I [44M] am about to take my first vacation (of longer than two days) in fifteen years, and plan to take at least a few days to relax. Am I right to feel that my wife [47F] is being unreasonable in writing a "schedule" of chores that I need to accomplish, giving me ZERO days to just relax?

Hello Reddit,

I am a physicist who works in a university research laboratory. I've worked at the same university since I was 27 years old, when I earned my doctoral degree. I am usually gone from home from six in the morning until about seven o'clock at night.

Aside from weekends and the month I took off for my honeymoon when I got married at twenty-nine, I haven't had a vacation since. My research is such that there really isn't much time to be taking vacations.

My wife is a homemaker and we do not have children (wife is infertile and she does not want to adopt). Instead, our "kids" are two dogs (a husky, and a golden retriever), and one cat. Since it's just my wife and me, we have an apartment near the university. I live close enough to the university so that my wife meets me for lunch on most days.

My wife's activities include taking extension classes at the university, gardening, attending a sewing circle with her friends, a book club, etc.

Our weekends are usually filled with cultural activities such as attending concerts or art gallery openings.

My wife and I have a very good relationship and do not really argue about things.

Our lab just received a large grant from the state which does not kick in for a couple of months, but in the meantime since I'm redundant my school told me that they can put me on "half time" while we wait for the funding in October. Half time means that I am guaranteed a return to full pay in a couple of months, but in the meantime I am placed on half-pay and am not qualified to apply for unemployment.

So, the half pay sucks, but hey! More than two months to relax. It came as a surprise, and my wife was ecstatic.

I don't make a huge salary, never did, and now that I will be on half pay, we have to be careful with spending. My wife is understanding about this, and doesn't expect us to take some huge vacation or go on a second honeymoon.

I came home recently with a list of ideas I thought I might go over with her about how we can spend my vacation. Literally 90% of it involves spending time with her and doing couples stuff.

The remaining 10% involves me getting some sleep.

I am exhausted all the time, and often feel like I'm going to burn out. I'd like to take three or four days, maybe even a whole week just to sit at home and vegetate for the first time in I don't know how long. It doesn't mean I'm not going to help my wife with stuff, like go with her walking the dogs, or help her vacuum. I just mean I don't really want to go out and go anywhere.

But when I got home with my ideas, my wife, to my surprise, presented me with her own itinerary, which involved me doing pretty much all the chores she usually does while I'm at the lab. She wrote down a plan wherein I'm basically doing all the cooking and cleaning and dog walking and laundry from the very first day of my vacation. Granted, there is not a lot of laundry to do for two people, we do not make a mess, so there is not much to vacuum, we don't eat much so cooking isn't that hard, and it is easy to walk our dogs, but it left a negative feeling in me because these facts tell me that I have broken my back for years giving my wife a pretty comfortable life, and now she is telling me she needs a vacation from doing even these chores?

When I come home from the lab I feel literally like I am going to faint, my feet and eyes hurt so much. I'm only 44 but feel much older. The entire day is stress, looking into microscopes, looking at slides, reviewing peers' work, meetings, it just doesn't end.

I ask her what she plans to do while I am doing these chores at home, and she says, "this is my vacation too!" And that she needs a break. I ask her what she means by that. She says that she will just spend longer with her girlfriends sewing. When I presented her with my own ideas she said she liked the idea of spending time with me, but that I needed to "help out" more at home.

I'm not one to start fights with my wife, but should I just suck it up and do the chores? They're not that hard. I can do literally all the stuff she is talking about in about an hour a day. I know this, because throughout the years, on rare days when I am ill (and should be recovering at home) she shoves a mop in my hands and tells me I need to help her out at home. So, even with the flu, I do all her work easily.

And still, I feel disrespected because I think she believes I'm just hanging out at work drinking coffee or something. It is redline level stress and it's killing me. I told her on more than one occasion that I am burning out but she just says I'm being dramatic. Personal guests are never allowed in the laboratory, and I feel like my wife believes I'm some old, tenured professor who just stands at a lectern and wastes students' time by spewing personal opinions at them and has a cushy academic life.

No way.

She does not lack adult interaction or is prevented from pursuing her interests in her role as homemaker, we don't have human children to raise, so I don't get why she thinks her job is so hard that I need to take over instantly on the very first day I get a break for the first time in fifteen years.

Is this an argument worth having? Or am I making a mountain of a molehill?

=====**tl;dr: I have a vacation coming up for the first time in fifteen years. Wife thinks I should take over all her chores instead of getting any rest.**

Submitted July 30, 2018 at 08:23PM by PaperSpaceShuttle https://ift.tt/2KdDdvF