Am I the asshole here? What should I do?
Ok, so I need some mum advice please. I’m 33F and mum to an adorable 5 month old boy. Over very much become the default parent in our house. My finance (M36) works full time while I work 3 days a week and stay home the other 2 week days and look after our son. I am also currently enrolled and studying at university to get my degree. I don’t mind being the default, the reality is I spend more time with our son, so it makes sense that it would naturally happen. But today I tried to have a conversation with him about how I feel like I’m drowning in the mental load of running our house and looking after our son. I said to him that I needed him to just listen to me, and try to not get defensive because my goal was not to attack him or make him feel like shit, just that I need him to try and understand that it feels like I’m doing most of this on my own. For context, he does not take initiative at all when it comes to our son or housework. He relies on me to tell me what needs to be done, like when feeds need to happen, or naps or what kind of solids he can have, when bedtime needs to happen (which involves him having a shower with our son each night) he’s never the one to instigate these tasks. And from a housework point of view, about the only thing he “owns” is mowing the lawn and even then that happens rarely. I do the cooking and cleaning, I wash our bedding, do all the grocery shopping and make sure the animals have food and their medications.
Anyway, me asking for no defensiveness did not work and he immediately got angry that I would even bring it up. Whenever I have tired to have conversations like this in the past, it’s inevitable that he will bring it back to money. That’s his reason “you don’t understand the financial stress I’m under, I work full time so that I can pay our mortgage and the electricity and gas and water bills”. And this is true, I don’t contribute financially to our mortgage or the utility bills, but I do pay for our sons childcare and 90% of the groceries including formula and nappies, as well as all the babies clothes and accessories like bottles, his toys and bedding.
I don’t feel like what I’m asking is unreasonable. Today he told me “you’d be homeless if it wasn’t for me” and that nearly broke me. I don’t feel like I have a team mate or a partner in this anymore, it feels like he expects me to just lump it because he pays for the house and I should be grateful. I don’t have any family support in the same state as us and I have no close friends here either. I don’t know what to do. Am I being unreasonable for wanting him to contribute more at home?
