Surely people don't actually do this?

[Rollonbedtime7pm]

Noticed on a lot of threads about husbands and chores that so many people often ask the OP "why are you cooking/washing/cleaning for him?"

AIBU to think not washing your partner's clothes or cooking them dinner when doing your own is just weird?! Do people really operate in a "I look after myself only" kind of way?

I can understand if your DH is totally taking the piss and lets you do everything then maybe you need to rethink the chore sharing but just for the principle of not being a stepford wife?! Or because he's an adult or whatever the weird reason?

As a rule I 100% do more of house hold stuff as I do not have a job outside of the house, and by me doing more of the boring household chores, whilst DP is at work. This does not make be downtrodden in anyway, I chose to be a SAHM and I'm very happy with it by me putting in more effort

We get more time together as a couple
We get more time together as a family

Weekends it's a shared responsibility, but often to make sure we have time together I do the house stuff on a Monday.

I worked in management in the city when I met DP, he was a single RP dad (he owns his own business so equal job roles and responsibilities). If I came into our relationship with the attitude he had to do his share and his children's share and to be clear I see the DC as very much my responsibility and a part of our family! I'd be sitting with my feet up whilst he ran around like a mad person with no energy at the end of the day. I love my partner and my family id rather spend time with them than faff about who is doing separate laundry loads

However, he is not a lazy arse and If he saw a full basket of dirty clothes he would wash them, if I'm tired or can't be areas he will cook, if I'm sick he 100% picks up the stuff I can't do whilst I'm unwell and keeps our house running whilst working and looking after children. You could argue that because I can't step into his job role during those times that it is actually me who gets the better deal as his role doesn't change when he is sick.

Swings and roundabouts in this household

I certainly don't do more than my share of housework: in fact, it is usually dh who does the laundry.

But, like a fair proportion of the population (I imagine), I live in a house where only one bedroom is large enough to easily accommodate a laundry basket and where there isn't space enough to own the amount of clothes you would need for each member of the family to be able to fill a separate machine with just their own underwear so I genuinely didn't think of that. Of course if you do have the space and the money, then there is no harm in it. Running more wash-loads than necessary is wrong, though.

bluntness we don't have a laundry basket. We have a pile in front of the washing machine, which can be made up of laundry from all of us. Why would it matter if your dirty skids were mixed in with your child's? They're all getting washed anyway!

Well my 'D'H is a lazy fucking fucker who has done perhaps 10 loads of laundry in 4 years.

I'm currently not washing any of his clothes. There's more than enough for a full load a day with me and DS. H has not noticed yet.

Would I leave a violent man? Hell yeah. A mean man? Maybe. But one who falls short on the washing? Erm, I think I'd give him a chance before taking the MN advice of dialling 101, getting a council house and going NC with him and all his family.

Mwhahahahahaha

Ah, it's just different ways of working. We don't have a separate utility so leaving our dirty clothes piled up on the kitchen floor wouldn't work, wouldn't be too pleasant when we're sitting there eating out dinner, they go into our wash baskets and are taken out by whomever it is when we have a full load. Even when I did my daughters, she always had her own laundry basket in her room, and I'd just go up and empty it and do a wash, usually with mine. They are all wicker with a lid on, so tidy and keeps dirty washing out of sight.

As she got older I felt it should be her responsibility to wash and iron her clothes as she did and still does ( when home from uni) little else.

Everyone's washing gets done together in this house and if DH does a wash of just his stuff with plenty of space for more washing I get a bit peed off TBH, what a waste of electricity. I don't think I know anyone who separates like this.... except one friend who doesn't wash her DH's clothes but that's because he's precious & likes his done in biological detergent and she & the kids can only use non-bio due to eczema.

Totally agree with sharing workloads and I agree the attitude on here can be bizarre. Having said that I can understand how some couples with no kids can easily be stuck in their old routine. I think it's quite rude to refuse to do anything for your partner based entirely on the principle of it.

It really gets me with the attitude towards teenagers though. Everyone over 14 has to make their own meals, do their own laundry and get a job. Of course the people who think this are also those who micromanage every aspect of their child's lives, refuse to let them watch 15 rated films until their official 15th birthday and send them to bed at 8.30 after confiscating all phones and tablets.

The stain thread was mine first time a thread of mine been mentioned in a new thread
I do all the washing together as a family unit. There is no my stuff your stuff. I work from home part time and self employed so I am home a lot more than dh who is out from 8-6/8 He does nearly all washing up and I'd say most of the evening meals. He also does all garden chores and lots of other things for our family unit at weekends. I feel we are fairly even and I'm happy with this pattern.

I noticed the "why can't he do it himself" comment on my thread but decided I couldn't be arsed to get in an argument when all I wanted was some tips on armpit stains!!!! I ignored it. Madness.

Made that was probably wise!

Ds, 10, and I have separate laundry baskets. I tell help him sort it, and remind him when he needs to do washing, but it's his job. He always has enough muddy clothes to fill our ( small) machine.
I would never share a laundry basket with a man. His grundys, his job!
My lovely bf does lots of nice things for me, and the first couple of times he left his socks on my floor I washed them.
Then I came to my senses and thought " no, I don't want to go down this road" and mentioned it to him
him... Now he makes sure he takes his dirty washing home.
When (if) we eventually live together we will pool money, both cook etc, but he will have his own laundry basket.
I hate housework, and in my experience men add to women's work rather than lighten the load.
I do my own car maintenance and lawn mowing btw. I even take out my bins. These are not time consuming jobs and they don't make me feel like a drudge.
.

I do not wash DH;s clothes and he does not wash mine. Mainly because he has this weird fixation on washing at 60 degrees and it shrinks all my stuff. He also always does a double back to back wash of the same stuff because he thinks one wash doesnot cut it.

I am quite normal in comparison and wash only once.

Everything else we share. Except that i love to cook and find it relaxing so I do that mostly. I also hate hate hate loading and unloading dishwashers, but DH does not mind it. So he does that and in return I get the much better job (to my mind) of doing litter trays.

It is a partnership as others have said. I have my frustrations but on the whole am very happy with how we work things.

Look. Let's be bloody honest. Mowing the lawn is a day out for husbands, akin to golf. It gets them out of the house, away from the endless tiny pressures and demands, and they get brownie points for it.

Blimey, I'm so tired mowing this lawn for half the year, I wish instead I could go indoors, trawl the bedrooms for dirty clothes, do the needful then spend my leisure time fielding demands about where someone's gym kit is. Said no man ever.

I'm particularly happy right now, because we both work from home mostly, but I have had a busy week, so DH is doing the school run and then the grocery shopping and I am doing wine. :)

He has a shocker of a week next week so we will alternate. :)

honeylulu - I'm interested myself in their set-up, especially now they're empty nesters. It's the most bizarre marriage - they do nothing together (well, I don't know about that !).

I hate gardening and I'm entirely happy to trade doing washing every day for seasonal lawn mowing. Actually I quite like doing washing . Dm was the same - she said there is a strong correlation between washing lovers and introverts...

I'd like to see a Venn diagram featuring people who like washing/ hate gardening and people who hate their maiden name/ like their husbands name. I think I know what it would look like. Each to their own of course, and there's no harm in doing the traditional thing if it suits you.

"I hate gardening"

I think much depends on how much you garden. If you're doing loads of veg or herbaceous perennial borders to rival a stately home, it's a lot of work. It's also arguably not essential work in the same way as washing is, either, though anyone who tells my DH I said that will be hit over the head with my trowel .

If you're just mowing the lawn and pruning a few shrubs once a year, it doesn't begin to compare to doing load after load in the machine. (I do understand enjoying washing though. I like the smell). There is no way that mowing an average suburban lawn weekly for 6 months in the summer = doing the washing.

I've always had it in mind that if you buy stuff that's a pain-in-the-arse to wash ("Oh no, that's handwash!" "Oh no, that needs the special woollen cycle!") instead of being able to be chucked in on a normal 30C/40C cycle, then you should take of that yourself.

I hate pretty well housework, with the exception of some cooking. Pointless bloody waste of time. I'm not too hot on childcare either, come to that. I'd like to be one of those blokes who just don't do this stuff. I suspect I'm far from alone in this.

Always kept washing separate with exDP. Why would I do his washing and why would he do mine? We both had enough for full loads and could manage our washing as an when we wanted too.

Pretty well all housework.

YANBU OP, the general attitude on MN towards partners in a marriage shocks me and I think a lot of people would think I was 'oppressed' if they saw my life but I LOVE IT!!!

I do majority of the housework but I'm a SAHM and I do class myself as a housewife, I don't see what is so wrong with this?? I have an Msc in Computer Science, I worked in the city for years but once we had children it made sense for me to stay home with them. I do the lions share of the housework because my husband works full time!! I do the coking, cleaning, washing, ironing, school pick ups (he does the drop offs) but at the weekends he will do the deep cleaning, he is actually great around the house and does the gardening etc which I never touch. Marriage is a partnership, it's the strangest thing to make food just for yourself, or to put only your own load on... He pays for everything, I haven't worked since. Am I oppressed? Nope, feckin love it!!

I think we need to change the bad press around being 'just' a housewife!! As if a housewife needs to somehow make up an excuse for just being a housewife or SAHM...

I do think SAHM should more of the Lions share, don't get me wrong.
When I was off on Mat leave I certainly did most things.
I'd have been bored out of my tiny mind if I didn't do anything all day.
But not everything.
It's a 'shared' household and the chores and tasks should also be shared.

That might be what "bloody honest" looks like in your house, Morris, it's not that way in our house. We're a team, we all pull our weight and we all chip in no matter what the job.