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Michelle27 · 11-14-2011, 10:38 PM

Oh, I can totally relate to this. Only in my case, my husband also works out of town 50% of the time leaving me as a single parent for the time he's away. I work full time (also bring home most of the household income), do all of the shopping, getting kids to and from 5 days a week of activities, pay all of the bills, do 95% of the cooking and cleaning (he does do his own laundry after I once complained about how I'd like help with folding and putting away our daughter's or our laundry) and I also prepare, pack and freeze 7 individual meals every week to send with him on his 4 days of work so he has home cooking even when he's away.

Now, to be fair, he has been battling with depression for the past 5 years which is kind of how we got to the place we are now...he couldn't cope with much more than just his job and I gradually took over everything. I am definitely feeling overwhelmed most of the time. We have repeatedly discussed this issue and have tried several things that while they didn't work for us, they may work for you.

I had a weekly schedule up on the fridge with a dry erase pen on which I wrote all chores done by myself, my teenage daughter and what I'd like my husband to do. This would have worked probably except for 2 things...I felt it was just one more thing to add to my plate, and my husband became aggravated at seeing the amount of stuff my daughter and I were doing and how it compared to what he was doing.

We've also tried a time thing...knowing that I put in probably 2-3 hours minimum on work days (more on weekends) he asked me how much time I would like him to put in on household stuff on the days he is home and my response was a minimum of a half an hour. Really, I didn't think this was fair but it would have been more than what he was doing in general before this.

We also at several points discussed specific jobs and one that he volunteered himself was that because I do pretty much all of the cooking (he has only recently started being responsible for one meal a week which is great), he said he would be responsible for the clean up after dinner. This would have helped me a lot, but what ended up happening is that he would either only do some of the dinner clean up or leave it until hours later and I would need to use the kitchen to make our daughter's school lunch and the mess left behind would irritate me so I'd just clean it up.

I'm sure that you can tell from my "tone" that this is a bit of a hot button for me. And I do think now that my husband is seriously working through his depression issues things are on the way to improving, but it's been a long time feeling overwhelmed. Not sure how helpful my post is but maybe one of the things we tried may help you.

11-14-2011, 10:38 PM	#7 (permalink)
Michelle27 Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 132	Re: Overwhelmed but he won't help Oh, I can totally relate to this. Only in my case, my husband also works out of town 50% of the time leaving me as a single parent for the time he's away. I work full time (also bring home most of the household income), do all of the shopping, getting kids to and from 5 days a week of activities, pay all of the bills, do 95% of the cooking and cleaning (he does do his own laundry after I once complained about how I'd like help with folding and putting away our daughter's or our laundry) and I also prepare, pack and freeze 7 individual meals every week to send with him on his 4 days of work so he has home cooking even when he's away. Now, to be fair, he has been battling with depression for the past 5 years which is kind of how we got to the place we are now...he couldn't cope with much more than just his job and I gradually took over everything. I am definitely feeling overwhelmed most of the time. We have repeatedly discussed this issue and have tried several things that while they didn't work for us, they may work for you. I had a weekly schedule up on the fridge with a dry erase pen on which I wrote all chores done by myself, my teenage daughter and what I'd like my husband to do. This would have worked probably except for 2 things...I felt it was just one more thing to add to my plate, and my husband became aggravated at seeing the amount of stuff my daughter and I were doing and how it compared to what he was doing. We've also tried a time thing...knowing that I put in probably 2-3 hours minimum on work days (more on weekends) he asked me how much time I would like him to put in on household stuff on the days he is home and my response was a minimum of a half an hour. Really, I didn't think this was fair but it would have been more than what he was doing in general before this. We also at several points discussed specific jobs and one that he volunteered himself was that because I do pretty much all of the cooking (he has only recently started being responsible for one meal a week which is great), he said he would be responsible for the clean up after dinner. This would have helped me a lot, but what ended up happening is that he would either only do some of the dinner clean up or leave it until hours later and I would need to use the kitchen to make our daughter's school lunch and the mess left behind would irritate me so I'd just clean it up. I'm sure that you can tell from my "tone" that this is a bit of a hot button for me. And I do think now that my husband is seriously working through his depression issues things are on the way to improving, but it's been a long time feeling overwhelmed. Not sure how helpful my post is but maybe one of the things we tried may help you.