Partners doing housework

[TheDollyLlama]

So ladies, is there a house training class you've signed your men up to that I missed?

My partner is lovely, but is clueless around the house! I'm 26 and he's 24. We've been together 3 years in March and our little one will be 2 the week before (I know, we didn't hang around!) we moved in together within the first 7 months of our relationship and I learnt to do everything (washing, ironing etc) as I'd lived with my mum who did everything, same with him. I suppose because of this, at least I never had any expectations before hand.

Now I think we generate invisible mess! I could leave the house for a week, overflowing washing baskets, crumbs on floor, washing up piling up and he doesn't think there's a problem! He works 4 long days and I work 3 but the responsibility falls on me. Because he's dyslexic dyspraxia he says he has memory problems and can't remember my instructions and when I made him do a wash load he shrunk my brand new shirt, so that was that!

Am I being unreasonable to expect him to do more? Are your partners quite happy to do their share or do you just think it's easier to do yourself? This is the only thing we (rarely) argue about so he's great in every other way!

The secret is to only date men who moved out of their family homes into accomodation on their OWN, and thus learned to cook, clean and pay bills like an adult. Seriously. It's gold dust.

Ah, hollin, but so few do.

From mum's to girlfriend's. From girlfriend's to wife's. From wife's to Other Woman. My DH lived alone and independently from teens to thirties, but I don't think this is actually that common.

Beat me to it Cozumel. Don't move in with anyone who's come straight from their mums! :-D

The guy is dyspraxic FFS. Would you tell a child with SEN to get a grip

Hahaha

Yet cleaners are paid and treated as if they were doing an unskilled job that anyone could do.

It looks like feminism has not really acheived very much. Mothers still bringing their sons up to believe that housework is beneath them and young women buying into all that.

My DH "couldn't cook"
Until I started my nursing degree and was put of the house for 14 hours a day. Funnily enough he soon learnt how to cook and feed dc

Cozumel - regretting ditching my ex now not only did he regularly take me away, he did his own cleaning and made lunch for work for me and cooked tea every night
Damn

Jen- if you have them come to your house for the course, your house will be spotless!

phil you're a genius. Getting paid to have my house cleaned by other people!

When I met my DH he was useless. He didn't see mess at all and had never really done proper house work. Early in the relationship he had a period of unemployment. I said I would support him financially until he could retrain (not full time) and get back into work on the condition that he did all that house work. He learnt very quickly as all I did was cook for us. I did the first full house clean with him showing him how to do each job and explaining the expected standards, what cleaning products to use etc. Initially I prompted him on what needed doing but he soon picked it up and now he is brilliant. He has a lower tolerance for mess than I do and I'd say now that we are both working with DCs we have a good 50/50 split of chores.

Whilst initially useless my DH was never lazy - he just needed teaching. I imagine a lot of men pretend to be useless in order to be lazy. He does struggle with organisation and administration tasks as he is dyslexic so I take on the bulk of those and he makes up for it with other jobs that I hate. He also uses his phone to organise himself and set reminders for jobs that need doing. I'd sure your DH is more than capable OP he just needs to learn and find ways of reminding himself to get round his dyslexia and dyspraxia. Sorry but it does sound like you have enabled his laziness as well so you need to stop that now. Good luck!

hollin - my DH was at uni for 3 years (though they had cleaners for communal areas) and lived in a flat share for 2 years before moving in with me. In answer to your question - yes, he did his own cooking, and remains a good cook and does still cook for us when he's home in time, but the cleaning/tidiness of the flat left a LOT to be desired. In hindsight, I blamed a lot of it unfairly on his flatmates, and wish I had realised and intervened earlier with DH!

They had a dishwasher, which they would use, but then never unload, just pick out pieces as needed, resulting in a dishwasher half full of clean/dirty dishes, and just set it off again. The bin would get fuller and fuller and never get emptied until it was overflowing. They NEVER cleaned the bathroom - I did it once or twice because I didn't want to use it myself in such a disgusting state. His room was a complete tip, getting into bed was an obstacle course. He would do laundry on a very haphazard basis, never thinking ahead or realising that he was going to run out of shirts/pants/socks, and would just buy new ones if he ran out. He and his flatmates all survived perfectly fine, it's just not an environment many adults would be happy living in long-term.

Some of these things have improved, but sadly some have not. Still working on it!

Atenco if you read my post, my teenage son is dyspraxic and is being taught how to do housework so he doesn't grow up thinking it's not his job.
The difference is in the way I teach him over the way I teach his brother. He needs it breaking down, that's all.

I have dyspraxia and I can do housework perfectly well. If he can cook, which is also a sequence of physical actions, he can clean a bathroom or put the washing on.

As for peeing on the floor, if his dyspraxia-related coordination issues are the problem there, he should accept it and sit down to pee or wipe up afterwards. I accept there are some things I do really badly because of my dyspraxia and I make adjustments to deal with that.

Sorry, Cakes. I should have read your post better.

It's OK - shame OP's MIL didn't teach him how to clean a bathroom!
Little, do you find you can get organised with admin and de cluttering? It baffles DS and I can't always tell what's dyspraxia and what's teenage boy.

And to think some people say that feminism is not necessary any more!

Dolly I have a dp who doesn't see crumbs and occasionally leaves washing on the floor. I wouldn't LTB over it... he's amazing in many ways and I don't kid myself that I'm 100% perfect!
You came on here asking for help. I think you need to have an honest chat with him about the standard you both want the house kept to (it seems women, not men, always get to decide how tidy a house should be ). Once he knows how much his help would mean to you I would expect him to pull his weight, and if this means a list to begin with, so be it. If he doesn't care at all about mess, he should care enough about you to make an effort for your sake.

He leaves his piss for her to clean up..............

shame OP's MIL didn't teach him how to clean a bathroom!

Or his father?

Ok, unless these people are short sighted or visually impaired then "they don't see crumbs" Is bullshit. They see the crumbs, they see the bin getting full, they see the dishes piling up by the sink. The issue is that in their heads these are not their jobs to do so they don't take them under their notice as these things are of no importance to them. How you make it important to them is by refusing to do them yourself until the counter is filthy, the bin has spilled onto the floor and there are no clean dishes. Even then you say nothing, you do nothing. You wait. They will get there eventually.

Assuming that your division of Labour is unfair or unwanted by you (some people take on a fairly traditional division and like it, so this isn't entirely a given, but be aware of how much financial power your probably giving up if you go that route) you need to let him know that it isn't working and you're not happy.

Don't take responsibility for training him. Instead, point out that you learnt to do it and now it's time he'd did too. You've had 2.5+ Years of being responsible, he can take over for the next 2.5. And leave him to it. He will ruin a few more shorts probably. He will have different standards to you. But what he really needs to do is realise that he is responsible and get to grips with it. If he has dyslexia and dyspraxia he will need to find ways to cope - millions of women with these conditions manage, it isn't some get out of jail free cars.

So swap roles and give him a chance to step up. You may also need to step up with input outside the home, depends a bit on how you share the childcare and how you see that in relation to housework. But the main point is - don't be the one responsible for making it lol work. Make sure he realises he needs to be invested in building a home you both want too. You may find that there are some big differences in your values around this - but few men I've met really actually want to live in a pig sty. They just don't want to be the ones who do the drudge work.

Whoever raised him Jen. I only say Mother as a reflection of my own circumstances.
Trust me, there is no man's work and woman's work in my house. Just work.

He leaves his piss for her to clean up. It is very difficult to get past that.