Is it right women do more?

Talk is cheap though. He could read a hundred books and tell everyone he’s a feminist. But if he sits in his arse while you struggle then he’s not. Don’t listen to what they say, look at what they do. As my old mum would say.

Get a big pack of Post-Its printed which say “Fuck you NurtureGrow! You’re my slave, you sort this!” Then start popping them around the house.

Shoes left out; stick a post-it on
washing up not done; stick a post-it on
pile of washing not put away; stick a post-it on
bit of the living room he “didn’t see needed cleaning”; stick a post-it on

Show him what he’s actually telling you with his actions everytime he does it, and remind yourself how he’s treating you.

He can’t go round claiming to be a feminist and then act like a slave-owner in the home.

Leave the post-it’s out for others to see, explain to people that’s his attitude and you’re fed up of it.

Soon your house will be covered in bright little signs that tell both you and him how he ACTUALLY views you, and they’ll only go away if he puts the shoes away and takes the post-it off.

He’ll fucking see what needs doing then.

Are you seriously using a cartoon to try and make a point?

Plus, there is little evidence to support this whole prehistoric men were the only hunters and women nested and has been disproven by archeologists a few years ago.

It’s not a cop out. A few weeks ago DH went out for the night, I literally spent the whole time cleaning / tidying / sorting. When he got back his comments were all about how some surfaces weren’t wiped properly etc. I had genuinely put effort it and tried my best, but I’m truly in the “I just can’t see it” category.

I do bring other things to the relationship though and so as a team we make that work - but I do have a lot of sympathy for the “I just can’t see it” husbands or the “can’t do right for doing wrong” husbands.

I just don’t think it’s necessarily related to sex - I’m the woman in my relationship

Cavemen used to go out and hunt animals. My husband is able to reign in his instincts and leave our dog alone. Cave women ‘nested’ and looked after their cave and the kids, and now women are surgeons, athletes, plumbers. Humans are amazing at learning skills unrelated to any natural ‘programming’ if they choose to. There are plenty of examples in this thread alone of men doing their bit in the house due to not wanting to live in a shit-tip and because they understand the importance of fairly sharing labour in a relationship.

Not only is he not behaving as a grown adult in picking up his fair share of running a household, he's asked you to use a 'soft voice' when challenging him on things he hasn't done, and you've agreed.

Time to lose your rag, and spell out the not so pleasant consequences if he continues in his failure to be an adult. Do not let him off the household stuff for a year whilst his business starts up. Next thing you know, the business will need 2 years, then 3 and by then he's an old dog who can't learn new tricks.

There are people who enjoy cleaning and DIY - but most of us do it as we have to keep the home clean and free from vermin. Housework isn't sexy, but starting a new business is. But to push the anaology on, before sex, you need the bed to have sheets. So before the sexy business starts - he changes the beds weekly and launders and irons the bedding. Food shopping isn't sexy, but a lovely meal shared with your life partner is romantic. But before the romance someone has to hit Tescos and buy the food.

My DP, not known for his affinty for household tasks, once claimed he ran a household. So I asked him how many toilet rolls we currently had in the house - he didn't have a clue and didn't realise why I needed to know - I really had to spell it out to him. I knew exactly how many we had, and I bet you do to.

Do not put up with being cast as the skivy and the maid - neither of which are sexy

The very fact that you see caring for your own child as a favour to your ill spouse is problematic.

It’s his child. He should look after it. If one partner is SAH either full time or part time then it won’t be 50:50. But job is like 10-12 hours per day 5 days/week. That leaves 125+242 hours per week to do things equally. Possibly more if the SAH parent does any paid employment.

Honestly I could not accept this. Unless your cleaning standards are unrealistic - he needs to learn.

I am rather mess blind. I am a terrible housekeeper. Living alone that all works fine. When I’ve lived with other people I’ve had to put extra effort into keeping communal space clean and tidy.

He could learn to do better - but he’s gotten used to you doing everything. He never had to learn, so he didn’t, and now his argument is he never should!

You need to sit down and have a proper (calm) conversation about this. Beforehand, you need to decide how big an issue this is for you - is it i would greatly appreciate you treating me better, or an i need you to treat me better? I think it should be the latter - but you could decide that you’d rather do everything then risk upsetting him. Things like this do break relationships. Would you leave if he doesn’t change? Could you be happy doing everything and just sucking it up?

Wilma and Fred Flintstone were fighting about left bones in caves centuries ago. Women are nesters. Men aren’t and I don’t know how you change that.

Its so sad when some men behave like this. He has an ingrained attitude that you will do most if not all of it. My MIL recently told me that when she was raising my DH and his brother they did a bit of cleaning but she did everything and didn't expect them to do much and she realises she was wrong. My DH is a very tidy person but times he dropped the slack I was sure to remind him and I set my expectations. Unfortunately many men are raised by mums who do all or most for them or they simply see their own dads doing little and it creates a mindset that women shoulder more housework. Tell him it makes you feel like a maid and is draining to do it all ontop of having a little one. Either that he should use out of his salary or business to pay for a cleaner weekly.

I'm trying to work out if you are very young or were raised in a different culture to have these extremely low expectations - all the talk of him helping you etc. Its 2025, the people I know with young families at my workplace seem to have a way more even split then even when my children with young - shared parental Ieave, both parents alternsting going part time for a period, father's sharing sick days, drop offs, cooking, cleaning etc.

I was just about to say don’t have a baby with this man - agh!
if he’s really as nice as you say then he’ll be willing to go to couples counselling and will care about how much this impacts you and make a plan together for a fair division of labour.
if he won’t invest in that then kick him out.

You work outside the home 3 days and you work inside all the rest of the hours.

Sit down with a paper and pen and calculate how many hours you each actually work. Include childcare, cleaning, home organization.

List all the tasks each day and ask him to choose those he will be responsible for 30-40%.

He did not do you a favour when you were ill, he shouldered his responsibility, the rest of the time you are shouldering HIS responsibilities and the language you use demonstrates you don't think it fair to expect anything from this apparent adult.

He doesn’t need lessons or reminders. He knows perfectly well what needs doing and how to do it. He just doesn’t care, and he doesn’t care that it’s important to you. It’s pure selfishness.

No

I think house skills needs to be prioritised for boys in childhood really, even at the expense of other things. Its mostly women doing the child rearing. I think the trouble is that moms tend to be swept along with the school system and sadly school doesn't see these skills as a priority. She's also swept along with her husbands needs! I think moms need to fight back and just teach these skills to the boys every day. I agree, something has to change, for future women if not ourselves!

Ahh youve got one of those conciously incompetent men. A idle slob some might say. He knows what needs doing but pretends not to see its dirty (so he wants you to micromanage the jobs and tell him what do)/no time to do the job (hes tired)/forced to do it so does a crappy job so you wont ask him again. Now hes trapped you with a child too hes got it made! Youll eventually submit and think “if you want a job doing right- do it yourself”

why are you referring to the jobs as “yours”? Hes not helping you out with housework, it’s housework that needs to be done by both of you- no ones job in particular. Youre meant to be a team

youre going to have to be blunt and tell him to shape up or its over. Hes a manchild and youll turn into his mummy doing all the tasks, cleaning his skiddies out the loo whilst he lives the life of riley! Eventually youll get the ick and stop having sex and he will wonder why….

My ds liked to see things like this - doesn't see things, thinks my standards are too high - I got a cleaner and he pays his share of their costs and he does have to clean up after himself. Dh and I run a business, it's full on and it will consume every second of your time if you let it - I often wish we had never started it - it's too much work and worry - yes you make money if you're lucky but worked out by the hour and the loss of work life balance - the demands and requirements by Gov - it's just not worth it. Being an employee is a much better life.

He is blackmailing you into being his maid, love.

He isn’t that nice. He isn’t nice at all, in fact.

Boys need to learn house skills growing up in my opinion, all the time. But that's hard to do with the school system thats in place. It kind of whisks moms along keeping up with it. Teaching kids housework/house skills isn't really on the school agenda

He can’t start a business what with all the cleaning?!?!

Tell him to get fucked with this 🤣🤣🤣

Then boot him out for being a useless selfish bastard.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many intelligent men can’t manage something as basic as cleaning but can run businesses or manage people. It’s almost like it’s a choice 🙄.

I love my husband dearly, but he used to be like this. I have persevered with caring about this stuff and expecting him to care too and it's improved dramatically over the years. I don't accept "I don't see it". It's gotten better for us and it's been worth the effort for me personally (as long as I don't dwell on how unbalanced things are in the world that I've actually had to spend time on this...), but if he was the kind of person that wasn't interested in improving the housework balance, then it wouldn't have worked. We have 2 kids and have been together about 10 years.

I’m going to link the Zawn piece again, as I don’t think you looked at it and I really hope that you do: https://www.zawn.net/blog/household-chore-inequity-is-abuse-a-manifesto

Are we talking about never picking up after himself or jobs not being done the way you like them? I think there has to be an element of accepting if someone else is doing a task they do it their way so if my DP wants me to load the dishwasher then he can stop nagging me about the way I load it because stuff comes out clean anyway. I don't think you should do everything though