Yeah, I am a student nurse, I sit on my lazy but eatting bon bons alllll day long!!!

[HeartsOpenWide]

If I hear my husband use the phrase, "Well when you work 40 hours a week!...."

I just stopped asking my husband for any help. I tried to get him to help out around the house since I have started nursing school. No. okay, understandable, I got this student nurse thing a little bit better under control now...could you at least do the dishes you get dirty when I am not home? no. Could you put your clothes in the hamper instead of on the living room floor? no. (when I am lucky he soaks the dishes). okay maybe I am not at a job that pays, but nursing school is work, and I am at it 7 days a week! I never see my friends, all I do is go to class and study; literally. I am not complaining, this is what I want to do and I feel privileged to do it, but can I get a little credit? I am working my a$$ off here! It took me forever to talk my husband into letting me go back to school (lets not get started on that subject) and I still get scorn every once and awhile. (He got a new job that was paying the same amount more an hour as I was making as a medical assistant so there was no exuse to not let me go back).

[Galore]

Yeah, my boyfriend (more of a partner though, we lived together for several years) just didn't get that. I have tried explaining many times that while I'm not earning a paycheck, I still have to show up at classes and clinicals just like work, and THEN I have to come home and study. He kept insisting it was "different" somehow. One of the many reasons he is an now an exboyfriend

In your case, it sounds like you're not getting through to him and he won't change his view. So I would lower your cleaning standards, or suggest he use some of that money he is earning to pay for a cleaning service.

[roxxy3773, RN, APRN]

What really annoys me is...why is it automatically assumed it is the female whose job it is to accomplish all this. I used to buy in to the...well he's making more money than I am and spending more time at work than I am thing. And then he lost his job and I took on extra hours. Guess what!!!! He sat around all day, eating bonbons and watching TV. No, not really. But he didn't do a scrap of housework, not even to clean off the plates he'd dirty while I was gone. No laundry. No dishes. Nothing. So...it wasn't really about money, or time. It was about gender. Sigh. Sorry. I'm taking a required gender class this quarter and its starting to rub off on me.

:yeahthat:

That burns me up!

Luckily for me my husband is EXTREMELY helpful, well when he is around at least (he's military so he's deployed a lot and for long periods). We both work full time jobs and he doesn't expect me to have another full time job of being the maid. Thank goodness, because that would NEVER happen. I would rather work than be primarily responsible for those duties, nevermind having to do both all by myself (I consider school a full time job)...and then to be expected to pick up after his lazy a**!! Sorry, this is a subject that I get a little passionate about I guess!

I would be so angry if my husband got on my case and claimed his 40 hours of week were so tough...

I think the above suggestions of finding ways to cut corners (paper plates, etc) are good constructive ideas. Just remember that you are working your butt off to make things better for your family and that going to nursing school is extremely demanding (so I hear anyway, I won't know until the fall)

I hope things get better for you, and I completely understand why you are frustrated!!

[JaxiaKiley]

Gah! I'm so sick and tired of people thinking school is "easy." I wish people would get off my back so I can get back to studying!

[G-townLPN]

well i know where you are coming from and ignoring the piles of dishes and undone laundry only works for so long until you give in and do it. i have went over the same stuff with my husband asking for more help and he is like

ok

i'll

start helping...yeah right! you need to focus on getting through nursing school because you will

ultimately

feel better about yourself for accomplishing your dream and more importantly you'll make enough $$ to take care of yourself! the underlying issue to me sounds like that might be

what

he is afraid.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Have you thought about a session or two of counseling? An impartial third party can really be helpful.

My dh was very supportive of me going back to school. But he isn't the best when it comes to consistently helping out.

I stopped doing my kids' and husbands laundry years ago. Taught them to do it themselves.

Butting heads over and over isn't going to help. You really need some outside help.

I like the idea of a maid service. I just can't do it because I have to clean my house before she comes to clean . . . .

steph

[TemperStripe]

Strangely enough, my husband is more of a neat freak and I am the slob in the family, although, I do NOT like living among clutter. It's more a problem of just dropping all my stuff wherever I want, or not cleaning up after myself, and that drives him nuts. I try really hard to remember to pick up after myself but sometimes I get careless. So, we hired a cleaning service and it has done wonders for our marriage. Now neither of us has to worry about it. It's awesome. The other thing is, I hate doing dishes and could go for months without ever touching a sink. Of course this drives him batty, but he hates doing laundry, and could wear the same pair of boxers inside out and upside down for weeks. Personally, I like to have clean clothes. So what's the compromise? He does ALL the dishes (even on the nights he cooks) and I do ALL the laundry, every single weekend. It works out really well. We each know our roles.

Any kind of live-in relationship is going to be full of compromise. I'm no expert, but in my experience, passive aggressiveness has only made things worse. Have a frank talk with him. It could be that there's some miscommunication going on. Maybe he doesn't totally understand the pressure you're feeling. Honesty counts. And if he's a reasonable person, he won't mind in the end.

Good luck!

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Strangely enough, my husband is more of a neat freak and I am the slob in the family, although, I do NOT like living among clutter. It's more a problem of just dropping all my stuff wherever I want, or not cleaning up after myself, and that drives him nuts. I try really hard to remember to pick up after myself but sometimes I get careless. So, we hired a cleaning service and it has done wonders for our marriage. Now neither of us has to worry about it. It's awesome. The other thing is, I hate doing dishes and could go for months without ever touching a sink. Of course this drives him batty, but he hates doing laundry, and could wear the same pair of boxers inside out and upside down for weeks. Personally, I like to have clean clothes. So what's the compromise? He does ALL the dishes (even on the nights he cooks) and I do ALL the laundry, every single weekend. It works out really well. We each know our roles.

Any kind of live-in relationship is going to be full of compromise. I'm no expert, but in my experience, passive aggressiveness has only made things worse. Have a frank talk with him. It could be that there's some miscommunication going on. Maybe he doesn't totally understand the pressure you're feeling. Honesty counts. And if he's a reasonable person, he won't mind in the end.

Good luck!

I've been thinking about this all afternoon and I came back to read this post and agree wholeheartedly . . . .I don't think playing passive/aggressive games is mature and it will not work. It just creates more strife.

A frank talk - maybe with the help of a third party - is the right thing to do.

Give him a chance to be a reasonable person.

steph

[Country PICU]

Sorry to hear that your husband is not supporting your career. The answer is training, training, and training.

First I am a male nursing student that works 40 to 60 hours a week. I am also taking 6-9 credits at a time. This keeps me pretty busy. My wife helps; she has decided not to work until our three kids are out of the house. Even with all the housework kids homework etc. she still finds time to quiz me before a test (If I have not made her mad about something).

As a student I understand your feelings and suggest:

Stop asking for permission! You're not a child. Consult with him, discuss with him, or inform him of your decisions.

Stop playing second-class in your relationship. Tell him what you need him to do too help you. Do not ask him but tell him you expect him to support you and doing the dishes before you get home would be a great help. He will resist at first but after holding your ground he will come a round.

The trick to this is eating before you come home. Have him fix his own diner and tell him to be sure to clean up his mess.

Let it pile up if need be.

The first time will be the hardest for you if you're a clean freak. But as this progresses and you hold your ground he will come alone.

This works with laundry, sex etc.

Laundry, try only wash the stuff in the hamper or laundry room. He will get the point when he needs clean clothes for work.

I wish you the best of luck.

The bottom line is training. Train him the same way you train a child to put his/her clothes in the hamper.

[LydiaNN]

Sorry to hear that your husband is not supporting your career. The answer is training, training, and training.

First I am a male nursing student that works 40 to 60 hours a week. I am also taking 6-9 credits at a time. This keeps me pretty busy. My wife helps; she has decided not to work until our three kids are out of the house. Even with all the housework kids homework etc. she still finds time to quiz me before a test (If I have not made her mad about something).

As a student I understand your feelings and suggest:

Stop asking for permission! You’re not a child. Consult with him, discuss with him, or inform him of your decisions.

Stop playing second-class in your relationship. Tell him what you need him to do too help you. Do not ask him but tell him you expect him to support you and doing the dishes before you get home would be a great help. He will resist at first but after holding your ground he will come a round.

The trick to this is eating before you come home. Have him fix his own diner and tell him to be sure to clean up his mess.

Let it pile up if need be.

The first time will be the hardest for you if you’re a clean freak. But as this progresses and you hold your ground he will come alone.

This works with laundry, sex etc.

Laundry, try only wash the stuff in the hamper or laundry room. He will get the point when he needs clean clothes for work.

I wish you the best of luck.

The bottom line is training. Train him the same way you train a child to put his/her clothes in the hamper.

I actually agree with most of what you say, if not the way you say it. I don't know about the OP, but I refuse to ''train'' my husband. He represented himself to me as a responsible adult before I merged gene pools with him and produced our son. If he now wants to act like a child, I refuse to enable him by ''training'' him to do anything.

I'm not talking smack behind his back. He knows very well what an issue this is and that it will most likely break up our marriage eventually. I don't know what is wrong with a man who can't throw his garbage in the trash can two feet away from the sink and chooses to use the sink instead. I don't know what is wrong with a man who clutters his beautiful home by tossing his work clothes on the floor. I do know that someone who behaves like this could hardly have been expected to step up to the plate and help me out this year when I returned to school. I come home and if I'm lucky, the dirty dishes are piled on top of the stove waiting to go into the dishwasher (remember, he can't put them in the sink because he uses that for his trash). If he hasn't felt that ambitious, they're still sitting wherever he ate... be it the dining room table or in the living room.

I'm sick of it.

[WDWpixieRN, RN]

I'm sick of it.

Let me just say that "training" isn't the answer either. My husband and I got along pretty well early in our marriage after he realized I wasn't his mother and wouldn't pick up after him. Then came kids.

I stayed "home" and he "worked". Things started getting a little unbalanced during this time of having 3 kids. I'll never forget one weekend (of the many) I mentioned that yard work needed done, rooms need painted, whatever....he looked at me from his "throne" on the couch and said, "I work all weekend. I don't want to work on my days off."

That philosophy sticks to this day. Except for the hours he is at the office, the TV usually drones on and he's in a supine position adjacent to it. The house, yard, etc., be damned. "His" money goes to whatever he thinks is important. This does not include roofing, appliances, home maintenance, paying bills, etc. My oldest child is a clone of the father and doesn't care about anyone or anything other than herself.

The youngest child left for college this year. I am midway through my nursing program. I will not live like this forever.

If you are very wise, you will do a reality check to see if this situation might ever change or not. If not, run, and run fast. Do not look back. And do NOT negate the importance of your getting this education above all else; if you don't have alternative arrangements or family who can help you out, then stick it out and just get through this no matter what it takes.

[LydiaNN]

Let me just say that "training" isn't the answer either. My husband and I got along pretty well early in our marriage after he realized I wasn't his mother and wouldn't pick up after him. Then came kids.

I stayed "home" and he "worked". Things started getting a little unbalanced during this time of having 3 kids. I'll never forget one weekend (of the many) I mentioned that yard work needed done, rooms need painted, whatever....he looked at me from his "throne" on the couch and said, "I work all weekend. I don't want to work on my days off."

That philosophy sticks to this day. Except for the hours he is at the office, the TV usually drones on and he's in a supine position adjacent to it. The house, yard, etc., be damned. "His" money goes to whatever he thinks is important. This does not include roofing, appliances, home maintenance, paying bills, etc. My oldest child is a clone of the father and doesn't care about anyone or anything other than herself.

The youngest child left for college this year. I am midway through my nursing program. I will not live like this forever.

If you are very wise, you will do a reality check to see if this situation might ever change or not. If not, run, and run fast. Do not look back. And do NOT negate the importance of your getting this education above all else; if you don't have alternative arrangements or family who can help you out, then stick it out and just get through this no matter what it takes.

O

M

G

You used the word ''throne''. I use that all the time to describe my husband sitting in the recliner watching TV or, even more maddening, lying in bed and talking about things ''we'' need to do. When ''we'' need to do something, he sure isn't talking about helping me out. He just seems to believe that by acknowledging that it needs to be done, I won't resent having to be the one to do it so much. Fat chance!

I don't want to have a marriage where I have to act like a parent. It isn't what I signed up for. I've ''trained'' my son to clean up after himself and take some initiative because that's a Mom's job. I'm not about to do for my husband!

[smk1, LPN]

Leaving alone what you will ultimately decide about your future with a spouse who treats you this way, I will expand on what someone said earlier about buying paper plates and suggest plastic silverware, lots of take out dinners, and plenty of the newer cleaning items that make quicker work out of things. I'm talking about things like those Clorox wipes for your kitchen and bathroom, the toilet wand that minimizes scrubbing, the daily shower cleaners, etc. If you possibly can, you might also try to lower your housekeeping standards and cut down on your frustration. It doesn't sound like he'll be stepping up to the plate to help anytime soon.

I agree with this. I am a senior nursing student and I stocked up my freezer with frozen lasagnas, rice and chicken, frozen casseroles etc... I also buy the 500-1000 pack of paper plates and tons of red plastic cups and paper napkins. It helps. Yes the kitchen still gets messy, but not as often and I can do a quicker cleaning job on it. Laundry just never ends. My house is constantly messy, one room is clean then by the time we get another room clean the one we just cleaned is dirty again. I haven't even looked in my 6 year olds bathroom in over 2 weeks! :uhoh21: (yikes I need to get off of allnurses and go at least clean her sink and toilet). I keep the living room kitchen and main bathroom presentable. (most of the time) The rest of the house is a disaster area. Your husband needs to get with the program and do his share. Tell him you will clean up after yourself and he can clean up after himself and at least put his clothes in the hamper or else he'll be stuck wearing dirty clothes and tripping over his mess.