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.

My husband was expected to do chores and childcare growing up and lived alone for several years before we moved in together. He's always been more domesticated than me because I came home to a house cleaned and dinner cooked by my mum although she did have some cleaning help.

Where are all these superhero husbands found?!

They're really not superheroes, they're adults who live in a household doing their fair share of the domestic gruntwork of that household. Going about saying your husband is a 'miracle man' because he does the cooking and laundry smacks of the kind of skewed double standard whereby SAH fathers are ooed and aahed over at the school gate for arriving with a fully-dressed child and a schoolbag and lunchbox, and a baby in a pushchair that is not clad only in a nappy despite it being mid-December in Kettering.

My DH does the bins, puts away ironing and cooks 2 evenings a week when i'm at work.
We have a cleaner which helps massively. I work part time and do all meal planning and food shopping, washing, ironing, extra cleaning. It works out fairly equally in terms of free time.

My DH cycles to work most days .Im a SAHM so I have the use of our car.He will wash up ,hoover and take the dog out !(helpful if wet!) Bins /Garden /Computer help .I do the Cooking and shopping and wash the floors/dusting and so on .Seems to work well for us .I think most couples who get married ,should decide early on who is responsible for what ,Too late when been married a while and DC come along !There also seems to be a theme that men are "helpful"! us girls dont get patted on the back though do we?!

Pretty much 50/50. We don't have DC yet and both work full time. DH generally does the following:

• Cooking
• Laundry
• Vacuuming
• Bins
• Mopping
• Cleaning the shower
• General tidying

I normally do the following:

• Dishes (although DH normally contributes even though he cooks!)
• Bathroom
• Dusting
• Laundry
• Getting the car cleaned
• Gardening
• General tidying

We both help each other though and don't have 'your' jobs and 'my' jobs. Neither of us would want to see the other run ragged doing household jobs when we have a day off / evening together so we will both muck in to get what needs doing done as quickly as possible, so we can then spend some time relaxing together. It's a genuine supportive partnership.

We share cooking, take it in turns to clean the kitchen, and he does his own laundry. I don’t think it would ever cross his mind to clean the bathroom or hoover or dust, and he simply doesn’t care about untidiness, so after a couple of years of getting narky with each other about it we got a cleaner, best thing we ever did. And it means that he picks his socks up off the bedroom floor at least once a week now as he doesn’t want the cleaner to have to do it. When we had the discussion about getting the cleaner I also explained to him how a messy house makes me much more anxious and on edge, and I think that finally struck a chord with him as he does now make much more effort to keep things tidy.

I’m very sceptical of the posters here who claim their partner does loads. Because in RL I don’t know anyone , whereas it seems to be every second poster on MN. I suspect they are men posting to say how great they are.

I’m certainly no man 😂. I wouldn’t put up with a lazy bastard expecting me to do everything, why should I? DH and I split all housework equally as well as gardening and house admin. I wasn’t put on this earth to clean up after my partner. I’m astonished at what some people on here put up with tbh.

I’m very sceptical of the posters here who claim their partner does loads. Because in RL I don’t know anyone , whereas it seems to be every second poster on MN. I suspect they are men posting to say how great they are.

I can assure you I'm a woman, I just wouldn't be with a man who thinks i'm some sort of slave/servant/substitute mother. I'd rather be single than be with someone who thinks a womans job is to wait on him

My first husband was significantly older than me and was used to taking care of himself. He was and still is extremely tidy and during our marriage, we truly split all household chores including outdoor stuff and bills equally. We both worked full-time and we had a son together and we just got on with sharing all responsibilities. Other people used to say that we had a perfect union. Too bad that I loved him but wasn't in love with him and felt that we were amazing parents to our son but not great at husband and wife so we divorced.

It was real life thunderbolts and angels singing the day I met my current husband of 23 years and the father of my two other children. But I was so enamored with him that I just wanted to be the dutiful wife and mother and slowly enabled the man to leave all the household responsibilities to me. I can't really complain now because I let it happen but my god, it's infuriating that I have to get angry for him to mow the freaking lawn because he won't pay for a lawn care service. Before you ask, I'm allergic to grass and get swollen eyes and hives if I'm out in it too long otherwise I would do it myself. I can't honestly say that he's cleaned a toilet in the 25 years I've known him and I'm to blame for creating my own hell.

We are moving towards the empty nest phase and I'm no longer standing for his BS but I know it's going to be a struggle. But there's no longer any reason to continue our life as we've lived so far.

I’m very sceptical of the posters here who claim their partner does loads. Because in RL I don’t know anyone , whereas it seems to be every second poster on MN. I suspect they are men posting to say how great they are.

This is such a depressing thread. I'm definitely not a man either, but can safely say that DH and I split household chores 50/50 and always have. I don't know why, if both partners are working equal amounts of time, you would accept anything else in your relationship to be honest?

Then again, I don't live in the UK and in the country where I live (northern European country), men aren't hailed as superheros if they can manage to operate a washing machine. It's the norm here for men to clean toilets, cook and iron shirts just as effectively as women - shock horror! A man who didn't would find it tricky finding a partner these days.

Why on earth do people put up with less? Surely it's something you notice early on in your relationship/when you move in together, giving you an opportunity to "put the record straight" and explain what you expect if the relationship is going to progress?

My DH and I both work full time. Tbf his job is more stressful than mine and he works longer hours (and drives further) but I am also studying which takes up all of my weekends and some of my evenings.

So how much does he do around the house....he makes dinner one day a week, he'll occasionally empty the dishwasher, he makes the bed when he has his day off in the week (but only because he's still in it when I leave the house), he will mow the lawn if I ask (and if I don't then get fed up with asking and do it myself) and he sprays the shower with the shower spray each morning (this is a new thing and only because we are selling our house). Oh, he's also really good at making cups of tea. I clean the entire house from top to bottom every single morning "just in case" we get a last-minute viewing request. We've never had one but you just know it'll happen on the day I didn't clean!

When we met he still lived at home and his DM was a clean freak so he'd never had to do anything for himself. Unfortunately, she's no longer a clean freak and makes an absolute mess when she comes to stay so, not only have I inherited a man child but I don't even get the benefit of a MIL who will clean for me!

Assuming this also allows you to put up with your bar which is so low a flea could limbo under it.

Cooks every meal
Hangs out the washing

I do the rest. Works out pretty evenly usually

Nowt.

OP I agree with you I that I have seen very few men in real life who do their fair share. My partner does loads in the house, probably more than me. But this isn't something I see with friends and family. This is a range of women most of whom are well educated (degree /postgrad). From what I can see it gets worse when children come along. So it does seem massively different on MN compared to real life.

Lived together 7 years and I have never done his laundry or put it away, bar the odd item to fill a wash load, and leaving clothes on his side of the bed to put away himself. We both do kids/household laundry, he does all the bed sheets on the weekend, but putting the kids clothes away is always left to me.

Hoovering 50-50. Dishes 50-50. Kids bed and bath times 50-50. Bins 50-50. 50-50 packing school bags and sorting uniform on a Sunday. Currently I meal plan, shop and cook for me and the kids, if he doesn't like it (quite often as he is fussy) then he cooks for himself.

I've only ever known him to clean the bathroom a handful of times ever. He does small sewing repairs and replaces buttons on school uniform. He does all the general DIY.

He works full time, I work very part time. The one thing that really irritates me is him asking me to get the kids pyjamas out before I go to work in the evening, he says he can't find them . I also have to get all the kids clothes out to put on at the weekend. If he does dress them he puts on odd socks and too small clothes etc

We both have low standards and are lazy about housework, so that helps a lot.

He does the washing, ironing, packing away. He does the dishwasher.
I cook supper and he cleans the kitchen afterwards.
He usually takes the bins out.
I clean the bathrooms.
We both tidy, usually half-heartedly.
We don't dust really. I occasionally vacuum but he will instantly do that if I ask, he just doesn't think of it.
We do the shopping together. For delivery stuff he does all the ordering and asks my opinion sometimes.

I do all admin for my DC but I do delegate to him and he's very competent / doesn't need to be babysat. (not his dc)

He does a lot of the driving, fetching, dropping off.

We share garden stuff and often work together to get it done quicker.

I think we are even.

My exdh had three meals put in front of him every day, laundry done, I even did the garden... and he used to moan that I didn't keep the front room tidy enough... he worked from home and I worked 45h per week in a high paying job... some men are just useless and entitled.

I do tend to do more of the organisation, arranging seeing family, decluttering that type of thing. I quite enjoy those things though.

My dh does a lot. Jobs that he does the majority of the time: bins, mopping floors, cleaning oven, cleaning windows, garden, cleaning kitchen.

Jobs we both do: washing, hanging up clothes, hoovering.

I do the rest most of the time. He also deals with all paperwork/insurances for the house and we each do our own car and I do the kids stuff. Works pretty well and most of my friends have far lazier dh’s.

I work a lot less hours than DH and do the majority. All cooking, cleaning, washing, most food shopping, managing finances, gardening (minimal). DH does the bins and recycling, changes the bed and a lot of the dog care (he wanted the dog!) I do 90% of childcare. It's tiring and we've never managed to reach an agreement on it. He will buy takeaway rather than ever cook! He is quite tidy at least and will do a household task if asked 😫.

I don't know about 'finding' a husband who's happy with a fair balance, more maybe not being remotely interested in a lazy slob who expected me to do everything?

I was lucky the guy I liked then loved was also responsible. But I also would have broken up with him after moving in if he had turned out to be crap in a household. And I wouldn't have moved in with him if we hadn't discussed finances first either.

(Reminds me of the selfishness thread the other day, actually - I'm too selfish to compromise my life for an inadequate partner - and I'm quite pleased about that!)

It's a bit sporadic but roughly even.

I think it's a class thing in some ways maybe? All those metrosexual types

We also share washing up and dishwasher!

They're really not superheroes, they're adults who live in a household doing their fair share of the domestic gruntwork of that household. Going about saying your husband is a 'miracle man' because he does the cooking and laundry smacks of the kind of skewed double standard whereby SAH fathers are ooed and aahed over at the school gate for arriving with a fully-dressed child and a schoolbag and lunchbox, and a baby in a pushchair that is not clad only in a nappy despite it being mid-December in Kettering.

Exactly.

I cook, he washes up. Laundry is 50/50 and once he's home dealing with the kids is 50/50. He doesn't clean the bathroom, or weed, but does the lawn mower, bins and general tidying.

I do the most but I work very part time and he works full time. I think we have the balance about right, it works for us.