WomanSavers.com Forum / GENERAL / If he says my momma says, then say goodbye

hmmm..I don‘t remember cooking and cleaning being specifically mentioned in my vows. love...honor...cherish...obey...sickness..health. those I remember...cook? clean?...nope..don‘t think so. Now, since Society has decided that these are the responsibility of the women of our culture, I took these things upon myself rather than leave them to my stbx. Why? Not because society said I should, but because if I didn‘t, I‘d still be cleaning out the mess from the house we moved out of in Jan after living there for 2 years.

I didn‘t expect my stbx to work. it was just naturally assumed that since we‘ve both liked to eat, have electricity, water and a roof over our heads since we were born, that meant we would need money. Getting money means getting a job. It was his decision to get one. He had it before we got married. He kept the job he had, we ate, we had electric, we had water, we had a home. My not working had nothing to do with being his wife or being a mother. he knew this going in, so he never asked me to work, just like he never asked me to cook or clean.

My stbx was home a max of 3 days a week. during those three days, he would not lift a finger around the house. He would leave his trash wherever it left his hand. The same for his clothes and dishes. From the time I was 7 months pregnant until 2 months after I gave birth via C-Section, NOTHING got cleaned in the house becasue I could not stand for more than 5 minutes and I was staying at my mother‘s during the week, only coming home with him on the weekend where I would try to keep the dishes down and kept the toilet from turning strange colors. Trash was pointless, I couldn‘t bend over to pick it up, let alone lift the bags out of the can. Cooking consisted of whatever required nothing more than speaking into a clown‘s face or tossing it in the microwave. Shopping was covered by my mother, or we‘d have starved. Some laundry got done because it mainly consisted of the 3 sets of clothes he carried in the suitcase on the road with him with room left over for some of my clothes. the rest of it started to pile up and waited for me.

Now, At what point in there should I not have expected my husband, father of the child growing within me, to step in and take over some of "my" resposibilities in the home? Was it the point where the dishes were beginning to attract the flies? the point where the laundry piles two feet high on on the floor began to smell funny? Or was it the point where you literally had a 13 inch wide path through the living room? It took me a MONTH to clean that place up. stbx agreed to help me with the last of it, our bedroom, but then bailed on me when it actually came time to do it, telling me he "took a daddy day" with our daughter over at his sister‘s (where he was supposed to just drop her off and where I called him 2 or 3 times over 6 hours asking him what he was doing and telling him I needed his help) instead. when he did come home, he brought our 2 1/2 yr-old niece with him because his sister "needed a break." isn‘t he a peach?

Slave? No, I don‘t want a slave, I didn‘t much like being one myself, but I DO want someone who has respect for HIMSELF and respect for MY time and MY energy not to waste it on stuff THEY could do just as well. i‘ve got a new rule in my life. You want to live in my house? You want to sleep in my bed? Fine, then you‘re going to carry your share of the load here. I‘m not a pack mule when it comes to the responsibilities of running a household. Pitch in or get out.

Oh, PNG, no you didn‘t!?  You said the following:

"A wife who expects her husband to work and also cook and clean doesn‘t want a husband she wants a slave." 

I am dumbfounded by that statement.  It seems so prehistoric.  By that statement, I guess we can rightfully assume that all men want slaves for wives because women today do all of that and then some.

In today‘s economy both husbands and wives work full-time jobs.  HOWEVER, in many a household the wife is still expected to cook, clean, do laundry, take care of the children, do the gardening, the grocery shopping, the banking, etc., etc., etc.   

I think the fact that a man would quote his mother as saying those things is the problem.  He can believe what he wants and say what he wants but I am sorry it is so silly to quote your mother.  If you are older than 10 that is.  I don‘t quote my mother although I often agree with her thinking.  Most grown people don‘t unless they are Forest Gump or the Water Boy.

SAM

 Leg

and while I am on one, I too will no longer be the super fairy that sweeps through my abode whilst every-sod-else is oblivious.

EQUALITY at some degree at the very least! If not then it aint happening!

T

however PNG at the wedding this is covered by the VOW that goes:

and thereto i plight thee my trough.

which means....i take you over everyone else and i cleave unto you alone...all my assets i assign to you.

the case for the mama EVER being first is closed. a man can love his mother and repect her teachings but if his first allegence is to his original family, there is gonna be trouble.

understand that how they treat their mother is how they will treat you because when the children arrive you will be THE MOM.