My DH and I live in a normal 3 bedroom house, no kids. We both WFH almost full time and we both create the same amount of mess.
We’re both very equal with what I would call ‘maintenance cleaning’, so will wipe down surfaces in this kitchen, both make beds, both run hoover round when needed and all the day to day jobs that keep a house generally neat and tidy. However I’ve noticed he NEVER does any deep cleans. About once a month I’ll realise that the bathroom needs a real deep clean, or the kitchen where I get everything off the counter tops and out of cupboards and scrub, but he never thinks to do this. I know he SEES it needs doing because afterwards he always says “That’s so much better, it really needed doing” and is very grateful, but he never thinks to do it himself. It’s started to irritate me, more on principle than anything else.
Whenever I bring up an unfair balance in cleaning he points out he takes on more emotional labour (I should never have taught him that phrase!) by doing all our life admin which he does, but I don’t know if that’s fair really. If we have visitors coming we always split cleaning and prepping the house fairly, but it’s just the never taking his own initiative that’s really bugging me.