Mercia Amber5 days agoI (30F) have been with my husband (30M) for over a decade, and we've been married for a couple of years. He’s a very successful businessman, and I’m a secretary at a local college. I bring this up because it plays into how we run our household. Since COVID, I’ve been able to work remotely for part of the week and only need to go into the office twice a week to keep up with filing. My husband, on the other hand, goes into work every day because his job doesn’t allow remote work. Here’s where things have gotten difficult. I was raised in a household where everyone pitched in with chores, but my husband grew up in a family where his mother did everything while he and his family did nothing. He expects me to cook, clean, pay the bills, go to school to finish my degree, and always be in a positive mood. I am so exhausted. He does no physical labor, and while I don’t either anymore (I worked on my feet for five years before my current job), both of our jobs are mentally demanding. The issue is, he doesn't help me around the house at all. He does pay our mortgage and car insurance, and I handle everything else. He leaves trash and clothes everywhere but doesn’t clean up after himself. He yells at me when the house gets messy and tries to “teach” me how to clean, even though he can’t even bother to flush the toilet. He never takes out the trash or replaces the toilet roll when it’s empty. Anytime we argue about it, he claims that because he makes more money than I do, it’s my responsibility to do everything else. Our relationship has become toxic over the last couple of years. I’ve shut him out because whenever I try to talk about my feelings, it turns into him telling me why I’m the problem and how awful I am. I know I’m not perfect, but it’s affecting my self-confidence. He puts me down, calls me dumb, and says that I’m just a “leech” to his money and that no one would want to be with me if I wasn’t with him. He’s also spoken to other women outside our relationship, but insists he’s never physically cheated. I feel like I’m becoming a shell of the person I used to be, and I don’t know what to do.1554
Mercia AmberMercia Amber