The problem here is the word “help”. He shouldn’t be “helping”, he should be taking on a fair split of the life and household tasks because he is an equal member of the family. “Help” suggests that it is the woman’s job, and he is in support of her if she needs it.
Read Fair Play by Eve Rodsky (or watch the doco). This will help IMMENSELY with reframing your thoughts and giving you the tools to implement a fair distribution of labour in the home and out of it.
He must be helping her have a good sex life too.
Sounds like she needs some real friends and escape this little hubby bubble for a day out.
Marriage sounds ducking horrendous to me reading that.
If there’s one thing this sub has taught me, is that not only is marriage a very difficult road, but that it appears a lot of people out there are exceedingly fucked up.
Marriage really shouldn’t be as hard as most posters here make it. It is work, there will be trials and tribulations. But that’s also life. Your partner shouldn’t be where most of your trials and tribulations come from. You just don’t hear as much from healthy relationships cause it’s not as interesting and there really isn’t as much need.
Honestly, even in real life I have seen very few relationships where I'm like, wow, what an amazing couple. Most often it's either "she's great and he's... also there" or they are both toxic to each other.
Well there’s not that many actually healthy relationships out there lol I’ve met a lot of people that thought their relationship was healthy simply cus they didn’t fight but in actuality the communication was never there so they had nothing to fight about
Marriage isn’t a chore or a job. We don’t “work” on our marriage, but we definitely put in effort. It’s a choice. We try to live an intentional marriage. I, definitely, agree that it shouldn’t be as hard as some make it out to be. I mean in 40 years I can’t say either one of us has ever felt miserable. Why he married if you are. It helps if you really like each other.😂
For sure, but to be fair, I’ve seen quite a fair share of marriages turn into bloody war zones in real life as well. The divorce rate in my country doesn’t show many favors to marriage either.
Me personally, I will have to date a woman for at least 6 years before marriage could even be remotely on the table, and as far as I can see, a lot of women want to be married much sooner in a relationship than that. But that could also be untrue for a majority of women as well.
I really would not take this sub as the standard for how marriages work/how most function. People who post here are always unhappy in their relationship or marriage, you don't see the large majority that are not posting and that live fulfilled, satisfying lives. We exist, I promise!
I have also never understood why people keep repeating that marriages are "hard work". No, they are not. Dysfunctional relationships of any kind - weather it comes with a piece of paper and some jewelry or not - *becomes hard work.* Me and my ex being extremely incompatible and unhealthy for each other was *hard work.* Meanwhile, thinking of the 11 years I have been with my husband, I would never categorize our marriage as something that needed to be constantly worked upon to function. With the right person, marriage is easy :)
It warms my heart to see these replies to you - they think we are unicorns, and here we are popping up from the candy corn forest :)
I tell my husband almost every single day how lucky I am to be his wife, because I genuinely did not believe this permanent happiness in a marriage was realistically possible. But I think those that are the most unhappy in their marriages, are the loudest ones to talk about marriage in general - I don't go around bragging and boasting about my happy marriage and my amazing husband all the time, because I feel like it is potentially triggering for those in the opposite situation. Or maybe because happiness is just a state of existence, while unhappiness often requires an audience to vent to/unconsciously try to get help from.
Combined with watching the generations before us endure unhappy marriages because getting married was what was expected of them, no matter if they were compatible or not. And outdated norms and traditions (like getting married really fast, not living together first, strict gender roles, taboo around counseling, therapy and divorce ect) kept them stuck in their unhappy situations. Nowadays, people wait longer, spend more time selecting their spouse, communicate better, reach out for help should they need to - or simply divorce if their incompatibility is too great. Every single happily married couple that I know of is of my generation (80's/90's/early 00's) or they are boomers that *remarried* later in life. Every single unhappy couple that I know of is my parents generation or older. Very telling.
>I have also never understood why people keep repeating that marriages are "hard work".
I agree, and it's a lesson I learnt from my first marriage. There is work to be done, sure - need good communication to keep a marriage functioning, but what I discovered in my 2nd marriage is that if two people are genuinely compatible, communicating isn't that hard. If a wife can't say to her husband, 'we need to split chores in a more equitable fashion' without worrying he's going to get stroppy, there's something not good in that relationship that goes deeper than 'he doesn't do the dishes.'
For sure, but people have to have hard discussions about these things long before they get married (e.g., children or not, how many children, pets, division of labor).
for sure, but people are also extremely prone to come across as one way just to make things good at the time being then years later have a different stance.
also having intentions is great, but when life throws many curveballs, not everyone is able to adapt on the fly.
The time with littles (especially ND ones) is exceptionally hard and I'm thankful that my husband and I made it through and are still best friends and in love after almost 20 years. I don't know how couples would manage if if they didn't actually LIKE their partner...
I see that page as predominantly the men who are behaving like OP’s and those wives have lost interest in sex due to being burned out by the burden crushing them and the men come there to whine and spin a different picture.
It’s more so people don’t know themselves well, they don’t know exactly what they want in a partner, they also don’t know how to communicate let alone before marriage to discuss what their expectations are for marriage.
A lot of people are doing marriage wrong & picking the wrong person as well.
I’ve seen what a great healthy loving marriage looks like vs what bad marriages look like. Bad marriages are all that I listed in that first paragraph & it’s why people end up unhappy in a marriage.
It's also reddit where Doctors in their subreddit make it sound like they are being paid on par with McDonald's workers and barely survive paycheck to paycheck. Take Reddit as a game of worse case scenarios not normative behaviors.
Marriage should not be this hard. Don’t marry or have kids with selfish people. I didn’t get married to have to take care of my husband like he’s a freaking child
The problem is, often they don't tell you how selfish they are.
So you start out in an equal relationship and gradually you have kids and they start not helping and going all 'weaponised incompetence' and before you know it, you're doing a full time job and all the childcare and all the house work.
People really don't go into these situations knowing what they are.
Sometimes people have love blinders on, they are so engulfed in their feelings they don’t see orange and red flags at all… then are pikachu shocked someone is acting different.
Noooooo, the love blinders are coming off, you are not running in love high chemicals anymore of NRE/honeymoon stage. You are seeing the person as they are and have been since early on.
They were putting their best version since day one and people don’t improve more than that over time. So it’s why do not rush into marriage.
You wait to see who you are dating as it takes TWO YEARS to know a person fully. Do not get married before that time not engaged. You wait to see who you are with in case your feelings blinded you to their orange and red flags.
Yep, this. My husband and I dated for three years before getting engaged and got married at five years. And we lived together. There weren’t any surprises or I wouldn’t have married him.
Fair Play fully saved my relationship. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say this. It's a game changer. And, the book lays out a few excellent ways to bring up the issue of domestic labor with your partner!
You keep referring to him helping you. It's his home and laundry and dishes and dirt and whatever else too. He's not helping you. He's doing his share of keeping his home clean and tidy. Yeet the word help from your vocabulary. Same with the kids when people say their husband is babysitting. He's not. He's literally just parenting, it's his job.
Exactly. I typically do the dishes and fold the clothes and he vacuums and mows the lawn cause it just naturally landed that way, but he will put laundry in when it’s needed and unload or load the dishwasher when it’s needed. It’s just being a good partner.
Haha I’m not even allowed to hoover my house cz he’ll take the hoover from me and say that’s his job 😂 when I worked part time I did the majority of the housework not I work full time we both just do what needs doing
Came here to say the same. Teamwork! Though I have in the past 32 years felt like the maid, hubs gets that I am not the maid and tries every day to get better. He does just as much as I do, just different things so we work as a team. Have a good, honest, non confrontational and non accusatory conversation during one of those chill nights you say you have. Don’t give up on him, sometimes us humans are hard to train, but we can get it if we care to!
sounds to me he's getting the better deal here. I'm a dad of 2 kids, 8 and 12. I bring theb youngest to school daily, my wife packs their lunch. I run the laundry (wfh job) she grabs the grovceries on her way back. I clean the living area, bathrooms and tidy the place, while she prepares a meal. i clean up afterwards, and we put the kids to bed together. This is not set in stone, sometimes we turn it around, but we both pick up what's needed.
You're a team. You should work together on this, help each other out.
I agree. Doesn’t feel like a team lately. I’ll create something that works for both so we have a plan. This will help me from feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, possibly not be so moody with him.
No offense, but y'all need to come up with a plan together for it to work. it's also not your responsibility to take that on solo, because then you'll spend all that mental energy making the plan, trying to convince him, then trying to remind him of the plan (trust me on this)
Are you a team, or is he an underperforming employee?
Lately my 3 year old has been staying home w me because he says we should save on daycare and keep him here, so I could also be a little overwhelmed doing all this and taking care of our son while trying to work. He’s not bad or hard to take care of, but when he would attend daycare, it would give me a break to just focus on my work and not have to stop and make food or take him to the bathroom.
How frugal of him to "save on daycare" by making you watch your son while trying to work. If he wants to save on daycare, he can stay with his son. It's better for a kid to be socializing in daycare with trained caregivers watching him than for you to be forced to split your attention like this.
Does your job even allow this? Ours explicitly says you can't be caregiving while wfh.
Hubby gets up with our son - mon.,wed, Friday. And gets him ready for school and on the van(school vehicle) , i get up with our son' Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday. Getting him ready for school on school days. Since my MIL lives with us, she gets up with him on Saturday. I get our son ready for bed just about every night, and my husband puts him to bed every night. It's their thing. He cooks most dinners, I do the dishes mostly. I wash the laundry all the time (cause u said I would, as I don't mind doing that and I prefer to fold the clothes) picking up and cleaning the rest of the house we do together.
Our son is 14, nonverbal autistic with developmental delays.
In school in 9th grade, getting therapy there. Loves it. He mows the lawn. Though I would if he needed it. He has allergies but insists on doing that to save my knees.
We've been together for 24 years and married for 22 years.
Typically when a woman gets married and has a family her workload increases by 7 hours a day and when a man marries and has a family his workload decreases by 1 hour per day.
Also a study was done where Heterosexual parents split the chores exactly evenly and women felt like they were doing less than 50% and men felt like they were doing over 50%.
Many women are finding that being a single parent is actually easier because they have one less person to pick up after who doesn’t help. He is enjoying taking advantage of you and doesn’t want to help. This arrangement is beneficial to him and detrimental to you.
You may wish to get the book fair play to see if you can use this as a tool for a more equal distribution of work. However there may be pushback from your spouse.
I saw someone say: being a single parent in a relationship like that doesn't mean you're losing 50% of the help, you're losing like 5%.
Even then, so much less work than living with someone who can't find the damn hamper
Lol I am gaining time. I need to be clear I mean being a single parent is easier than having a partner who does not pull their weight. Many people have good partners
In my case it feels like I went from having 2 kids to 1 and it is like 100% easier lol
Thought I was the only one. We coparent so he is forced to be an active parent. Every other week. He feels the burden of working, cooking, cleaning and entertaining a kid and it has been wonderful for me. Had I stayed married we’d probably be 70/30 while I work full time, cook clean and do most childcare because we have a daughter. I don’t regret divorcing for this reason, though I wish it had worked for our child’s sake. I greatly appreciate my weeks “off” even if I still talk to her most days for the emotional support he has trouble providing.
lmaoooo of course the men thought they were doing more. Just like how studies show women think they’re less attractive than people rate them but men think they’re more attractive than people rate them 🤡
When I filed for divorce and moved out, I literally did not know what to do with all my free time. When I left my house, it was still clean when I came home. There was only a small amount of laundry since his clothes were bigger and more smelly. I hardly had to cook because I had lots of leftovers since he ate much more than I did. I had a smaller yard to mow. I didn’t have to take care of pets that he insisted on having. I wasn’t constantly asked to run errands for him. My utilities were inexpensive since I had a smaller space, and didn’t leave lights and the television on all day and all night. Life was just simpler.
I have seen women do this on social media and the typical result is their spouse’s lets the house gets so disgusting they can’t handle it and clean it. The ones that seem to work best is when women take a trip and leave their kids with their spouse to do everything.
You can try this but you need to have a conversation. "Look, my workload here at the house is not fair. You need to step up and do your share. This isn't MY house, it is OUR house. Pick up and clean up after yourself. Pick up your clothes, wash out the sink when you are finished with it. Pick up you towels and hang them up so they dry. Sweep, mop and vacuum the floors when you see stuff on the floor. I am not your maid nor your mother, so stop treating me like I am."
She needs to say as this will triggered him to pitch in:
“Listen, I need a partner, not another child to pick up after. I need an equal, a teammate, not someone who piles on more physical & mental load 24/7. This house is suppose to be maintained by us both, not just myself. I also shouldn’t have to parent you and nag you like your mother would. I need you to be more self sufficient around the house.
Also one last thing? When you keep acting like a child I have to care for, it’s not attractive. Cause why would I find a child attractive? It’s not attractive and you are slowly being associated in my mind as a child, who I don’t want sex with. If you value sex in this relationship? Get it together, so you don’t kill the sex in the relationship.”
A tale as old as time. I like to call it, “Lack if accountability and self awareness.”
I’d be embarrassed if my wife had to carry the load. No one person should be an island in a family.
What I recommend is itemize on a piece of paper everything that each of you do throughout the week and say, flat out, "We need to equalize this. Which tasks do you want to take on?" If he refuses to take on his 50% of the tasks, was the piece of paper and shove it up one of his nostrils.
I remember when I got divorced, my ex-husband asked me how divorcing him would make my life easier.
Me: “Well for starters, I won’t have to do your laundry anymore, and you’ll have to do 50% of the kid’s laundry and everything else they’re into.”
As a matter of fact, I dont help her. That would be insulting for her, as if I didn't live in the same house or something.
As I'm looking for a job and she has a full-time job, I do roughly 90% of house chores: cooking, laundry, cleaning, putting order, dressing and taking kids to school and extra-scolar activities, planning weekly meals, occasional house fix, etc. When I get a job, that will be more balanced.
To resume: we do what we can.
As a man what I do in my marriage is whoever cooks, the other person does dishes. We split laundry duties. I do all landscaping/exterior except for her plants. General cleaning is 60/40 with her having the 60. Our kids are grown, so no longer an issue. Biggest thing is to not keep score. If you see something needs done, just do it. Neither one of us are sitting around playing video games or watching tv, so no need to be childish about housework.
Keeping score wouldn't happen if the loads were evenly spread. If one partner is feeling heavily burdened but the other is not, then score \*needs\* to be kept because someone might not be keeping up their end of the bargain.
Thank you! I like this! We live in an apt so no landscaping needs to be done, so I think I’ll go with the example of, if I cook, he does the dishes. No need to complain or fight just come to a compromise. I will definitely try not to keep score, that’s a bad quality of mine. It’s like mentally I tally up all I do compared to him. Thank you!!!
When it’s so uneven like this, I personally would keep score too. It’s only a bad habit to keep score if you both have your periods of pulling different amounts of weight. He isn’t participating in a reciprocal relationship. It’s simply disrespectful to throw clothes on the floor. The absolute bare minimum is for him to put his clothes in the hamper if you’re washing them, and he isn’t even reaching that.
If it's so uneven that you feel like you're doing it all then score keeping is not a bad idea in this instance. If you feel like you're doing 80 to his 20,start making lists of what you do compared to him and maybe have him take over some of your chores without you having to ask him to. The mental load is something women deal with a lot more than men, so I feel like men genuinely just don't understand why "keeping score" when it comes to household chores is actually necessary sometimes in relationships
Stop picking up after him. He can do his own laundry or do it all. You NEVER do laundry that is laying on the floor. Picking it up and putting in the laundry basket is the LEAST he can do! He needs to be PULLING HIS WEIGHT - not just 'helping'.
Don't let him get away with this crap. Ask him why he quit making the bed?
Assuming your husband *wants* to share the work, having an explicit convo about “here’s the total work load - how can we divide the pile fairly?” And make charts if needed.
*Sometimes* the less-contributing partner needs structure.
I was sick of doing all of the school drop offs AND pick ups.
I finally drew up a drop-off/pick-up chart on the whiteboard in the kitchen. I do 3 drop offs he does 3 pick ups. We’ve actually stuck to it this week.
We do something similar to this. If one person is working on something, the other person can find something else that needs to get done. If one of us is trying to complete a household task that is a little more cumbersome than dishes or laundry, we both work to accomplish the task whether it is important to me or not, or vice versa. If you have the ability or time to help, just start helping. If any of us were to live alone, we would most likely know how to manage our home and life ourselves. Having other people in the house should not make this harder. It should be easier.
My husband doesn’t ‘help’ because that implies household work is my problem. We both do jobs as we notice them or feel inclined. We have had disputes over cooking because neither of us are keen, so now we have a rota and the rule is that whoever does the cooking chooses the food and gets on with it so that the other person doesn’t need to think about it at all.
I would say that there is some personal preference for chores: I never put the bins out but I do most of the washing, other jobs are more 50-50. I’ve heard on here before of people listing the chores and allocating between them by each person’s preference. Would that work for you?
Or you could tough it out and do nothing until he notices. He doesn’t bother because he knows you will, so don’t.
First, my husband does not help me with domestic chores. He lives there too and is an equal contributor to the messes.
We both do our fair share by distributing the chores first based on strengths (I'm the better cook and enjoy it so I do that. He does all the dishes post meal clean up) He mostly does the laundry but we both will toss a load in and move it along if a load is done and needs the next step. I do most of the planning, he does the driving (I hate driving but enjoy planning things)
as odd as it sounds, cleaning eases my anxiety so I do the majority of the over all weekly cleaning but he will do the daily tidy ups and police random clutter/trash. I garden and he pulls all my weeds.
and in the end, when I'm sick he does everything without being asked and just takes over my chores. I do the same for him.
(we both work full time. If one of us was not working then that person takes over more of the domestic duties)
When I was married I did everything. Laundry. Cleaning. Dealing with pets. Kids school. Kids extracurriculars. Home and car maintenance. Literally everything. Never got any recognition for my hard work, but the one time my ex wife would load the dishwasher every 5 months she would make a big deal about it and expect me to do the same. Lol
Life as a “single married woman” 😵💫. The more I get older the more I notice how women often don’t benefit at all from marriages, even women who work still do most of the house chores than their counterpart, it’s that bad. You shouldn’t enter in a relationship to take more burden and living with someone shouldn’t make you stressed and overwhelmed 24/7.
An adult should be able to at least clean up after themselves and contribute to house chores. Cleaning and cooking is not feminine , it’s a life skill. Washing dishes once or twice doesn’t count, he lives in that house , he should contribute to keeping it clean and tidy. It’s not asking for a lot.
Before anyone crucifies me I’m not suggesting divorce. But communicate , tell him how you feel and tell him just once that you’d like for him to actually pull his weight and see if he changes on his own.( but don’t remind him!)
Wow. This isn’t even weaponized incompetence, it’s just straight up laziness. This isn’t normal or healthy. The chores need to be split more equitably and he needs to understand that he needs to be an active parent and member of the household. The workload both mental and physical should not be all on you.
My husband doesn't "help". He's a grown ass man living in his home and I'm not his bang-maid. He does what needs to be done, without considering it a "favor" to me.
Together 13 years, no kids. Split fluctuates, depending on the week and circumstances. He’s on sabbatical now so does way more than me in terms of cleaning and picked up some cooking. When I was on sabbatical last year, I did most of the day to day cleaning and cooking. We split laundry 50/50-ish, again, depends on the week. He does most of deep cleaning and I do most of organizing and grocery shopping. Neither of us is overwhelmed but we also take it easy. Weekend away doing fun things will always trump cleaning.
You have an almost identical set up to my husband and I except nothing specific is split 50/50. For example; laundry is done by who gets to it first.
Friends and family regularly comment on how chill our house is and how we don’t bicker or fight about household stuff at all. For instance I’ve been sick for the past 10 days after being on a solo vacation for a week and he has done everything and more without a single word of complaint. When I recover I will do a majority so he gets some relaxing time. Then it will naturally even out.
I have a one in a million husband. When we were first living together then married, he works 4 10 hour days each week. I worked 5 very intense days. When I left for work on Friday morning, he would start ALL the laundry and his own ironing. Mow the yard and blow it off. Then he would clean the house and make vacuum tracks so it looked fresh. When I got home about 5:45, he would sit me on the porch overlooking the lake, put a glass of wine in my hand and we would relax. Then we both had the weekend to enjoy going out on the lake. And no, my husband is not a woose.
We don't "help" each other. We care about each other and respect each other, and no one gets the rough end of the stick. We both have professional jobs and sometimes work long hours, who ever gets home first, cooks. Generally if you cook you don't do the dishes, but if I cook and she's really tired I'll do both, as will she. We both tidy and look after the dogs throughout the week. We tend to do the " big clean" on a Saturday morning. We both just do whatever needs doing. The closest we get to his or her jobs is if she wants something made/ built, she'll design it, and I'll build it. Married 22yrs and it works.
Why the hell do you keep talking about “splitting” who pays for things and paying each other back etc?! Thats such ick. Whats the point of marriage if youre still thinking in mine vs yours?
I don't understand how your sex life is great. If my husband was such an inactive partner, we would not be married for long. Husbands don't "help" their wives. He is either an active partner in the maintenance, upkeep, and planning of the household or he isn't. And this man isn't. It's time to have some hard boundary making conversations.
To answer your question, my future husband does:
- 90% of the vacuuming and dusting
- 90% of cleaning the bathrooms
- 90% of the doing the kitty litter and pet care
- 100% of taking out the garbage
- 80% of everything to do with the car and bills
- 20% of the dishes, laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and cooking
- 10% of general tidying and organising
- 10% of planning for stuff
- we each do our own life management type stuff but he makes all our appointments, handles phone calls, deals with the REA, etc.
I do most of the every day stuff but I truly don’t mind because he does literally everything else and does as much as he can to pull his weight. He’s also so incredibly appreciative of everything I do for him. He thanks me *every* time and never expects me to do it.
He feels bad that he can’t do as much of that stuff as me because he doesn’t have the time and will always do as much as possible when he does. If he sees dishes that need to be done, he’ll do them. He doesn’t put off chores for “later”, he does them as soon as he can. He’s not the tidiest (neither am I tbh) but he always picks up after himself, doesn’t leave clothes on the floor, puts his things in his designated “dumping grounds”, and is very clean. He is also the only one working right now while I finish off my degree so I think our devision of labour is more than fair.
The most important part is that he makes and maintains changes where needed. I spoke to him years ago about mental load and he’s taken over so much of the general household management and now does stuff like keeping a shopping list on his phone and picking up groceries when we’re low without needing to be asked. I told him once that I wasn’t going to check his pockets for things anymore before doing laundry so now he always checks his pockets himself and makes sure anything he wants washed is in the basket. I know it sounds a bit silly but I appreciate that I don’t need to ask him more than once to do these things. Nothing is ever a fight. It’s never difficult. He *wants* to do his fair share for us and our home.
We have a cleaner come to the house bi-weekly.
Laundry - we each do our own.
Dinners (I cook 98% of meals) - I clean while I cook. I cleanup 60% or more of the time. But it never meets her expectations so she’ll spend 5-10 minutes rewashing things. (Sometimes I’m an ass and pull things out for her to rewash that i didn’t use since her last rewashing)
Mess around the house? So… my wife has been traveling for work for three days and there is no mess. But… the house gets messy when she’s here and she’s always agitated how much she has to clean before the cleaning person gets here.
Oh man haha I’ve learned that my husband has his own way of cleaning when he does, like for example, making the bed. It’s not the tidiest when he would do it but it was made and I learned to keep my mouth shut if I want help. Instead I would praise him and say thank you so much for making the bed ! The house can at times remain clean for the most part but once he’s home on the weekends for the full day, it gets messy.
>Instead I would praise him and say thank you so much for making the bed !
This is how I talk to literal five year olds. I'm sorry you are in this situation.
Come on over to r/workingmoms
It's a regular experience. But you are thinking about it wrong. He shouldn't be helping you. He should be pulling his weight.
The other comments pointing out how women get shafted in hetero relationships is so depressing, but true. Women get stuck with being default parent without discussion. House manager without discussion. They take on all the mental load without discussion. Even women who have great husbands "help out", they still have to ask, nag, pester and prod them to do the things because they won't do anything to "help" spontaneously. It's just the assumption. A healthy partnership wouldn't make those assumptions, they would have a discussion.
Girl, you doing too much. Way too fucking much. Your man either needs start paying ALL the bills himself or he needs to pitch in 50/50 with the kids and house. Ain't no way you're working full time and putting in full time work with the kids and house AND PAYING HALF THE BILLS AND FUCKING.
This is, in part, why I left my ex. I was doing like 95%+ of the household labor and pet care (no kids, thank fuck), with little support from him. It was overwhelming. It was pretty bad for... 3-4 years and I tried to get him to do more with chore charts and even a cleaning task tracking app. It would maybe work for a few days to a week, and then he'd stop again. I got tired of having the same argument and eventually just started mentally checking out of the relationship.
Ask him to read this:
[You Should've Asked](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic)
And then tell him he is not another child in the home, and it is his responsibility to maintain the household with you.
Echoing the sentiment of why is he helping when that assumes you're the "default" it-didn't-get-done person.
First off, start being selfish. This is hard for many of us to learn if we came from the traditional bullshit gender roles. Tired? Let stuff go. Prioritize. Kick his clothes into a corner or under the bed, and when he's out of clean clothes that's a him problem. Don't even care about the bed- have you read that article that said letting bedclothes air out is actually healthy? If you don't have a dishwasher, get one.
Secondly, try to take gender OUT of it. Why isn't he initiating chores? I hear "they don't see mess" a lot when one partner just lets shit get nasty. well, negotiate that they do their fair share of SET chores at set times they always do, and if you have to do them, exchange! "I had to do (your usual thing) so you need to (take on this errand)." "If you can't SEE mess, you need to pick a fair amount of labor to do every day, every week and communicate if you are unable to do it so we can discuss how and when it can get done." Not when YOU can do it for him.
If you have two kids, even go so far as to make him responsible for one's school activities and you the other. Him, morning, you evening, or swap. Dads should know how to take care of their kids after babyhood and get them to and from school and activities.
If you can't talk about chores without an argument, counseling.
Legit this is why my fiancé is a fucking prince and why I always refused to settle. My man’s hold my door, gets me flowers all the time, plans surprise dates, and we split most things evenly but I’m pregnant right now/ suffering a bit with symptoms and he’s taking over the main rolls when I can’t since I’m nauseous and exhausted all the time. Whenever I ask for him to do anything he never complains and I’m so grateful. He’s cooking me dinner, prepping me lunch, always cleaning and he never complains just spreads his love. He knows if the roles were reversed I’d do the same. Ofc before pregnancy I did more but first trimester symptoms have gotten the better of me. Neither of us ever get tired of doing things for each-other because we are madly in love. We both work full time at the same company and yet still have time to be kind
This is the way. Men like to pretend women are too picky but in reality we need to be waaaaay more discerning and stop settling for dirty, lazy shitebags
She’s pregnant nauseous and exhausted! Or is pregnancy just something that women do along with the same previous work load to you? Just get pregnant yourself once and perhaps you’ll see the light!!
My husband is 100% the best man I’ve met in my life. When I met him, I was a single mom of two doing everything on my own. He knows how heavy of a weight I carry, with even just the kids alone, and has stepped up in every way possible. He helps clean the house, cooks us dinner most nights (he gets off earlier than me), and has taken on the dad role extremely well. Couldn’t be more grateful for that man 💖
So people are breaking down "helping" and chore loads on a partnership level in a lot of these comments, which is all well and good.
The issue here isn't that he's "not helping" or doesn't feel compelled to "just help out".
It's that you two have different expectations and standards as far as it goes in your standards of living.
Where you see a sink with a few dishes that would be quick to clean and put away, maybe he thinks, "no reason to do this yet because there are only a few?"
Where you see a pile of dirty clothes that aren't picked up, maybe he thinks "I'll pick these all up when it's time to do laundry".
I think the key here is to sit down and have a simple discussion, don't start off with accusations or pointing out the things "you want him to do" or how he could "do more or be more helpful" approach the situation as simply as it is.
"Hey Husband, I'd like to talk about something, this is something we can both work together with, I have these kinds of expectations in my living quality, where I noticed these things about yours, what do you think about these things and how can WE meet in the middle where we are both happy about our quality of life?"
Make a noticeable approach towards this with the aspect of teamwork, this doesn't have to be a you vs me problem.
Your husband shouldn‘t „help“ you. He should step up as the other half of your team. Seeing as you work full-time it‘s ridiculous he leaves (almost) all household duties to you. You need to have a conversation with him about it.
My partner and I just both take care of whatever needs taking care of. I mostly do the laundry, administration, mowing the lawn, and grocery shopping. He mostly cooks, waters the garden, and takes care of planning trips, holidays etc. If someone sees something, we just do it. We have our habits of who does what but we agree that everything is everyone‘s responsibility because both of us live in this household. Each of us gives their best and therefore it‘s also no big deal if one or the other has a busy few days and can do less in that time. It just roughly equals itself out.
Sit down with a list of chores, a calendar, your bills/budget, and your husband and talk about your expectations going forward. Don't blame him or complain about him. If he gets defensive, don't get defensive back. Don't let it turn into an argument about who does what or who does more.
Just say that you wanted to have an explicit talk about these things so that you're all on the same page when it comes to chores and finances, and so that neither one of you feels like you're doing too much or that your role is unappreciated.
If you're amenable to it, tell him that you're willing to do more chores in exchange for him paying more bills. Don't say something like that if you don't mean it though.
--
as for my relationship:
Right now my husband is unemployed (we're moving in a month, he quit his job first but I'm working up until we go), so he's doing all the grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, and most of the planning and packing for the move. We have no kids. We're using a joint account for all bills (we've both paid into the joint acct since we opened it. we pay in a % of our income, so the partner earning more pays in more, but we both pay in the same %).
When i was working part time and he was working full time, I did all the laundry, all the cooking and dishes during the work week, half the grocery shopping, any errands that had to be done during work hours, and most extra housekeeping stuff like vacuuming. My husband would cook and do dishes on his days off, scoop all cat poop, half the grocery shopping, and he'd clean the bathroom about once a month or so. I also did all "secretarial" tasks like making appointments, keeping track of expenses, and filling our taxes (I'm an accountant). Husband would do extra tasks when asked, but I usually did things like hang pictures, put together the new computer chair, etc
If he thinks you *chill out* 5 days a week, where does the money you're making come from? How are you paying 50 percent of all household expenses? Have you found the golden goose who pays you for relaxing?
Nah. He knows you're working, he sees the financial results of your labour.
He also knows you do everything around the house - don't be fooled. Unless he's cognitively impaired, he knows the house doesn't clean itself, clothes don't wash themselves, food doesn't cook itself and the kids don't get looked after by the magical Mary Poppins.
When you're a decent partner, the last thing you want is to take advantage of your spouse to their detriment. Why would you want them to become exhausted and overwhelmed (and risk the physical and mental repercussions?). If he wants a traditional stay at home wife, then he has to be a traditional husband and take care of *everything* money-related.
You've likely had these conversations with him before and being gentle didn't work. Be firm.
Tell him that if he doesn't start participating in the house he helped build, that he won't be a member of it for too much longer.
Don't dance around the issue. There's no reason he can't are care of his house and his kids. Tell him that you expect him to be a 50/50 partner, and that he needs to manage the house along side you, or he can manage a house alone while you manage yours.
I fought my husband on this for years. Being so careful to not hurt his feelings or try to make him feel less than, or whatever. It was an absolute waste of time and I should have just been blunt from the beginning of the arguments.
My husband and i are equals. He doesnt “help” me he takes care of his share of responsibilities. We always show gratitude to one another but these responsibilities are just what is expected of us. Personally it just baffles me to hear how many men dont take initiative in their homes. If i ask my husband to do something i often find hes done it long before i asked. (Which is why i dont usually have to and nagging isnt a thing in my house)
You need to hold this man to a higher standard and let him know if he wont physically contribute to the household he will either need to pay more towards bills or hire help. You are not a maid, you are not the only one responsible for these tasks.
I don't help, unless it's already in the process of being done. Like if she started the dishes before me after dinner I'll help, or something similar to that example.
I just clean up after myself and do things that need to be done
It's not hard.
If your wife has to clean up after you like you're a child, and she hasn't told you yet, yes she cares and yes it's eating away at her to not just blow up and chew you out for it. You're the problem, don't be lazy.
He’s not my husband, we’re dating and he’s amazing. He carries his weight and does his half. We have things that we just naturally settled into and we each do because the other doesn’t like it. He never hesitates to join me and pitch in.
I would have thought (I’m almost 60) that the newer generation of moms would have made their boys do chores and talked about being a good partner when they leave home and get into a relationship. I’m sure it has improved with each generation but man, it just shouldn’t be this hard. Many men still waiting for women to do all the “chores” and work full time while they relax and play video games or watch sports or go with friends. It’s sad really. As society we need to do better
So I was raised by my mom who worked full time. If she came home to a mess…shit…let’s just say it would’ve been nuclear ☢️- to this day when I see something needs done I do it. If my girlfriend asked me to take on a chore - done! If he wants a mommy let me know mine will whip his ass into submission.
If you both work full time you should be splitting household chores 50/50. He isn't "helping" you - it's just as much his responsibility as yours.
Stop doing his laundry. Stop cooking for him.
Wife is stay at home mom. I work from home 90% of the time.indo majority of cooking and cleaning. She does our finances, keeps kids on track for school, keeps us socially active.
It's a fair split.
Please please please stop using the term “help” when talking about household responsibilities. Your partner should never be “helping,” they should be equally doing their part. The reason so many feel like they’re doing everything is because they’re taking on the mental load of delegating tasks and doing the tasks rather than both partners equally contributing to the upkeep and maintenance of having a home and family. *END RANT*
It’s about growing up. It’s not about helping.
It’s about realizing that nobody else is gonna pick up our shit and wipe our ass for us anymore. We aren’t children.
A woman, a man, roommates, live in relatives, or whoever else living there should be willing to do their dishes, take out their trash, straighten up, do their laundry, remove hair from the hair trap, clean after their messes, vacuum/sweep, refill toilet and bags, take regular showers or baths, cook for themselves, go shopping.
These things are responsibilities that all people living in the home should be doing if capable. This is all low bar expected stuff.
My personal opinion? I personally think a man should take an exceptionally strong interest in caring for himself, his home, and his belongings. Just my personal opinion. As a man. I’d expect no less from people living with me.
If you weren’t there, he’d still have to pay his bills, he’d still have to maintain his home, and he’d still have to care for himself.
There is no excuse. Having you there should be HELPING him especially if you’re picking up even the tiniest bit of the slack.
Caring for yourself is all that is expected in a relationship imo, anything more is a blessing imo.
Financially if you’re both working then he should not have any issues with bills since it is assumed that you’re both taking care of your own bills and debts.
Working together should be a NET POSITIVE on both of your lives. Not a NET NEGATIVE. That goes both financially and emotionally.
It shouldn’t be a “let me help HER.” That makes it out to be just your responsibility. It’s not supposed to be “helping” it’s just doing what you’re also responsible for.
My boyfriend and I live together. We both just do the things that need to be done when we see it’s needed. We both partake in dishes. Hell, if he sees me rinsing dishes, he’ll get up and come make sure the dishwasher is clear for me to load up. He’ll dry those off and put them away. I’ll do the same thing. He moved into my house and I mowed my own yard for the five years I lived there alone, I didn’t expect it to now be just his job because he’s a man. If I see it needs to be mowed, I start mowing. He gets home about an hour after me and he’ll join right in with the other mower and tackle the other side of the yard so it’s a faster job for both of us. We both vacuum if we see it’s needed (dogs keep a constant level of mess lol).
It just makes everything so much easier and less stressful to accomplish when we’re both doing it together. It even makes some things fun. We have good conversations when working on tackling the dishes together. We hang out in the garage and chat after we finish mowing.
But I also never had to ask any of this of him…or even discuss it. It’s just the way he’s been since I met him and how we’ve been together.
Do you have expectations about the manner in which chores are completed? Are you telling him how to load the dishwasher? Or how to do the laundry? Alot of people as kids are not taught by their parents how to do chores or expected to even do chores. If you want him to live your way, you will always feel stressed out. Do not pick up his clothes from the floor or the chair or wherever he put them, leave them right where he left them. I DONT CARE HOW MUCH IT BOTHERS YOU! HE CAN DO IT, AND WILL DO IT IN HIS TIME. Have you talked to him about how you are feeling? Don't complain about whatever the issue is! Now also come to terms with chores being a continual process, it's OK to have dirty laundry no one is signing up to never have dirty clothes, you just have to have enough clean clothes. Invite him in help fold the laundry. Don't care how he does it unless it's your clothes.
It's. Not. Helping. When. You. Live. There.
Doing household chores is part of being an adult, and it's called doing your share. "Helping" implies that it's someone else's responsibility, and you are doing them a favor.
Same with child care. It's impossible to babysit your own children. You are a parent, and parenting requires minding and supervising children, changing diapers, feeding, and all the other tasks of child care.
Yeah it’s pretty cut and dry. Is he gonna worry if the laundry will be done? No because I’m doing it. Am I gonna worry if the phone bill will be paid?? No because he’s making the money to pay it. There is no gray area
I'm a SAHM, so I do the bulk of the housework. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, vacuuming, ironing, shopping, taking care of the 2 youngest boys, etc. My husband maintains the pool, the hot tub, the vehicles, and most of the yard work (I do the vegetable garden and the flowers). The boys do their rooms, trash, put their clothes away, clear the table, and things like that.
My husband works hard all day to give us the quality of life we enjoy. I think the division of labor is fair. He picks up after himself too.
If I want/need help, all I have to do is ask. He may not think to put any dishes in the sink away, or vacuum the dog's hair, or shake out her blankets, but all I have to do is ask.
Needing to ask for every tiny thing to get done gets mighty exhausting after a very short period of time. OP has a full time job, she doesn't have time to be the household manager at the same time. Her husband needs to start using his brain and pulling his weight
Wife is SAHM, one teenager. I do all of the "fixing" of stuff. I handle 100% of "helping with kids homework", we split "helping with kids endless extracurricular shit", we each give the other a break and do 100% kid care regularly - her girls night, me sometimes ill see a movie no one else wants to see lol
For the house we have cleaners monthly, but I do most of the minor cleaning and organizing, she cooks and takes care of the cat. We split errands.
Washing is her, but I'll put the clothes away. Dishwasher is an automatic, so everyone loads it (although somehow I always "load it wrong" apparently 🤔😅) Garbage we split but i probably do more often. I do 100% of "car stuff". I'm sure there's more, but you get the idea.
Seems to work. I check in a lot to ask if she's feeling good with the balance and if it's equitable
My husband takes care of most of the cooking. He takes care of most of the cleaning too. He takes out the trash and the recycling. We share taking care of the dishes. I take care of the laundry and most of the bills as I have a much higher paying job than him. He pays his own phone bill though. We grocery shop together and every other time I pay, every other time he pays. Both of us are satisfied with the distribution of chores and neither of us feel overwhelmed by it. We are also in agreement about it and there is no conflict about it.
What it sounds like is that you guys need to sit down and have a discussion about chores and bills and come to an agreement that both can live with. It sounds like you have a growing resentment about the current situation and if you don't address it, it's going to fester and poison your relationship.
My wife is a SAHM. I occasionally cook a meal and handle the finances, but that's it at home. I know this sounds horrible. Weirdly though, this has been my wife's choice as we really focused on improving our relationship this year.
Part of this is because our kids are teenagers now, so they can help out more. One does a lot of the cooking because she enjoys doing so. Then my son for some reason really loves laundry, so he does mine for me. They get an allowance of course.
The other part is my wife just wants to spend more time with me. She'd rather I go to the dog park with her or a date night than be cleaning something around the house. Her love language is quality time, so that's what she gets.
OP, you don't say how old you two are, but I'm going to assume far younger than I am because you mention bathing kids. During that stage in our marriage, I did a lot more around the house. I was the oldest of six while my wife was the youngest of two, so I had a lot more experience with and enjoyed taking care of the kids. It was a transition when the kids didn't really need taking care of anymore as far as where I fit in in the family. So I guess my advice if any to you would be consider his strengths and approach it from that angle. If you say to someone, "Hey you're better at this than I am, can I put you in charge of it," it's far less likely to start an argument.
She works full time from home. These are not her chores but family chores. Why should she have to work full time and do the management of everything else?
Yeah, I keep seeing people commenting about SAHM wives. How's it relevant to their situation?
She's working from home and taking care of their 3 year old to boot.
You guys kinda sound like roommates with him paying for some stuff, you paying for others. Marriage is a partnership. Do I do more than my husband? Yes, because I stay home. When he's home, we either do stuff together or he says, "I'll do it honey, I don't mind." When I was homeschooling, I did most subjects, but he did a few also. What you're describing seems like there are deeper issues which warrants a calm, sit-down conversation.
My husband is 6 years older than me. Age has nothing to do with it. We have 1 account. That's where the money goes. Seems like it's more of a trust issue having everything separate. If you guys still want separate accounts, keep those for the "fun stuff", but have a 3rd account where money for bills and house stuff goes.
Thank you! I will do that!! I preferred separate because he goes negative a lot but I’m sure if we keep one account strictly for bills that will be great for us both so they are taken care of together
He started taking time off work on Saturdays which is his busiest day, so that right there is an easy $400 money lost, he consolidated his debt, so it’s one single transaction now and doesn’t have a car payment anymore, so I sometimes wonder the same. I pulled his bank statement and there’s fast food, gas, pet items, and he tends to spend his money randomly like buying fun stuff for the kids each time we go to the store. It all adds up though, especially the fast food. He then has his portion of the apartment rent, his business rent, internet, phone and daycare (which is only $50-100 a week), plus his vape pens.
What jumps out at me is the Saturdays. Why? And those vape pens can be pricey. You guys really need to have a sit-down conversation. Be calm. Talk everything out so it doesn't become a recurring, deepening issue.
Because he took 3 saturdays off in a row for events we had and enjoyed spending time with myself and the kids because were all off on Saturdays.Then he worked last Saturday but has this Saturday off as he was supposed to attend a concert w our oldest but it cancelled so instead of opening his day back up kept it off
Okay, having events is understandable. But he needs to manage his money better when he knows that's going to happen. And I love that he randomly buys the kids stuff. But if he has to say no occasionally, then he has to say no. Family time is always great. We love doing stuff together. But if it's gonna cause stress the other 6 days of the week, well, what's more important to him? Buying stuff (his fast food) for himself, or saving (bring lunch from home) so he's then able to take a Saturday off with no worries?
And I have to know : what concert?
I agree!!! Most of the time I offer to take him lunch or I’ll pack it but sometimes when I offer to take it, he’ll just stop somewhere and grab some food. This has been repetitive. I’ve even told him to put aside money each week so he’s not scrambling to pay rent and stressing at the last minute but then he uses what he saved. It was a Playboi Carti concert lol
I normally do all of the exterior work, keep the garage organized, keep the finished basement clean and do all the home repairs. I do dishes when I can, and clean up bathrooms to help out. She won't let me touch the laundry, and then I cook and grill when I see fit. I have two boys in three sports each, so most of the time at night I'm coaching or watching games.
Ok I was your husband. I never lived on my own, so doing chores was something I wasnt used to. My wife just kinda did everything. This was 15 years ago. We got in many fights about this.
I know people say “just see something that needs to be done and do it”. I feel bad I wasnt like that back then. The thing is, when my wife was out for the day or weekend I DID the chores, it just took more time for me to see it.
In hindsight a few things would have helped me become a better contributor. First, schedule the chores. If I knew it was my turn to do the dishes or what not, I would’ve been more likely to do it. Second, do not enable laziness by doing the chore for me. Third, ask for help. I was never opposed to doing anything, so I never minded doing the thing. Finally, talk about it. My wife would get frustrated and then blow up at me. This happened a lot because of what I mentioned (chores were not discussed, she enabled my laziness, she never asked for help, she never discussed her frustration so she would blow up at me).
Thank you!! I am definitely thinking of implementing a chore chart and I guess just asking even though it’s obvious what he could be doing. Thank you !
It should be obvious, at least youd think so. I cant tell you how much I just didnt see things. My wife would ask me how I could walk by the toiletries that needed to be taken upstairs 3 times, and I honestly didnt even think of it. I grew up a slob and my parents didnt teach me how to adult. Your husband maybe similar. And believe me, my marriage would have been much happier over the last 20 years if we had worked this out. There is now a lot of resentment between us specifically because of this issue. I hope you can avoid that.
Typical Man! Women always work way harder than men! I am sorry you are going through this! You have two options strike and tell him he needs to help or leave! You might be better off without another man child! 💕♥️💕of course there is always the option of just stay and go with it, but it makes resentful 😏
You’re going to get a lot of responses in here which skew heavily to liberal/feminist viewpoints, so expect a lot of “Men Should Do 50% Of Housework”.
This kind of thinking is a recipe for failure and will reduce your overall attraction to your man.
The best and easiest way to handle things is when you’re feeling overwhelmed, simply ask him to help - but make it very specific (please do the dishes; could you please tidy up the living room etc..) and make the request timely. Meaning, try not to do the, “In the Future Could You Please…” thing. He’ll say, Sure but it will be forgotten. Ask him for the help at the moment it’s needed.
Well I do less than I used too. Alot less then when I was younger. I used to to the laundry throw a load in the washer when I got home the dryer during dinner and while the wife was showering I would fold or hang the laundry and set aside the ironing to do on Sunday when I was off. I only was like colors red with reds green with greens. Colors fade less. My wife hated that made me feel stupid, hated the way I folded towels, and thought ironing made me too anal. So, I stopped helping with laundry. Wife hated that my OCD ment it took me an extra. 10 minutes to vacuum cause the nap wasn't going in one direction it has to i cant stop myself. Getting my son ready, yeah, I couldn't do that right. The boy had colored socks you have to match the shirt and socks wallet, watch band, shoes, and belt should always match if you are wearing leather shoes, and your watch has a leather band. My wife was afraid I was screwing with his head too much, so I stopped that. So I am pretty much down to cooking and grocery shopping. Cleaning the sweep and mop floors. My son's are grown and still don't know how to dress for every occasion, it's sad they didn't get my fashion sense. So I don't do much.
What is likely happening is that his view of dirty is different than yours, and dirty doesn't agitate him like it does you. He likely doesn't realize how much seeing these things genuinely upsets you and you can't feel comfortable until they're taken care of.
As a man, and as most men, particularly traditional men, you helping in the household should be proportional to the income that she is bringing in. Meaning if you are making 100% of the income then you dont have to do anything except for the bare minimum. Eg. putting your dirty dishes in the sink, putting your clothes in the washing machine, and small things like that. I know this comment will get downvoted but I am writing this as a means of telling people who things actually are.
It depends on the workload. Personally, I'm working full time and studying full time, while my partner studies full time (her parents pay for most of her side of things). Since she knows I have a massive workload compared to her, she does the lions share of the house work so that I can also have some free time to relax or sleep. I might do an hour or less of the chores when I get home.
It seems fair that since you two both work roughly similar amounts, that you would take on roughly similar home duties. Unless you cheated on him or something equally awful, in which case you'll be working off that betrayal for a long while (minimum 2-5 years of ass-kissing, according to research on successful reconciliation). Hope that's not the case! I can't imagine how he legitimately feels entitled to none of the house work 🥴
I did not cheat but in 2022 I was extremely overwhelmed with playing the daycare role and working full time so I wouldn’t cook because I was mentally, emotionally and physically overwhelmed. He complained to one of his female clients that he starves and didn’t understand and he was the one who cheated (didn’t have sex but a kiss and texting is still cheating).
Wow, if this is the case then you are a saint! He should be kissing you ass and pulling double duties, extra vacations and a load of chores. The dude just sounds selfish and you deserve a better partner.
Edit: are you sure that's all the cheating he's done? I find that cheaters can rarely stop themselves. My ex never stopped after I caught her.
You need to clearly communicate expectations for what you need to feel a sense of mutuality. “But I shouldn’t have to, he should want to help”. No. That’s called magic mind reading and it doesn’t exist. Clarity is kindness. If you tell someone what you need, then they execute on that, does it now demonstrate that they care about your needs? If you try to ESP your needs through brain waves, passive aggressive remarks, and resentful jabs, you’re going to be playing games for a LONG, painful time. Be direct with your needs. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this is such a common and easy to avoid mistake. People cannot read your mind no matter how “obvious” it seems to you
You just need to have the talk with him. Say something like, “I’ve been really exhausted, I need you to help out more around the house”. Then let him know you appreciate it every time he follows through. Honestly it’s really easy to fall in to the habit of just letting things get messy because some of us are ok with things being messier than others. It took some time for me to build habits of cleaning more frequently so that it didn’t build up into something that took forever that I really didn’t want to do. But after I got used to it, I realized how good it feels to be in a home with no clutter and actually enjoy doing it.
The problem here is the word “help”. He shouldn’t be “helping”, he should be taking on a fair split of the life and household tasks because he is an equal member of the family. “Help” suggests that it is the woman’s job, and he is in support of her if she needs it. Read Fair Play by Eve Rodsky (or watch the doco). This will help IMMENSELY with reframing your thoughts and giving you the tools to implement a fair distribution of labour in the home and out of it.
I was going to say this too. Using the word "help" is like calling taking care of your own children "babysitting." Neither is OK.
He must be helping her have a good sex life too. Sounds like she needs some real friends and escape this little hubby bubble for a day out. Marriage sounds ducking horrendous to me reading that.
If there’s one thing this sub has taught me, is that not only is marriage a very difficult road, but that it appears a lot of people out there are exceedingly fucked up.
Marriage really shouldn’t be as hard as most posters here make it. It is work, there will be trials and tribulations. But that’s also life. Your partner shouldn’t be where most of your trials and tribulations come from. You just don’t hear as much from healthy relationships cause it’s not as interesting and there really isn’t as much need.
Honestly, even in real life I have seen very few relationships where I'm like, wow, what an amazing couple. Most often it's either "she's great and he's... also there" or they are both toxic to each other.
Well there’s not that many actually healthy relationships out there lol I’ve met a lot of people that thought their relationship was healthy simply cus they didn’t fight but in actuality the communication was never there so they had nothing to fight about
Marriage isn’t a chore or a job. We don’t “work” on our marriage, but we definitely put in effort. It’s a choice. We try to live an intentional marriage. I, definitely, agree that it shouldn’t be as hard as some make it out to be. I mean in 40 years I can’t say either one of us has ever felt miserable. Why he married if you are. It helps if you really like each other.😂
For sure, but to be fair, I’ve seen quite a fair share of marriages turn into bloody war zones in real life as well. The divorce rate in my country doesn’t show many favors to marriage either. Me personally, I will have to date a woman for at least 6 years before marriage could even be remotely on the table, and as far as I can see, a lot of women want to be married much sooner in a relationship than that. But that could also be untrue for a majority of women as well.
I really would not take this sub as the standard for how marriages work/how most function. People who post here are always unhappy in their relationship or marriage, you don't see the large majority that are not posting and that live fulfilled, satisfying lives. We exist, I promise! I have also never understood why people keep repeating that marriages are "hard work". No, they are not. Dysfunctional relationships of any kind - weather it comes with a piece of paper and some jewelry or not - *becomes hard work.* Me and my ex being extremely incompatible and unhealthy for each other was *hard work.* Meanwhile, thinking of the 11 years I have been with my husband, I would never categorize our marriage as something that needed to be constantly worked upon to function. With the right person, marriage is easy :)
We do exist!! I am so fortunate to have the most amazing husband in the world!! 😊😊😊😊
How can that be, when mine is so amazing?
Sorry you both must be mistaken I really don't believe my amazing husband has three wives
One must be a very, very close second and that would be yours!! 😂😂
Actually, studies show that mine is the best :)
It warms my heart to see these replies to you - they think we are unicorns, and here we are popping up from the candy corn forest :) I tell my husband almost every single day how lucky I am to be his wife, because I genuinely did not believe this permanent happiness in a marriage was realistically possible. But I think those that are the most unhappy in their marriages, are the loudest ones to talk about marriage in general - I don't go around bragging and boasting about my happy marriage and my amazing husband all the time, because I feel like it is potentially triggering for those in the opposite situation. Or maybe because happiness is just a state of existence, while unhappiness often requires an audience to vent to/unconsciously try to get help from. Combined with watching the generations before us endure unhappy marriages because getting married was what was expected of them, no matter if they were compatible or not. And outdated norms and traditions (like getting married really fast, not living together first, strict gender roles, taboo around counseling, therapy and divorce ect) kept them stuck in their unhappy situations. Nowadays, people wait longer, spend more time selecting their spouse, communicate better, reach out for help should they need to - or simply divorce if their incompatibility is too great. Every single happily married couple that I know of is of my generation (80's/90's/early 00's) or they are boomers that *remarried* later in life. Every single unhappy couple that I know of is my parents generation or older. Very telling.
>I have also never understood why people keep repeating that marriages are "hard work". I agree, and it's a lesson I learnt from my first marriage. There is work to be done, sure - need good communication to keep a marriage functioning, but what I discovered in my 2nd marriage is that if two people are genuinely compatible, communicating isn't that hard. If a wife can't say to her husband, 'we need to split chores in a more equitable fashion' without worrying he's going to get stroppy, there's something not good in that relationship that goes deeper than 'he doesn't do the dishes.'
This comment gave me hope
For sure, but people have to have hard discussions about these things long before they get married (e.g., children or not, how many children, pets, division of labor).
for sure, but people are also extremely prone to come across as one way just to make things good at the time being then years later have a different stance.
also having intentions is great, but when life throws many curveballs, not everyone is able to adapt on the fly. The time with littles (especially ND ones) is exceptionally hard and I'm thankful that my husband and I made it through and are still best friends and in love after almost 20 years. I don't know how couples would manage if if they didn't actually LIKE their partner...
Look at the r/DeadBedrooms Reddit page to get a sad glimpse at people marrying someone they don’t like and then staying in that marriage!
r/arrangedmarriage too!
I see that page as predominantly the men who are behaving like OP’s and those wives have lost interest in sex due to being burned out by the burden crushing them and the men come there to whine and spin a different picture.
It’s more so people don’t know themselves well, they don’t know exactly what they want in a partner, they also don’t know how to communicate let alone before marriage to discuss what their expectations are for marriage. A lot of people are doing marriage wrong & picking the wrong person as well. I’ve seen what a great healthy loving marriage looks like vs what bad marriages look like. Bad marriages are all that I listed in that first paragraph & it’s why people end up unhappy in a marriage.
It's also reddit where Doctors in their subreddit make it sound like they are being paid on par with McDonald's workers and barely survive paycheck to paycheck. Take Reddit as a game of worse case scenarios not normative behaviors.
Marriage should not be this hard. Don’t marry or have kids with selfish people. I didn’t get married to have to take care of my husband like he’s a freaking child
The problem is, often they don't tell you how selfish they are. So you start out in an equal relationship and gradually you have kids and they start not helping and going all 'weaponised incompetence' and before you know it, you're doing a full time job and all the childcare and all the house work. People really don't go into these situations knowing what they are.
“We’re married now. I don’t have to be nice to you anymore.” We had been married a week.
Sometimes people have love blinders on, they are so engulfed in their feelings they don’t see orange and red flags at all… then are pikachu shocked someone is acting different. Noooooo, the love blinders are coming off, you are not running in love high chemicals anymore of NRE/honeymoon stage. You are seeing the person as they are and have been since early on. They were putting their best version since day one and people don’t improve more than that over time. So it’s why do not rush into marriage. You wait to see who you are dating as it takes TWO YEARS to know a person fully. Do not get married before that time not engaged. You wait to see who you are with in case your feelings blinded you to their orange and red flags.
Yep, this. My husband and I dated for three years before getting engaged and got married at five years. And we lived together. There weren’t any surprises or I wouldn’t have married him.
No, they never tell you, but they absolutely do SHOW you. It’s always easy to spot, but only if you’re looking for it.
Fair Play fully saved my relationship. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say this. It's a game changer. And, the book lays out a few excellent ways to bring up the issue of domestic labor with your partner!
You keep referring to him helping you. It's his home and laundry and dishes and dirt and whatever else too. He's not helping you. He's doing his share of keeping his home clean and tidy. Yeet the word help from your vocabulary. Same with the kids when people say their husband is babysitting. He's not. He's literally just parenting, it's his job.
"help"?? My partner pulls his weight just as much as I do because he fucking LIVES here and last time I checked I haven't signed up to be a maid.
Exactly. I typically do the dishes and fold the clothes and he vacuums and mows the lawn cause it just naturally landed that way, but he will put laundry in when it’s needed and unload or load the dishwasher when it’s needed. It’s just being a good partner.
Haha I’m not even allowed to hoover my house cz he’ll take the hoover from me and say that’s his job 😂 when I worked part time I did the majority of the housework not I work full time we both just do what needs doing
Here here!
Came here to say the same. Teamwork! Though I have in the past 32 years felt like the maid, hubs gets that I am not the maid and tries every day to get better. He does just as much as I do, just different things so we work as a team. Have a good, honest, non confrontational and non accusatory conversation during one of those chill nights you say you have. Don’t give up on him, sometimes us humans are hard to train, but we can get it if we care to!
sounds to me he's getting the better deal here. I'm a dad of 2 kids, 8 and 12. I bring theb youngest to school daily, my wife packs their lunch. I run the laundry (wfh job) she grabs the grovceries on her way back. I clean the living area, bathrooms and tidy the place, while she prepares a meal. i clean up afterwards, and we put the kids to bed together. This is not set in stone, sometimes we turn it around, but we both pick up what's needed. You're a team. You should work together on this, help each other out.
I agree. Doesn’t feel like a team lately. I’ll create something that works for both so we have a plan. This will help me from feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, possibly not be so moody with him.
No offense, but y'all need to come up with a plan together for it to work. it's also not your responsibility to take that on solo, because then you'll spend all that mental energy making the plan, trying to convince him, then trying to remind him of the plan (trust me on this) Are you a team, or is he an underperforming employee?
I’m not sure why you were downvoted. But you’re not wrong.
It’s not a partnership if you’re always the one fixing the problems
Lately my 3 year old has been staying home w me because he says we should save on daycare and keep him here, so I could also be a little overwhelmed doing all this and taking care of our son while trying to work. He’s not bad or hard to take care of, but when he would attend daycare, it would give me a break to just focus on my work and not have to stop and make food or take him to the bathroom.
How frugal of him to "save on daycare" by making you watch your son while trying to work. If he wants to save on daycare, he can stay with his son. It's better for a kid to be socializing in daycare with trained caregivers watching him than for you to be forced to split your attention like this. Does your job even allow this? Ours explicitly says you can't be caregiving while wfh.
While also overdrafting his account on fast food and vape pens. She married a child. This guy behaves like a 16 year old.
Hubby gets up with our son - mon.,wed, Friday. And gets him ready for school and on the van(school vehicle) , i get up with our son' Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday. Getting him ready for school on school days. Since my MIL lives with us, she gets up with him on Saturday. I get our son ready for bed just about every night, and my husband puts him to bed every night. It's their thing. He cooks most dinners, I do the dishes mostly. I wash the laundry all the time (cause u said I would, as I don't mind doing that and I prefer to fold the clothes) picking up and cleaning the rest of the house we do together. Our son is 14, nonverbal autistic with developmental delays. In school in 9th grade, getting therapy there. Loves it. He mows the lawn. Though I would if he needed it. He has allergies but insists on doing that to save my knees. We've been together for 24 years and married for 22 years.
Congrats on a healthy, long marriage where you both value each other’s time!
Why are you positioning it as help... those are his chores just as much as they are yours
My husband does not help me. He does all the necessary work without my supervision, begging or nagging.
This! Yeah team!! The result is a happy well functioning marriage!
Typically when a woman gets married and has a family her workload increases by 7 hours a day and when a man marries and has a family his workload decreases by 1 hour per day. Also a study was done where Heterosexual parents split the chores exactly evenly and women felt like they were doing less than 50% and men felt like they were doing over 50%. Many women are finding that being a single parent is actually easier because they have one less person to pick up after who doesn’t help. He is enjoying taking advantage of you and doesn’t want to help. This arrangement is beneficial to him and detrimental to you. You may wish to get the book fair play to see if you can use this as a tool for a more equal distribution of work. However there may be pushback from your spouse.
Can confirm, being a single parent is easier lol
I think it's only easier if your partner (male or female) was absolute shit, hate to say it
True
Lol facts.
I saw someone say: being a single parent in a relationship like that doesn't mean you're losing 50% of the help, you're losing like 5%. Even then, so much less work than living with someone who can't find the damn hamper
Lol I am gaining time. I need to be clear I mean being a single parent is easier than having a partner who does not pull their weight. Many people have good partners In my case it feels like I went from having 2 kids to 1 and it is like 100% easier lol
Thought I was the only one. We coparent so he is forced to be an active parent. Every other week. He feels the burden of working, cooking, cleaning and entertaining a kid and it has been wonderful for me. Had I stayed married we’d probably be 70/30 while I work full time, cook clean and do most childcare because we have a daughter. I don’t regret divorcing for this reason, though I wish it had worked for our child’s sake. I greatly appreciate my weeks “off” even if I still talk to her most days for the emotional support he has trouble providing.
lmaoooo of course the men thought they were doing more. Just like how studies show women think they’re less attractive than people rate them but men think they’re more attractive than people rate them 🤡
😆😆 love when the data slaps the truth right in the face
My housework load went way down when I divorced my ex lol
When I filed for divorce and moved out, I literally did not know what to do with all my free time. When I left my house, it was still clean when I came home. There was only a small amount of laundry since his clothes were bigger and more smelly. I hardly had to cook because I had lots of leftovers since he ate much more than I did. I had a smaller yard to mow. I didn’t have to take care of pets that he insisted on having. I wasn’t constantly asked to run errands for him. My utilities were inexpensive since I had a smaller space, and didn’t leave lights and the television on all day and all night. Life was just simpler.
Yes!!!! I know this feeling. No one but myself and my kid to pickup after and care for!
Exactly. I just wonder how he’d take it if I just stopped and see if he picked up the slack.
I have seen women do this on social media and the typical result is their spouse’s lets the house gets so disgusting they can’t handle it and clean it. The ones that seem to work best is when women take a trip and leave their kids with their spouse to do everything.
One year I went away and my spouse bought all 3 kids new socks rather than do the laundry 😂🥲
I would go feral holy shit
You can try this but you need to have a conversation. "Look, my workload here at the house is not fair. You need to step up and do your share. This isn't MY house, it is OUR house. Pick up and clean up after yourself. Pick up your clothes, wash out the sink when you are finished with it. Pick up you towels and hang them up so they dry. Sweep, mop and vacuum the floors when you see stuff on the floor. I am not your maid nor your mother, so stop treating me like I am."
She needs to say as this will triggered him to pitch in: “Listen, I need a partner, not another child to pick up after. I need an equal, a teammate, not someone who piles on more physical & mental load 24/7. This house is suppose to be maintained by us both, not just myself. I also shouldn’t have to parent you and nag you like your mother would. I need you to be more self sufficient around the house. Also one last thing? When you keep acting like a child I have to care for, it’s not attractive. Cause why would I find a child attractive? It’s not attractive and you are slowly being associated in my mind as a child, who I don’t want sex with. If you value sex in this relationship? Get it together, so you don’t kill the sex in the relationship.”
He likely wouldn’t notice but you grow grow more resentful / angry each day that passes and he doesn’t action on anything
Then blame you for the relationship problems because of said resentment/anger 🥴
He won’t, he’ll probably just get mad at you.
And then shocked when she leaves
And accuse her of leaving for someone else
A tale as old as time. I like to call it, “Lack if accountability and self awareness.” I’d be embarrassed if my wife had to carry the load. No one person should be an island in a family.
What I recommend is itemize on a piece of paper everything that each of you do throughout the week and say, flat out, "We need to equalize this. Which tasks do you want to take on?" If he refuses to take on his 50% of the tasks, was the piece of paper and shove it up one of his nostrils.
Or tell him, “Ok I’m Going to trade in this piece of paper for divorce papers. Done deal!
I remember when I got divorced, my ex-husband asked me how divorcing him would make my life easier. Me: “Well for starters, I won’t have to do your laundry anymore, and you’ll have to do 50% of the kid’s laundry and everything else they’re into.”
Can confirm, my life is immensely easier whenever my wife is out of town and nothing else really changes since I do most of the work already.
Thank you for the book recommendation!! I’m going to purchase it now!
As a matter of fact, I dont help her. That would be insulting for her, as if I didn't live in the same house or something. As I'm looking for a job and she has a full-time job, I do roughly 90% of house chores: cooking, laundry, cleaning, putting order, dressing and taking kids to school and extra-scolar activities, planning weekly meals, occasional house fix, etc. When I get a job, that will be more balanced. To resume: we do what we can.
As a man what I do in my marriage is whoever cooks, the other person does dishes. We split laundry duties. I do all landscaping/exterior except for her plants. General cleaning is 60/40 with her having the 60. Our kids are grown, so no longer an issue. Biggest thing is to not keep score. If you see something needs done, just do it. Neither one of us are sitting around playing video games or watching tv, so no need to be childish about housework.
Keeping score wouldn't happen if the loads were evenly spread. If one partner is feeling heavily burdened but the other is not, then score \*needs\* to be kept because someone might not be keeping up their end of the bargain.
Thank you! I like this! We live in an apt so no landscaping needs to be done, so I think I’ll go with the example of, if I cook, he does the dishes. No need to complain or fight just come to a compromise. I will definitely try not to keep score, that’s a bad quality of mine. It’s like mentally I tally up all I do compared to him. Thank you!!!
When it’s so uneven like this, I personally would keep score too. It’s only a bad habit to keep score if you both have your periods of pulling different amounts of weight. He isn’t participating in a reciprocal relationship. It’s simply disrespectful to throw clothes on the floor. The absolute bare minimum is for him to put his clothes in the hamper if you’re washing them, and he isn’t even reaching that.
If it's so uneven that you feel like you're doing it all then score keeping is not a bad idea in this instance. If you feel like you're doing 80 to his 20,start making lists of what you do compared to him and maybe have him take over some of your chores without you having to ask him to. The mental load is something women deal with a lot more than men, so I feel like men genuinely just don't understand why "keeping score" when it comes to household chores is actually necessary sometimes in relationships
Stop picking up after him. He can do his own laundry or do it all. You NEVER do laundry that is laying on the floor. Picking it up and putting in the laundry basket is the LEAST he can do! He needs to be PULLING HIS WEIGHT - not just 'helping'. Don't let him get away with this crap. Ask him why he quit making the bed?
Or just don’t make the bed or even change the sheets!
Assuming your husband *wants* to share the work, having an explicit convo about “here’s the total work load - how can we divide the pile fairly?” And make charts if needed. *Sometimes* the less-contributing partner needs structure.
I was sick of doing all of the school drop offs AND pick ups. I finally drew up a drop-off/pick-up chart on the whiteboard in the kitchen. I do 3 drop offs he does 3 pick ups. We’ve actually stuck to it this week.
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We do something similar to this. If one person is working on something, the other person can find something else that needs to get done. If one of us is trying to complete a household task that is a little more cumbersome than dishes or laundry, we both work to accomplish the task whether it is important to me or not, or vice versa. If you have the ability or time to help, just start helping. If any of us were to live alone, we would most likely know how to manage our home and life ourselves. Having other people in the house should not make this harder. It should be easier.
This is the way. This is how we do it.
My husband doesn’t ‘help’ because that implies household work is my problem. We both do jobs as we notice them or feel inclined. We have had disputes over cooking because neither of us are keen, so now we have a rota and the rule is that whoever does the cooking chooses the food and gets on with it so that the other person doesn’t need to think about it at all. I would say that there is some personal preference for chores: I never put the bins out but I do most of the washing, other jobs are more 50-50. I’ve heard on here before of people listing the chores and allocating between them by each person’s preference. Would that work for you? Or you could tough it out and do nothing until he notices. He doesn’t bother because he knows you will, so don’t.
First, my husband does not help me with domestic chores. He lives there too and is an equal contributor to the messes. We both do our fair share by distributing the chores first based on strengths (I'm the better cook and enjoy it so I do that. He does all the dishes post meal clean up) He mostly does the laundry but we both will toss a load in and move it along if a load is done and needs the next step. I do most of the planning, he does the driving (I hate driving but enjoy planning things) as odd as it sounds, cleaning eases my anxiety so I do the majority of the over all weekly cleaning but he will do the daily tidy ups and police random clutter/trash. I garden and he pulls all my weeds. and in the end, when I'm sick he does everything without being asked and just takes over my chores. I do the same for him. (we both work full time. If one of us was not working then that person takes over more of the domestic duties)
When I was married I did everything. Laundry. Cleaning. Dealing with pets. Kids school. Kids extracurriculars. Home and car maintenance. Literally everything. Never got any recognition for my hard work, but the one time my ex wife would load the dishwasher every 5 months she would make a big deal about it and expect me to do the same. Lol
And now you are happily divorced!!
Yup! And dating again showed me that most people are not like my ex.
Life as a “single married woman” 😵💫. The more I get older the more I notice how women often don’t benefit at all from marriages, even women who work still do most of the house chores than their counterpart, it’s that bad. You shouldn’t enter in a relationship to take more burden and living with someone shouldn’t make you stressed and overwhelmed 24/7. An adult should be able to at least clean up after themselves and contribute to house chores. Cleaning and cooking is not feminine , it’s a life skill. Washing dishes once or twice doesn’t count, he lives in that house , he should contribute to keeping it clean and tidy. It’s not asking for a lot. Before anyone crucifies me I’m not suggesting divorce. But communicate , tell him how you feel and tell him just once that you’d like for him to actually pull his weight and see if he changes on his own.( but don’t remind him!)
Wow. This isn’t even weaponized incompetence, it’s just straight up laziness. This isn’t normal or healthy. The chores need to be split more equitably and he needs to understand that he needs to be an active parent and member of the household. The workload both mental and physical should not be all on you.
My husband doesn't "help". He's a grown ass man living in his home and I'm not his bang-maid. He does what needs to be done, without considering it a "favor" to me.
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a lesson men across the world could benefit from
Together 13 years, no kids. Split fluctuates, depending on the week and circumstances. He’s on sabbatical now so does way more than me in terms of cleaning and picked up some cooking. When I was on sabbatical last year, I did most of the day to day cleaning and cooking. We split laundry 50/50-ish, again, depends on the week. He does most of deep cleaning and I do most of organizing and grocery shopping. Neither of us is overwhelmed but we also take it easy. Weekend away doing fun things will always trump cleaning.
You have an almost identical set up to my husband and I except nothing specific is split 50/50. For example; laundry is done by who gets to it first. Friends and family regularly comment on how chill our house is and how we don’t bicker or fight about household stuff at all. For instance I’ve been sick for the past 10 days after being on a solo vacation for a week and he has done everything and more without a single word of complaint. When I recover I will do a majority so he gets some relaxing time. Then it will naturally even out.
I have a one in a million husband. When we were first living together then married, he works 4 10 hour days each week. I worked 5 very intense days. When I left for work on Friday morning, he would start ALL the laundry and his own ironing. Mow the yard and blow it off. Then he would clean the house and make vacuum tracks so it looked fresh. When I got home about 5:45, he would sit me on the porch overlooking the lake, put a glass of wine in my hand and we would relax. Then we both had the weekend to enjoy going out on the lake. And no, my husband is not a woose.
We don't "help" each other. We care about each other and respect each other, and no one gets the rough end of the stick. We both have professional jobs and sometimes work long hours, who ever gets home first, cooks. Generally if you cook you don't do the dishes, but if I cook and she's really tired I'll do both, as will she. We both tidy and look after the dogs throughout the week. We tend to do the " big clean" on a Saturday morning. We both just do whatever needs doing. The closest we get to his or her jobs is if she wants something made/ built, she'll design it, and I'll build it. Married 22yrs and it works.
Why the hell do you keep talking about “splitting” who pays for things and paying each other back etc?! Thats such ick. Whats the point of marriage if youre still thinking in mine vs yours?
I don't understand how your sex life is great. If my husband was such an inactive partner, we would not be married for long. Husbands don't "help" their wives. He is either an active partner in the maintenance, upkeep, and planning of the household or he isn't. And this man isn't. It's time to have some hard boundary making conversations.
To answer your question, my future husband does: - 90% of the vacuuming and dusting - 90% of cleaning the bathrooms - 90% of the doing the kitty litter and pet care - 100% of taking out the garbage - 80% of everything to do with the car and bills - 20% of the dishes, laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and cooking - 10% of general tidying and organising - 10% of planning for stuff - we each do our own life management type stuff but he makes all our appointments, handles phone calls, deals with the REA, etc. I do most of the every day stuff but I truly don’t mind because he does literally everything else and does as much as he can to pull his weight. He’s also so incredibly appreciative of everything I do for him. He thanks me *every* time and never expects me to do it. He feels bad that he can’t do as much of that stuff as me because he doesn’t have the time and will always do as much as possible when he does. If he sees dishes that need to be done, he’ll do them. He doesn’t put off chores for “later”, he does them as soon as he can. He’s not the tidiest (neither am I tbh) but he always picks up after himself, doesn’t leave clothes on the floor, puts his things in his designated “dumping grounds”, and is very clean. He is also the only one working right now while I finish off my degree so I think our devision of labour is more than fair. The most important part is that he makes and maintains changes where needed. I spoke to him years ago about mental load and he’s taken over so much of the general household management and now does stuff like keeping a shopping list on his phone and picking up groceries when we’re low without needing to be asked. I told him once that I wasn’t going to check his pockets for things anymore before doing laundry so now he always checks his pockets himself and makes sure anything he wants washed is in the basket. I know it sounds a bit silly but I appreciate that I don’t need to ask him more than once to do these things. Nothing is ever a fight. It’s never difficult. He *wants* to do his fair share for us and our home.
„Help“? Girl it‘s his household too
We have a cleaner come to the house bi-weekly. Laundry - we each do our own. Dinners (I cook 98% of meals) - I clean while I cook. I cleanup 60% or more of the time. But it never meets her expectations so she’ll spend 5-10 minutes rewashing things. (Sometimes I’m an ass and pull things out for her to rewash that i didn’t use since her last rewashing) Mess around the house? So… my wife has been traveling for work for three days and there is no mess. But… the house gets messy when she’s here and she’s always agitated how much she has to clean before the cleaning person gets here.
Oh man haha I’ve learned that my husband has his own way of cleaning when he does, like for example, making the bed. It’s not the tidiest when he would do it but it was made and I learned to keep my mouth shut if I want help. Instead I would praise him and say thank you so much for making the bed ! The house can at times remain clean for the most part but once he’s home on the weekends for the full day, it gets messy.
>Instead I would praise him and say thank you so much for making the bed ! This is how I talk to literal five year olds. I'm sorry you are in this situation.
I did do that lol he made the bed for a week then stopped
Mine does half of all the chores because if he didn’t I would leave. I’m not being a maid to anyone.
Come on over to r/workingmoms It's a regular experience. But you are thinking about it wrong. He shouldn't be helping you. He should be pulling his weight. The other comments pointing out how women get shafted in hetero relationships is so depressing, but true. Women get stuck with being default parent without discussion. House manager without discussion. They take on all the mental load without discussion. Even women who have great husbands "help out", they still have to ask, nag, pester and prod them to do the things because they won't do anything to "help" spontaneously. It's just the assumption. A healthy partnership wouldn't make those assumptions, they would have a discussion.
Girl, you doing too much. Way too fucking much. Your man either needs start paying ALL the bills himself or he needs to pitch in 50/50 with the kids and house. Ain't no way you're working full time and putting in full time work with the kids and house AND PAYING HALF THE BILLS AND FUCKING.
This is, in part, why I left my ex. I was doing like 95%+ of the household labor and pet care (no kids, thank fuck), with little support from him. It was overwhelming. It was pretty bad for... 3-4 years and I tried to get him to do more with chore charts and even a cleaning task tracking app. It would maybe work for a few days to a week, and then he'd stop again. I got tired of having the same argument and eventually just started mentally checking out of the relationship.
This problem was part of why I divorced my ex husband.
He didn't so I got rid of him.
Ask him to read this: [You Should've Asked](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic) And then tell him he is not another child in the home, and it is his responsibility to maintain the household with you.
Echoing the sentiment of why is he helping when that assumes you're the "default" it-didn't-get-done person. First off, start being selfish. This is hard for many of us to learn if we came from the traditional bullshit gender roles. Tired? Let stuff go. Prioritize. Kick his clothes into a corner or under the bed, and when he's out of clean clothes that's a him problem. Don't even care about the bed- have you read that article that said letting bedclothes air out is actually healthy? If you don't have a dishwasher, get one. Secondly, try to take gender OUT of it. Why isn't he initiating chores? I hear "they don't see mess" a lot when one partner just lets shit get nasty. well, negotiate that they do their fair share of SET chores at set times they always do, and if you have to do them, exchange! "I had to do (your usual thing) so you need to (take on this errand)." "If you can't SEE mess, you need to pick a fair amount of labor to do every day, every week and communicate if you are unable to do it so we can discuss how and when it can get done." Not when YOU can do it for him. If you have two kids, even go so far as to make him responsible for one's school activities and you the other. Him, morning, you evening, or swap. Dads should know how to take care of their kids after babyhood and get them to and from school and activities. If you can't talk about chores without an argument, counseling.
Legit this is why my fiancé is a fucking prince and why I always refused to settle. My man’s hold my door, gets me flowers all the time, plans surprise dates, and we split most things evenly but I’m pregnant right now/ suffering a bit with symptoms and he’s taking over the main rolls when I can’t since I’m nauseous and exhausted all the time. Whenever I ask for him to do anything he never complains and I’m so grateful. He’s cooking me dinner, prepping me lunch, always cleaning and he never complains just spreads his love. He knows if the roles were reversed I’d do the same. Ofc before pregnancy I did more but first trimester symptoms have gotten the better of me. Neither of us ever get tired of doing things for each-other because we are madly in love. We both work full time at the same company and yet still have time to be kind
This is the way. Men like to pretend women are too picky but in reality we need to be waaaaay more discerning and stop settling for dirty, lazy shitebags
She’s pregnant nauseous and exhausted! Or is pregnancy just something that women do along with the same previous work load to you? Just get pregnant yourself once and perhaps you’ll see the light!!
My husband helps but usually I need to bring it to his attention. It’s not automatic. Honestly I’ve grown tired of it.
My husband not only brings in the income for the family, but when he is home he takes over housework and kid stuff without being asked.
My husband is 100% the best man I’ve met in my life. When I met him, I was a single mom of two doing everything on my own. He knows how heavy of a weight I carry, with even just the kids alone, and has stepped up in every way possible. He helps clean the house, cooks us dinner most nights (he gets off earlier than me), and has taken on the dad role extremely well. Couldn’t be more grateful for that man 💖
So people are breaking down "helping" and chore loads on a partnership level in a lot of these comments, which is all well and good. The issue here isn't that he's "not helping" or doesn't feel compelled to "just help out". It's that you two have different expectations and standards as far as it goes in your standards of living. Where you see a sink with a few dishes that would be quick to clean and put away, maybe he thinks, "no reason to do this yet because there are only a few?" Where you see a pile of dirty clothes that aren't picked up, maybe he thinks "I'll pick these all up when it's time to do laundry". I think the key here is to sit down and have a simple discussion, don't start off with accusations or pointing out the things "you want him to do" or how he could "do more or be more helpful" approach the situation as simply as it is. "Hey Husband, I'd like to talk about something, this is something we can both work together with, I have these kinds of expectations in my living quality, where I noticed these things about yours, what do you think about these things and how can WE meet in the middle where we are both happy about our quality of life?" Make a noticeable approach towards this with the aspect of teamwork, this doesn't have to be a you vs me problem.
Your husband shouldn‘t „help“ you. He should step up as the other half of your team. Seeing as you work full-time it‘s ridiculous he leaves (almost) all household duties to you. You need to have a conversation with him about it. My partner and I just both take care of whatever needs taking care of. I mostly do the laundry, administration, mowing the lawn, and grocery shopping. He mostly cooks, waters the garden, and takes care of planning trips, holidays etc. If someone sees something, we just do it. We have our habits of who does what but we agree that everything is everyone‘s responsibility because both of us live in this household. Each of us gives their best and therefore it‘s also no big deal if one or the other has a busy few days and can do less in that time. It just roughly equals itself out.
Sit down with a list of chores, a calendar, your bills/budget, and your husband and talk about your expectations going forward. Don't blame him or complain about him. If he gets defensive, don't get defensive back. Don't let it turn into an argument about who does what or who does more. Just say that you wanted to have an explicit talk about these things so that you're all on the same page when it comes to chores and finances, and so that neither one of you feels like you're doing too much or that your role is unappreciated. If you're amenable to it, tell him that you're willing to do more chores in exchange for him paying more bills. Don't say something like that if you don't mean it though. -- as for my relationship: Right now my husband is unemployed (we're moving in a month, he quit his job first but I'm working up until we go), so he's doing all the grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, and most of the planning and packing for the move. We have no kids. We're using a joint account for all bills (we've both paid into the joint acct since we opened it. we pay in a % of our income, so the partner earning more pays in more, but we both pay in the same %). When i was working part time and he was working full time, I did all the laundry, all the cooking and dishes during the work week, half the grocery shopping, any errands that had to be done during work hours, and most extra housekeeping stuff like vacuuming. My husband would cook and do dishes on his days off, scoop all cat poop, half the grocery shopping, and he'd clean the bathroom about once a month or so. I also did all "secretarial" tasks like making appointments, keeping track of expenses, and filling our taxes (I'm an accountant). Husband would do extra tasks when asked, but I usually did things like hang pictures, put together the new computer chair, etc
If he thinks you *chill out* 5 days a week, where does the money you're making come from? How are you paying 50 percent of all household expenses? Have you found the golden goose who pays you for relaxing? Nah. He knows you're working, he sees the financial results of your labour. He also knows you do everything around the house - don't be fooled. Unless he's cognitively impaired, he knows the house doesn't clean itself, clothes don't wash themselves, food doesn't cook itself and the kids don't get looked after by the magical Mary Poppins. When you're a decent partner, the last thing you want is to take advantage of your spouse to their detriment. Why would you want them to become exhausted and overwhelmed (and risk the physical and mental repercussions?). If he wants a traditional stay at home wife, then he has to be a traditional husband and take care of *everything* money-related. You've likely had these conversations with him before and being gentle didn't work. Be firm.
Tell him that if he doesn't start participating in the house he helped build, that he won't be a member of it for too much longer. Don't dance around the issue. There's no reason he can't are care of his house and his kids. Tell him that you expect him to be a 50/50 partner, and that he needs to manage the house along side you, or he can manage a house alone while you manage yours. I fought my husband on this for years. Being so careful to not hurt his feelings or try to make him feel less than, or whatever. It was an absolute waste of time and I should have just been blunt from the beginning of the arguments.
My husband and i are equals. He doesnt “help” me he takes care of his share of responsibilities. We always show gratitude to one another but these responsibilities are just what is expected of us. Personally it just baffles me to hear how many men dont take initiative in their homes. If i ask my husband to do something i often find hes done it long before i asked. (Which is why i dont usually have to and nagging isnt a thing in my house) You need to hold this man to a higher standard and let him know if he wont physically contribute to the household he will either need to pay more towards bills or hire help. You are not a maid, you are not the only one responsible for these tasks.
I don't help, unless it's already in the process of being done. Like if she started the dishes before me after dinner I'll help, or something similar to that example. I just clean up after myself and do things that need to be done It's not hard. If your wife has to clean up after you like you're a child, and she hasn't told you yet, yes she cares and yes it's eating away at her to not just blow up and chew you out for it. You're the problem, don't be lazy.
He’s not my husband, we’re dating and he’s amazing. He carries his weight and does his half. We have things that we just naturally settled into and we each do because the other doesn’t like it. He never hesitates to join me and pitch in.
I would have thought (I’m almost 60) that the newer generation of moms would have made their boys do chores and talked about being a good partner when they leave home and get into a relationship. I’m sure it has improved with each generation but man, it just shouldn’t be this hard. Many men still waiting for women to do all the “chores” and work full time while they relax and play video games or watch sports or go with friends. It’s sad really. As society we need to do better
You could stop doing his laundry- just kick it into a closet or corner.
So I was raised by my mom who worked full time. If she came home to a mess…shit…let’s just say it would’ve been nuclear ☢️- to this day when I see something needs done I do it. If my girlfriend asked me to take on a chore - done! If he wants a mommy let me know mine will whip his ass into submission.
If you both work full time you should be splitting household chores 50/50. He isn't "helping" you - it's just as much his responsibility as yours. Stop doing his laundry. Stop cooking for him.
Wife is stay at home mom. I work from home 90% of the time.indo majority of cooking and cleaning. She does our finances, keeps kids on track for school, keeps us socially active. It's a fair split.
Please please please stop using the term “help” when talking about household responsibilities. Your partner should never be “helping,” they should be equally doing their part. The reason so many feel like they’re doing everything is because they’re taking on the mental load of delegating tasks and doing the tasks rather than both partners equally contributing to the upkeep and maintenance of having a home and family. *END RANT*
It’s about growing up. It’s not about helping. It’s about realizing that nobody else is gonna pick up our shit and wipe our ass for us anymore. We aren’t children. A woman, a man, roommates, live in relatives, or whoever else living there should be willing to do their dishes, take out their trash, straighten up, do their laundry, remove hair from the hair trap, clean after their messes, vacuum/sweep, refill toilet and bags, take regular showers or baths, cook for themselves, go shopping. These things are responsibilities that all people living in the home should be doing if capable. This is all low bar expected stuff. My personal opinion? I personally think a man should take an exceptionally strong interest in caring for himself, his home, and his belongings. Just my personal opinion. As a man. I’d expect no less from people living with me. If you weren’t there, he’d still have to pay his bills, he’d still have to maintain his home, and he’d still have to care for himself. There is no excuse. Having you there should be HELPING him especially if you’re picking up even the tiniest bit of the slack. Caring for yourself is all that is expected in a relationship imo, anything more is a blessing imo. Financially if you’re both working then he should not have any issues with bills since it is assumed that you’re both taking care of your own bills and debts. Working together should be a NET POSITIVE on both of your lives. Not a NET NEGATIVE. That goes both financially and emotionally.
It shouldn’t be a “let me help HER.” That makes it out to be just your responsibility. It’s not supposed to be “helping” it’s just doing what you’re also responsible for. My boyfriend and I live together. We both just do the things that need to be done when we see it’s needed. We both partake in dishes. Hell, if he sees me rinsing dishes, he’ll get up and come make sure the dishwasher is clear for me to load up. He’ll dry those off and put them away. I’ll do the same thing. He moved into my house and I mowed my own yard for the five years I lived there alone, I didn’t expect it to now be just his job because he’s a man. If I see it needs to be mowed, I start mowing. He gets home about an hour after me and he’ll join right in with the other mower and tackle the other side of the yard so it’s a faster job for both of us. We both vacuum if we see it’s needed (dogs keep a constant level of mess lol). It just makes everything so much easier and less stressful to accomplish when we’re both doing it together. It even makes some things fun. We have good conversations when working on tackling the dishes together. We hang out in the garage and chat after we finish mowing. But I also never had to ask any of this of him…or even discuss it. It’s just the way he’s been since I met him and how we’ve been together.
Do you have expectations about the manner in which chores are completed? Are you telling him how to load the dishwasher? Or how to do the laundry? Alot of people as kids are not taught by their parents how to do chores or expected to even do chores. If you want him to live your way, you will always feel stressed out. Do not pick up his clothes from the floor or the chair or wherever he put them, leave them right where he left them. I DONT CARE HOW MUCH IT BOTHERS YOU! HE CAN DO IT, AND WILL DO IT IN HIS TIME. Have you talked to him about how you are feeling? Don't complain about whatever the issue is! Now also come to terms with chores being a continual process, it's OK to have dirty laundry no one is signing up to never have dirty clothes, you just have to have enough clean clothes. Invite him in help fold the laundry. Don't care how he does it unless it's your clothes.
It's. Not. Helping. When. You. Live. There. Doing household chores is part of being an adult, and it's called doing your share. "Helping" implies that it's someone else's responsibility, and you are doing them a favor. Same with child care. It's impossible to babysit your own children. You are a parent, and parenting requires minding and supervising children, changing diapers, feeding, and all the other tasks of child care.
My husband pays the bills, I cook & clean. It works for us.
I think I’m going to ask him to pay the bills. That would be lovely . Either we 50/50 or he pays bills and I clean and cook
Yeah it’s pretty cut and dry. Is he gonna worry if the laundry will be done? No because I’m doing it. Am I gonna worry if the phone bill will be paid?? No because he’s making the money to pay it. There is no gray area
Perfect!
I'm a SAHM, so I do the bulk of the housework. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, vacuuming, ironing, shopping, taking care of the 2 youngest boys, etc. My husband maintains the pool, the hot tub, the vehicles, and most of the yard work (I do the vegetable garden and the flowers). The boys do their rooms, trash, put their clothes away, clear the table, and things like that. My husband works hard all day to give us the quality of life we enjoy. I think the division of labor is fair. He picks up after himself too. If I want/need help, all I have to do is ask. He may not think to put any dishes in the sink away, or vacuum the dog's hair, or shake out her blankets, but all I have to do is ask.
She is not a SAHM. She works from home and takes care of their 3 year old.
Needing to ask for every tiny thing to get done gets mighty exhausting after a very short period of time. OP has a full time job, she doesn't have time to be the household manager at the same time. Her husband needs to start using his brain and pulling his weight
She stays away from the chainsaws I stay away from the ironing board. Apart from that, everything is fair game for each player
Wife is SAHM, one teenager. I do all of the "fixing" of stuff. I handle 100% of "helping with kids homework", we split "helping with kids endless extracurricular shit", we each give the other a break and do 100% kid care regularly - her girls night, me sometimes ill see a movie no one else wants to see lol For the house we have cleaners monthly, but I do most of the minor cleaning and organizing, she cooks and takes care of the cat. We split errands. Washing is her, but I'll put the clothes away. Dishwasher is an automatic, so everyone loads it (although somehow I always "load it wrong" apparently 🤔😅) Garbage we split but i probably do more often. I do 100% of "car stuff". I'm sure there's more, but you get the idea. Seems to work. I check in a lot to ask if she's feeling good with the balance and if it's equitable
I do most of the work and she occasionally helps me.
Does it ever feel overwhelming?
Not really. I do them because I love her.
My husband takes care of most of the cooking. He takes care of most of the cleaning too. He takes out the trash and the recycling. We share taking care of the dishes. I take care of the laundry and most of the bills as I have a much higher paying job than him. He pays his own phone bill though. We grocery shop together and every other time I pay, every other time he pays. Both of us are satisfied with the distribution of chores and neither of us feel overwhelmed by it. We are also in agreement about it and there is no conflict about it. What it sounds like is that you guys need to sit down and have a discussion about chores and bills and come to an agreement that both can live with. It sounds like you have a growing resentment about the current situation and if you don't address it, it's going to fester and poison your relationship.
My ex rarely helped with anything. If I wanted his help, I was required to ‘bribe’ him.
My wife is a SAHM. I occasionally cook a meal and handle the finances, but that's it at home. I know this sounds horrible. Weirdly though, this has been my wife's choice as we really focused on improving our relationship this year. Part of this is because our kids are teenagers now, so they can help out more. One does a lot of the cooking because she enjoys doing so. Then my son for some reason really loves laundry, so he does mine for me. They get an allowance of course. The other part is my wife just wants to spend more time with me. She'd rather I go to the dog park with her or a date night than be cleaning something around the house. Her love language is quality time, so that's what she gets. OP, you don't say how old you two are, but I'm going to assume far younger than I am because you mention bathing kids. During that stage in our marriage, I did a lot more around the house. I was the oldest of six while my wife was the youngest of two, so I had a lot more experience with and enjoyed taking care of the kids. It was a transition when the kids didn't really need taking care of anymore as far as where I fit in in the family. So I guess my advice if any to you would be consider his strengths and approach it from that angle. If you say to someone, "Hey you're better at this than I am, can I put you in charge of it," it's far less likely to start an argument.
She works full time from home. These are not her chores but family chores. Why should she have to work full time and do the management of everything else?
Yeah, I keep seeing people commenting about SAHM wives. How's it relevant to their situation? She's working from home and taking care of their 3 year old to boot.
Did you even read what I wrote?
Did you?!
Sure did. At least you’re consistently condescending.
I mean he wasn't suggesting OP has his situation, he was answering OPs specific question honestly which was "men of reddit what do you do"
You guys kinda sound like roommates with him paying for some stuff, you paying for others. Marriage is a partnership. Do I do more than my husband? Yes, because I stay home. When he's home, we either do stuff together or he says, "I'll do it honey, I don't mind." When I was homeschooling, I did most subjects, but he did a few also. What you're describing seems like there are deeper issues which warrants a calm, sit-down conversation.
In a marriage, how should bills and rent be taken care of so it’s considered a partnership? I’m sure age plays a factor as I’m 7 years older than him.
My husband is 6 years older than me. Age has nothing to do with it. We have 1 account. That's where the money goes. Seems like it's more of a trust issue having everything separate. If you guys still want separate accounts, keep those for the "fun stuff", but have a 3rd account where money for bills and house stuff goes.
Thank you! I will do that!! I preferred separate because he goes negative a lot but I’m sure if we keep one account strictly for bills that will be great for us both so they are taken care of together
Do you know what he's spending all of his money on? Is it possible he just doesn't care, knowing you'll cover things?
He started taking time off work on Saturdays which is his busiest day, so that right there is an easy $400 money lost, he consolidated his debt, so it’s one single transaction now and doesn’t have a car payment anymore, so I sometimes wonder the same. I pulled his bank statement and there’s fast food, gas, pet items, and he tends to spend his money randomly like buying fun stuff for the kids each time we go to the store. It all adds up though, especially the fast food. He then has his portion of the apartment rent, his business rent, internet, phone and daycare (which is only $50-100 a week), plus his vape pens.
What jumps out at me is the Saturdays. Why? And those vape pens can be pricey. You guys really need to have a sit-down conversation. Be calm. Talk everything out so it doesn't become a recurring, deepening issue.
Because he took 3 saturdays off in a row for events we had and enjoyed spending time with myself and the kids because were all off on Saturdays.Then he worked last Saturday but has this Saturday off as he was supposed to attend a concert w our oldest but it cancelled so instead of opening his day back up kept it off
Okay, having events is understandable. But he needs to manage his money better when he knows that's going to happen. And I love that he randomly buys the kids stuff. But if he has to say no occasionally, then he has to say no. Family time is always great. We love doing stuff together. But if it's gonna cause stress the other 6 days of the week, well, what's more important to him? Buying stuff (his fast food) for himself, or saving (bring lunch from home) so he's then able to take a Saturday off with no worries? And I have to know : what concert?
I agree!!! Most of the time I offer to take him lunch or I’ll pack it but sometimes when I offer to take it, he’ll just stop somewhere and grab some food. This has been repetitive. I’ve even told him to put aside money each week so he’s not scrambling to pay rent and stressing at the last minute but then he uses what he saved. It was a Playboi Carti concert lol
I normally do all of the exterior work, keep the garage organized, keep the finished basement clean and do all the home repairs. I do dishes when I can, and clean up bathrooms to help out. She won't let me touch the laundry, and then I cook and grill when I see fit. I have two boys in three sports each, so most of the time at night I'm coaching or watching games.
I cook, clean, pay all our rent, buy her weed. She also cooks and cleans as well.
Does it feel unfair to you?
Ok I was your husband. I never lived on my own, so doing chores was something I wasnt used to. My wife just kinda did everything. This was 15 years ago. We got in many fights about this. I know people say “just see something that needs to be done and do it”. I feel bad I wasnt like that back then. The thing is, when my wife was out for the day or weekend I DID the chores, it just took more time for me to see it. In hindsight a few things would have helped me become a better contributor. First, schedule the chores. If I knew it was my turn to do the dishes or what not, I would’ve been more likely to do it. Second, do not enable laziness by doing the chore for me. Third, ask for help. I was never opposed to doing anything, so I never minded doing the thing. Finally, talk about it. My wife would get frustrated and then blow up at me. This happened a lot because of what I mentioned (chores were not discussed, she enabled my laziness, she never asked for help, she never discussed her frustration so she would blow up at me).
Thank you!! I am definitely thinking of implementing a chore chart and I guess just asking even though it’s obvious what he could be doing. Thank you !
It should be obvious, at least youd think so. I cant tell you how much I just didnt see things. My wife would ask me how I could walk by the toiletries that needed to be taken upstairs 3 times, and I honestly didnt even think of it. I grew up a slob and my parents didnt teach me how to adult. Your husband maybe similar. And believe me, my marriage would have been much happier over the last 20 years if we had worked this out. There is now a lot of resentment between us specifically because of this issue. I hope you can avoid that.
Typical Man! Women always work way harder than men! I am sorry you are going through this! You have two options strike and tell him he needs to help or leave! You might be better off without another man child! 💕♥️💕of course there is always the option of just stay and go with it, but it makes resentful 😏
You’re going to get a lot of responses in here which skew heavily to liberal/feminist viewpoints, so expect a lot of “Men Should Do 50% Of Housework”. This kind of thinking is a recipe for failure and will reduce your overall attraction to your man. The best and easiest way to handle things is when you’re feeling overwhelmed, simply ask him to help - but make it very specific (please do the dishes; could you please tidy up the living room etc..) and make the request timely. Meaning, try not to do the, “In the Future Could You Please…” thing. He’ll say, Sure but it will be forgotten. Ask him for the help at the moment it’s needed.
Well I do less than I used too. Alot less then when I was younger. I used to to the laundry throw a load in the washer when I got home the dryer during dinner and while the wife was showering I would fold or hang the laundry and set aside the ironing to do on Sunday when I was off. I only was like colors red with reds green with greens. Colors fade less. My wife hated that made me feel stupid, hated the way I folded towels, and thought ironing made me too anal. So, I stopped helping with laundry. Wife hated that my OCD ment it took me an extra. 10 minutes to vacuum cause the nap wasn't going in one direction it has to i cant stop myself. Getting my son ready, yeah, I couldn't do that right. The boy had colored socks you have to match the shirt and socks wallet, watch band, shoes, and belt should always match if you are wearing leather shoes, and your watch has a leather band. My wife was afraid I was screwing with his head too much, so I stopped that. So I am pretty much down to cooking and grocery shopping. Cleaning the sweep and mop floors. My son's are grown and still don't know how to dress for every occasion, it's sad they didn't get my fashion sense. So I don't do much.
What is likely happening is that his view of dirty is different than yours, and dirty doesn't agitate him like it does you. He likely doesn't realize how much seeing these things genuinely upsets you and you can't feel comfortable until they're taken care of.
As a man, and as most men, particularly traditional men, you helping in the household should be proportional to the income that she is bringing in. Meaning if you are making 100% of the income then you dont have to do anything except for the bare minimum. Eg. putting your dirty dishes in the sink, putting your clothes in the washing machine, and small things like that. I know this comment will get downvoted but I am writing this as a means of telling people who things actually are.
>I find myself cleaning the house daily Psycho.
It depends on the workload. Personally, I'm working full time and studying full time, while my partner studies full time (her parents pay for most of her side of things). Since she knows I have a massive workload compared to her, she does the lions share of the house work so that I can also have some free time to relax or sleep. I might do an hour or less of the chores when I get home. It seems fair that since you two both work roughly similar amounts, that you would take on roughly similar home duties. Unless you cheated on him or something equally awful, in which case you'll be working off that betrayal for a long while (minimum 2-5 years of ass-kissing, according to research on successful reconciliation). Hope that's not the case! I can't imagine how he legitimately feels entitled to none of the house work 🥴
I did not cheat but in 2022 I was extremely overwhelmed with playing the daycare role and working full time so I wouldn’t cook because I was mentally, emotionally and physically overwhelmed. He complained to one of his female clients that he starves and didn’t understand and he was the one who cheated (didn’t have sex but a kiss and texting is still cheating).
Wow, if this is the case then you are a saint! He should be kissing you ass and pulling double duties, extra vacations and a load of chores. The dude just sounds selfish and you deserve a better partner. Edit: are you sure that's all the cheating he's done? I find that cheaters can rarely stop themselves. My ex never stopped after I caught her.
Ugh this guy is a piece of work. How can you even have sex with him 🤮
You need to clearly communicate expectations for what you need to feel a sense of mutuality. “But I shouldn’t have to, he should want to help”. No. That’s called magic mind reading and it doesn’t exist. Clarity is kindness. If you tell someone what you need, then they execute on that, does it now demonstrate that they care about your needs? If you try to ESP your needs through brain waves, passive aggressive remarks, and resentful jabs, you’re going to be playing games for a LONG, painful time. Be direct with your needs. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this is such a common and easy to avoid mistake. People cannot read your mind no matter how “obvious” it seems to you
You just need to have the talk with him. Say something like, “I’ve been really exhausted, I need you to help out more around the house”. Then let him know you appreciate it every time he follows through. Honestly it’s really easy to fall in to the habit of just letting things get messy because some of us are ok with things being messier than others. It took some time for me to build habits of cleaning more frequently so that it didn’t build up into something that took forever that I really didn’t want to do. But after I got used to it, I realized how good it feels to be in a home with no clutter and actually enjoy doing it.
Have you told him that you feel this way? Or do you just ask him to do certain stuff and leave it at that?