My husband represents gender inequality, doing no chores, and is now spite cleaning because I got mad at him

Photo byTowfiqu barbhuiyaonUnsplash

The past few months have been incredibly overwhelming for me. I work full-time as a teacher, have three kids - an 8-month-old, a 5-year-old, and a 13-year-old - and have been dealing with some personal stressors that have been peaking. To top it off, I have been getting less and less sleep as a result.

My therapist expressed concern about my mental health declining due to my lack of sleep, which really shook me. It's not like her to express that level of concern, so I knew I had to take action.

So, I talked to my husband about taking over the night shift with the kids. I asked him to do it one night every week and two consecutive nights every other week. Since we co-sleep, I figured it would be easier for him to take care of the kids at night.

But, he wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea. He kept complaining that it was so much harder for him to wake up to warm a bottle than it was for me to milk them. I didn't have much sympathy for him because I had been handling most of the night shifts for months.

Keeping my request led to a huge fight between us, and it has been going on for four days now. He even asked me to give him my terms for the support I wanted, but I could tell it was a trap, not a genuine question.

Despite this, I told him I wanted him to do the night shift as I had asked, both of us to give each other one kid-free hour every day, and a 50-50 split on household duties.

Surprisingly, he went above and beyond with his cleaning for the past two days. The house looked better than it had in a year, and he gave me my hour of free time between 5-6 pm. But he made it clear that he didn't like being forced to do things and that I hadn't seen all the things he did before. He was happy when his evenings were relaxed, and he didn't want to sacrifice that.

But I had been keeping track of what he did and didn't do for a long time, and it was making me angry. It's the typical labor divide between men and women, with him doing more than the minimum but nowhere near enough to make it equal.

To make matters worse, he threatened that these requests would lead to divorce. It broke my heart to hear that, but I told him I was sorry that was how he felt. I know he has flaws, but I married him knowing that.