To ask you how much your DH/DP really does around the house?

[Pammync]

I’ve been reading with interest the recent threads about “man child” husbands who contribute very little inside and outside of the home. More than anything, I was surprised to see how many people don’t seem to think this is the norm and claim to have wonderful partners/husbands who contribute equal amounts to chores or even do the majority around the house! Where on earth do people find these miracle men?! I’ve been married twice (now divorced) and have had numerous LT relationships over the years. Every single man I have ever been with has been pretty much useless and reluctant to do anything without being nagged and even then it’s never to a good standard. Friends and family members who are married or in relationships all have had the same experience and consider it to be the norm.

Over the last few years I’ve remained single, resigning myself to the fact that men who are clean and tidy, want to proactively contribute to a clean household and share the load when it comes to chores in general simply don’t exist and I’m not suited to being in a relationship.

Reading through the hundreds of posts claiming that such behaviour isn’t the norm, I’m genuinely interested to hear what IS now the norm in your relationships re who does what around the house and how you share the load in general? If things have really changed I better get dating again.

We're naturally a very 'pink/blue' Jobs household. I do the majority of ironing, day to day cleaning, polishing, mopping floors, all of the cooking. All of the school runs.food shopping. I work part time. DH does all of the DIY, will bath kids, help put them to bed, empties bins, will help get kids ready for school before he leaves for work. Tends to the garden (I never do it) washes the cars, services the cars. Organises and pays for most holidays. He works full time. Sometimes I wish he did a bit of cooking but there again I expect he wishes I gave a shit about lit beautiful garden (which I don't )

• our not lit

People listings their chores isn’t really the point, people who choose to marry men who function as adults on a basic level did not find a ‘miracle’, they just have standards. Don’t tolerate anyone who expects you to serve them, who ‘doesn’t realise/can’t see/needs to be told’, just raise your standards and stop these pathetic misogynist specimens from breeding, there is honestly no need to tolerate trash like that anymore, it’s not like cock is scarce.

@ZaphodBeeblerox
All these men who don’t do housework etc - what were they doing before you met them ladies?

XH -I was 16 and he was 20 living in his parents annexe and they had a cleaner twice a week who he kept til we moved to our own house a few years later (after we were already married). Downhill from then I'm afraid.

DP was living in a house share and he was the most domesticated out of the 3 of them.

I cook, and clean the bathroom (when we don't have a cleaner) and iron DS clothes.

DH does everything else.

Very little, he will make a meal maybe once a month. I do pretty much everything else (though we do have a cleaner and ironing lady). I also do everything to do with Christmas and birthdays.

But he works maybe three times as many hours a week outside the home than I do, so I pick up more of the jobs that need to be done at home in the week. We both spend time equally at weekends on things to do with the DC as well as at home.

He does all the finances, bills, money management, car stuff (all I do is put fuel in) etc.

DP does almost all the cooking, which he enjoys and is very good at. The kitchen is very much his domain, he is fastidiously tidy and everything is in its designated place at all times. He doesn’t trust me to use his beautiful, ultra-expensive Japanese knives.

We take it in turns to do the food shopping. He also does all his own ironing. I did iron one of his work shirts once. He did it again, because I apparently I didn’t iron it to the required standard. Oops, silly me.....

The rest of the housework is probably split about 50/50.

We both work full time, I do slightly less hours in general though. We tend to share out most things by who is home first, or who is closest to a shop for example. He pretty much does everything apart from ironing and school related bits like meeting teacher/homework, I do everything apart from taking the bins out and cleaning the vehicles.

We work well as a team, but tbh I wouldn’t have settled for a man baby in the first place 🤷🏼‍♀️

He does more housework than me, and the majority of the cooking and shopping. There isn't a job he doesn't do.

If anyone can be accused of not pulling their weight it would be me.

He does most of it. He won't do laundry but everything else he does.

Takes the bins out
Hoovers the stairs (only carpet in the house), once a week when asked.
Unloads/loads the dishwasher once or twice a week
Puts wash on/takes out and hangs on dryer once or twice a week.

Will do anything else (with varying amounts of complaining) if asked. Would never take it upon himself to just do it. And that for me is the rub. It's not that I do more particularly, although that is annoying to some degree, (and it would be nice to have someone else make dinner a few times a week),it's the fact that I have to think about everything and ask him to do stuff that clearly needs doing. The laziness of that is what grinds me.

All these men who don’t do housework etc - what were they doing before you met them ladies?

I met my DP at uni and that's definitely where my 'problem' lies. He'd not quite learned to be independent in regards to cleaning and running a house at that point and definitely hadn't picked up any good habits from his parents I stepped in and in the early days took responsibility for everything in order to impress him and made a rod for my own back!

That being said, he has helped me grow so much in my 'problem' areas during our time together that I can forgive a little untidiness as he more than makes up for this in other ways.

He probably does more than me. Both of us work 4 days a week (we have a 3 year old)

He gets DS ready for nursery and does drop off and pick up. We take turn about for cooking in the evenings (just heating up batch cooked food), dishes, making packed lunches. Both of us do laundry and ironing as and when we can: no set rota

My partner works fly in fly out. 2 weeks on 1 week off. When he's home he does everything. Cooks. Cleans. Cares for our son. Prior to FIFO he was the same. The one thing he hates is Laundry.

Not very much. He will do things if asked but almost always has to be prompted and sometimes nagged. Think I can count on one hand how many times he has done laundry and he rarely does the dishwasher. When he cooks he makes such a mess, I’d rather just do it myself. He doesn’t clean as he goes which I find completely frustrating so he just makes the kitchen look like a war zone.

He does do the gardening and 99% of the DIY though so not completely feckless. Plus works FT obvs .

He does pretty much everything really, we each cook our own dinners, if I put a wash in, he'll hang it up. We load/empty the dishwasher ad hoc equally. I tend to give the bathroom a wipe to keep on top of it in the week and he'll clean it properly on his day off. He changes the bed sheets, takes the rubbish out, hoovers and irons (if we have anything to iron).

For extra context I'm chronically ill so will struggle with some of the above- he'd rather do it than me tire myself out over it. We also aren't obsessively clean at home so whilst he does it all really, it isn't hours a day. Homes don't need to be spotless IMO, just clean and tidy.

Mine does a equal 50% of everything.

However he does the laundry alone if I’m honest and most of the cooking, but I walk the family dog and clean mostly. He does most of the garden too, but I do most of the stair hoovering... we both have certain things we do to contribute, but it’s generally 50/50

I didn’t train him to be that way, he just is. I couldn’t be with a slacker though...there’s no way I’d be a modern day slave through choice, I see that as crazy behaviour.

We split everything 50/50, though I may do more of certain chores and he does more of others.

I wouldn't be with a partner who didn't do their fair share of work around the house.

I'm at home, so I tend to do 90% during the week. Shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning.

We share after school clubs/bed time stories, supervising getting showered in the evening/ready in the mornings/homework.

At the weekends, he will happily stick washing on/hoover/cook/shop. He also does 90% of the ironing.

It works for us. He's grateful for my hard work and I am for his.

I am a SAHM so do practically all chores except taking out garbage and cleaning litter tray.

But DH does the hardest task of all for me:
Every night he takes care of DS who is still waking up 2 -3 times every night.

We used to do the ‘night shift’ by turns but because I have been struggling a lot with PND after birth, DH decided that I need to get as much sleep as possible to feel better.

I him offer every day to take over for just 1 night (or more if he needs) but he refuses to accept my offer and encourages me to go to bed early.
I am incredibly grateful for his help as the lack of sleep definetly made my PND worse

Mine often takes the bins to the road for collection and puts the dishwasher on. Might cook every 2 weeks or so, very little childcare that isnt led by me. I cant say I'm overly happy with it as although I work 3 days a week and he's FT, we have a toddler so it's almost impossible to actually get anything done on my 'days off'. Sometimes get to WFH so can stick some extra washing on

I take bins out, load/unload washing machine when I see full basket full of washing (DW also does this). I clean bathroom once a week (toilet every day). I do all the washing up (deal struck with DW as she does all of the ironing). We both sweep floors as and when. We are both pretty laid back when it comes to housework (currently sat on sofa looking at lots of dust on TV cabinet) We would rather be doing other things!

I'm a SAHD in my early forties (to a two year old) and do nearly everything. DW might pick up a bottle of milk or something but I do all the food shopping, all the cooking, dishwasher, laundry, ironing, changing sheets/towels etc, bins, day-to-day cleaning, lawnmowing, DIY, cars, and the financial portfolio.

DW will do washing up about one night in three, DD's laundry if it needs doing over a weekend, weeding, and one-off spring clean type things. We split childcare 50-50 evenings and weekends when DW is home.

I grew up in a forrin environment with live-in domestic staff and spent nine years at boarding school, so there was always paid help for domestic chores. This categorically does not mean that I grew up with no clue about how to manage a home or that I have an automatic entitlement to be a useless asshat about it. Since reaching adulthood I've had neither the inclination nor the money to pay someone to do it so just got on with doing it myself.

As for OP's idea that 'miracle men' like this do no exist, most of my male friends - particularly the ex-boarders - are pretty self-sufficient. It's how we were raised. But we've all been, for much of our adult lives, virtually invisible to and ignored by women on the dating scene. Apart from two short (18-24 month) relationships I was single and lived by myself until I met my wife at age 37. Amongst the reasons I've been turned down in the past are such gems as "too boring", "too girly", "it's like going out with my Dad", and the best one: "I just don't believe there isn't another woman here". I have lost count of the number of times I was dismissed out of hand long before we got to shared household chores.

My DH works full time and I volunteer for a charity part time and take care of kids. He does bins, puts on washing and hangs it out and empties dishwasher before going to work. I do all the week day cooking and most of the tidying up. At the weekend he hoovers and mops the floors and cleans toilets. We swap doing bathrooms but I do the bedrooms, dusting, wiping surfaces etc. He does any other jobs I ask and puts kids to bed if I am tired. I do all the birthday admin, Christmas jobs and shopping, though he picks up stuff at shops on the way home if I ask.

We share because I find it all overwhelming. He has an app and actually enjoys ticking off all the jobs. We both make a mess so we both clean up. His dad is the same way and they are both devoted, loving husbands and fathers. I can't imagine falling in love with anyone who would do less.