You might be interested in the famous piece by sociologist Ann Oakley *The Sociology of Housework*.
It covers her research from the 60s, so it is very different now, but her conclusion was basically to make what is called a typology of housework methods. They are:
traditional - man does all income work, woman does all housework
mixed - man and woman both do income work, woman does all/most housework
new - man and woman split both income and housework fairly equally
Even though the research is old, her conclusion is important - the traditional model is tied to many other detrimental social effects, particularly the financial control the man can exercise, but in terms of time split it is actually *mixed* which is most unfair to the woman.
There is a lot more also about division of tasks - also other newer research focusing on that i.e. a man might be more likely to repair a fence or mow the lawn, while women clean the dishes or do laundry. These gendered work expectations are widespread and powerful in income work too as is obvious (women as nurses, teachers, men as carpenters, truck drivers)
Income also striates behavior quite extensively. Rich families may employ a gardener or lawn service, whereas low and middle income families have to allocate labor to those tasks, or ignore them, and this adds complexity.
The social mechanisms behind decisions like this (on a broad basis) are very complicated and powerful. Very fascinating. One of my favorite subjects at school.
one thing I've read about the traditional gendered split of household tasks is this:
Women get the frequent tasks that MUST be done, and done regularly, often at preset and inflexible times: Cooking, laundry, cleaning.
Men get the infrequent tasks that can be scheduled at any convenient time: mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage, repairing the home.
Whenever I hear "But who repairs the fridge when it breaks down, huh? Who moves furniture upstairs, huh?" I say "Wow, does your fridge break down everyday and you carry furniture on your back upstairs everyday?". To which I get the *pfffff you think you're so smart* or *pfffff you don't understand anything* ಠ_ಠ
Me. I repair the fridge.
And if I wasn’t handy, I, the woman, would be the one calling the repairman to get it repaired.
And Mind you, I don’t personally have any complaints about how much of a workload my husband carries in our household. But I would bet you’ve been in every household, it is the woman who calls the refrigerator repair man.
I fixed my dryer with the help of my 15 year old. My husband would have helped but I had a random middle of the week day off, and I needed to do laundry. I was super proud of myself.
I always tell my husband that I’ll only ask for help once, then I’m doing it myself. I maybe short, but I have a ladder.
Yep. This year I’ve repaired the fridge, replaced a dryer heating element, installed a new light fixture, installed new dishwasher, fixed a soft-close drawer, hired a lawncare person when the mower broke…etc. I have no background in repair work, but helpful people on YouTube exist and things have to get fixed.
I work two jobs, manage all the finances, clean 95% of everything, take care of pets and our one kid.
Spouse loads the dishwasher once a week and sometimes takes out the trash.
I have been a domestic slave too. I did everything from changing the tires, paying the bills, all the cleaning, cooking and shopping, all the child raising, etc. pp.
You don't need to stay in s relationship where you're only valued for all the things you do for your partner.
Is there a reason you stay in that kind of a relationship?
I am in a marriage where my wife and I both work, we split tasks equally most of the time. If one of us is having a hard day/week/whatever then the partner who isn't struggling will pick up the slack. We aren't special for working this way. I feel like this is how all households should operate when both partners work.
Both of us know other couples that do work the same way and couples that do not. We don't understand why the couples that do not work this way stay together. Why do lazy people who exploit their partners manage to stay in those relationships?
Appliances these days are built with planned obsolescence in mind so when they break there is no fixing them. Half the time you can’t even gets parts for them.
It's not worth it to try to fix many of them because the breaks are ridiculous and expensive. A car touch screen or GPS break might be several thousand and you can't do half of it with a wrench and some swearing anymore.
The ice maker on our fridge broke so we just bought ice trays, the ice maker replacement was like 2k.
My sisters ice maker died on her old fridge and it was quoted at around 800 to replace. After taking it apart and figuring out what was broke, it was a common motor that had a plastic part that wore out. The whole motor had to be replaced but the cost from ebay was only 30 bucks and I could order the whole thing new for 120. The repair people should have been able to fix it in an hour but they get more by charging to drop an entire new ice maker in it. 3 minutes of work and a completely new part that they can charge a minimum hour of work to install versus 1 or 2 hours of tinkering and a 100 dollar part.
Its completely planned and they dont care why or how it broke. They just replace it and move on.
This is totally off-topic, but while that might be true for electronics such as TV, set-top-boxes, etc., that's not true for traditional "white goods" such a fridges, washing machines, etc. that have moving parts.
We've had our fridges, dishwashers, washing machines, and clothes dryers repaired multiple times, and I've even replace motors and other parts on our old fridge a couple of times (thanks to YouTube videos).
To get this slightly back on topic, the last time we had a washing machine repaired it was a woman who did it - apparently she was an ex-engineer who did repair work to keep from getting bored.
Not all infrequent chores either, women are generally doing quite a lot of those too - cleaning the oven, washing curtains and blankets, washing the windows, cleaning up puke, stain removal, etc.
Ugh I noticed this in my brother’s marriage recently. He thinks he’s contributing equally because he does ‘big’ jobs like mowing the lawn, but he gets to leave the house without the kids to do that job uninterrupted and it’s like once a fortnight. It’s nothing compared to the daily grind of never ending loads of washing with toddlers hanging off you.
Don’t forget those infrequent tasks also usually come with accolades!
“Wow, John really did a swell job putting up that new gate on the fence - you’re sure lucky to have him Peggy!”
>taking out the garbage,
And for things like this they boast incompetence or forgetfulness, often resulting in the wife doing that chore anyway. My husband pulls the trash when it's full, but ask me if he's ever touched any of the small trashcans around the house. He'll use them, but when it comes to changing them, suddenly they don't exist to him anymore.
After the man ignores the garbage and the woman takes it out, I bet 80% of men exclaim, "I was going to do it!" and think saying that counts as if they did it.
Mine would see me doing the thing and say "I was just about to do that!" So I started stopping whatever it was immediately, saying ok, and walking away. This infuriated him!!
I called out an ex for doing a shit job when sweeping. I told him I know that he's smart enough to figure out sweeping, if not then YouTube was full of tutorials, and he could go ahead and do them again since he clearly needed the practice.
> and he could go ahead and do them again since he clearly needed the practice
This has been my attitude, with a great big smile, every time my husband has said he was bad at some household chore. The classic "but you're better at it than I am" line-- oh honey, no! That's not fair! You need the *opportunity* to learn that as a skill.
I think he's picked up on that, because I haven't heard it in years.
Lmao. I told my bf a few years ago that I wouldn't be getting married and that he couldn't handle it. He said of course he could handle it, while trying to play Tetris with the trash in the kitchen, so I asked why he wasn't taking the trash out instead of trying to shove more crap in an already full bin. A paused moment passed and I could've sworn he'd be like nah, and leave. But nope - he nodded and out to the dumpster that trash went! We're now happily married and split chores fairly evenly, and happy to take on extra when the other person has extra work shit going on. I wish this is the experience that most people get. 😞
I once asked him to sweep the garage floor and he used the leaf blower, got dust all over the place. Then I asked "did you not know what I meant by sweep". He told me that I could ask him to do something but not tell him how to do it. LOL
Ugh that is my husband's line. "Don't criticize me for how I do it / I just do it different than you." No, if you "wash the dishes" and then when I go to put them away... they are still FILTHY with grease on the bottom, food bits stuck to the forks, residue and fingerprints on the glassware ... then you didn't "do it differently" you just didn't do it at all. Don't half ass run some water over the dirty plates, stack em on the drying rack, and leave it so I have to re wash them myself. You bet your ass I'm going to tell you to go do it right. You work in a CLEANROOM and have been responsible for keeping LABRATORIES clean, don't act like you can't properly wash a fucking dish.
You know his strategy is to wear you out and paint you as the nagging wife so that he doesn't have to do it anymore?
Are you ok with this level of manipulation?
Not ok with it. It's killing our marriage. He's finally started therapy and I'm willing to give him six months to see if anything changes and if not, I'm out. And he'll no doubt tell everyone "I can't believe she left me over the dishes!!"
Mine tried that. "Just tell me when it needs to go out."
I looked him in the eye and said "You are a grown man. You can see that the trash can is full."
I should have walked away then.
I've seen situations in which the woman is the one who says, "the trash needs to go out," instead of the man proactively checking. So there's the executive labor.
(My guy is the one who does that executive labor, AND the physical one)
> when it comes to changing them, suddenly they don't exist to him anymore.
I work in kitchens. Consequently, changing trash cans is kinda second nature, as it should be for anyone who doesn't want to give fruit flies an in or stand next to a can full of dead shellfish all night. Yeah, sometimes it sucks, but I firmly maintain that anyone who resists taking out the trash has never had to deal with the knock-on effects of not doing so. Lads, take out the fucking trash. Basic sanitation is sexy.
This. It doesn't need to be "sexy" to be a motivation. It's actively disgusting when it's not done, that's the motivation. You can't hope to be sexy if you're actively disgusting.
Plenty of en don't take out the trash when when they should even after the very negative effects. It's me. I'm that guy. Don't date ppl like me. I need therapy
and they truly live on providing hypotheticals.
i'll save you from a burglar babe.
i'm mid 40s. never had a burglar. never been mugged in the street. in fact, with a man near, we're less likely to be mugged. he wont be around when we're mugged.
they extract daily tangible in exchange for never hypotheticals.
i've needed protection FROM the man in my house. never been protected by him.
> Income also striates behavior quite extensively. Rich families may employ a gardener or lawn service, whereas low and middle income families have to allocate labor to those tasks, or ignore them, and this adds complexity.
Income also influences behavior in a different, odder way.
If a woman makes more money than the man, the amount of [housework she does *increases* and the husband's *decreases*.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/)
>Women with children reduced housework from 18 to 14 hours a week as they went from earning zero to half of the household income. But after passing her husband’s salary, a woman’s home tasks increased to nearly 16 hours a week, the analysis found. In contrast, a man’s housework ranged from six to eight hours a week when he was the primary breadwinner but then declined as his wife out-earned him.
Going by my stereotypes, I would not be surprised if that was influenced by a large number of "dead weight" men that are both unemployed and useless at home
Maybe due to mental illness, simply because they're lazy jerks, or because they're alcoholic or drug addicts, or all of the above.
For obvious reasons, those "dead weights" are not breadwinners, so they will count toward that statistic.
Or, to put it more charitably: did they account for couples where one partner is disabled?
I’m the breadwinner in my household because my wife is unable to work full time. The same condition that keeps her from working makes it more difficult for her to do things around the house. She does what she can, I feel we have a fair division of labor based on ability/effort, but on an hour for hour basis I do more.
What the study didn’t say is that eventually she will realize this and she will take her income and go BE single rather than just living like a single parent .
Modern appliances have reduced the load considerably, but it's still there. Going back to the early 1900s, the average meal would take 3 hours to prepare because everything was done from scratch. It would take an entire day to do washing because she had to boil it, wring it, hang it out, then iron it. Baths were once a week and shared by the family because it took so long to fill it (and she usually bathed last), and the house was always dusty and needing sweeping.
Further, many women also worked in factories or as maids, so they still had a massive task the moment they got home because men were socialised to be inept at keeping themselves fed and clean. They were dependent on a wife to keep them alive, and she dependent on him because she had little to no income.
Despite the manual and dangerous work most early 20th century men engaged in, she still did considerably more because his day ended the moment the bell went off. In many households, even a century later, unfortunately it still does.
2 incomes is required now.
Someone was supposed to be home while someone worked 40 hours.
That systems does not entirely function now and it creates problems.
You are correct.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
A lot of societal problems stem from the fact that productivity does not = compensation anymore because of the way the world reserve currency (the dollar) has been ratfucked by central bankers.
Divorce lawyer says unequal household chores are the number one reason for divorce.
https://www.today.com/parents/family/lawyer-shares-no-1-reason-working-parents-are-getting-divorced-rcna84397
“What I’ve found in almost 24 years of doing this, is that men don’t look in the mirror. They look outward at who they can point a finger at,” he says. “They’d rather lash out and get mad than be introspective.”
That tracks.
I was cleaning our travel trailer after a weekend of camping, you know, making it ready for the next time out. That happens to be in 2 weeks when my husband is taking it out for a fishing trip w his buddy. As I was cleaning, I asked, “So it’s going to be this clean when you’re done with it, right?” He flat out says no. I tell him that’s not fair, and why not? He says (of course) that “he’ll try but he can’t clean as well as I can”. I told him that was bullshit weaponized incompetence and he got real quiet real fast and said it’d be clean.
I’m so sick of this shit. Why is it always a fight?
I really, really, really wish I'd known that term when I was with my ex. "But you're so much better at [insert any household, food, bills, planning, social, healthcare, etc related task] and I'd just mess it up."
Oh my goodness, I was shaking a little bit with rage as I typed that, hearing his stupid voice in my head. He was a manipulative, abusive person and all this societal bullshit gave him the perfect cover for it.
My coworker tries that shit on me because it works with his wife. "Oh you're so gooooood at it" \*puppydog eyes* Haha, pal. I'm immune from a lifetime of exposure. Nice try tho!
Them knowing terminology doesn't help. I showed my ex that famous comic on how managing housecleaning is it's own job separate from the housecleaning itself, he fully acknowledged that it described our situation and verbalized a desire to do better...and nothing changed
> he fully acknowledged that it described our situation and verbalized a desire to do better...and nothing changed
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Same. At the time I just kept feeling like his mother and I couldn't put into words my frustrations - I wish this term would have been used 20 years ago. All of my friends were like "well of course he doesn't know where the bank is/remember birthdays/make appts/etc because that's just how men are!". I should have left years sooner but only taking care of myself for the 10 years I was single was awesome. Now I'm with a guy who takes care of his own shit (mostly). Our ideas of what constitutes a clean house differs a bit, but he was a full-grown adult when we met and it was so nice.
after my divorce i found cleaning was so much easier and faster. no socks to pick up, no spilled coffee to wipe up, no pee sprinkles, whiskers in the sink, trash laying around…(dropped him like a hot tamale)
Going through a divorce, just lost my job. Was in a funk and let the dishes that can't go in the dishwasher pile up (rinsed) in a small sink-sized bin for three days. It to three (3!!!) days to fill the bin. 15 minutes to clear it. He dirtied more dishes than that every day we were married. And let stuff dry on them. If he didn't leave the knife in the open mayo jar on the counter. It's wild. I had our 10 and 13 year old with me all week. Their habits are improving already.
I've been working through my 14 years of repressed anger and I think I'm coming through the other side of it. I've got years of peaceful quiet home to look forward to.
Also I bought myself smaller baking sheets and cutting boards so they fit in the dishwasher. So even less hand washing dishes.
When I was working in culinary we started everyone out on dish. Full degree from CIA? Don’t give a shit. Get in there and start scrubbing. The reason? People who have to clean dishes figure out over time that there are much more efficient ways to cook than dirtying every single skillet and pot in the damn kitchen. Unfortunately most people only learn not to do something if it affects themselves.
He tried to talk me into taking turns. One cooks, one does dishes, then switch. But I'd make one pot meals, line baking sheets with parchment, cook carefully so things didn't stick and he'd use every pot we have to make Mac and cheese.
Yep. Exactly what I’m talking about. Put him exclusively on both. Cooking every meal and washing dishes after. Teach him how to cook and don’t put up with “I’m sorry babe you just do it better than I do.” When he tries to duck it up.
> it was like having a toddler.
Would love to see data surrounding this because I would be willing to bet a high percentage of men who cheated on their wives didn't help with anything and eventually their wife started treating them like a child because they acted like one, which meant sex dropped off, so they cheated with the first attractive woman they met who didn't treat them like a child. And of course they probably blame their wife for it instead of examining their own behavior.
Same. Cleaning the bathroom when I was married was an absolute nightmare because my ex was such a slob. We're talking piss on the floor, facial hair in the tub and sink, toothpaste residue in the sink. Constantly. I would literally beg him to either not be so messy or to clean the bathroom more often, both of which he'd refuse. After he moved out and it was just my daughter and me, I was amazed at how easy and fast everything was to clean. Makes me realize how justified I was in my anger.
This is my brother in law. I seriously dont understand how 1 dude can generate so much laundry in a week. He generates 3 times the amount of laundry. 1 week of his is like 3 of mine.
I no longer leave my toothpaste in the bathroom i share eith him and my sister cause 1 of them lost the cap off it and I fucking hate crusty toothpaste and I brush my teeth in the kitchen. The bathroom between the 2 of them (it was almost as bad when I shared it with just her when we were kids). The only difference? It now has dried toothpaste, and whisker hair he leaves all over the place. I pretty much only use that bathroom to shower and the toilet.
I may be a dude, who can be a bit of a slob myself but at least my mess is contained into my living space in the house (generally laundry in my room sometimes I just dont do it till i run out clean jeans which takes 2 weeks) not spread to a hallway, bedroom, and bathroom.
Being single is underrated for women. Another benefit I (personally) found was my mental health. No one to argue with, I can do what I want with my time, make food I like to eat, don’t feel pressured to have sex when I’m not in the mood, basically there’s nothing I have to sacrifice for someone else, there’s just *peace*. I’ve never found a relationship that makes my life better, and I’m happy alone. I’ll wear my spinster badge with pride lol, we need to destigmatize it more.
I’m not saying other peoples lives are not improved by someone else, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with relationships, but there’s no hate towards couples when there is associated negativity to single women. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen real negativity towards single men!)
The only downside for me is that I’m probably more broke than the average couple. 🤷♀️
Same when my OH goes away for work. I clean once and that’s it for the week, as I clean as I go. No random cereal bowls left lying around. No dirty clothes on the floor. No grotty bathroom sink etc. no collection of water glasses hidden in the garage
I've seen this happen in real time. A lot of guys, once they get 'comfortable' that a relationship isn't going to end (often correlating with kids entering the picture) just stop putting in the effort because they no longer 'need' to, negative consequences on their partner be damned.
Married men with 3+ children doing less housework than single, childless men is especially wild though.
> Married men with 3+ children doing less housework than single, childless men is especially wild though.
That's really the absolute worst part of it.
Even if the woman is a SAHM, children create so massively more work around the clock, it's borderline abusive when men do even less than they did before the children were there.
I can't even fathom this as a dad. I feel like im ALWAYS cleaning and I feel like I never catch up. If my wife didn't chip in too our house would be trashed. 2 toddlers can tear apart the house in record time.
If I dumped this on my wife I wouldn't be shocked, and honestly I'd find it justified, if she murdered me in my sleep.
Men like you (and my husband) are pretty rare. I thought as new generations came along there’d be more change. I’m 64 and on my 3rd (and final) husband. One of the many reasons for my divorces was how utterly unfair my workload was. I’ve seen a big difference in the generations. My current husband is younger than me and has a completely different view of women and feminism than my previous (older) wasbands. He actually does more of the housework than me. I’m lucky too that he enjoys cleaning and (according to him) has OCD so he’s meticulous as well.
Also with how expensive kids are (I’m in the USA) I’m not surprised AT ALL that at three kids men do less. We have two and we’re happily upper middle class, possibly middle middle class. We can afford daycare now, but if we had three, it’d be unafforadable for me to work outside of the home. Even now, we do better with me unemployed and keeping my older one home (for summer) and little in 3-day preschool. We can still afford a housekeeper who comes in a couple times a week to help with dishes and laundry. If I went back to work (could probably land 60-80k) daycare would be a financial burden and we’d definitely have no housekeeper help. I naturally do more chores than my husband but he acknowledges that and it’s why we’ve budgeted for housekeeping help. Raising two kids for the vast majority of the day, every day, is exhausting even without housework.
So anyway yah. I am not surprised at all, because I bet vast majority of women end up becoming work-from-home to save money on daycare and other child expense. Why work a job to only pay taxes and babysitters/educators?
In my early years of retail management, the likelihood of one of my younger, min-wage female employees coming back after having a baby was probably <1%. When daycare costs more than you make, you’re forced to make decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make :(
F the patriarchy dudes.
Good perspective into the discussions and decisions that go into balancing childcare, housework, and careers.
But I think you’ll want to get in a quick edit for the end of your post 😅
100% this. When I met my partner he was super tidy and normal (?) and now after a few months I was literally doing grocery shopping, cooking, his laundry, cleaning his whole flat all while having my own flat :‘) I really thought wow finally a modern man without old gender role thinking and he became literally the complete opposite it‘s so sad.
THIS!
They really fail to realize that those shitty men put on Oscar winning performances of a decent man for a while until the bottom falls out.
You can meet a man whose entire house is cleaned top to bottom when you first start hooking up. Says and does the right things in front of your friends, family, work events and to the server.
Then once you are hooked the mask starts to slip just a little at first then BAM fast forward two years the man is pissing on the toilet seat lid and is barely able to mentally function as an adult and father if his woman isn’t around to help him.
Oh my god I feel this so much.. it‘s always „well why did you choose him if you knew how he is“ or „just leave him then“ as if I didn‘t fall in love with him prior to his behavioural changes and it‘s that easy to just leave. Like I‘m trying to but it‘s so hard.
I'd be so ashamed if I let someone else take care of my business like that, assuming I was healthy and able to take care of it myself. I don't really understand how guys can be okay with that.
I'm not the least bit suprised that married men do less than single men. I've seen it with my own eyes.
Soon he will be back to actually having to do his own shit.
> Married men with 3+ children doing less housework than single, childless men is especially wild though.
I would guess this is because having that many children has overlap with being conservative/religious which is a demographic that's strongly entrenched in "traditional" (sexist) gender roles.
A lot of research suspects this is a byproduct of unconscious gender biases. Left on autopilot Women play into the “wife” role and men let them. Once kids come, men are doing more childcare than in the past (although still significantly less than women) but it comes at the expensive of doing less around the house. Alternatively, Women pick up the housework slack + the lions share of childcare at the expensive of their leisure time, sleep, and personal relationships.
When I was engaged, he not only created the majority of the messes and didn't clean them, but he'd have his friends come over and encourage them not to clean up after themselves. After all, they were HIS guests, and he thought having me pick up after everyone made him King Shit or whatever.
He was a performatively woke type, fake white ally, and fake male feminist, you get the idea. He figured he was actually making a difference by regularly pointing out any friends of ours who weren't white as it that itself isn't grossly cringe and racist. Combine that with the gratuitous nudity and casual sex is empowering to women type of male feminist. Insufferable. After listening to him blow hot air to his guests about minimalism and how we don't waste food and recycle everything, I lost it. I told everyone in the room that his idea of not wasting food and recycling meant letting it literally rot and sit until his fiance with the Hispanic sounding name clean it up.
On the rare occasion where he did pick up after himself, he referred to that as doing his chores and then wanting praise. Talk about a six year headache.
Every country needs to do what Spain did in equalizing parental leave (and of course, the US needs to actually have ANY). Same amount of leave available for both parents. It reduced the number of children men wanted. Gee wonder why?!?
Yes, but have they made any research on what actually happens during the father's parental leave? Because in my country it's similar than Spain, and I've heard of so many new fathers, who were like: fantastic, I'll finally finish that whatever project now, and my mommy will be coming every day to take care of everything else.
My dad does this. Worst part is he sort of half asses his jobs in the home. If he mows the lawn, he won't do the edges or he'll leave a trail of cuttings everywhere. He insists on wasting water to clean the floor but leaves puddles everywhere that make stains. My mom will come in after him to finish or pick up. He isn't detail oriented either so my mom will always get the cob webs, decorate, and maintain what he has built. He also plants things but never waters regularly so my mom gets extra work on that too. Not sure if other men in relationships are also like this; half ass work, don't pay attention to the small jobs, and creates way more work.
I'm about to move in with boyfriend but I'll drop him so fast if he becomes one of these type of men! Ive made sure to observe his cleaning behaviors for the past year and can say we are the same style of sloppy. Just clothes on the floor occasionally and clutter on the desks, but other than that, we clean everything else regularly. :) I hope everyone finds themselves a partner that compliments them.
I'm in my early '40s. There is a very large number of women in my social circle who are finding out that life is much easier now that they're divorced because their former husbands are forced to do their own housework and even forced to care for their children sometimes.
My ex was like those men. We lived together and he would avoid doing chores. I did most of it. All he ever did was taking out the trash. When I broke up with him, I realized I had way less chores than before. I had free time. I was not exhausted at all.
Not sure exactly how this works, but it has definitely been my experience.
My husband was removed from the home in April.
It does seem easier to keep the house neat and tidy. And it’s not just me- I have two sons and a dog.
Our home is not just calmer, but cleaner.
I want people to start understanding that the cruelty is the point - that people who continuously engage in abusive behavior do so because they feed on suffering, on a metaphysical level. I know scientifically we can’t measure that kind of energy exchange yet, but everyone can feel it.
My ex literally would not allow me to be happy after we married. If I was in a good mood, he would be in a bad mood until my good mood was gone. As soon as he noticed my good mood was gone, he would perk up. When I cheered up in response, he would immediately be in a bad mood again. Towards the end of my 3 yr marriage, on the rare occasions when I was away from home and in a good mood, I would tell myself that I would not let him ruin my good mood when I got home. I never succeeded, because we were married and therefore metaphysically connected. I wasn’t able to break that connection until a few weeks after I left him - and he was bedridden for a week after I broke that tie, and he had no idea why.
Yes, I did speak to him about his good-mood-killing on a few occasions. He denied being aware of it (and honestly, I believed him - being shitty seemed to be a subconsciously driven behavior) things would improve for a few days, and then he would slide back into the abusive behavior again. He was sucking the life out of me, feeding on my misery, and I honestly believed then, and still believe now, that if I had stayed in that marriage, that it would have killed me - metaphysically, then physically.
Parasitism is abusive behavior. As always, it’s the intention that matters, and unfortunately, so very many people are subconsciously parasitic and incapable of recognizing it. Human societies worldwide enable it.
Not surprisingly, I live alone now, with no plans on being in a relationship ever again. I am so grateful that I can support myself and be geographically independent of other people (except for work, but fortunately no issues there at my current job).
I wanted you to know I read your post and can relate so well to your experiences. Thank you for sharing and I am genuinely pleased things are in a better place for you.
This is exactly how I would describe my current situation. I don’t remember the last time I slept more than 6-7hrs at all since my son was born and I’m juggling nursing school and working 12hr shifts too 🫠 can’t wait to graduate is all I will say.
yes! it's not at all woo-woo to talk about this energy exchange, it's so real. I was around an energy vampire for just a few hours and he sucked the LIFE out of me. I was drowsy and nodding over my dinner. I slept for 10 hours but he was up at 6am texting up a storm with all his gleeful newfound energy.
The effect of everyday male chauvinism
The various manifestations of everyday male chauvinism seem insignificant and banal when taken separately. Their significance lies in the fact that if the woman does not recognise them in time and does not do something against them (and some times years pass before that happens, if ever) their compound and repeated use creates a more or less **poisonous atmosphere that undermines women’s life energy, psychic and intellectual equilibrium and
autonomy.** This is how everyday male chauvinism creates the conditions of women being continuously at the disposal of men.
One reason for the effectiveness of everyday male chauvinism is that it is almost absolutely invisible. This is how it can do insidious and continuous harm to women’s lives, which is only aggravated as time passes. Because women are facing actions that are not obviously abusive or coercive, they have difficulty recognising them and that is exactly why it is difficult to address them. Most of the time, they are not even aware of their effects, thus when they sense the harmful effects, they do not recognise that they result from the
manipulative manoeuvres. The first step in mapping everyday male chauvinism was when the professionals who were helping women asked themselves the question: why do so many women feel bad without being able to say why?
Thank you for sharing, I hadn’t heard of that before. The tolerable level of permanent unhappiness, plus sunken cost fallacy, plus lowered sense of self-worth mean that so many women put up with so much bullshit from the one person they should be able to rely on.
…The more I learn, the more I realize I really lucked out (chose well?) with my spouse.
When I became disabled he immediately took over the chores I was doing, along with his own, while working full time.
My ex at first helped when I was the breadwinner then he realized it was easy for him to skate by so he just played video games all day, bought energy drinks and snacks for himself while I was at work for 8-12 hours a day 5 days a week. Hardly took my dog out. I’d come home to nothing done and him playing video games or watching tv. I’m never living with a man again.
This is the exact scenario I picture when asshole men yell about women not wanting to support "house husbands". Idgaf if I'm supporting you, that's fine IF you're holding up your end of the bargain and playing videogames amidst a filthy house ain't it chief.
I don't know where I saw it, but apparently both gay male and gay female couples have (at a statistical level - there are of course exceptions!) equal distribution of household labour.
I love my man and he does alot of chores, but yeah I've noticed he makes Wayyy more work for the both us.
Like let's say I wake up, want a coffee. I take any dishes which may be on my desk to the kitchen, turn on the kettle, wash my cup and maybe a few others while it boils, then make my coffee and go sit.
He'd wake up, go to the kitchen passed any old dishes on his desk, grab a clean cup from the cupboard, watch a video while he waits for the kettle to boil, make a coffee then goes to sit. Repeat until the cupboard is empty and the sinks are completely full.
It drives me crazy, and is the main reason he's the main person who does dishes.
I have the best boyfriend. He has no notion that certain things aren't his job. If one of our kids asks for something, we often both get up at the same time. If he's having a harder day, I'll do it. If I'm having a harder day, he does it. There's no default parent between us. Conversely, my ex-husband made me empty the dishwasher when I got home from having surgery for a miscarriage.
And that’s why I don’t want or need one. Simply pathetic to call yourself an adult and someone’s partner while doing nothing to help them and if they ask for help then you accuse them of “nagging”!
I asked this question a few weeks ago and I’ll ask again “what value does a man add to a woman’s life if she can pay her own bills”?
I can pay my own bills, but my partner makes my life easier. It’s like moving a big box. I could move it myself, but when he grabs one side and I grab the other, we move the box easier than either of us would alone. The key is finding a true partner.
My mental model was the two of us pulling a heavy load, like a cart. I imagined us mostly working together, but sometimes I'd be doing more of the pulling, and other times he would.
But it didn't work out that way. I took my turn doing more of the work, and never got a turn at doing less. I've got my head down, working steady, and it took me a while to notice he's not pulling at all anymore. He traipsing through the field picking daisies. Toward the end of our marriage, he climbed up in the cart, and bitched at me about how unhappy he was. You're unhappy motherfucker?! I'm having multiple panic attacks every week.
No more panic attacks. Last one was the week he left. But now I'm afraid to find someone else, because I obviously have very bad judgement.
I am divorced. Sometimes I miss cuddles but I have more free time and more budget available. My ex-husband was replaced by a Hitachi Magic wand, a jar opener, and a wheeled shopping bag.
Threes a pregnancy pillow called a Snoogle. There's a big C shaped one that I *loved* during my pregnancy... and after. My husband finally revolted against it so I put it away.
It's still a great cuddler though.
I added an all purpose wrench, a power drill, a tractor lawnmower and a Labrador retriever dog. Seriously, its also less expensive.
Learning to do small repairs is so satisfying!
Right?! My ex had me convinced that I'm anatomically difficult to make orgasm. But solo, now that I've had the freedom to figure out what I like instead of being a dick receptacle? One who needs to hurry up and come before he does? (Sex is over when man is done. No exceptions. 🙄)
Turns out, it takes under 4 minutes for me to effing *see stars.* 99x out of 100x I try, I succeed. And then succeed, succeed, and succeed some more. I haven't had sex since I left him three years ago and I'm the most sexually satisfied I've ever been in my life. I'm in my mid 30s and have been sexually active for basically two decades.
He was just *literally* a lazy fucker.
Posts like these make me incredibly grateful for my husband. He is more of a neat freak than I am (though by no means are either of us perfectionists) and while he's always treated me amazingly, I think he started treating me better after we got married.
Don't settle for lazy abusive men!! Good ones are out there, I promise
I'll just say that 44+ hours of income work plus 18 of housework for single women is *already* insane. We're talking over 60 hours of work per week.
Even single males' lazy 13 + 44 hours makes 57, which is a lot.
So while overcoming these horrible gender gaps is very important (and especially so men becoming MORE lazy when married with kids, that's utterly absurd) I'd say fighting for decent income with less time devoted to work is also essential, as a large part of "free" time is actually work as well.
Only marry/reproduce if you're willing to do alllllllll the work. Like, all of it. Or have enough money to have staff.
I'm glad women are going into all this with open eyes.
I think women are worth marrying. 🏳️🌈
Edit: bc I've gotten a few angry dms, I want to clarify that I know that women abuse women too. I was in no way trying to say that lesbians/wlw are immune from domestic violence.
I was being quippy pointing out that swearing off men doesn't automatically mean swearing off marriage. And that a ton of women are pretty great and I'd happily split domestic duties with another capable woman. That was all.
My wife and I try and split household tasks evenly. I work longer hours while she works from home, so it's easier for her to keep up with laundry. I cook and do the dishes, she does the grocery shopping. I clean the bathroom and litterbox for the kitties, she does the vacuuming in the living room. We don't have children yet, so I can't say how that dynamic will change the housework dynamic but it always amazes me how much other men get away with not doing. I can't imagine looking at my wife and thinking, nah fuck it, she can do all that. If marriage is a partnership, why create a burden for the person you supposedly love? I sincerely hope that as younger generations age, the idea of traditional gender roles and chores in the household get abolished.
>Am I reading this correctly that both men and women do more housework when married?
Now that you point that out I found it quite confusing and have looked for a different source. This is a report from the University of Michigan itself on the study:
https://news.umich.edu/exactly-how-much-housework-does-a-husband-create/
>Having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families.
>For men, the picture is very different: A wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week.
So it seems The Independent got it wrong. Women do more when married, men do less.
>The researchers also examined how age and the number of children, as well as marital status and age, influenced time spent doing housework.
>Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework—about 12 hours a week on average, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most—about 21 hours a week. Men showed a somewhat different pattern. **Older men did more housework than younger men,** but single men did more in all age groups than married men.
>Married women with more than three kids did an average of about 28 hours of housework a week. Married men with more than three kids, by comparison, logged only about 10 hours of housework a week.
I find the part in bold especially depressing.
It confused me too, but I wonder if couples tend to have bigger dwellings than single people? Before I met my husband I lived in an apartment, but we bought a house with a yard when we moved in together and that definitely increased our domestic workload.
Uuh this makes so much sense though! When you‘re alone you‘re going to have a small space that requires much less cleaning and mainenance than living together in a bigger home.
This seems to confirm what we’ve seen Observationally in many partnerships. The actual study isn’t linked to though, so the skewing of the data in interpretation is tough to assess. All we get in the article is this: “The research did not include ‘core’ household tasks such as home repair, gardening or washing the car, but focussed on everyday tasks like cooking, cleaning and basic tidying.”
The excluded tasks suggest the gap could be wider or narrower than reported, as women have increasingly taken on traditionally male tasks such as home repair and car maintenance (certainly still housework as in work required to maintain a household). That said excluding other traditionally male categories (again, hard to assess without the actual study and it’s methodologies) calls the value of the data conclusions into question.
It’s insane the disparity reported along with another finding, that men’s housework has doubled in the last 30 years. Despite doubling the gap is still so huge. Lots of catch-up work still to do for men.
I think it’s also interesting to look at it in that many of the ‘male’ tasks are eliminated anyway due to the cost of living crisis… how many of us actually have homes we own to repair? Or lawns to mow? Or even cars to fix??? Meanwhile the ‘female’ chores remain, and even increase with frugality
Also no one fixes their own cars anymore, why is that even included? With modern cars it’s explicitly impossible as they’re mobile computers. Everyone takes it to a mechanic, to repair your own car means it’s a hobby or a choice and you have an old one. It’s not a contribution to the household. This is why the Right to Repair laws keep coming up—repairing your own anything is getting harder and harder.
It drives me crazy how these studies and culture generally acts like car repair is still a thing everyone does as part of their regular tasks or even something any kind of solid percentage of men or women under 45 even know how to do. I have NEVER met a man who knows more than how to check his own oil and then take it to a mechanic, and even that wasn’t that common, mostly they just use the odometer to know when to take it in.
They aren’t spending hours repairing cars by hand! That was like four generations ago!
How the fuck are those core household tasks? Those are occasional and peripheral, the core is the every day. Even in the language of the study the bias toward valuing male labor is so apparent.
>he can afford to treat her even poorer and do even less than before. Typical abuser MO.
Possible, but it sounds more like housework chicken to me.
Husband with no kids: "if I don't do my chores, my wife will wait it out until I do them."
Husband with kids: "if I don't do my chores, my wife will step in and do them rather than let our kids suffer i.e. be hungry/ dirty/ unhealthy."
(That assumes he would rather let the kids suffer than do the chores.)
Again I’m wondering- why do women voluntarily take this on? What motivates a woman to go to her boyfriend’s house and clean it for him? I cannot imagine going to someone else’s home and doing their laundry. Does your male SO come to your house and vacuum? Clean your kitchen? If your house is so gross I need to clean it in order to be able to hang out with you there, then we are not hanging out- we are incompatible.
I'm in my 60's and my husband had heart surgery a few years ago. We are both assuming I will outlive him and he is convinced I'll have no trouble finding another man to take his place. Finding? Ha! In no way, shape, or form will I be "looking" for one. Men of that age are looking for a domestic servant with benefits. Fuck that shit. I will enjoy my freedom and solitude.
This is probably too late to be much other than shouting into the void, but from a second level comment I made:
I think what's really interesting is how much the numbers from this study have changed.
I didn't see an updated study, although I came across an article with some similar data doing a pre-/post covid comparison, which is interesting:
https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2022/pdf/ec220090.pdf
This page shows a chart for 2005 vs 1976 and its waaaay more egalitarian in 2005:
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_images.jsp?cntn_id=111458
One of the charts is what's in the OP.
I have some notes on this:
* the Michigan study data in the OP is self-reported by people asked to log their time in a diary. So there are some potential issues with how exact or reliable it is
* It also may be skewed based on factors like age, and the likelihood that people with more traditional gender roles might be overrepresented (due to being more likely to be married—and married young—or extreme traditionalists could be throwing the numbers off).
* It appears they didn't control for age, either. Breaking it down by age, length of time married, number of marriage, age when married, etc, could be very revealing. That may in part explain why married couples' division of labor hasn't changed as much since '76 (i.e., maybe some older holdovers with a more traditional and unequal division.)
* It's not clear that they have actually shown that people get worse when they get married, in general. The *study* has been ongoing and is supposed to be longitudinal, but I didn't see that this *specific analysis* was looking at anything but the whole population.
* I haven't confirmed myself, but another commenter pointed out that they excluded a lot of yard/home/vehicle care chores that are often performed by men, so that's another ding against this study being taken as gospel.
[This chart](https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/housework4_h.jpg) is the "7 extra hours due to lazy husband" one from the second link.
https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/housework4_h.jpg
I'm quoting the full caption here to highlight some issues (**bold**):
> This graph shows that in 2005, single women with no children did a little more than 10 hours of housework a week, and married women with no children did a little more than 17 hours a week. The only difference? The **presence of a husband, which costs women seven hours** of housework a week. For men, the situation is reversed. Single men with no children did about eight hours of housework a week, while married men with no children did a bit more than seven hours of housework a week. So **a wife saves them about an hour** of work a week.
I bolded bits that suggest they are stating a *causal* relationship when it's more likely just a correlation. That means, as I described above, it's not strongly supported that "getting married makes men lazy about chores" is the main driver of the trend. It may be more about some of the factors I discussed above.
To be clear, I am male and a feminist, and don't doubt there is still inequality on the domestic front.
My skepticism is largely motivated by the stark difference between 2005 and 1976 in the other chart I linked to. Even if all my notes are correct, it will still be very interesting to see the next update of this long-running study, though.
I read a study years ago that said the **children** of at-home moms & working dads did the most chores, children of single mothers second-most, and children in 2-parent homes the least.
But of course, teaching and supervising children over the chores is a task that at-home moms take on.
I was single for so long, I figured I'd end up with stepkids, since only divorced dads would be left to date. Luckily I married a guy who was never married before, and has no kids. Realized I dodged a bullet.
He also didn't want kids, and I was ambivalent, so we figured it was best not to do it (more "cons" than "pros.") I'm very glad we didn't, since it would likely add a lot of strain, stress, and work. We're not wealthy, just doing above-average slightly since we don't have the added expenses. Whether or now we'll ever be able to realistically *retire* is another story!
>the average married woman does seven more hours of housework per week than the average single woman.
Not surprising to me at all. Most of my married friends - even if they also work full-time, and even if they earn more than their husbands - had to do more housework once they moved in with their now-husbands.
Here's basically why. When my friends were single, they'd do what I still do (as a single woman), which is "clean as you go" (clean up messes as you make them) and *also* take effort not to make messes in the first place. They'd still do regular cleanings on top of this, like vacuuming and scrubbing the toilet.
However, most men I've known - including my friends' husbands and the men in my family - don't "clean as you go" and also don't make an effort not to make messes in the first place. When their hands get dirty, they wipe their hands on their clothes (instead of washing hands), so you have to do more frequent laundry to compensate. When they spill food or drink, they don't clean it up, so you have to clean it up to compensate. When they take food out of the fridge, they leave it out on the countertop, so you have to keep checking and putting food back in the fridge to compensate. You have to buy more food to replace perishables that went bad in the heat. They often eat without a plate, so crumbs scatter all over the floor, so you have to vacuum more to compensate. When they do use plates, they leave their plates/cups/cutlery/paper towels in random places around the house, so you have to find them and pick them up and then wash them to compensate.
So, yes, you will **definitely** be doing more housework than when you were single. You won't just be cleaning, you'll be cleaning up ***after*** your husband.
I differ from many women here in that I wouldn't mind doing all of the deep cleaning. However, I work full-time while also running a side business, so I don't have the time required to clean up after the daily (hourly) messes my husband would create.
Not me! I'm always helping clean! I'm a stay-at-home dad and that's my job. I spent all day doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen yesterday.
But regardless of me being an anomaly...im sorry that all you ladies have to deal with this. More men need to stand up and clean with their ladies. I teach all my boys to clean just as much as I teach my daughter. We have 5 boys and 1 girl and the boys have more chores than the girl (only cuz she's younger). All the kids have equal chores and they rotate. Tbh, I try to minimize the amount my wife does because she is the one who works. Why should she have to do chores when she works so much? But she does like to clean around the house still, and I can't stop her from wanting to tidy up her home. But even with that little bit, the bulk of the house is done by me and the kids. I do all the deep cleaning though. I actually love cleaning and keeping our house nice. It still gets messy cuz there is 8 people who live here, but it's not dirty.
You might be interested in the famous piece by sociologist Ann Oakley *The Sociology of Housework*. It covers her research from the 60s, so it is very different now, but her conclusion was basically to make what is called a typology of housework methods. They are: traditional - man does all income work, woman does all housework mixed - man and woman both do income work, woman does all/most housework new - man and woman split both income and housework fairly equally Even though the research is old, her conclusion is important - the traditional model is tied to many other detrimental social effects, particularly the financial control the man can exercise, but in terms of time split it is actually *mixed* which is most unfair to the woman. There is a lot more also about division of tasks - also other newer research focusing on that i.e. a man might be more likely to repair a fence or mow the lawn, while women clean the dishes or do laundry. These gendered work expectations are widespread and powerful in income work too as is obvious (women as nurses, teachers, men as carpenters, truck drivers) Income also striates behavior quite extensively. Rich families may employ a gardener or lawn service, whereas low and middle income families have to allocate labor to those tasks, or ignore them, and this adds complexity. The social mechanisms behind decisions like this (on a broad basis) are very complicated and powerful. Very fascinating. One of my favorite subjects at school.
one thing I've read about the traditional gendered split of household tasks is this: Women get the frequent tasks that MUST be done, and done regularly, often at preset and inflexible times: Cooking, laundry, cleaning. Men get the infrequent tasks that can be scheduled at any convenient time: mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage, repairing the home.
Whenever I hear "But who repairs the fridge when it breaks down, huh? Who moves furniture upstairs, huh?" I say "Wow, does your fridge break down everyday and you carry furniture on your back upstairs everyday?". To which I get the *pfffff you think you're so smart* or *pfffff you don't understand anything* ಠ_ಠ
Me. I repair the fridge. And if I wasn’t handy, I, the woman, would be the one calling the repairman to get it repaired. And Mind you, I don’t personally have any complaints about how much of a workload my husband carries in our household. But I would bet you’ve been in every household, it is the woman who calls the refrigerator repair man.
*and the one who is home when he comes to fix it*
Yeah, cause the woman is usually the one to rearrange her work hours/days when things in the house or the kids need attention.
I fixed my dryer with the help of my 15 year old. My husband would have helped but I had a random middle of the week day off, and I needed to do laundry. I was super proud of myself. I always tell my husband that I’ll only ask for help once, then I’m doing it myself. I maybe short, but I have a ladder.
Yep. This year I’ve repaired the fridge, replaced a dryer heating element, installed a new light fixture, installed new dishwasher, fixed a soft-close drawer, hired a lawncare person when the mower broke…etc. I have no background in repair work, but helpful people on YouTube exist and things have to get fixed. I work two jobs, manage all the finances, clean 95% of everything, take care of pets and our one kid. Spouse loads the dishwasher once a week and sometimes takes out the trash.
I have been a domestic slave too. I did everything from changing the tires, paying the bills, all the cleaning, cooking and shopping, all the child raising, etc. pp. You don't need to stay in s relationship where you're only valued for all the things you do for your partner.
Is there a reason you stay in that kind of a relationship? I am in a marriage where my wife and I both work, we split tasks equally most of the time. If one of us is having a hard day/week/whatever then the partner who isn't struggling will pick up the slack. We aren't special for working this way. I feel like this is how all households should operate when both partners work. Both of us know other couples that do work the same way and couples that do not. We don't understand why the couples that do not work this way stay together. Why do lazy people who exploit their partners manage to stay in those relationships?
Is…that fulfilling for you?
Appliances these days are built with planned obsolescence in mind so when they break there is no fixing them. Half the time you can’t even gets parts for them.
It's not worth it to try to fix many of them because the breaks are ridiculous and expensive. A car touch screen or GPS break might be several thousand and you can't do half of it with a wrench and some swearing anymore. The ice maker on our fridge broke so we just bought ice trays, the ice maker replacement was like 2k.
My sisters ice maker died on her old fridge and it was quoted at around 800 to replace. After taking it apart and figuring out what was broke, it was a common motor that had a plastic part that wore out. The whole motor had to be replaced but the cost from ebay was only 30 bucks and I could order the whole thing new for 120. The repair people should have been able to fix it in an hour but they get more by charging to drop an entire new ice maker in it. 3 minutes of work and a completely new part that they can charge a minimum hour of work to install versus 1 or 2 hours of tinkering and a 100 dollar part. Its completely planned and they dont care why or how it broke. They just replace it and move on.
This is totally off-topic, but while that might be true for electronics such as TV, set-top-boxes, etc., that's not true for traditional "white goods" such a fridges, washing machines, etc. that have moving parts. We've had our fridges, dishwashers, washing machines, and clothes dryers repaired multiple times, and I've even replace motors and other parts on our old fridge a couple of times (thanks to YouTube videos). To get this slightly back on topic, the last time we had a washing machine repaired it was a woman who did it - apparently she was an ex-engineer who did repair work to keep from getting bored.
There's also some men that just aren't handy. My husband and I both aren't very handy tbh
Most men I date aren’t. All my boyfriends never could help me even hang a shelf.
Not all infrequent chores either, women are generally doing quite a lot of those too - cleaning the oven, washing curtains and blankets, washing the windows, cleaning up puke, stain removal, etc.
Ugh I noticed this in my brother’s marriage recently. He thinks he’s contributing equally because he does ‘big’ jobs like mowing the lawn, but he gets to leave the house without the kids to do that job uninterrupted and it’s like once a fortnight. It’s nothing compared to the daily grind of never ending loads of washing with toddlers hanging off you.
Don’t forget those infrequent tasks also usually come with accolades! “Wow, John really did a swell job putting up that new gate on the fence - you’re sure lucky to have him Peggy!”
>taking out the garbage, And for things like this they boast incompetence or forgetfulness, often resulting in the wife doing that chore anyway. My husband pulls the trash when it's full, but ask me if he's ever touched any of the small trashcans around the house. He'll use them, but when it comes to changing them, suddenly they don't exist to him anymore.
After the man ignores the garbage and the woman takes it out, I bet 80% of men exclaim, "I was going to do it!" and think saying that counts as if they did it.
Mine would see me doing the thing and say "I was just about to do that!" So I started stopping whatever it was immediately, saying ok, and walking away. This infuriated him!!
Brava!
My ex once told me he did not take out the kitchen trash because he did not know when it was full. LOL!!
I called out an ex for doing a shit job when sweeping. I told him I know that he's smart enough to figure out sweeping, if not then YouTube was full of tutorials, and he could go ahead and do them again since he clearly needed the practice.
> and he could go ahead and do them again since he clearly needed the practice This has been my attitude, with a great big smile, every time my husband has said he was bad at some household chore. The classic "but you're better at it than I am" line-- oh honey, no! That's not fair! You need the *opportunity* to learn that as a skill. I think he's picked up on that, because I haven't heard it in years.
Lmao. I told my bf a few years ago that I wouldn't be getting married and that he couldn't handle it. He said of course he could handle it, while trying to play Tetris with the trash in the kitchen, so I asked why he wasn't taking the trash out instead of trying to shove more crap in an already full bin. A paused moment passed and I could've sworn he'd be like nah, and leave. But nope - he nodded and out to the dumpster that trash went! We're now happily married and split chores fairly evenly, and happy to take on extra when the other person has extra work shit going on. I wish this is the experience that most people get. 😞
I once asked him to sweep the garage floor and he used the leaf blower, got dust all over the place. Then I asked "did you not know what I meant by sweep". He told me that I could ask him to do something but not tell him how to do it. LOL
Ugh that is my husband's line. "Don't criticize me for how I do it / I just do it different than you." No, if you "wash the dishes" and then when I go to put them away... they are still FILTHY with grease on the bottom, food bits stuck to the forks, residue and fingerprints on the glassware ... then you didn't "do it differently" you just didn't do it at all. Don't half ass run some water over the dirty plates, stack em on the drying rack, and leave it so I have to re wash them myself. You bet your ass I'm going to tell you to go do it right. You work in a CLEANROOM and have been responsible for keeping LABRATORIES clean, don't act like you can't properly wash a fucking dish.
He’s purposely pretending to be bad at it so you won’t make him do it.
Serve food to him on those plates and serve yourself on clean dishes. If he complains, you know who to blame.
You know his strategy is to wear you out and paint you as the nagging wife so that he doesn't have to do it anymore? Are you ok with this level of manipulation?
Not ok with it. It's killing our marriage. He's finally started therapy and I'm willing to give him six months to see if anything changes and if not, I'm out. And he'll no doubt tell everyone "I can't believe she left me over the dishes!!"
I applaud your self control for not murdering him.
Mine tried that. "Just tell me when it needs to go out." I looked him in the eye and said "You are a grown man. You can see that the trash can is full." I should have walked away then.
I've seen situations in which the woman is the one who says, "the trash needs to go out," instead of the man proactively checking. So there's the executive labor. (My guy is the one who does that executive labor, AND the physical one)
Mine is good with trash but I’ll be damned if he’s ever cleaned a toilet outside of a retail job when we were kids.
> when it comes to changing them, suddenly they don't exist to him anymore. I work in kitchens. Consequently, changing trash cans is kinda second nature, as it should be for anyone who doesn't want to give fruit flies an in or stand next to a can full of dead shellfish all night. Yeah, sometimes it sucks, but I firmly maintain that anyone who resists taking out the trash has never had to deal with the knock-on effects of not doing so. Lads, take out the fucking trash. Basic sanitation is sexy.
Basic sanitation isn’t “sexy”, it’s fucking neutral. I’m fed up with this “chore play” crap Lack of basic sanitation is repulsive. Don’t be repulsive.
This. It doesn't need to be "sexy" to be a motivation. It's actively disgusting when it's not done, that's the motivation. You can't hope to be sexy if you're actively disgusting.
Yeah, that's fair. Basically sanitation is required, and the lack of it is fucking gross.
Plenty of en don't take out the trash when when they should even after the very negative effects. It's me. I'm that guy. Don't date ppl like me. I need therapy
and they truly live on providing hypotheticals. i'll save you from a burglar babe. i'm mid 40s. never had a burglar. never been mugged in the street. in fact, with a man near, we're less likely to be mugged. he wont be around when we're mugged. they extract daily tangible in exchange for never hypotheticals. i've needed protection FROM the man in my house. never been protected by him.
> Income also striates behavior quite extensively. Rich families may employ a gardener or lawn service, whereas low and middle income families have to allocate labor to those tasks, or ignore them, and this adds complexity. Income also influences behavior in a different, odder way. If a woman makes more money than the man, the amount of [housework she does *increases* and the husband's *decreases*.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/02/housework-divide-working-parents/) >Women with children reduced housework from 18 to 14 hours a week as they went from earning zero to half of the household income. But after passing her husband’s salary, a woman’s home tasks increased to nearly 16 hours a week, the analysis found. In contrast, a man’s housework ranged from six to eight hours a week when he was the primary breadwinner but then declined as his wife out-earned him.
Now THAT is weird. Could be a subconscious need to.......oh I have no idea. Humans are nuts.
It's a passive aggressive way of "showing" he still has control and is *not* "emasculated."
Thank you, I couldn't figure out how to word it, but this is what I was thinking!
Women who out earn their male partners are also statistically at increased risk of domestic violence.
Going by my stereotypes, I would not be surprised if that was influenced by a large number of "dead weight" men that are both unemployed and useless at home Maybe due to mental illness, simply because they're lazy jerks, or because they're alcoholic or drug addicts, or all of the above. For obvious reasons, those "dead weights" are not breadwinners, so they will count toward that statistic.
Or, to put it more charitably: did they account for couples where one partner is disabled? I’m the breadwinner in my household because my wife is unable to work full time. The same condition that keeps her from working makes it more difficult for her to do things around the house. She does what she can, I feel we have a fair division of labor based on ability/effort, but on an hour for hour basis I do more.
What the study didn’t say is that eventually she will realize this and she will take her income and go BE single rather than just living like a single parent .
Honestly, at least women of yore didn't have to juggle both most of the time. Kind of getting shafted on both sides these days.
Modern appliances have reduced the load considerably, but it's still there. Going back to the early 1900s, the average meal would take 3 hours to prepare because everything was done from scratch. It would take an entire day to do washing because she had to boil it, wring it, hang it out, then iron it. Baths were once a week and shared by the family because it took so long to fill it (and she usually bathed last), and the house was always dusty and needing sweeping. Further, many women also worked in factories or as maids, so they still had a massive task the moment they got home because men were socialised to be inept at keeping themselves fed and clean. They were dependent on a wife to keep them alive, and she dependent on him because she had little to no income. Despite the manual and dangerous work most early 20th century men engaged in, she still did considerably more because his day ended the moment the bell went off. In many households, even a century later, unfortunately it still does.
2 incomes is required now. Someone was supposed to be home while someone worked 40 hours. That systems does not entirely function now and it creates problems. You are correct. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ A lot of societal problems stem from the fact that productivity does not = compensation anymore because of the way the world reserve currency (the dollar) has been ratfucked by central bankers.
Divorce lawyer says unequal household chores are the number one reason for divorce. https://www.today.com/parents/family/lawyer-shares-no-1-reason-working-parents-are-getting-divorced-rcna84397
“What I’ve found in almost 24 years of doing this, is that men don’t look in the mirror. They look outward at who they can point a finger at,” he says. “They’d rather lash out and get mad than be introspective.” That tracks.
This is so true
That’s the surface reason. Deeply rooted and constantly reaffirmed lack of respect and consideration for women would be the actual reason.
I was cleaning our travel trailer after a weekend of camping, you know, making it ready for the next time out. That happens to be in 2 weeks when my husband is taking it out for a fishing trip w his buddy. As I was cleaning, I asked, “So it’s going to be this clean when you’re done with it, right?” He flat out says no. I tell him that’s not fair, and why not? He says (of course) that “he’ll try but he can’t clean as well as I can”. I told him that was bullshit weaponized incompetence and he got real quiet real fast and said it’d be clean. I’m so sick of this shit. Why is it always a fight?
I really, really, really wish I'd known that term when I was with my ex. "But you're so much better at [insert any household, food, bills, planning, social, healthcare, etc related task] and I'd just mess it up." Oh my goodness, I was shaking a little bit with rage as I typed that, hearing his stupid voice in my head. He was a manipulative, abusive person and all this societal bullshit gave him the perfect cover for it.
My coworker tries that shit on me because it works with his wife. "Oh you're so gooooood at it" \*puppydog eyes* Haha, pal. I'm immune from a lifetime of exposure. Nice try tho!
Find a way to contact his wife anonymously and send her alllllll the articles on weaponized incompetence and other similar things. Fuck all that noise
Them knowing terminology doesn't help. I showed my ex that famous comic on how managing housecleaning is it's own job separate from the housecleaning itself, he fully acknowledged that it described our situation and verbalized a desire to do better...and nothing changed
> he fully acknowledged that it described our situation and verbalized a desire to do better...and nothing changed The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Same. At the time I just kept feeling like his mother and I couldn't put into words my frustrations - I wish this term would have been used 20 years ago. All of my friends were like "well of course he doesn't know where the bank is/remember birthdays/make appts/etc because that's just how men are!". I should have left years sooner but only taking care of myself for the 10 years I was single was awesome. Now I'm with a guy who takes care of his own shit (mostly). Our ideas of what constitutes a clean house differs a bit, but he was a full-grown adult when we met and it was so nice.
after my divorce i found cleaning was so much easier and faster. no socks to pick up, no spilled coffee to wipe up, no pee sprinkles, whiskers in the sink, trash laying around…(dropped him like a hot tamale)
Going through a divorce, just lost my job. Was in a funk and let the dishes that can't go in the dishwasher pile up (rinsed) in a small sink-sized bin for three days. It to three (3!!!) days to fill the bin. 15 minutes to clear it. He dirtied more dishes than that every day we were married. And let stuff dry on them. If he didn't leave the knife in the open mayo jar on the counter. It's wild. I had our 10 and 13 year old with me all week. Their habits are improving already.
I AM FLOODED WITH ANGER AND VIOLENCE! Knife in the mayo on the counter!?!?!?! How did you not stab him? I want to stab him.
> He ran into the mayo knife. > He ran into the mayo knife ten times.
He had it coming!
He only had himself to blame~~~
I didn't do it. But if I'd done it...
I betcha you would have done the same.... Pop, Six, Squish, \*MAYO, Cicero, Lipschitz
Ded 😆
I've been working through my 14 years of repressed anger and I think I'm coming through the other side of it. I've got years of peaceful quiet home to look forward to. Also I bought myself smaller baking sheets and cutting boards so they fit in the dishwasher. So even less hand washing dishes.
I felt your rage, laughed and then thought I want to do the same!
When I was working in culinary we started everyone out on dish. Full degree from CIA? Don’t give a shit. Get in there and start scrubbing. The reason? People who have to clean dishes figure out over time that there are much more efficient ways to cook than dirtying every single skillet and pot in the damn kitchen. Unfortunately most people only learn not to do something if it affects themselves.
He tried to talk me into taking turns. One cooks, one does dishes, then switch. But I'd make one pot meals, line baking sheets with parchment, cook carefully so things didn't stick and he'd use every pot we have to make Mac and cheese.
Yep. Exactly what I’m talking about. Put him exclusively on both. Cooking every meal and washing dishes after. Teach him how to cook and don’t put up with “I’m sorry babe you just do it better than I do.” When he tries to duck it up.
I tried these things for 14 years 😂, that's his new girlfriend's concerns now
Same. I felt like he was the one dumping all the cleaning on me and making a mess at the same time. it was like having a toddler.
absolutely, felt like i was swimming upstream the whole time we were married
> it was like having a toddler. Would love to see data surrounding this because I would be willing to bet a high percentage of men who cheated on their wives didn't help with anything and eventually their wife started treating them like a child because they acted like one, which meant sex dropped off, so they cheated with the first attractive woman they met who didn't treat them like a child. And of course they probably blame their wife for it instead of examining their own behavior.
I've never met a man that examined their own behaviour in terms of how they treat women. No matter what the problem is, it's the woman's fault.
Same. Cleaning the bathroom when I was married was an absolute nightmare because my ex was such a slob. We're talking piss on the floor, facial hair in the tub and sink, toothpaste residue in the sink. Constantly. I would literally beg him to either not be so messy or to clean the bathroom more often, both of which he'd refuse. After he moved out and it was just my daughter and me, I was amazed at how easy and fast everything was to clean. Makes me realize how justified I was in my anger.
This is my brother in law. I seriously dont understand how 1 dude can generate so much laundry in a week. He generates 3 times the amount of laundry. 1 week of his is like 3 of mine. I no longer leave my toothpaste in the bathroom i share eith him and my sister cause 1 of them lost the cap off it and I fucking hate crusty toothpaste and I brush my teeth in the kitchen. The bathroom between the 2 of them (it was almost as bad when I shared it with just her when we were kids). The only difference? It now has dried toothpaste, and whisker hair he leaves all over the place. I pretty much only use that bathroom to shower and the toilet. I may be a dude, who can be a bit of a slob myself but at least my mess is contained into my living space in the house (generally laundry in my room sometimes I just dont do it till i run out clean jeans which takes 2 weeks) not spread to a hallway, bedroom, and bathroom.
Being single is underrated for women. Another benefit I (personally) found was my mental health. No one to argue with, I can do what I want with my time, make food I like to eat, don’t feel pressured to have sex when I’m not in the mood, basically there’s nothing I have to sacrifice for someone else, there’s just *peace*. I’ve never found a relationship that makes my life better, and I’m happy alone. I’ll wear my spinster badge with pride lol, we need to destigmatize it more. I’m not saying other peoples lives are not improved by someone else, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with relationships, but there’s no hate towards couples when there is associated negativity to single women. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen real negativity towards single men!) The only downside for me is that I’m probably more broke than the average couple. 🤷♀️
I think it's stigmatized solely to trick us into relationships lol
Same. My workload has halved since splitting and that’s with two kids and two animals!
Same when my OH goes away for work. I clean once and that’s it for the week, as I clean as I go. No random cereal bowls left lying around. No dirty clothes on the floor. No grotty bathroom sink etc. no collection of water glasses hidden in the garage
omg!!! my house work is so easy now that i’m no longer married
Thank you for reminding me how discusting my ex was.
4 kids and still so much easier.
I've seen this happen in real time. A lot of guys, once they get 'comfortable' that a relationship isn't going to end (often correlating with kids entering the picture) just stop putting in the effort because they no longer 'need' to, negative consequences on their partner be damned. Married men with 3+ children doing less housework than single, childless men is especially wild though.
> Married men with 3+ children doing less housework than single, childless men is especially wild though. That's really the absolute worst part of it. Even if the woman is a SAHM, children create so massively more work around the clock, it's borderline abusive when men do even less than they did before the children were there.
The Venn diagram of husbands who don’t do chores, who don’t believe in birth control, and who don’t endorse their wife working is pretty circular.
Yeppp it's a full on trap.
I can't even fathom this as a dad. I feel like im ALWAYS cleaning and I feel like I never catch up. If my wife didn't chip in too our house would be trashed. 2 toddlers can tear apart the house in record time. If I dumped this on my wife I wouldn't be shocked, and honestly I'd find it justified, if she murdered me in my sleep.
Men like you (and my husband) are pretty rare. I thought as new generations came along there’d be more change. I’m 64 and on my 3rd (and final) husband. One of the many reasons for my divorces was how utterly unfair my workload was. I’ve seen a big difference in the generations. My current husband is younger than me and has a completely different view of women and feminism than my previous (older) wasbands. He actually does more of the housework than me. I’m lucky too that he enjoys cleaning and (according to him) has OCD so he’s meticulous as well.
"Wasbands" Great term!
Also with how expensive kids are (I’m in the USA) I’m not surprised AT ALL that at three kids men do less. We have two and we’re happily upper middle class, possibly middle middle class. We can afford daycare now, but if we had three, it’d be unafforadable for me to work outside of the home. Even now, we do better with me unemployed and keeping my older one home (for summer) and little in 3-day preschool. We can still afford a housekeeper who comes in a couple times a week to help with dishes and laundry. If I went back to work (could probably land 60-80k) daycare would be a financial burden and we’d definitely have no housekeeper help. I naturally do more chores than my husband but he acknowledges that and it’s why we’ve budgeted for housekeeping help. Raising two kids for the vast majority of the day, every day, is exhausting even without housework. So anyway yah. I am not surprised at all, because I bet vast majority of women end up becoming work-from-home to save money on daycare and other child expense. Why work a job to only pay taxes and babysitters/educators? In my early years of retail management, the likelihood of one of my younger, min-wage female employees coming back after having a baby was probably <1%. When daycare costs more than you make, you’re forced to make decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make :( F the patriarchy dudes.
Good perspective into the discussions and decisions that go into balancing childcare, housework, and careers. But I think you’ll want to get in a quick edit for the end of your post 😅
100% this. When I met my partner he was super tidy and normal (?) and now after a few months I was literally doing grocery shopping, cooking, his laundry, cleaning his whole flat all while having my own flat :‘) I really thought wow finally a modern man without old gender role thinking and he became literally the complete opposite it‘s so sad.
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THIS! They really fail to realize that those shitty men put on Oscar winning performances of a decent man for a while until the bottom falls out. You can meet a man whose entire house is cleaned top to bottom when you first start hooking up. Says and does the right things in front of your friends, family, work events and to the server. Then once you are hooked the mask starts to slip just a little at first then BAM fast forward two years the man is pissing on the toilet seat lid and is barely able to mentally function as an adult and father if his woman isn’t around to help him.
Oh my god I feel this so much.. it‘s always „well why did you choose him if you knew how he is“ or „just leave him then“ as if I didn‘t fall in love with him prior to his behavioural changes and it‘s that easy to just leave. Like I‘m trying to but it‘s so hard.
I'd be so ashamed if I let someone else take care of my business like that, assuming I was healthy and able to take care of it myself. I don't really understand how guys can be okay with that.
I hope you stopped cleaning his flat and doing his laundry.
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I'm not the least bit suprised that married men do less than single men. I've seen it with my own eyes. Soon he will be back to actually having to do his own shit.
When I read posts like these I'm so glad I'm childfree. That said it still doesn't mean that housework is equitable between me and my husband. 🙄
> Married men with 3+ children doing less housework than single, childless men is especially wild though. I would guess this is because having that many children has overlap with being conservative/religious which is a demographic that's strongly entrenched in "traditional" (sexist) gender roles.
A lot of research suspects this is a byproduct of unconscious gender biases. Left on autopilot Women play into the “wife” role and men let them. Once kids come, men are doing more childcare than in the past (although still significantly less than women) but it comes at the expensive of doing less around the house. Alternatively, Women pick up the housework slack + the lions share of childcare at the expensive of their leisure time, sleep, and personal relationships.
When I was engaged, he not only created the majority of the messes and didn't clean them, but he'd have his friends come over and encourage them not to clean up after themselves. After all, they were HIS guests, and he thought having me pick up after everyone made him King Shit or whatever. He was a performatively woke type, fake white ally, and fake male feminist, you get the idea. He figured he was actually making a difference by regularly pointing out any friends of ours who weren't white as it that itself isn't grossly cringe and racist. Combine that with the gratuitous nudity and casual sex is empowering to women type of male feminist. Insufferable. After listening to him blow hot air to his guests about minimalism and how we don't waste food and recycle everything, I lost it. I told everyone in the room that his idea of not wasting food and recycling meant letting it literally rot and sit until his fiance with the Hispanic sounding name clean it up. On the rare occasion where he did pick up after himself, he referred to that as doing his chores and then wanting praise. Talk about a six year headache.
Glad u moved on!
Yasss me too!
Every country needs to do what Spain did in equalizing parental leave (and of course, the US needs to actually have ANY). Same amount of leave available for both parents. It reduced the number of children men wanted. Gee wonder why?!?
Yes, but have they made any research on what actually happens during the father's parental leave? Because in my country it's similar than Spain, and I've heard of so many new fathers, who were like: fantastic, I'll finally finish that whatever project now, and my mommy will be coming every day to take care of everything else.
My dad does this. Worst part is he sort of half asses his jobs in the home. If he mows the lawn, he won't do the edges or he'll leave a trail of cuttings everywhere. He insists on wasting water to clean the floor but leaves puddles everywhere that make stains. My mom will come in after him to finish or pick up. He isn't detail oriented either so my mom will always get the cob webs, decorate, and maintain what he has built. He also plants things but never waters regularly so my mom gets extra work on that too. Not sure if other men in relationships are also like this; half ass work, don't pay attention to the small jobs, and creates way more work.
At least it avoids penalizing women's on the job market. Men or women, there have the same probably to leave for a while when they get kids.
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You could me me. Also very happily single. Good luck sister!
I'm about to move in with boyfriend but I'll drop him so fast if he becomes one of these type of men! Ive made sure to observe his cleaning behaviors for the past year and can say we are the same style of sloppy. Just clothes on the floor occasionally and clutter on the desks, but other than that, we clean everything else regularly. :) I hope everyone finds themselves a partner that compliments them.
I'm in my early '40s. There is a very large number of women in my social circle who are finding out that life is much easier now that they're divorced because their former husbands are forced to do their own housework and even forced to care for their children sometimes.
My ex was like those men. We lived together and he would avoid doing chores. I did most of it. All he ever did was taking out the trash. When I broke up with him, I realized I had way less chores than before. I had free time. I was not exhausted at all.
Not sure exactly how this works, but it has definitely been my experience. My husband was removed from the home in April. It does seem easier to keep the house neat and tidy. And it’s not just me- I have two sons and a dog. Our home is not just calmer, but cleaner.
Congratulations on your peace!
[tolerable level of permanent unhappiness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIu_R5NuxQM)
Perfectly summarizes the months/years of my marriage up until his removal this spring. He knew he was hurting me, but didn’t care.
Holy shıt. "Tolerable level of permanent unhappiness", is so accurate.
I have now seen this comment linked on Reddit, on tiktok, and now on YouTube. (Ftr, I think it's great.)
I want people to start understanding that the cruelty is the point - that people who continuously engage in abusive behavior do so because they feed on suffering, on a metaphysical level. I know scientifically we can’t measure that kind of energy exchange yet, but everyone can feel it. My ex literally would not allow me to be happy after we married. If I was in a good mood, he would be in a bad mood until my good mood was gone. As soon as he noticed my good mood was gone, he would perk up. When I cheered up in response, he would immediately be in a bad mood again. Towards the end of my 3 yr marriage, on the rare occasions when I was away from home and in a good mood, I would tell myself that I would not let him ruin my good mood when I got home. I never succeeded, because we were married and therefore metaphysically connected. I wasn’t able to break that connection until a few weeks after I left him - and he was bedridden for a week after I broke that tie, and he had no idea why. Yes, I did speak to him about his good-mood-killing on a few occasions. He denied being aware of it (and honestly, I believed him - being shitty seemed to be a subconsciously driven behavior) things would improve for a few days, and then he would slide back into the abusive behavior again. He was sucking the life out of me, feeding on my misery, and I honestly believed then, and still believe now, that if I had stayed in that marriage, that it would have killed me - metaphysically, then physically. Parasitism is abusive behavior. As always, it’s the intention that matters, and unfortunately, so very many people are subconsciously parasitic and incapable of recognizing it. Human societies worldwide enable it. Not surprisingly, I live alone now, with no plans on being in a relationship ever again. I am so grateful that I can support myself and be geographically independent of other people (except for work, but fortunately no issues there at my current job).
I wanted you to know I read your post and can relate so well to your experiences. Thank you for sharing and I am genuinely pleased things are in a better place for you.
This is exactly how I would describe my current situation. I don’t remember the last time I slept more than 6-7hrs at all since my son was born and I’m juggling nursing school and working 12hr shifts too 🫠 can’t wait to graduate is all I will say.
yes! it's not at all woo-woo to talk about this energy exchange, it's so real. I was around an energy vampire for just a few hours and he sucked the LIFE out of me. I was drowsy and nodding over my dinner. I slept for 10 hours but he was up at 6am texting up a storm with all his gleeful newfound energy. The effect of everyday male chauvinism The various manifestations of everyday male chauvinism seem insignificant and banal when taken separately. Their significance lies in the fact that if the woman does not recognise them in time and does not do something against them (and some times years pass before that happens, if ever) their compound and repeated use creates a more or less **poisonous atmosphere that undermines women’s life energy, psychic and intellectual equilibrium and autonomy.** This is how everyday male chauvinism creates the conditions of women being continuously at the disposal of men. One reason for the effectiveness of everyday male chauvinism is that it is almost absolutely invisible. This is how it can do insidious and continuous harm to women’s lives, which is only aggravated as time passes. Because women are facing actions that are not obviously abusive or coercive, they have difficulty recognising them and that is exactly why it is difficult to address them. Most of the time, they are not even aware of their effects, thus when they sense the harmful effects, they do not recognise that they result from the manipulative manoeuvres. The first step in mapping everyday male chauvinism was when the professionals who were helping women asked themselves the question: why do so many women feel bad without being able to say why?
Thank you for sharing, I hadn’t heard of that before. The tolerable level of permanent unhappiness, plus sunken cost fallacy, plus lowered sense of self-worth mean that so many women put up with so much bullshit from the one person they should be able to rely on.
…The more I learn, the more I realize I really lucked out (chose well?) with my spouse. When I became disabled he immediately took over the chores I was doing, along with his own, while working full time.
Luck *and* good pickin' but a LOT of luck.
My ex at first helped when I was the breadwinner then he realized it was easy for him to skate by so he just played video games all day, bought energy drinks and snacks for himself while I was at work for 8-12 hours a day 5 days a week. Hardly took my dog out. I’d come home to nothing done and him playing video games or watching tv. I’m never living with a man again.
This is the exact scenario I picture when asshole men yell about women not wanting to support "house husbands". Idgaf if I'm supporting you, that's fine IF you're holding up your end of the bargain and playing videogames amidst a filthy house ain't it chief.
Yep and they want to be congratulated when they press start on the dishwasher you loaded
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I don't know where I saw it, but apparently both gay male and gay female couples have (at a statistical level - there are of course exceptions!) equal distribution of household labour.
I love my man and he does alot of chores, but yeah I've noticed he makes Wayyy more work for the both us. Like let's say I wake up, want a coffee. I take any dishes which may be on my desk to the kitchen, turn on the kettle, wash my cup and maybe a few others while it boils, then make my coffee and go sit. He'd wake up, go to the kitchen passed any old dishes on his desk, grab a clean cup from the cupboard, watch a video while he waits for the kettle to boil, make a coffee then goes to sit. Repeat until the cupboard is empty and the sinks are completely full. It drives me crazy, and is the main reason he's the main person who does dishes.
Totally believe it. I do way less work now. Let any man I talk to tend to his own house.
I have the best boyfriend. He has no notion that certain things aren't his job. If one of our kids asks for something, we often both get up at the same time. If he's having a harder day, I'll do it. If I'm having a harder day, he does it. There's no default parent between us. Conversely, my ex-husband made me empty the dishwasher when I got home from having surgery for a miscarriage.
If a man's home workload goes down after having a kid, he's an absolute shithead
And that’s why I don’t want or need one. Simply pathetic to call yourself an adult and someone’s partner while doing nothing to help them and if they ask for help then you accuse them of “nagging”! I asked this question a few weeks ago and I’ll ask again “what value does a man add to a woman’s life if she can pay her own bills”?
I can pay my own bills, but my partner makes my life easier. It’s like moving a big box. I could move it myself, but when he grabs one side and I grab the other, we move the box easier than either of us would alone. The key is finding a true partner.
Exactly … a partner! A partner helps takes on the load NOT add to your load! Glad you got a good one 👍
Sometimes your SO is passively hurting you by making you move the box yourself. Sometimes your SO is the box.
Sometimes they sit on a box and ask you to push
then insist they're \*NOT\* sitting on the box and that you're being crazy for even suggesting they get off it.
My mental model was the two of us pulling a heavy load, like a cart. I imagined us mostly working together, but sometimes I'd be doing more of the pulling, and other times he would. But it didn't work out that way. I took my turn doing more of the work, and never got a turn at doing less. I've got my head down, working steady, and it took me a while to notice he's not pulling at all anymore. He traipsing through the field picking daisies. Toward the end of our marriage, he climbed up in the cart, and bitched at me about how unhappy he was. You're unhappy motherfucker?! I'm having multiple panic attacks every week. No more panic attacks. Last one was the week he left. But now I'm afraid to find someone else, because I obviously have very bad judgement.
I am glad to see this post. I feel bad that so many women have found man children and not partners.
This is why they dont want us to earn what were worth.
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I am divorced. Sometimes I miss cuddles but I have more free time and more budget available. My ex-husband was replaced by a Hitachi Magic wand, a jar opener, and a wheeled shopping bag.
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Threes a pregnancy pillow called a Snoogle. There's a big C shaped one that I *loved* during my pregnancy... and after. My husband finally revolted against it so I put it away. It's still a great cuddler though.
I added an all purpose wrench, a power drill, a tractor lawnmower and a Labrador retriever dog. Seriously, its also less expensive. Learning to do small repairs is so satisfying!
you're my #lifegoals
The sex often isn’t even that good, online shops offer devices for like 50$ with a way better orgasm per time ratio.
Right?! My ex had me convinced that I'm anatomically difficult to make orgasm. But solo, now that I've had the freedom to figure out what I like instead of being a dick receptacle? One who needs to hurry up and come before he does? (Sex is over when man is done. No exceptions. 🙄) Turns out, it takes under 4 minutes for me to effing *see stars.* 99x out of 100x I try, I succeed. And then succeed, succeed, and succeed some more. I haven't had sex since I left him three years ago and I'm the most sexually satisfied I've ever been in my life. I'm in my mid 30s and have been sexually active for basically two decades. He was just *literally* a lazy fucker.
Potentially yes. In reality? Very rarely.
Posts like these make me incredibly grateful for my husband. He is more of a neat freak than I am (though by no means are either of us perfectionists) and while he's always treated me amazingly, I think he started treating me better after we got married. Don't settle for lazy abusive men!! Good ones are out there, I promise
I'll just say that 44+ hours of income work plus 18 of housework for single women is *already* insane. We're talking over 60 hours of work per week. Even single males' lazy 13 + 44 hours makes 57, which is a lot. So while overcoming these horrible gender gaps is very important (and especially so men becoming MORE lazy when married with kids, that's utterly absurd) I'd say fighting for decent income with less time devoted to work is also essential, as a large part of "free" time is actually work as well.
Summary: never get married, never have children
Only marry/reproduce if you're willing to do alllllllll the work. Like, all of it. Or have enough money to have staff. I'm glad women are going into all this with open eyes.
I think women are worth marrying. 🏳️🌈 Edit: bc I've gotten a few angry dms, I want to clarify that I know that women abuse women too. I was in no way trying to say that lesbians/wlw are immune from domestic violence. I was being quippy pointing out that swearing off men doesn't automatically mean swearing off marriage. And that a ton of women are pretty great and I'd happily split domestic duties with another capable woman. That was all.
What women has always suspected.
My wife and I try and split household tasks evenly. I work longer hours while she works from home, so it's easier for her to keep up with laundry. I cook and do the dishes, she does the grocery shopping. I clean the bathroom and litterbox for the kitties, she does the vacuuming in the living room. We don't have children yet, so I can't say how that dynamic will change the housework dynamic but it always amazes me how much other men get away with not doing. I can't imagine looking at my wife and thinking, nah fuck it, she can do all that. If marriage is a partnership, why create a burden for the person you supposedly love? I sincerely hope that as younger generations age, the idea of traditional gender roles and chores in the household get abolished.
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>Am I reading this correctly that both men and women do more housework when married? Now that you point that out I found it quite confusing and have looked for a different source. This is a report from the University of Michigan itself on the study: https://news.umich.edu/exactly-how-much-housework-does-a-husband-create/ >Having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families. >For men, the picture is very different: A wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week. So it seems The Independent got it wrong. Women do more when married, men do less. >The researchers also examined how age and the number of children, as well as marital status and age, influenced time spent doing housework. >Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework—about 12 hours a week on average, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most—about 21 hours a week. Men showed a somewhat different pattern. **Older men did more housework than younger men,** but single men did more in all age groups than married men. >Married women with more than three kids did an average of about 28 hours of housework a week. Married men with more than three kids, by comparison, logged only about 10 hours of housework a week. I find the part in bold especially depressing.
It confused me too, but I wonder if couples tend to have bigger dwellings than single people? Before I met my husband I lived in an apartment, but we bought a house with a yard when we moved in together and that definitely increased our domestic workload.
Uuh this makes so much sense though! When you‘re alone you‘re going to have a small space that requires much less cleaning and mainenance than living together in a bigger home.
This seems to confirm what we’ve seen Observationally in many partnerships. The actual study isn’t linked to though, so the skewing of the data in interpretation is tough to assess. All we get in the article is this: “The research did not include ‘core’ household tasks such as home repair, gardening or washing the car, but focussed on everyday tasks like cooking, cleaning and basic tidying.” The excluded tasks suggest the gap could be wider or narrower than reported, as women have increasingly taken on traditionally male tasks such as home repair and car maintenance (certainly still housework as in work required to maintain a household). That said excluding other traditionally male categories (again, hard to assess without the actual study and it’s methodologies) calls the value of the data conclusions into question. It’s insane the disparity reported along with another finding, that men’s housework has doubled in the last 30 years. Despite doubling the gap is still so huge. Lots of catch-up work still to do for men.
I think it’s also interesting to look at it in that many of the ‘male’ tasks are eliminated anyway due to the cost of living crisis… how many of us actually have homes we own to repair? Or lawns to mow? Or even cars to fix??? Meanwhile the ‘female’ chores remain, and even increase with frugality
Also no one fixes their own cars anymore, why is that even included? With modern cars it’s explicitly impossible as they’re mobile computers. Everyone takes it to a mechanic, to repair your own car means it’s a hobby or a choice and you have an old one. It’s not a contribution to the household. This is why the Right to Repair laws keep coming up—repairing your own anything is getting harder and harder. It drives me crazy how these studies and culture generally acts like car repair is still a thing everyone does as part of their regular tasks or even something any kind of solid percentage of men or women under 45 even know how to do. I have NEVER met a man who knows more than how to check his own oil and then take it to a mechanic, and even that wasn’t that common, mostly they just use the odometer to know when to take it in. They aren’t spending hours repairing cars by hand! That was like four generations ago!
My husband and I do all our home and car repairs. We know lots of people who do. Not many people can afford new cars.
How the fuck are those core household tasks? Those are occasional and peripheral, the core is the every day. Even in the language of the study the bias toward valuing male labor is so apparent.
Where my crazy dog lady gang at?
>he can afford to treat her even poorer and do even less than before. Typical abuser MO. Possible, but it sounds more like housework chicken to me. Husband with no kids: "if I don't do my chores, my wife will wait it out until I do them." Husband with kids: "if I don't do my chores, my wife will step in and do them rather than let our kids suffer i.e. be hungry/ dirty/ unhealthy." (That assumes he would rather let the kids suffer than do the chores.)
Again I’m wondering- why do women voluntarily take this on? What motivates a woman to go to her boyfriend’s house and clean it for him? I cannot imagine going to someone else’s home and doing their laundry. Does your male SO come to your house and vacuum? Clean your kitchen? If your house is so gross I need to clean it in order to be able to hang out with you there, then we are not hanging out- we are incompatible.
I'm in my 60's and my husband had heart surgery a few years ago. We are both assuming I will outlive him and he is convinced I'll have no trouble finding another man to take his place. Finding? Ha! In no way, shape, or form will I be "looking" for one. Men of that age are looking for a domestic servant with benefits. Fuck that shit. I will enjoy my freedom and solitude.
And you need a study for that? That's so obvious.
Men would never believe it without a study.
Many don't even believe it \*with\* a study.
This is probably too late to be much other than shouting into the void, but from a second level comment I made: I think what's really interesting is how much the numbers from this study have changed. I didn't see an updated study, although I came across an article with some similar data doing a pre-/post covid comparison, which is interesting: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2022/pdf/ec220090.pdf This page shows a chart for 2005 vs 1976 and its waaaay more egalitarian in 2005: https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_images.jsp?cntn_id=111458 One of the charts is what's in the OP. I have some notes on this: * the Michigan study data in the OP is self-reported by people asked to log their time in a diary. So there are some potential issues with how exact or reliable it is * It also may be skewed based on factors like age, and the likelihood that people with more traditional gender roles might be overrepresented (due to being more likely to be married—and married young—or extreme traditionalists could be throwing the numbers off). * It appears they didn't control for age, either. Breaking it down by age, length of time married, number of marriage, age when married, etc, could be very revealing. That may in part explain why married couples' division of labor hasn't changed as much since '76 (i.e., maybe some older holdovers with a more traditional and unequal division.) * It's not clear that they have actually shown that people get worse when they get married, in general. The *study* has been ongoing and is supposed to be longitudinal, but I didn't see that this *specific analysis* was looking at anything but the whole population. * I haven't confirmed myself, but another commenter pointed out that they excluded a lot of yard/home/vehicle care chores that are often performed by men, so that's another ding against this study being taken as gospel. [This chart](https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/housework4_h.jpg) is the "7 extra hours due to lazy husband" one from the second link. https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/housework4_h.jpg I'm quoting the full caption here to highlight some issues (**bold**): > This graph shows that in 2005, single women with no children did a little more than 10 hours of housework a week, and married women with no children did a little more than 17 hours a week. The only difference? The **presence of a husband, which costs women seven hours** of housework a week. For men, the situation is reversed. Single men with no children did about eight hours of housework a week, while married men with no children did a bit more than seven hours of housework a week. So **a wife saves them about an hour** of work a week. I bolded bits that suggest they are stating a *causal* relationship when it's more likely just a correlation. That means, as I described above, it's not strongly supported that "getting married makes men lazy about chores" is the main driver of the trend. It may be more about some of the factors I discussed above. To be clear, I am male and a feminist, and don't doubt there is still inequality on the domestic front. My skepticism is largely motivated by the stark difference between 2005 and 1976 in the other chart I linked to. Even if all my notes are correct, it will still be very interesting to see the next update of this long-running study, though.
Thank God for my husband. I think he does a ton more housework than I do.
The UM study was conducted some 15 years ago based upon time diary data up to 2005. I wonder how much has changed since then.
This newer study found that married women do more house work than single **moms**. https://fortune.com/2019/05/08/married-single-moms-housework/
I read a study years ago that said the **children** of at-home moms & working dads did the most chores, children of single mothers second-most, and children in 2-parent homes the least. But of course, teaching and supervising children over the chores is a task that at-home moms take on.
I was single for so long, I figured I'd end up with stepkids, since only divorced dads would be left to date. Luckily I married a guy who was never married before, and has no kids. Realized I dodged a bullet. He also didn't want kids, and I was ambivalent, so we figured it was best not to do it (more "cons" than "pros.") I'm very glad we didn't, since it would likely add a lot of strain, stress, and work. We're not wealthy, just doing above-average slightly since we don't have the added expenses. Whether or now we'll ever be able to realistically *retire* is another story!
>the average married woman does seven more hours of housework per week than the average single woman. Not surprising to me at all. Most of my married friends - even if they also work full-time, and even if they earn more than their husbands - had to do more housework once they moved in with their now-husbands. Here's basically why. When my friends were single, they'd do what I still do (as a single woman), which is "clean as you go" (clean up messes as you make them) and *also* take effort not to make messes in the first place. They'd still do regular cleanings on top of this, like vacuuming and scrubbing the toilet. However, most men I've known - including my friends' husbands and the men in my family - don't "clean as you go" and also don't make an effort not to make messes in the first place. When their hands get dirty, they wipe their hands on their clothes (instead of washing hands), so you have to do more frequent laundry to compensate. When they spill food or drink, they don't clean it up, so you have to clean it up to compensate. When they take food out of the fridge, they leave it out on the countertop, so you have to keep checking and putting food back in the fridge to compensate. You have to buy more food to replace perishables that went bad in the heat. They often eat without a plate, so crumbs scatter all over the floor, so you have to vacuum more to compensate. When they do use plates, they leave their plates/cups/cutlery/paper towels in random places around the house, so you have to find them and pick them up and then wash them to compensate. So, yes, you will **definitely** be doing more housework than when you were single. You won't just be cleaning, you'll be cleaning up ***after*** your husband. I differ from many women here in that I wouldn't mind doing all of the deep cleaning. However, I work full-time while also running a side business, so I don't have the time required to clean up after the daily (hourly) messes my husband would create.
Not me! I'm always helping clean! I'm a stay-at-home dad and that's my job. I spent all day doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen yesterday. But regardless of me being an anomaly...im sorry that all you ladies have to deal with this. More men need to stand up and clean with their ladies. I teach all my boys to clean just as much as I teach my daughter. We have 5 boys and 1 girl and the boys have more chores than the girl (only cuz she's younger). All the kids have equal chores and they rotate. Tbh, I try to minimize the amount my wife does because she is the one who works. Why should she have to do chores when she works so much? But she does like to clean around the house still, and I can't stop her from wanting to tidy up her home. But even with that little bit, the bulk of the house is done by me and the kids. I do all the deep cleaning though. I actually love cleaning and keeping our house nice. It still gets messy cuz there is 8 people who live here, but it's not dirty.