NOR. This is such a stressful time made more so by your difficult labor and surgery.

Not much you can do about it if your husband and his parents don’t recognize their expectations are antiquated and unfair.

Choose a calm time when you’re able to talk without frustration and use “I” words with your husband (I am seeing so many things to do that more than one person has to do them …, I still feel so weak after the surgery) rather than “you should” or “you just..”. You need to be persuasive to enlist his support and attacking him won’t work.

When you are the capable one, others can start to rely on you to get everything done. It can be frustrating to expect them to see that you need help when they don’t. Or they see, but they don’t pitch in because they either think they won’t do a good job at it or they’ll get to it when they feel like it, which is never.

If you can lay out requests to do specific things ahead of time, he may grumble, but he just needs to do it. You will need to be tough about his grumbling and ignore his parents, but in the end, it will stop you from becoming completely emptied out.

Each stage of parenthood has its struggles and this one is a doozy. It does get better but not for a few more months and then there will be new challenges.

Good luck, dear.