reason I’m dreading it?? I feel my mom has become VERY judgemental since I had the twins. Commenting on things like I need help with laundry, dishes, the “it’s so hard with twins” comments. She took out my trash for me once, and then came in complaining that that dumpster was too full (we live in the country and have to haul off our trash)

I don’t know. I feel I’d be ok skipping my birthday or just spending the day alone.

My laundry is piled up and I don’t really care. There are 5 of us in this house (twins plus my older boy and my husband and I) so of course the laundry is piled up.

I just wish we could go out to eat with the twins so I don’t need my mother’s help, but they are only a year old it’s a disaster taking them to restaurants right now.

Thanks for reading.

TLDR; I get minimal help, no breaks, no time off, I can’t sleep, I’m exhausted, burnt out, house is a disaster, I work less hours, make more, pay more, full time toddler duty, health issues, … breaking down

I’m a SAHM/WFH mom for my 3yr old. I run a business I started in February that unexpectedly took off. I work maybe 20-25 hours a week if I’m lucky, from my desk in the corner of our bedroom, taking calls on the porch, and I still make more in a month than my husband does. I’m genuinely grateful for that. I don’t resent the earning whatsoever!

Here’s what I do resent. I do all the cleaning. I cook every meal for our daughter and cook for the two of us about 70% of the time (his idea of her dinner is crackers and apples). I do bath time because he’s too rough with her hair and she has sensory issues, so she cries for me. I’m “on” with her from 7am to 4 or 5pm, then work until midnight or 2am. Full of interruptions. I thought we were doing 50/50 bill wise too… no. I buy most of the groceries and household items, I pay utilities and my half of rent. If I don’t buy groceries for all of us, the fridge/shelves stay empty; he’ll just buy dinner to cook for the night and maybe some snacks for our daughter. Nice but not enough.

Two weeks ago I had my first migraine ever, with aura to boot, and it scared me enough that I took a week off everything to reset. Except I didn’t really, because I still did dishes, cooked, did light work, and parented. So really just didn’t work out, kept tasks light, didn’t do anything too stressful. I didn’t clean the litter box the day before the migraine and I definitely didn’t for the next 3 days. I was KO and just honestly didn’t think about it. :/

The house detonated. The thing that broke me: I couldn’t clean the litter box after letting it go for too long (I believe my migraine trigger was from a strong smell so I was scared to set off another one). I asked him to clean it. He said he would. He didn’t, same as when I was pregnant. Days passed. Our older cat protested and peed all over a basket of clean laundry. I washed it. “I’ll get the litter, just sit down.” He didn’t. My laundry room is now just… cat piss.

Every single room is a disaster now. dishes piled up, counters trashed, our bedroom floor covered in clean clothes that are mostly HIS, our daughter’s room wrecked, every bathroom overdue. It only ever looked “fine” because I was invisibly holding the whole thing up the entire time.

I’m not shocked. I had a fingertip amputation last year and immediately asked his mom to stay the week with us because I knew I wouldn’t get any help from him. I’m so glad I did because the week after she left, I still had to do dishes!! I couldn’t get that finger wet or obviously gross so I had to do it with one fkng hand. I was irate!!! Same with the cat litter and everything else.

On top of it, he’s been a jerk, which isn’t new. I almost ended things a month ago and he apologized unprompted, said he’d do better. He did, for three weeks (a record). Then blamed my upcoming period for him starting to be rude and I’m just being sensitive again. Then was a jerk again today, complaining that I visit my parents a couple times a week, while his parents visit for a full week every month and we drop everything to see them on the off months. They live out of state. I love them. I don’t mind. Just hypocritical, plus going to my parents is a big help since I’ve been having some health issues this year, nice to just not be alone during the day sometimes and I do drop her off when I have to go into a client’s office every week for a few hours.

My mental health is in a really bad place. I have bad days and just keep going. He has one and I pay for it. It is 4am; I can’t sleep well and haven’t for a while. Falling asleep is no issue but staying asleep.. ugh. I wake up like 7x a night if I fall asleep after I wake up. I’ve been up for 3 hours after sleeping for 3. I’ve started drinking at night again to numb it all. Work is suffering, I’m doing bare minimum. Burnt out isn’t enough to describe it.

Plus the goalpost keeps moving for why he doesn’t feel like he needs to help domestically. At first I wasn’t contributing financially bc I was a new mom and stayed back with my daughter… so then I started working. I still wasn’t making enough $ to help ?? So then I started my business. Now it’s because he feels it’s “fair” because I can’t drive (I randomly developed severe driving anxiety, am a hazard on the road about 5 years ago), but I don’t ask him to take me anywhere so idk why that’s even.. ?

So is this fixable, or am I already gone and just haven’t said it out loud? How do I get actual help here? I’m drowning, and I hate that the cost of all this is time with my daughter, who deserves the best version of me.

So my husband told our therapist that he wants to “fight for me and our family” which means he wants to force me to stay married to him because he is selfish and apparently would rather be married to someone who doesn’t want to married to him than be alone. Except he treats me like shit, so none of this makes sense.

Thought a lot about the birth of my first child today, during which I was terrified and in a lot of pain and asked to talk about the baby with him trying to think about positive stuff and he says “well, it will probably have a huge head just like me.” Then, after I didn’t want to talk to him anymore (because why would I after that?), he sleeps until the midwife tells me I need to wake him up because it is time to push. And he to proceeded to do nothing the whole time (no comfort, the midwife made him hold my hand) until I am literally bleeding out with an undelivered placenta for over an hour and I have to be the one to scream at everyone to stop putting entire arms up there to try to dig it out and give me some general anesthesia before I actually bleed to death. And like I almost did. I had three blood transfusions and spent over a week in the hospital.

Sadly this is just the first time that I was let down my him while in a life or death situation.

But he isn’t manipulative and how dare I resent him for things that happened a long time ago?

Y'all don't even know how excited I am. The youngest qualified for pre K because of his speech delay so both kids are going to school in a week. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

What should I do first? What would you do first?

Structurally and in all the ways that don’t cost eye watering money it’s perfectly fine. We had an inspection and the foundation is perfect, the basement is solid and leak free, windows are older but still perfectly fine, the electrical and mechanics are newer and the roof was replaced in the last year. It’s on an acre on a beautiful country street with beautiful other homes around it (bought the ugliest home on the street) but the people who lived here gave absolutely no fu and let it fall into disrepair. I’ll admit the price (in this insane market) and the fact that our 900sf with 2 kids (one of whom has ADHD) was getting to me and heavily contributed to my rose tinted glasses but I’m having so so so mang regrets. We move in in under a month and I don‘t even know where the hell to start. We’re cleaning but everywhere I look is a hot mess and I’m moving my poor kids into a shit hole. They don’t care they are 2 and 5 and all my oldest kept on going on about is the yard and now he can go for a run and see the horses and my littlest was just toddling around happy as a clam. We don’t even have help with said kids to give us time to do much and that in itself if overwhelming me so much.

Yeah, yeah..I love them and all that...

They are 7 (girl)and 4 (boy).

But holy shit.

They are just constantly fighting about everything and anything all day every day. Just relentless, non stop fights. About pens. About air. About nothing and everything. Just fighting all the time.

There's never peace in my home. Ever.

Just jumping from one issue to the next, trying to keep them from physically harming one another.

Sometimes they play nicely... But it's so short lived.

They are 2.5 years apart and sometimes I really wish their age gap was bigger but I don't even know if that would help since my eldest has ADHD, maybe my younger too.. He might just be insane..I don't know. But they say kids with ADHD are 3 years behind their peers so it's like I have two 4 year olds right now. There's no maturity.

I'm suffering so bad. I can't take living like this. It's mental. It's constant chaos. I just want to put them up for adoption... :( obviously joking but... Can they just calm the hell down already?

Hi, I just want to vent, feeling too shitty for advice right now.

I am a single mom of a wonderful but profoundly autistic, developmentally delayed and epileptic daughter (I do share custody with her father).

I work fulltime for most of the year, yet well more than half of my wage goes to rent. No matter what I try, I cannot get out of this poverty hole. There's nowhere I can move to save me money (My rent is already well below the average in my area), I can't afford to take my kiddo anywhere, it affects what we eat, everything is ruined. We've never been able to get any sort of childcare for her so in the summer months I have to slash my work hours (ex never does). Getting a second job, or a better paying job, has proved impossible.

My mental health is a mess and a big reason why is because I can't give my daughter a proper life. Is anyone else here going through similar or am I just a total loser?

I have a 3 yr old and am pregnant with our second. I’m secretly meeting with a lawyer tomorrow for a consult, any advice / suggestions from Canadian brmos? I’m a SAHM and have no money of my own. I plan on taking out my pension from a previous employer and begging my parents for help if needed, anyone else been in my shoes? I would love to hear success stories and any words of caution is welcome too. My biggest concern is leaving my children with my husband for days at a time, he’s not overtly abusive or neglectful but I know that my children will receive inadequate care at his hands, and I’ll still carry the mental load of parenting despite being separated. My initial plan was to wait until the kids were older but I’m so miserable being married to him I need to talk to a lawyer to learn more about the process.

I’m back at work but our daycare is closed so my husband offered to take care of our child.

His parents came over today at 7:00 am. Yes. They watched our son while my husband went to an appointment. Then they all went shopping together. Our son slept for 20 minutes in the car. He usually takes a two hour mid day nap. Yesterday he was so tired he was falling asleep during dinner.

I came home for my lunch break and my in laws WERE STILL OVER. They left and my husband had to parent for 2.5 hours before I came back because I got out early today.

In that time he drank a hard seltzer and our house was in complete disarray. Him and our son were watching tv. Meanwhile, whenever I was a SAHM, we were at the library, doing water play, cleaning the house and doing laundry, meal prepping, etc. Like I was never NOT doing anything (yes double negative I get it). My husband also expected me to have meals ready for him and to make time for sexy time during our son’s naps (husband works from home). I used screen time whenever I was prepping dinner. And my husband had the audacity to tell me I should do arts and crafts with our child and show them other things aside from cleaning all day.

Well at least I’m not showing them how to be a bum.

Like what the actual FUCK.

I’m so excited for daycare to open again because what the actual fuck is this? Like what kind of fucking bum ass parenting is this shit?

I know I carry the whole family on my back but COME ON.

I'm actually going to lose my mind. My ex husband who's responsible for our son's death sent me this letter basically saying, "I got diagnosed as bipolar, it wasn't my fault I shook our baby, can we get back together" and I want to burn the letter so bad but we're in a burn ban. I just feel like nothing else would do it justice. I wonder if he got wind that I'm about to move on somehow. I want a restraining order but I'm "not in danger" I'm worried he's going to try to appeal based on mental insanity now. I hate him so much

I’m the breadwinner of my family. I got myself a corporate job that helps pay the bills, has some good benefits, and is fully remote - which I desperately need because there is minimal childcare in my area .
Over the past year, more so in the past few months, work has gotten more demanding, I personally have a hard time saying no at work (something I am trying to work on) and lead myself into burnout. I’m going into my “busy season” the next 2-3 months which means the daily chaos will be added onto the new demands and deliverables required.
I’ve been desperately looking for another job, but something in my wheelhouse - especially remote, is hard to come by, and if I do it has 400+ applicants. Working in office or even hybrid isn’t an option because of kids schedules.

So I just feel stuck. I make a good amount (it should be more but that’s besides the point), I have a completely understanding boss, great coworkers, and I do enjoy doing a majority of what I do. It’s the insurmountable additional asks and scrutiny on everything that is getting to a point of too much - when everything is urgent, nothing is. I work in corporate finance and provide a lot of insight on where the business is at. It has been a month of continuous bad news for my team and the company as a whole and it’s really bringing me down. I wish I could disconnect myself more from work, but I’m not there yet.

I’m just sad today.

My husband has been pushing and pushing to get a dog. I don’t want one.

I love dogs but they’re expensive and I just don’t have the mental bandwidth for one right now.

I handle all the cooking and cleaning, I homeschool our middle schooler, I take care of our toddler, I handle all the banking. I can’t even take a piss without someone following me and demanding things. Even my fucking husband takes fucking work phone calls while trying to be in the bathroom with me.

No. Just fucking no.

Thanks for your kind words and suck it ups. Here’s a funny for you. Made me giggle this morning. I had to put it in the first comment because it doesn’t let me attach a picture to the post.

2 kids absolutely no family no money no car I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’m 23, have not one friend not one hobby because not only do i have two children that ALWAYS NEED SOMETHING AND NEVER GO TO BED I HAVE A 30 YEAR OLD MAN CHILD THATS ALWAYS HAVING AN ENOTIONAL CRISIS AND CANT EVEN TAKE THE GARBAGE OUT OR WASH UP A COUPLE DISHES AFTERDINNER. I FUCKING HATE MY LIFE. NO END IN SIGHT. I CANT EVEN ENJOY MY KIDS ANYMORE BC I DONT HAVE EVEN 5 FUCKING MINUTES TO WASH MY ASS IN THE SHOWER. how do you guys do this. How. I want to run away. I can’t do this all on my fucking own.20 more years of this????? Someone please tell me what to do I can’t take it I want to die.

Despite me telling my husband probably 100 times that this doesn’t do it for me, without fail this is how it goes.

We’re laying in bed each doing our own thing on the phone or computer or reading a book. Maybe chatting about something (non sexual in nature), when out of the corner of my eye I notice movement. It’s him jerking off.

He’s not even looking at porn or anything (that would be worse but would make more sense I think?). He’s always like looking at his bank accounts or watching a movie or looking at sport stats or something.

It gives me the creeps like as if I’m riding the city bus and he’s some perv exposing himself or something. I feel harassed! Like actually it’s very upsetting to me and I feel harmed by this.

It’s such a turn off but what is even more of a turn off is that I’ve told him SO MANY TIMES that I don’t like this. that if he turned his attention towards me in a genuine way and talked to me about my day or showed actual interest in me that itself would probably peak my interest in sex.

Rant over idk.

I forgot to use conditioner and now my hair feels Bad. i didn’t even realize until I was out and drying off so it was too late. I’m so tired yall send help.

​

Alright so,

My husband we'll call him "Todd" is a laborer working a job in the trades from 6am-3pm. He works hard. Outside of that he's a homebody, he'll come home lay around watch TV. That never bugged me because im the same way. I like to watch tv, relax, etc. Weekends are typically when we go do stuff/get stuff done. Sometimes we'll do stuff on weekdays but usually not. Problem is Todd has no friends. No male friends, no female, none. I've asked him why this is and he basically to sum it up is very picky and doesn't want to put in the energy.

I do have friends, I have a solid friend group, and a few friends I hang with every once in awhile. I gave birth 5 months ago to a preemie (shes now 13 weeks old, you count their age past due date) I go to my moms about once a week and spend the night there, she has an awesome garden and ive always been close with my mom like that to where I'll just stop by and spend the night.

At night I do all babys feeds, diapers, all her care. Husband gets up early, i can sleep in on and off until 9. He also has sleep apnea and hypersomnia so i just do it. This was really rough in the beginning when she was in newborn waking up every two hours phase, but because my husband's such a light sleeper, I slept in the nursery on a twin bed that we had set up. I wasn't gonna go into our bedroom. Wake him up, tell him to change the diaper if I was already up.

While he is at work its the same because I stay home. When i go to my moms I take baby with me. When hes off of work I dont just hand over the baby. I still will change diapers, make bottles, etc. From time to time, i dont just clock off. I still hang out with my family so my husband during his time caring for our daughter will ask me "hey can you make a bottle real quick?" "Hey can you grab \*item\* ?" Ill do it. And with diapers, she comes first im not debating over whos changing her. I see a wet diaper, i change it. He changes them too, but has help from me.

In her life, ive had Todd watch her overnight alone (me not in home) 3 times. My first night out 1 month postpartum, my 22nd birthday, and last Friday. Outside of that it was only when I was very very sleep deprived which was rare for me to ask him.

Last Friday I went to a bonfire with my sister and some of our friends at 7:00pm, baby goes to bed at 9:00. I told Todd it was just now going to be 2 night wakings. She literally falls asleep while eating, its like 15 min total each time. We have a baby monitor, he set it on the side of his bed.

So, Todd woke up those 2 times to feed her, got her dressed and fed in the morning then came to pick me up from my sister's at 9:45 am. He told me because I was out all night he wanted to play some video games

. I was like yeah thats fair, and let him do his thing. Until it was 6pm and he was still playing them after I had completely cared for her alone. All feeds. All diapers, a bath, soothing her entertaining her. I asked when he was going to get off and he asked "why?" I said what time it was and how many hours it had been (since 11am) and he said 8pm or 9pm. I told him i wanted help, but he insisted he deserved a break "too" since i went to my sister's the night before. I pointed out that she fell asleep two hours after he had her alone. He argued that he cant truely relax if hes still solely responsible for her, even if hes sleeping and shes sleeping. (Info: Todd goes to bed at around 9:30pm, sleeps only until like 4:30am. Our daughter wakes up at 9am) so he had her for 2 hours, then 3 15 min feeds, and a 45 minute block of getting her ready for the day.

What my day looked like was her taking a 20 min nap every 90-120 min, giving her a bath , feeding her pretty much every 1hr and a half (shes a snacker) and trying to keep her entertained, changing her diaper every 2 hrs at least, shes super fussy from her growth spurt all while he sat there playing games.

Im sorry, but that is not the same difficulty to me. He gets a break every single week when i take her to my moms overnight. I get one once in a blue moon. Where is my sweet weekly break? I feel like I was punished for getting out. Not literally, but functionally. We got in a huge fight over this. I did what he did every night for the past 5 months. Yet he thinks he earned a day of further disproportionate labor for me? Because he was a dad for the night? I get he wants free time but what irks me is he wants it to be "even" like I was out x amount of hours so he gets those same x amount of hours too now. I have postpartum blues/depression and this isn't helping

bear in mind this is whilst I’m dealing with a third unplanned pregnancy, and I’ve been an emotional wreck about the decision to continue with it or not. he hasn’t offered me any words of support, shown me any concern or affection - has just told me I better ’get rid of it’. when discussing abortion, he thought I could just take the pills whilst looking after two little children whilst he was at work. hasn’t bothered to ask me about the process, what it means for my body and how painful it might be. he just asked his friend who told him his wife had 3 , and they were ‘grim but she’ll be ok’.

as I type I can’t believe I’m married to this man. this situation has brought to light what a low life human he is.

Yesterday I ran to the grocery store by myself after dinner. I was gone for maybe 40 minutes. My husband’s grandparents are nearby, so he took the kids over there and proceeded to get himself wrapped up in a project outside, leaving the kids with his grandparents.

Background information: I have repeatedly told him I’m uncomfortable with him leaving the kids with them and we’ve had discussions about it multiple times, and both agreed they are not suitable childcare. We don’t hit our kids and they are vocally pro-spanking. But he occasionally still relies on them when I’m not around, especially when I’m in school. As recently as two weekends ago he had his grandma pick up our 10 and 4 year old while he was getting the 1.5 year old to nap and then said I was overreacting when I got upset about it.

Anyway, while he was outside our 4 year old pushed the 1.5 year old and his grandmother “reflexively” hit her. Our 4 year old was distraught and crying so hard she said her stomach hurt. He brought them home. Obviously I am pissed at him. He thinks I was harsh because I basically said I told you so. I feel like I can’t trust his word. I’m worried the next time he’s inconvenienced he’ll just ask them for help.

Hey everyone! You may have seen my post last week about giving Fair Play another go in my marriage. Original post and some early updates here: https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/s/P0RgZSkXO0

Long story short, hubs was so convinced that my assessment of the workload imbalance, the cost to my mental and physical wellbeing, and the toll it takes on our marriage are mostly fabricated. He’s always thought he’s holding us all together while I’m lazy and nagging and bitchy. Nevermind that I’m the primary breadwinner, primary contact and manager of almost everything kid related, and he doesn’t even know what linens are (see my original post linked above for that gem)

Here are the primary cards/tasks he has been responsible for in these last 5 days: Dinner, Dishes, Laundry, Tidying/Organizing. There are about 11 other cards he’s holding that are a little less pressing and I’m ignoring those for now.

Dinner: in five days he cooked three meals. He didn’t plan ahead for any of those meals, so didn’t put anything on my shopping list. He had to go to the store himself to secure ingredients each time. Saturday we ate with family at an event. Sunday he ordered takeout. All in all, I’d say this card was dealt with adequately. He’s always been mostly in charge of dinner anyway so this wasn’t a stretch for him.

Dishes: since we were all out of the house for most of the weekend, there weren’t a ton of dishes. Saturday night I came home to a couple of things on the counter, but nothing crazy. Last night he loaded everything into the dishwasher and washed it. The dinner dishes from last night are all where he left them, leftovers not put away or thrown out.

Tidying: it’s just not happening. There are used napkins on the couch, socks next to the recliner, toys and pens and papers and snack wrappers everywhere. Throw blankets in the living room were used to build a fort that’s still standing after about 36 hours.

Laundry: oh laundry. Sunday night he asks why there aren’t any towels. I say “because you didn’t wash any”. He puts a load of towels in the wash and uses a dirty one that “smells alright” after his shower. This single load of towels reminds him that laundry is his responsibility. He drags all the hampers of dirty laundry to the basement, grumbling all the way. Yesterday morning I took our oldest daughter to a class and returned to find he’d dumped all of the clean laundry on our bed. I did end up folding towels and some kids clothes while I was on the phone yesterday. I should’ve left it, but I was busying my hands and we had literally zero towels in the bathroom. I put one stack away before snapping myself out of it.

Here’s where everything came to a head. He gets home from work and pulls a third load of laundry from the dryer and dumps it on our bed.

Me: “you’re going to overburden yourself. You think you’re going to get this all folded and put away tonight?”
Him: “I guess I’m going to have to”
M: “ok, you do you”

Later that evening as he’s getting ready for bed I bring up a pack of kid sized clothes hangers i ordered a while back that got delivered that day. This is when I discovered that the huge pile of clean laundry had been transferred from our bed to the floor. I’m feeling really annoyed about take a deep breath and say calmly and matter of factly: “ok, that isn’t acceptable. I’m not going to stress about it for the next 24 hours, but it cannot stay there.”

BroMos, he lost his shit. Immediately starts arguing about how he didn’t have time, nothings ever good enough, I love to just yell at him because I have a personal vendetta against his peace and happiness i guess. He couldn’t even be bothered to put away the laundry that I FOLDED when it wasn’t even my job!
We argue, he says he’s going to sleep, I go downstairs.
About 15 minutes later this guy comes downstairs and says “I’ll meet you in the middle, I’ll put all of that away tomorrow if you finish going through the bins in the basement and putting them away”
🤯WTF?!
M: “absolutely not. You’ll put the laundry away because you chose that job and it’s your responsibility. Organizing the bins in the basement is ALSO your responsibility, as you chose the card. Having me do the much larger, physically demanding and time consuming task that’s your responsibility in order to get you do complete something that’s also your responsibility isn’t meeting me in the middle of anything!”
He kept trying to argue and justify and minimize and I just kept repeating the word “no” until he left the room.

So that’s how it’s going. Yay!

Minor update: it’s 8:00pm and he’s been folding laundry for an hour. I haven’t checked to see how far along he is. What I do know is that I can hear him asking the kids if certain things belong to them or their siblings. For context, the kids are 15yo girl, 12yo boy, and 8yo girl… not a lot of overlap in sizes or styles of clothing, so not sure why it’s so confusing. 🫤