An actual, real list for your husband, really?

[LifesTooShortForYourNonsense]

There were 3 mums talking on the pick up from school today about the lists they have for their husbands - I was a bit speechless, as they were talking about real, written lists. Of stuff to do. For their full time working husbands, when they either don't work or work part time. Do people really do this? And, stay married? I don't understand, I would never... How disrespectful. I'm just imagining if my DH did this for me, I'd be so out the door! AIBU, or should I start a list!

I'm not suggesting that DH shouldn't share everyday household chores, but that I find it weird if it's not unwritten, a given. And I have time to do it myself so i'll give it a go. I'm not great a hanging pictures where I want them, but there are some that need doing - so, YouTube and Google have the answer! I'm not going to put it on a list, I'm sure I can work it out. Think it would be the beginning of the end if we aren't on the same page enough to know what needs doing for daily stuff.

I do understand that some people work with lists for everything, but to give a list to someone else... Well, I can just imagine if someone did that to me!

I have been known to make dh a list. Esp if he is still in bed when I leave for work on a weekend.
It goes
Hey lazypants
Can you wash uniforms
Get dd to tidy her room and do her homework
Stick something in for tea. I should be in for 6.
Have a good day.
Love best wife xxx

I knew someone who did this. I was a bit but she was so matter of fact about it I assumed it worked for them.
A few years later I was a relationship therapist for a small clinic and this very couple turned up on my appointment list. Obviously I didn't see them or mention to anyone that I knew them but arranged for the appointment to be switched to a colleague, however I wasn't at all surprised to see them seeking help.

There’s a seperste thread now on the bleaching of door frames

YABU you have no idea of the content of these lists. I make lists, for myself and for my partner. In fact we usually start the weekend with a list of chores or bits of admin we’d like to get sorted over the weekend. Helps us prioritise and in our own way helps us have more fun - because once we make a list we select the most importantly items and then ensure we have enough time for other fun stuff. If we don’t make a list we’d be randomly doing chores as and when they occurred to us and sometimes not do the high priority chores.
And then also not have time for fun stuff because the chores seem endless.
(But we’re also new parents adjusting to life with DD, and not being able to just spend all Sunday morning at a bottomless brunch).

DH is off tomorrow. I’m goimg to write him a list that says BLEACH DOORFRAMES and see what happens.

(PP please come back and explain...)

I write lists for myself on the backs of envelopes or scrap paper. Then promptly lose the list.

DH loves lists. He writes them meticulously on graph paper, including drawing a little box next to what he’s written so that he can put a neat little tick in it when he’s done the job.

We both still get our jobs done.

My DH could walk through a see of crap lying all over the house and not see it. I can't be arsed continually telling him to do things and he doesn't want to continually hear it so he asks for a list. He's not deliberately being lazy/difficult, he just doesn't see what I see.

I also have two days off while he works full time. I do the majority of the house work but I'll be damned if I'm doing it all.

Na op you are taking it way too seriously. Couples work differently. If a list is required and acceptable to both what’s the problem.

Running a household isn’t a fanjo job.

I'm waiting in anticipation to hear more about this door frame bleaching...

We cant remember what the word is so we call it list-en-cross-en-off-en

Very good!

Honestly, an actual written list sounds like a good idea to me.

I get so sick of noticing everything that there is to do around the house, asking DH to take care of a reasonable proportion of those jobs, him agreeing to do so, and then me having to remind him repeatedly to do the jobs he agreed to do. At least if I wrote them down I could just refer him to the list.

My dh likes lists. He writes them about once a month for everything he wants to do, or buy, or go and see etc, lists make him happy. Then we cross things off as they get done regardless of who does them. Whatever is left on the months list goes on the top of next months list - but they might still be on the list 6 months later. He has never asked me to do anything on his list.

You you tubed how to hang a picture?

OP's mental checklist: "Feel judgmental about the stay-at-home mums at school and then go bitch about them online" - ✅

I mean, come on, I'm not even a parent and I think it's rubbish to deride other parents like this, it sounds smug and mean.

We have lists here, to remind us of things we forget we meant to do.
I'm somewhat disabled so can't do much DIY any more, DP is crap at paperwork, so we do divvy up tasks according to ability and time available.
If he put routine or cheeky stuff on my list I'd be unimpressed.

”Na op you are taking it way too seriously. Couples work differently. If a list is required and acceptable to both what’s the problem.”

I was going to say pretty much the same thing, @Ohmydayslove.

There is no one right way for family dynamics to work, @LifesTooShortForyourNonsense - as long as you are happy doing things the way you do, and your friends and their dhs are happy doing things their way, why should you judge them? Yours isn’t the only right way, and you sound as if you are sneering at them for their way of doing things, which isn’t very nice.

I would find it odd writing a list for another adult ( other than a quick text message of things to get whilst doing shop). My lists are for me ( complete with boxes to tick off ) . DH writes his own. I am part time, DH's hours make a 40 hour week look like child's play he still can work out what needs doing.

... neither of us added bleaching down door frames to our lists. We must live in a hovel.

Glue gunning a skirting board? Your daily tasks are unusual!

Bleach the door frames!

I’d definitely have to put that on a list if I ever wanted dh to do it.

I have just moved house and the house list is MAHOOOOOSIVE, in fact it is so huge it isn’t even written down, but if someone does say ‘you should move that plant’, ‘that door would be nice painted orange’, ‘when are you going to get a cooker with more than one working burner’, I can happily say “it’s on the list —you nosey buttinski—“ and forget about it.

I am chief of DIY in this household. DH would not know how to write a B&Q list, and I can’t cook actually edible food. I add to his shopping list very happily.

Nobody is offended, nobody gets the huff.

I don’t think it’s odd to write lists of general stuff to do for everyone to take note of,

I think it’s insane to write a list for another grown up because otherwise they won’t contribute to the home.
Especially men who can fully function in a work environment all on their own.

There's lists for everything in my house. Dh always asks me to email him lists. I try to talk to him about the next 10-20 things I need his input on and if it's not the right moment for him to deal with it (I have a habit of raising things that are worrying me at 11pm!) he asks me to email him a list. What's wrong with that?

I just... If I think something needs doing, I'll do it. I have 2 days off a week , and DH is full time.

I work three days and stay at home with our dc for the other 2, plus Saturdays which my DH works. I don't have any 'days off', other than Sunday, which is the only day we share at home as a family. [Perhaps op your kids are all in childcare / school all day, so your days at home feel more like 'days off'?]

We have a blackboard on our wall which currently has a 30 item list of DIY / house & garden related tasks for the month of May. I wrote it, and DH has crossed off most of the completed items. He finds it useful to have a reminder of this month's priorities, and to know that we have already either sourced supplies or budgeted for items necessary for jobs on the list. If his day off falls on one of my working days (when our DC would be in childcare anyway), I can expect to come home to a few items checked off. Come the end of the month, we'll review and I'll write the next one. There's nothing disrespectful about one person being better suited to planning / organising / budgeting / thinking ahead or whatever specific skills are relevant to the list in question and the other person recognising that fact. The fact that you would find it hard to take if your husband made a list for you perhaps says more about your relationship dynamic than it does about lists.

i think it’s insane to write a list for another grown up

Why? If it suits the couple and it gets things sorted and both are happy why is it insane?

What I find insane and frankly a tad stupid are people not understanding that other couples function differently to them. Baffling really