I’ve been with my wife for 12 years, married going on 2 years this November.
She is currently in a toxic and not so great work situation that I think is really weighing down on her. She says she’s depressed and she has a history of depression.
We bought a house this past year as well and are in our first year of homeownership. It is expensive and stressful lol.
My issue is, is I primarily clean the whole house- vacuuming, dusting, mopping. I deal with the entire outside of the house, pool included. I deal with the contractors, I scoop the litter and deal with the daily and weekly garbage. I also do our laundry.
Her role includes grocery shopping, dinner/lunches, cleaning and maintaining the kitchen and cleaning our 1.5 bathrooms. I felt like this was a pretty fair trade off. However, she fails to hold her end of the bargain. Either we don’t have groceries regularly, or it’s a half assed dinner thought which is basically ‘girl dinner.’ Not interested in eating 2 bananas, wheat thins, and cheese slices for dinner, so I’m either forced to order out or pick up something for myself and her.
I’m just tired and not feeling very taken care of myself. I don’t mind cleaning or handling the outside… but I can’t do everything and I’m just starting to feel resentment. Especially after I’ve cleaned all day, where she gets to come home to a clean house and then proceeds to watch 14+ hours of Netflix, etc. and says things like I have to disassociate while the kitchen needs to be cleaned etc.
She has done nothing to change her work situation like apply to other jobs. She doesn’t have a therapist. She says she probably has ADHD… which makes her task adverse.
Ive had this conversation before, where I’ve said I just feel like I’m doing everything and it’s weighing down on me. She told me she would start folding laundry. I bring the laundry upstairs to be folded, so she can fold while watching TV even, but it just sits there for weeks on end in the basket.
I’m not sure what to do at this point. I listen to her rant about work every day immediately once I get home, yet she takes no steps to change that. I don’t mind listening but when it’s day in and day out, and youre doing nothing to change it, it’s hard to have empathy.
I can’t give her a new job or assist in her mental issues besides being supportive which I do try to be. I’ll send jobs on LinkedIn, she’s not interested.
I just don’t know what to do at this point. I’m sick of everything being my responsibility and feeling like I have no support. She is appreciative of everything I do…. But it doesn’t change the fact I still feel like I’m doing it all.
2 comments
I would highly recommend you do some research on ADHD. If she truly does have it, then what you need to understand is that she’s not slacking. She’s not doing this on purpose at all. If she truly has an executive function disorder, she *literally is not capable of causing herself to initiate tasks.* ADHD is not a mental health situation. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Her brain doesn’t create the chemicals that reward normal people for doing things. If she actually does have ADHD, this situation is likely *much* more distressing and annoying to her than it is to you. She’s likely been told her entire life that she doesn’t try hard enough and needs to do better. But people with ADHD *can’t* do better, so it only makes them feel guilty and anxious when they’re told that.
She’s probably also a people pleaser, and has extremely bad anxiety surrounding being rejected or someone being upset with her, right? I bet she struggles with insomnia. Has absolutely no sense of how long things take. I bet when she’s really into something she can do it for twelve hours without stopping. She’s probably got a problem with impulsive shopping. These aren’t even the main symptoms. You can google those, and I bet they’ll be relevant as well.
If these things ring true, you might want to actually start looking into getting her diagnosed. If she actually has an executive function disorder like ADHD, she doesn’t need to try harder. She *definitely* doesn’t need to be judged. She needs help, because she *literally, physically* can’t change her behavior. She needs your support, and she needs you to learn more about the situation rather than resent her for something she can’t control.
I’ll say this, it’s a much better investment of your time to get her to see someone for the possible ADHD and depression than keep doing house chores.