To think doing DIY in the house isn't equal to doing chores?

I think DIY and general home maintenance are valuable but also necessary and count as chores, but given that you're both working FT, chore time should be split equally. Seems like a very traditional split of job roles that you should start to break down!

What men will never tell you is that they enjoy the DIY tasks and don't find them chores.

Seriously, do some of these tasks yourself and youll find you probably like them. And that he will be desperate to get them insetead. None of those tasks are harder than stacking a dishwasher, they just seem it because you've never done them and they seem scary and unknown.

Sounds reasonable for your partner (or you) not to cook or do housework during a day spent painting a room. The rest of the time the everyday tasks need sharing out.

I feel your pain. My DH and I share the DIY (except I also clean up after myself). I do all the household chores. He tried to tell me that 'sorting the wifi' meant we were equal. I don't agree. I think like other posters though, some of it is being completely oblivious to what is actually involved in family life. Every card, outgrown trainers, playdate, holiday etc etc

Definitely not equal. My DH does all the DIY (unless it’s something we are doing together like painting a room) and so literally for the time he’s doing it, I’m covering the housework/kids. Not all the days/weeks in between!

My mum always says if it's not beautiful to look at or useful, don't keep it.

Hope he's beautiful! 😅

I would suggest you swap for a bit, you do the DIY and he does the the rest.

I agree. Go away for a week. Let him see what your life entails. And as a priority you need to split the lie ins at the weekend. The fact you get up with them every time shows the low status he sees you in. He's important and deserving of being well rested. You are not.

By your description he is a lazy arse.

I would divide up the jobs and tell him which are his.

@JustJessi did you read the bit where she does every night waking and early morning?

If OP is the one to do literally everything in the family apart from the occasional DYI she's likely to be spending a hell if a lot more time on it than a mere ten hours a week.

OP- is he open to doing a really thorough accounting of your respective time budgets? If not, it's probably time to reduce your load where it hurts only him - stop doing his laundry; eat with the kids and don't provide dinner for him. When he turns up, tell him it's now your downtime, too.

I seem to be the odd one out here, but if he’s working a couple more hours than you, that would suggest that you’re at home for a couple of extra hours without him.

This is the same situation in my house too, and I personally want to get everything done before my DH gets home, so that we can spend the evening relaxing together instead of him doing chores whilst I sit and watch.

He’s wrong. Daily tasks should be evenly distributed between you, you could do a little more given he works a little longer.

My DH tried to argue that he renewed our insurance policies (once a year) and did a few other bits of annual admin, so therefore that was a comparable contribution to the household. Nah mate…

YANBU what a waster! He’s happy for you both to work equally but not do housework or parenting equally. What a peach. Doesn’t he want to collect his child from nursery for goodness sake?? That’s such a nice experience.

They're completely different kinds of work, with diametrically opposed satisfaction levels. You put up a shelf, you can look at that shelf as often as you like, at any time in the future, and think "Good shelf. I did great work there!"

You wipe the shelf down, you get to think "Shelf looks nice and clean now." You get to think that once, immediately after you cleaned it. A couple of hours later it'll have started collecting dust. In a few days the shelf will be gathering clutter, more dust, and something may have leaked on it or it may have acquired dirty mug rings. It needs wiping again - and again - and again, for ever.

Meanwhile, Mr Dunnit still gets satisfaction from the level sturdiness of His Shelf, years or even decades later. Ms Neverdun keeps performing the thankless, soul-destroying task of cleaning it. With the same energy, she could've installed hundreds of shelves all over the house.

She needs help!

I think you need to sit down together and divide tasks that need done in the home. Include childcare responsibilities and DIY, gardening etc etc... if it's something that's productive for your home then it's work and should be seen as such and that should average out so (as others have said) you have equal down time. Diy/ gardening etc don't need done all the time. At the moment I'm doing more in our garden so dh is doing more in the home so that we're spending equal amounts of time across the day doing work for our home. Unless you're doing a renovation or something that means there is an endless DIY list that dh is permanently working on then yanbu. Even if there is I'd still swap things around between you so every day doesn't feel like groundhog day

We are renovating on our third house but first with a child (aged 3). With the previous 2 we worked together on the house and shared the chore. Now we have a preschooler to keep occupied my partner does pretty much all the DIY and we share the chores. He does the majority of the cooking and the day to day cleaning and I do the weekly cleaning chores and the washing. Generally my partner has one day for DIY at the weekend and I do a few chores around looking after my daughter and the other day we both juggle chores around looking after our daughter. If we have grandparents available we use them for either babysitters or to help my partner with the diy. This probably happens once every couple of months alternating between my parents and his.

You should have addressed this with him as soon as it started happening. He’s being lazy and you’re facilitating his laziness. You’re doing the right thing by now challenging him over it. Don’t let him bullshit or gaslight you into making you believe he’s doing his fair share. You may as well be a single parent, he’s doing so little.

Many years ago, it was a different situation but a similar outcome - basically, DH could see the chores he did. But he massively massively underestimated the chores I did. Made worse by the fact that I do enjoy cooking so in his head, cooking wasn't a chore for me - just a nice little treat at the end of every day.

As he was bitching about taking out the bins, I suggested that we should swap. If my life was SOOOOO much easier, I'd happily pick up the dog poo, mow the lawn, do the bins and the laundry and he could do everything else.... then I listed just what I'd done int he last day or so from shopping, to cleaning, to calling the school to paying some bills etc,

Well, he did not take me up on my offer. He also stepped up more to do more of the other chores.

You need to speak to him and tell him that things aren’t going to continue as they are. Working a couple of more hours each day doesn’t mean he gets to do nothing other than a bit of diy.

With respect that means you'll be locked into all the domestic work forevermore. Why should you be? He works 10 hours more than you a week but that doesn't absolve him of pulling his weight as a parents and domestic partner.

Stop enabling him.

You do half the DIY, he does half of: all chores and drop off and parenting

Get your excel spreadsheet out and plot it out and do a lovely graph evidencing how you do more each day/week/month.

'I make every meal, I do every nursery drop and collect, I do every bath time with DC, put on every wash (inc putting out to dry), wash every plate, hoover every room etc etc.. any daily chore I do.'

Why?