To ask you what really works in getting a DP to do their fair share

[toomuchtooold]

OK upfront I'll say what my AIBU is, which is AIBU to ask to pick your brains and see what the best methods are for making DPs do their fair share.

It seems like on AIBU a couple of times a week someone else will post about their DP not pulling their weight. Usually it's one specific thing they fall out over but within each AIBU and across all of them there's a similar story:

• DP thinks he's entitled to rest when he's at home and not deal with night wakings if he is working/is working the longer hours
• DP gets out of a lot of work (night wakings, cleaning, organising school stuff) by ignoring/minimising it: didn't hear the kid in the night, doesn't have such high standards as you in cleaning, thinks it's fine for kid to go to school wearing last year's shoes
• DP just is day to day a bit more lazy - doesn't engage with the kids so much so they come to mum first for everything, only gets up when the kids get up etc
• before having kids DP has some prior commitment like rugby training that takes up 3 nights a week and even though there's no quid pro quo DP doesn't see any problem with continuing this

I've been reading some feminist stuff and getting a bit fired up about this. I read in Susan Maushart's Wifework that the majority of divorces are instigated by women (and the ONS 2012 divorce stats show that: 65% of divorces in 2012 were instigated by women. I wonder how much of that is because women get a raw deal in marriage particularly when the kids come along?

I don't want to get divorced but I do get bloody irritated with my DH and would like to see him do an equal share so I could get some free time and also so I can still respect him rather than being low level annoyed at him about 80% of the time! (If anyone wants the not very juicy details, happy to share )

So my big question to you Mumsnetters is has anyone managed to get their partner to see the unfairness in their setup and change it, and if so, how did you do it?

I married a man who had been an independent grown up for a long time. He was 35 when we met and living alone feeding himself and ironing shirts etc.

When we met I did not take on any "mothering". I didn't take over his family's birthdays or the cooking, shopping, laundry. We did equal though slightly different jobs. He is crap at cleaning but good at cooking so I clean and he shops, meal plans and cooks.

When we had ds I will be honest and say that MNing in pregnancy made me shit scared he would change and I'd suffer but actually he's been great. We are pretty equal with ds. I do more nursery drops/pickups due to my work but I also travel for work once a month or so when he does everything for three days or so.
I get Saturday morning lie ins. He gets Sunday bike rides. We get equal weekday evenings.
I did the bfing nights the first year. Now dh does first wake and then we alternate if there's more (not often).

I made sure I married a man who wasn't a sexist disrespectful arsehole. If he morphed into one, then I would have divorced him, not hing around to procreate with him several times. Fuck that.

Our current situation is I work 40 hours, dh 26. I organise, tidy, hoover, finances and will do half child care and wakings when I am in.

Dh does all cooking, ironing and childcare.

I don't know how to iron so things look decent. I can cook in emergencies such as chicken nuggets or omelette. Dh cooks all from scratch

Just to clarify, DH doesn't do all the things I listed, that was more a summary of all the issues I've seen on other threads! He does one or two... it was more, as a feminist I wanted to try and tap into the Mumsnet knowledge and pool our knowledge of the best ways to make things better for everyone. It seems a shame if people think there's nothing you can do and you have to either live with it or get divorced.

FWIW I've found that clear areas of responsibility work (e.g. DH does our evening meal, he used to do any and all weekend night wakings) - that and, this morning, telling him what I am posting on MN! He's right this moment putting on some lunch for the kids...

Loki: this is exactly the system we use. We have a rota: I clean downstairs once a week, he cleans upstairs. Neither of us can complain. Admittedly, that was instigated by him in frustration at the fact (in his view) that I didn't do my fair share of the cleaning.

As for other tasks, we have a fairly conventional division of labour. I do slightly more than him because I work from home so don't have a couple of hours' commuting eating into my day. I'm OK with that, though - when you're at home it's no effort to stick some washing into the machine.

It's quite hard for the OP because her DH has been getting away with not pulling his weight for a long time and so there aren't particular advantages to him to starting pulling his weight.

I think starting as you mean to go on good.

However, in a long term relationship things change; working hours, commutes, number of children. So a couple has to keep revisiting what needs doing and who is going to do it.

Revisiting should be a civilised adult conversation. This aint ever going to happen with a man who wasn't an adult or civilised fromn the start.

Dh has never lived alone and moved in with me at 18. You don't need a man that lived alone. Dh was the worlds greatest sahd significantly better than a lot of women I know

I think sometimes people have unrealistic views, lots expect adults to drop hobbies and their own families once a wife and children come along.

Housework wise will vary according to the set up, if one person doesn't work then of course they should pick up the bulk of the household tasks whilst the others picks up the financial responsibility. If one is part time then they will likely do a good amount and if both work full time it will be shared equally as the financial side is.

It all falls down to working hours but surely people agree that when going part time or stopping work altogether.

Dunno really,find a balance that works. I do more housework as I am here in the day, he does bedtimes, garden work et c. He is outside working with builders while I drink coffee and MN for example. He can cook as well as I do, has the same standards of cleanliness etc and is better than me with the kids most of the time. We talked early on and I said I would do night wakings while they were young as I was BF and it was easier, but that all house and child chores were 50/50 as soon as he got home from work.

He was a grown adult who had lived alone for years, and was the youngest of 4 boys whose mother taught them to use the washing machine pretty early on.

Oh , and we both hate ironing so he bought non-iron shirts. Sorted.

What works is marrying/living with a decent human being and only having children when you've established that he's not a prick and will be a fair and reasonable other parent to your children.

He doesn't respect you, doesn't value you, and doesn't care that much about you or your children. IT isn't about getting tips to force him to do the washing up.

I don't think living alone is evidence. All my friends lived away from parents for extended periods of time before meeting partners, but you can survive for a long time in a rented home (or even a few years in a bought one) without having so much more than tidy up and make food. The real responsibilities come when you have the roof to repair, a garden to look after, dcs who need shoes and teeth looked after, long term savings etc to think about. I have found adult life quite a shock myself! I have stepped up to the challenge however, more than my partner has.

I strongly disagree with the "don't marry a dick" approach. I think it is pretty clear that for a lot of couples it is the arrival of children that changes behaviour - specifically to do with changes roles on maternity leave. It is easier to demand equal roles when you both are out of the house for similar times, bring home similar money.

I have a good DH who does his fair share, so I'm not complaining now. But when our first was born and I was looking after the baby all day (I was a student, not a SAHM, so it wasn't easy) it took a bit of negotiation for us both to see what the other was doing and agree on what was fair. With our second, I had a (new) part-time job and so my DH ended up taking six months of paternity leave so that I could go back earlier. This was the best thing we ever did. I went out every morning and stayed out until mid-afternoon and left him with the care of a baby and a toddler. He did (had to) do the laundry, cook dinners, deal with moods, tantrums, hungry children, nappy explosions etc. on his own. He was great at it and never complained, but there was a new respect on both sides after that! I realized that he did things differently to me - he cooked much better meals, but the flat was untidier* - but that he just had different priorities. And one thing we both then completely agreed on is that going out to work is ONE HUNDRED TIMES easier than staying at home with a couple of cranky preschoolers. Especially if they are ill. The fact that we both had experience of both sides of the deal was absolutely key in how we organized ourselves after that. DH reduced his hours so that we both work 75% of fulltime (lucky us, I know...but it did take some pushing on his part for his boss to agree, and has probably affected his career) and we take turns to take time off if the kids are ill, have appointments, need someone to go and watch a school play, etc.

So my tip is to persuade a recalcitrent partner to swap places for a while. Even if it's only on Saturdays, or only for a week while you go on holiday with friends, or whatever - anything to force him to take responsibility for everything for a short while. Paid parental leave is the best way of course, but I gather it's not as easy in the UK as it is here (Germany). I think it's good for both sides to learn what the other is capable of, or what they spend their time doing. It worked for us.

*Still remember my feeling of utter horror at coming home from work to find the whole flat a mess and full of steam and cooking smells, both kids in the kitchen in clothes covered in stains...and then realizing that they had made a huge and beautiful dinner, including lots of portions of home-made stock to put in the freezer. The flat was genuinely in an awful state, but DH is always horrified by my reliance on stock cubes and tinned things for cooking with, so I reckon in the end we are kind of fair...

I strongly disagree with the "don't marry a dick" approach.

Really? I would have thought that good advice to anyone, children or not.

Perfectly fair and reasonable men do not suddenly turn into dicks because they reproduce. They are just expressing more of their inherent dickishness.

I'm not sure how helpful it is to say you should pick the right person, or get divorced. Not everyone is perfect! I know I'm not. And then you get people telling you not to wait for "Mr Right" as he doesn't exist, but if you then have some issues, you married the wrong man? That doesn't compute.

I wish I knew the answer to this. DH and I certainly don't have it sorted (although we have special circumstances in that DH has CFS/ME but so do I, just not as bad! and perhaps everyone has some kind of 'special' situation?).

However, some things I've found are helpful are:

Consider what each person likes (or perhaps, dislikes less). I have a particular hatred of unloading the dishwasher due to childhood experiences, DH has a fear of unwashed dishes due to his Mum's kitchen, so we divide it such that I put the dishes in and he takes them out. If the tasks have been divided in a way that takes into account personality, then when someone is doing something it can be seen as "I'm doing this because I like it/because DP hates it even more than I do" as you're part of a partnership, rather than dividing things arbitrarily.

The tidier person may well have to let some of their standards slide. If your DP cleans the bathroom, but just not to your standard, as long as its not unsanitary, it is probably best to leave it. No one is going to want to spend effort beyond what they think is reasonable to do a task, and it will only create resentment - and make the other person feel they are doing a job 'for' the tidier person, not being part of a partnership.

I told DH early on that I left my ex for being a lazy slob (true) and would have no hesitation in chucking him for the same thing. He needs a kick up the arse gentle reminder now and again but overall, he's excellent.

My exp lived alone when I met him. He was mid 40s! He was still fucking useless though.unfortunately some men think that as soon as you have kids they can stop making an effort and all the grunt work becomes the wife's job.

Men like that need to be divorced.

This is an interesting thread. But lots of suggestions saying "don't marry a prick" or "start as you mean to go on" aren't that helpful, because OP is in an established relationship, and presumably wouldn't deliberately marry and arsehole!

So, my advice for what it's worth is:

Have a conversation making it clear you expect/need him to do more, and be willing to be specific and give examples.
One he has some 'extra' then give him some ownership. Don't micromanage - accept that anything he does is to his standard. If you come and re-do anything because he didn't do it right, don't expect him to do it again.
Notice what he's done, and thank him for doing it. Don't expect the same back.

This has worked well for me.

I made it clear before we lived together what my expectations were.

You don't do or say anything to try and change him. You change yourself.

Stop allowing this. Tell him straight what you expect. If he can't give very good, genuine reasons for not pulling his weight, tell him that's not good enough.

And mean it.

Anything less will just ensure that you carry on like this forever.

What do you do if they think they are doing half, but you don't agree? For me it's not the doing of stuff that's uneven, it's the thinking about it - planning ahead, just "noticing" stuff.

I'm not sure how helpful it is to say you should pick the right person, or get divorced. Not everyone is perfect!

Of course not. But no one is saying you have to marry the perfect man. If your partner does their fair share the majority of the time, i don't think most people would kick off if they have a few off days.

DH isn't perfect, but his short comings are out weighed by his good points and I am sure he thinks the same as me. I hate cooking, he does it all as he enjoys it. I don't mind doing all the ironing.

DH knows I hate cooking, he also knows that if he couldn't cook (we both work from home so very rare) I will do it. I know if I was away and ironing needed doing, he would do it. Not because he is perfect but because he is an adult and knows stuff needs doing in the house.

Indeed dont get with a dick!

Ime it is slightly easier if they have lived apart from the apron strings... Not always tho!

I would also say avoid any man who doesnt feel any sense of responsibility beyond getting himself to and from work and his hobbies!

Change language you use:

Hes not babysitting - hes looking after his children.

Hes not helping you with the house work... Hes doing his share of household tasks.

The biggest 'criminals' for useless men:
Women who teach their daughter and not there sons.
Women who say the household is 'my' responsibility.
Women who judge other women about the state of their home... Really... Wtf!

Hoiks judgey pants and heads off to the BH!

I'm another one who's parter has CFS and yes it makes things very complicated .

I work full time whereas he's at home, but his graded exercise plus rest time is pretty much a full time job. He's totally capable of doing some stuff around the house (as his health is at the moment, at least) but as his health is so up and down he kinda gets used to doing bugger all. And I don't always know what's "reasonable" to ask of him.

Watching this thread with interest - I'd be especially interested in any more top tips from murmuration