My DH and I have been married for 30 years and have 3 adult children. Having 3 children made it difficult for me to go back to work from a financial point of view, so I was a stay at home mum. As well as being mum, I took over everything in the house - from cooking, cleaning, washing/ironing, all shopping and paying bills, sorting out all his bills and tasks as well as my own.
For the last 25 years he has lived a life where he goes to work, comes home, and his time is his own, whereas I would be running round after the children, cooking dinner, cleaning/tidying up afterwards until children were in bed and I got to sit down for an hour or two until bedtime. As they got older it got a little easier, but still I do everything.
His responsibilities are going to work and mowing the lawn occasionally (and he regularly suggests that I should do the lawn!). That's it. I plan holidays, sort birthday/xmas presents (his family as well as mine), every little thing in our lives, big and small.
Because I didn't go to work, I accepted the burden - it was a trade off for having an easy life as a stay at home mum and housewife and not having the pressure of going to work. (Yes, I believed that for many years I got the easier job. I'm only waking up to reality now!)
Last year my youngest left home, and I wanted to get back in to work. I took a 3 month long temporary job, but found that I was having to do housework/shopping before work, and even though I worked longer hours, I would come home to him sitting watching the TV with nothing done around the house - not even a coffee made for me, or the dishwasher emptied. I tried talking to him about it, but his argument was always that these jobs don't take long so I should stop complaining, his job is very stressful, he needs to rest, I'm better at doing them anyway, blah blah blah.
I quickly realised that me going out to work wasn't going to be easy, that although he wanted me to work (to suffer like he has to, rather than have an easy life at home), and he wants me to earn money, he had no intention of sharing the burdens of running a house, and the planning and preparation for everything.
My temp job finished, and I would like to look for another - but I can't if I still have to do everything. The problem is he is so used to his life of ease that he doesn't see why it should be different. Even when we both got back home from work, he saw nothing wrong with the fact that he sat watching TV or reading a book, while I cleaned/tidied/ironed while cooking dinner, and that I caught up with paperwork at the weekend while he got up late and then expected me to make him breakfast.
I know, I know: I've been my own worst enemy, letting him get away with doing nothing all these years. But he gets verbally aggressive, so I have always been the one to back down and apologise and over the years have learned to just get on with doing it all. I've gone for an easy life, rather than confronting him so he's used to getting his own way all the time.
How do I gradually ease him into taking his share of the responsibilities? I've tried sitting down and discussing it with him - his answer is that he is stressed at work and needs downtime, that the jobs don't take long anyway, that I am making a fuss over nothing. I get verbally battered every time I dare to mention or ask that he helps me.
I can't live like this. I gave the first part of my adult life to my children, but I feel that I am still mothering him, and it will continue until the day I die.
Has anyone else had the same problem and have any suggestions on how to nudge him into doing more - even just taking on his own responsibilities like sorting his car insurance/remembering important dates and taking action (car mot, his families birthdays, medical appts etc), putting his clothes away after they have been washed and ironed for him- just doing these would be a major improvement - all these things take chunks of my time, and I'm fed up with every responsibility falling on me.
As a brief example: his car insurance is due for renewal in a week's time. I mentioned it to him, and his response was - nothing. He just expects it to be done for him. He won't ask if it's done a day or so before, he won't go online and check for a good price - and if I ask him to, his response will be an irritated "well you can do it, you have nothing else to do, I'm at work all day, you're sitting at home" etc. If I don't do it, he will be uninsured. It's not something that I can just leave.
I'm trying to avoid the verbal abuse I will receive if I ask or vaguely even suggest he does things, and I know he has me on a giant guilt trip ("it's okay for you, you never worked, you don't work, I've had to go out to work every day, you haven't had a stressful day, you have more time than me" etc).
We're both in our late 50's and I want to do something for me for a change, and feel that I have been something other than a just a housewife/stay at home mum. I'm capable of more, and I only have a few years left in which to achieve it (I'm talking about retirement here, not death 
)
Sorry for the long rant!!
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Last weekend, in Rutland, the first statue in Britain of the late Elizabeth II was unveiled.
Stabbing at a school in Wales this lunchtime.
