To ask about equal or fair distribution of household jobs?

[babycatcher411]

With so many threads regularly appearing (and also the fact that we haven’t got it ‘right’ In our house yet), I wondered how people fairly distribute jobs with their partners?
What is the balance of household jobs in your house and do you think you’ve got it ‘right’?

What do you consider the influencing factors to deciding who does what/how many of the jobs?

For instance:
Scenario 1: Partner A earns £28,000 working 40hrs, whilst partner B earns the same working only 32hrs. They both pay the same towards the household bills, any money left over is theirs as they see fit. Should partner b be responsible for more of the household jobs because they work less hours?

Scenario 2: Both partners work the same total hours, same wage, A works it as a 9-5 5 days a week, B works it’s as a shift worker 13hr shifts balanced over the month. Partner B gets more ‘whole’ days off because they work longer shifts. Partner A obviously get the same total hours off, but spread more evenly over the evenings.
Partner A expects partner B to do household jobs on their days off, because that’s what they do. Neither do anything in the evenings-because they’re tired. Because partner B has ‘more’ days off, they’re expected to take the lions share of the work. Is this fair?

Scenario 3: Partner A hates to cook, Partner B generally enjoys cooking. To make the distribution of food provision fair, partner A thinks partner B should cook 50% of the time, and that they will provide food (ie takeaway or meal out- at partner As expense) the other 50% of the time.

Obviously there are endless scenarios, I’m just interested as to what people’s domestic set up is, what considerations are taken (ie, finances, days off, enjoyment/disinterest in certain jobs, childcare)?

Salary is totally irrelevant. Working hours are more important.

We split mostly evenly with dh doing a bit more than me. It depends on who is busiest each week.

We’re close to scenario 3. I love cooking, dh doesn’t. I cook, he clears away. He takes responsibility for a few meals each week but not take away. Usually something simple.

Honestly I read these threads in morbid fascination. I can’t even imagine living in a household where everyone is calculating things like this all the time, it must drive you absolutely mad. There are so many other variables you can’t ever account for - what if someone is ill, or had a crap day at work, or was invited to a party on a day they were meant to be doing the bins or something?! In our house, one person works FT and one person works PT, and everyone just does what needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done, because we both can use our eyes and ears to identify those things and no one is worrying about what they are “owed” all the time.

For me sharing jobs should be about how long they spend at work but with also being prepared to helped each other out when needed. So the partner who works fewer hours does more but it depends on the situation eg new baby, Unwell toddler, disability will all impact on this.

As for money I think both partners should have equally personal money and the rest should be family money.

I like life should be a joint team effort.

In our situation I am now a SAHM. I do stuff as I go and the rest is finished on a night time by whoever is not doing bedtime. I cook during the week so we can all eat when DH walks through the door and at weekends it depends on what we feel like.

DH and both have the same amount of personal spending money and everything else is family money.

I earn 52k, 40h. Husband 45k, often up to 60h, if not 70h weeks.

I walk to work, he has to commute anywhere between 30m-2h.

I do laundry, he does dishes. We have a dishwasher, but it can be unreliable, and he's very thorough (I'm not, I don't check properly and get the odd stains, and tend to breeze through dishes). When he does the laundry he... doesn't. At least not until some item becomes critical/overdue. And he uses the wrong settings/wastes electricity (Think putting the eco cycle on - then two extra spin cycles - then 2hr in the tumble dryer. Takes a whole sodding day. I do three quickwash loads then all tumbled together). We both spend about the same practical time doing each job properly.

We split cooking maybe 70:30. With him getting home so late, I'm not waiting for dinner, and at the weekends, I enjoy taking my time a bit more. Poor sod needs a bit of downtime!

Bins/other small jobs tend to be done by him. I do more tidying.

We have a cleaner, which swerves any of those issues, though if there's any interim cleaning that needs doing, he'll crack first and get the hoover out.

I'm happy with the balance of tasks, but he is one of those people who will do their responsibilities last (I will do them first with minimal effort ). I crack on with everything I MUST do as soon as I get home, he leaves it, perpetually grumbling.

I've told him that before we have kids, he's got to demonstrate for 6 months that he can come in and crack on with everything that needs doing straight away, because I sure as hell won't be accepting that he needs 'downtime' after work then. (we're splitting parental leave, so he'll have 4m home himself).

(even though we're not planning ttc for another year at least, he has actually begun to do this)

We’ve only been living together about 8months, so we’re still finding our feet in terms of who does what etc. It’s certainly proving to be tricky at times.
I’ve lived alone for the best part of 6/7 years, whilst my other half has lived with his parents. And whilst he’s generally very good at helping with the obvious jobs, he often doesn’t appreciate what goes on ‘behind the scenes’.

We both come from very different backgrounds/upbringings, so we do sometimes clash on who ‘should’ do what and are definitely still learning to iron out the creases.

I wouldn’t say that we ‘calculate’ any of the jobs as black and white as how I’ve written those scenarios, I was just trying to provide a couple of examples of potential differences of opinions.

Being massively presumptuous here but guessing that you 6/7 years alone has you all over what needs to be done while his having his arse wiped by mummy and daddy being more supported is the issue.

What are your clash points?

How about just being adult and doing things when you see they need doing? Think of the house as a ship that needs to be kept running rather than a tit for tat, this is my job, this is your job situation.

There are (quiet a few things) that DH prefers doing because he is anally retentive and wants them done a certian way but they are not his 'job'. If he isn't there and one of those things needs doing I (or whoever sees it) will do it instead without issue.

How about just being adult and doing things when you see they need doing?

We need more structure than that-life is busy and the house gets out of hand if we don’t have a list to cover every week. That doesn’t make me any less of an adult.

It's not about money. I own the house we live in so I make the home improvement decisions and pay for them, but consult DP on design/practicality, and he does an equal amount of DIY.

He commutes 3 hrs a day & I work 15 mins walk away, so during the week I meal plan, shop, cook, wash up. At weekends he does all that, & fills the freezer for the week.

Cleaning, we take it in turns to do bathroom, kitchen, and Big Clean. Tidying is mostly me because I'm basically Marie Kondo and I love it; he does more laundry because he generates more and won't wear the same thing twice. He irons his stuff, I don't bother. We're both slovenly about vacuuming, compost bin and bins generally. I damp dust everything like a demon, he doesn't bother.

But it's always changing: I'm pregnant and exhausted and pukey, so he's cooking more in the week and doing way more than I am right now. We try to talk about it a lot and negotiate what we're willing to let go when we're busy/ill/stressed, and what's driving us demented. There's no set your job/my job. Except getting things off the top shelf because I'm 4'11".

DP is an HGV driver doing about 45 hours a week over 5 days. He starts early and can sometimes be home as early as 3pm.

Monday to Friday I do most things in the house. I am disabled and am unable to work. DP's jobs are emptying the bins and doing the ironing. Both of these I find a struggle. He does loads of other stuff though and even things like putting clean plates away can be hard for me so I stack stuff on the worktop and get him to do it when he gets home.

He cooks at weekends sometimes, we tend to share day to day stuff at the weekend but I know he needs downtimes too so make sure he has a day where he doesn't need to do much. That's not meant in a 'mothering' way but more awareness of the amount of hours he works to support us.

We do squabble about house stuff on occasion, I think most people do. There is always something that will annoy someone else.

Salary means nothing in our house, whatever we earn is both of ours.

Hours spent at work is more important.
I'm on mat leave currently and dh works full time so I do slightly more housework atm than him but I obviously spend more time with the kids so he will play with them when he gets home to free up my hands to do dinner / washing etc.

It's really up to the couple and what suits them. It doesn't actually have to be a 'fair split' as long as the couple are both happy.

@echt ‘—having his arse wiped by mummy and daddy— being more supported is the issue.’

What are your clash points?’

I guess this is sort of the issue, I wouldn’t say he’s lazy in any which way, he’s always very keen to work available overtime to ‘provide’ for us, but I think because when he was at home with his parents he never had the responsibility of most of the domestic jobs, he doesn’t even realise many exist.
If the floor is mucky, he’ll not need to think twice about grabbing the hoover, but the fairy’s clean skirting boards in this house for example.

I think part of the issue/conflict stems from having grown up in a house where the man does ‘man jobs’ (ie. DIY), and the woman does women’s jobs (ie. the cooking). Where as my parents were very much more a balance of this.
And thus, because I’ve lived alone (and renovated a house myself) for so long, I’m used to doing/being aware of all the jobs, whereas I guess he’s still learning.

lord this is depressing- the minute nit picking. Living together as a couple is not a house share, you shouldn't need a rota for chores like when at uni. My husband wouldnt think to do a load of ironing but then he will do the gardening, swings in round abouts.
Salary though is irreverent, I dont see why someone should have to do more round the home if they earn less- almost as if a punishment. If someone has more downtime they should pick up more of the house work.

We just share the work, although some chores are more one person than the other. That's down to our individual skills though - I cook, he washes up. Sometimes he does the laundry, sometimes I do. There's no fixed rules really, it's all just a bit of give and take. I was raised in a large family and we all had chores to do to help things run smoothly, and he was raised in a forces family with a working mother, so we were both taught early on to pull our share of the weight.

This is on our fridge.
Some things are daily, weekly, monthly.
Normal things like washing up, wiping toothpaste off the sink, unclogging bathplug, scooping up the odd doghair dustbunny are do-it-as-you-see-it things.
If one of us doesn't have time to clean the bathroom, the other will do it.
We both put out the washing cos it goes up on the roof and it has a nice view, plus the dog can chill out for a few minutes too. Fresh air plus sharing the bend-lift-peg tedium of hanging washing, love it.

We both do DIY, we both change the bedding, we both walk the dog sit in the placa with a mum/dad friend having coffee

What we earn doesn't come into it, never has.

Right now I'm gonna shower, get the washing in, change ds' curtain in his bedroom then take to dog out for a wizz. DH is working, then he'll put up some coat hooks and come out with me and the dog, we'll buy a bagette for lunch. I'm collecting D's after school and going straight to a birthday party [yawn] DH will work. We have another party Sunday morning that we'll both go to.

Sharesies - the basis of every good relationship!

The thing is, housework is tedious as fuck but needs doing, and needs doing regularly. Welcome to being a grown-up. Just get on with it without whinging.

Oops, photo Congo

At least he has an idea of jobs to be done, so a starting point for how to divvy it up. You need the talk that spells it all out, that women's and men's work is a start, i.e/jobs exist and have been allocated in a certain way, but times have changed.

The challenge will come not when he resists the designations of tasks, but when those tasks tot up to a shitload of work for the woman, and fuck all for him.

My late and lovely DH, raised in a very traditional manner, practically wore out his lip inwardly sneering at men who did not work and seek to advance themselves in work to provide. And do DIY. This were not principles, but emerged over time.

In addition to his demanding job, he handled all money, holidays, cooking, food shopping, veggie gardening, dog walking and big DIY stuff. In addition to my demanding job I handled laundry, cleaning, hoovering, putting out the bins, flower gardening, mowing the lawn, medical/vet stuff, sitting on my arse waiting to be fed, and assisting the DIY.

It worked and I have to say not because we talked it out, it happened for the most part, but points of conflict were talked out.The difference is is this is where you probably need to start.

I do most of the "chores" because it bothers me more when they aren't done (I can't bathe in a dirty tub or make a sandwich if the kitchen sides aren't scrubbed whereas husband doesn't even notice) - but he's better at mornings than me so he gets up earlier and gets our toddler ready for nursery while I have a snooze. Also he tends to care more about eating dinner than I do, so he does the cooking and I empty the dishwasher and clean around him while he's at it. So both of us are happy with the amount of effort we each put into childcare and housework - neither of us is doing or not jobs just for the sake of "fairness" - if I want my husband to do something specially (I'm pregnant so avoiding excessive lifting and stretching), I just ask him and he will do it without complaint. Just like I will if it's something I'm "better at".

We care about each other so don't want the other person to constantly be doing things which make them miserable just to be "equal".

I think you’re probably right, we do need to just sit down and talk about it again. When we first moved in together we just went with the flow, which resulted in massive conflict after about 2/3months because I landed with the lions share very definitely. We then sat down and looks at it a bit more and things have been much better since, but never wrote out anything, and maybe we would both benefit from doing this again.

I go on maternity leave (whole other story there, not planned, way quicker than we anticipated, but we’ve coped) next week, so it’s all going to change anyway.

I don’t want to resent him, I love him to pieces and I know he works hard at work to provide for us, I just don’t feel we’ve got it ‘right’ yet at home

Dh works 40 hours a week,I work 7 hours a week so I do all the cooking and housework.This works well for us.

DH and I share stuff, but play to our strengths and what we enjoy.

I sort of enjoy cooking, so I do most of that, but DH does most of the washing up, unless I'm in the kitchen listening to TA anyway, in which case I get on with it.

He likes pottering outside so does the gardening.

I get frustrated by searching for stuff on the internet, so he does that.

I'm 'better' at helping with h/w, and it is better for DD to have consistent help, so I do that, but where DH can help e.g. testing science he'll do it.

Neither of us care about skirting boards so they get ignored.

Broadly speaking, I do more of the day-to-day things and he does more of the random or longer term things.

DP and I have just bought our first house together, so we're still finding our feet with this. We both work the same hours and earn the same money (we work in the same department), and have no children although are TTC. Both of us lived with our parents to save for our deposit, so certainly weren't the most proactive when it came to housework!

As I'm more anal tidy and organised, I take the lead in deciding what needs to be done / cleaned on any given day. DP needs a prod in the right direction to even think that something needs cleaned or tidied, but will absolutely muck in and shares the work with me. I'm trying to encourage him to be more proactive with this, and he's definitely getting there.

DP is a wonderful cook, and really enjoys trying new things and concocting his own variations on recipes. I, on the other hand, am the worst cook on the planet, so DP does 99% of the cooking. Much like I'm encouraging him in the cleaning, he's been encouraging me with the cooking.

Things like changing the beds, putting the bins out, organising the recycling, and doing the shopping is a joint effort.

So far, this works for us.