Mumsnet Talk

I live with DP with no children but a dog and 2 cats. He will empty and load dishwasher( as I do too) however has yet to clean bathroom/ vacuum/ polish/ mop floor/ take any interest in washing machine.

In the sumer he will mow the lawns but will not trim the edges or take any responsibility for weeding the large-ish borders.

We have been together nearly 10 yrs and living together for nearly 4 yrs. It has always been a source of many a disagreement but it becoming ridiculous now.

He tells me he does the big house jobs ie decorating/ maintenance but actually these are occasional while cleaning is weekly.

I find the resentment mounting as I try to keep the house in a clean and presentable state while he lies in till 11am at weekends then takes root on the sofa watching anything from cricket/ football/ bloody snail racing.

Have spoken to a couple of friends but they are happy (?) to do all domestic chores while their DHs surf the net.

What does everyone else do? (slopes off to quietly sob while looking at state of kitchen and hope for some replies...)

He tends to do the washing (this is a long story, with History ) and hoovers the place at weekends. I do more cooking in the week. He tends to do more cooking at the weekends. He does the gardening (I am not remotely interested in gardens).

Write a list every single domestic task that is done in your household, and then segment the list by domain (cleaning, laundry, gardening, shopping, cooking, clearing up after meals...) and by frequency (3x per day to 1x per year), and allocate a "time taken" to each task. Make up an excel spreadsheet and generate a few nice bar charts showing exactly how time you spend over the week/month/year versus him.

Set aside an evening for a short Power Point presentation of your findings and a round table renegotiation of responsibilities

ffirst one home cooks
the bins are his reponsability - if he doesn't do them -which he often doesn't ...this leads to epic -divorce- type rows of huge magnitude

khe washes his own stuff mostly and he irons his stuff

we have a cleaner once a week.

i'm due a wage rise in march - i might up this to two days a week to save the marriage

DH picks one small task and completes it. While he is busy telling me repeatedly that he's done it ('did you notice I hoovered the door mat? Did you see?') I do everything else

We know what needs doing and do it. Mi arguments. He does the big shop and kids lunches because I don't like doing them but we both wash, iron,cook, boyd homework, etc. Who ever is around does it. Big jobs such as decorating we get people in.

50/50. DH makes it and I do it .

To be fair i'm at home so tend to do all the housework while he's at work. But I don't do housework in the evening or weekends.

I will def get to work on a list of all chores. As I type he is merrily pedal g away on his exercise bike while I make the fogs food/ disinfect kitchen work surfaces and ponder mopping the floor.

He puts up a weekly battle over the bins, moaning that he always puts them out etc to which I point out other jobs.

My parents have just celebrated 50 yrs and my Dad would not hear of mum putting out the bin bags. She cooks, he does windows and they share gardening and cleaning.

If the excel sheet doesn't cut the mustard I am either selling him on eBay under title Slovenly Partner free to any home or getting a cleaner and charging him x

Oops that was pedaling and dogs food!

I'm lucky - I do all the cooking and he clears up. I do all the washing machine type tasks and clean the bathrooms/loos. He does everything else. Works for us.

We don't split them that well. Once every other week we go through the house cleaning the bathrooms/kitchen/bedrooms/hall etc but he doesn't clean as thoroughly as I do - for example he won't dust the shelves if cleaning the sitting room and won't move things from the kitchen worktop if cleaning in there. Oh, and if I he says something like "I'll do the washing up" you can bet the stuff will sit in filthy water in the sink while he plays computer games until I do it because I need the pan/knife which is dirty.

I work full-time, DW (teacher) 20 hours pw officially (more in term-time, almost zero in holidays).

Me:
- Meals
- Dishes (inc loading dishwasher)
- Kitchen
- Kids' lunches
- Clean oven and fridge
- General morning tidy-up
- Grocery shop

DW
- Laundry (except ironing)
- Garden

Shared (as and when who has energy)
- Vacuuming
- Toilet
- Bathroom
- Bedroom
- Living room
- Bins

DW will do the children's lunch boxes after school.

The children do their own rooms (but DW and I take it in turns to rant at them)

We also have a home help who comes in for a couple of hours fortnightly and someone to do our lawns.

Things like the windows tend not to get done (blush).

We have never decorated the house.

We swap tasks relatively frequently, and excuse each other tasks on request unless there a reason not to.

Glad to see that others struggle with all this. I've got less tolerance of clutter than DW, so I've just got used to doing somewhat more things myself for the sake of peace.

We did something similar to Bonsoir - but without the spreadsheets! I wrote down all the tasks that needed doing and Dh selected the ones he wanted to do. As I work part time (0.75), I do 2/3 of the child care and chores, dh does 1/3.

He is largely responsible for: kitchen, bathroom, dishwasher, breakfasts, cooking at the weekends, making packed lunches, the garden and DIY. He also showers the children and puts them to bed every night.

I do: washing clothes and ironing, cleaning of living room, bedrooms and stairs, shopping, getting children dressed, to school, picked up from school, homework, feeding children their tea on weekdays and making the beds.

It works well for us

Natasha mine is just like that.

Witters on for an hour about the one task he did, I do the rest.

I do the laundry, he does everything else. But I do the brain work (organisig finances, booking holidays etc) so I don't feel guilty when he's slaving away cooking my tea every night and then doing all the washing up.

I feel for you OP, because my situation is similar, although not quite as bad as your's.

Me:
50% cooking
90% of washing up
90% of dishwasher loading/unloading
clean kitchen, bathroom, change sheets, vacuum, dust (although I don't do that very often), put rubbish out, and any occasional jobs (eg. cleaning out fridge)
2/3 of the laundry
25% of food shopping
brainwork in holiday booking etc (although it's always me who wants to go most)

Him:
50% cooking
very minimal washing up, dishwasher, wiping up kitchen surfaces after himself etc
75% food shopping
sorts out anything to do with car
manages finances

So he's not terrible, but could be a lot better. If I ever get upset about it, he says that I need to tell him if I want things doing. I, on the other hand, think that it's not fair for me to have to nag him all the time, and that out of respect, he should do things when he sees they need doing. But since that's not likely to happen, I have started asking him to do things like a child. I don't do it in a nagging way though, and I don't get upset or demand that he do it immediately. Usually I say something like "Would you mind doing the vacuuming at some point? I'm going to clean the bathroom and mop the floors". He's usually a bit surprised and caught off-guard, but then realises that I've asked him fairly and that there is nothing to protest about. So it's working a bit better for now, but we'll see how it goes.

We now both work full time as of November and have 3 children and 2 dogs.

My husband does the cleaning while i buy food/ run errands on a Saturday morning and we both state washing/ironing but he does more than me. I tend to cook, he washes what doesn't fit in the dishwasher. He picks up dogs mess in garden, I look after plants, we share the lawn mowing.

He says its only fair now I'm out of the house as long as he is. He wants to do it, but its not always been this way. I've never let it become an issue though, I've just asked him to help out and he has.

I do the washing/drying, 50 per cent of the ironing, clean the bathroom, hoover (actually I supervise the kids mostly doing this but then they make the mess), do the dishes/load the dishwasher, clean the hob and make her breakfast in bed every Sunday so she can have a lie-in (she's a postie so doesn't get much chance otherwise). I also do the cooking on a Sunday. Oh, and I do the bins.

My beautiful wife does her 50 per cent ironing, cleans the kitchen floor, dusts, weekday evening meals and food shopping. We split helping with homework and school stuff between us. Its a good split, neither of us takes the piss. I do tell her how amazing I am, but it falls on deaf ears.

Puggirl, he sounds like he needs a kick up the arse. Draw up a rota and hide the Sky card until he has done his chores.

Cooking/washing up we theoretically take turns (ie one cooks, other washes up). I prob do a little more of the cooking/dh the washing up as I like cooking more.

Cleaning - gets ignored as much as possible but then probably done roughly 50:50.

I mow lawns & do most garden maintenance, + probably 2/3 of wood chopping & also do preserving/cake making etc but DH does most building/repairing/fixing broken things. I am happy with this distribution though I'm not sure that he is always!

Oh, forgot, I do most of the washing, neither of us irons anything. DH does pet stuff apart from dog walking (ie flea spraying, brushing, tick removing, toenail chopping et al). Over all generally it works out about fairly I'd say.

When we don't have an au pair:
One gets DD up and dressed while the other goes to work oearly. The other collectes DD from creche, feeds her and most likely does bedtime.

Mid week, I tend to cook dinner as I tend to be first in. Whoever cooks, doesn't clean up (stack dishwasher and wash pots). We share making lunches. (I tend to do the planning though, and most weeks do the food shopping).

We share laundry - both of us sort dirty and put on a wash, hang it out, take in dry etc. DH usually folds all clean laundry early on Saturday evenings (we throw clean dry clothes into a basket), while he always irons anything needed on Sunday evenings while I do the Sunday roast and make Monday's dinner.

I usually hoover and dust and mop, while DH usually does bathrooms. I tend to sweep kitchen more often than him. And I tend to want the fire lit more often than he does, so ergo I tend to have to clean it out and light it myself more often.

He does all lawns (the tiny bit we have left, and my Gran's), and the main gardening (all flowers and shrubs are his responsibility) - I do the veg in the garden and the allotment.

He does most DIY jobs, but I can and do turn my hand to things as needed. If it's big though, he is the chief planner and executioner, and I am just the willing assistant and chief "mopper of the sweaty brow"

In recent years, the balance has shifted slightly so that I do more of the cooking and organising, while he does more of the cleaning. But I am really lucky that we definitely have a relatively even split, and I probably have the lighter share than him, if I am honest.

Thank you all for taking the time to post. I did a list last night and am taking Sanjeevs advice and hiding the Sky card until further notice ( or I see him at least trying to locate the dyson)

Bone of contention in our house too OP but not as bad as your situation. I think that men just dont see the things that need to be done.

I find that an effective tactic is to pick 2 tasks that need doing, say vaccuming or bathroom and give him a choice as to which one he wants to do while you do the other. If he refused to do either then throw a massive wobbly

Like you, OP, we have no dc (yet!) and two cats, we divy up chores as follows:

Once a week big clean - I do upstairs, he does downstairs, including fridge & oven.
I probably put on more washing as I'm fussy about having the right clothes for work but DP will put loads on if asked
As DP works from home he does the washing up, and a couple of midweek clean/tidy/hoover sessions before I get in
We take turns to cook dinner each night though this is not set in stone!
DP does bins, most DIY, most gardening & lawn mowing.

Now I feel quite lazy looking at the break down!

We often do cleaning at the same time but in different rooms (so cleaning a equal amount of time). It does often mean that I've done the entire house up to minimum standard while he's done one room (but it's gleaming!).