If both you and your partner work

[knackerarmous]

How do you divide up "housework"?

I know there are people on here who say they can clean a 17 bedroom mansion in 20 minutes but how long do you really spend cleaning in a day to get round everything? How often do you deep clean stuff?

My partner has taken the route of saying that since he cooks he only has to do a bit here and there. Everything he makes uses every utensil, pan and plate in the place. For me, something simple would do most days. I do cook but over lockdown he got this obsession with it and in his own words is "possessive" about it. On that basis it's a mix of something that needs doing and a hobby as well. I don't think he can see that. I did a roast dinner with all the trimmings the other day (which he somewhat ruefully admitted was very nice) and then the next day he was panicking about what lunch was going to be! There was loads left.

I feel quite resentful about this situation. We've discussed it and agreed to draw up a list of what needs doing and divide it between us. So, what do you think is fair?

If it makes a difference we are both self employed/wtf so we make a bit more mess during the day. I earn more than him but work less hours, which I think has caused him to think the house is my job.

We have a cleaner 2 hours a week and someone who irons every couple of weeks. The rest we divide 50/50 more or less including the childcare but we tend to have our own jobs eg he puts the bins out and I do meal planning

I work three days, he works 5. 2 small kids 2 and 5.

I do:

• Everything child related, getting dressed, getting to school, most bathtimes during the week, organisation etc.
• Cooking
• Shopping

We share:

• Laundry
• General picking up / tidying, although we have quite different standards on this ( his definition of tidy is 'put somewhere so I can't see it' so a lot of it just gets shoved anywhere quickly. My definition of tidy is 'organised so I can find it again' so I'm slower)
• Kids bedtime
• Hoovering / floors
• Bins (in theory, but more often than not I do them as I fill them up more often).

He does:

• Kitchen after dinner
• Bathrooms
• Bathtime at the weekend

I do like to do 'proper cooking' where I can, and can make a mess, but he likes food and hates cooking so I don't get moaned at too often. And we definitly have plenty of simple meals during the week due to time / kids eating preferences.

It's pretty even for us, it's fairly boring and tedious getting into a proper routine but worth it as it does make things run much more smoothly, I have been through phases of feeling overwhelmed by housework but not for a while. We have been together almost 30 years!

DH does the bulk of

Cooking
Grocery shopping
Hoovering
Car maintenance
House DIY
Holidays (Booking and organising)

I do the bulk of

Laundry
Clean bathrooms and Kitchen
Taking care of finances/Insurances
General Dusting/Polishing
Seasonal or monthly deep clean
Christmas

We share

Dishes
Changing bedding
Tidying up
Gardening
Organising

It works well and we both happened to end up with jobs we like and are good at.

I would say all of the above takes up a fair amount of time... Some days for me I do 30 minutes of work, some days 6-7 hours. I try not to let it build up too much.

(I clean the shelves on the fridge every week before the fresh food shopping goes in, deep clean it maybe once every month/6 weeks?)

DH and I both work full time from home.

he does - 100% of all cooking and food prep, lunchboxes, plus most of food shopping. Always has. He loves it and I hate it. He cleans kitchen.

I do - 100% of life admin, most of other cleaning. I do DIY and arrange tradesmen. I generally take kids to parties and respond to invites etc. I know more about kids’ homework. I also plan the vast majority of holidays, days our etc.

We share - laundry, school runs (although he does slightly more due to having a more flexible working pattern), ironing and gardening.

I have a similar issue with a DH who likes to use every pot and utensil. He must also have every ingredient on the recipe and doesn't easily grasp substitutions, he'd much rather go to the shop and pick up one minor ingredient and eat late.....this doesn't work since we had DC and drives me mad as I'm the exact opposite.

We still have the rule of one cooks and one washes up, but now if he does something elaborate then it's to do over two nights dinner so the second night it's just Tupperware and plates. In the time saved we can get on with other things, also saves a lot of cost.

I also started to leave pots and things to steep if there was loads, because there wasn't any room left on the drying rack (100% passive aggressive move!). His job is doing dogs last wee and locking up etc, so he then had to do these before bed. Suddenly the number of pots reduced 😉

I order a food shop
cook
mop floors
vacuum
iron
sweep the floors
kids rooms
Clean the fire

DH
all washing including socks sorting
cleans our bedroom and bathrooms
Cleans kitchen / dishwashers

Both walk the dog
top up shops
collect prescriptions
drop kids to activities

I would say we work on a 20 minute dash therory each evening with more of a clean weekends

If you set your mind to it 20 minutes can be quite a lot achieved

Whoever cooks washes up in our house - I like to wash & clean and I go, DH thinks he's a chef and uses every pot and utensil available and makes a complete mess so we soon knocked the 'one cook one wash' on the head!

House cleaning is done on a Saturday morning after a lazy breakfast. Teen DC do their floor (we live in a town house!) so clean bathroom, hoover and tidying bedrooms inc change bedding; DH does our bedroom, en-suite & stairs and I do downstairs kitchen, WC, hoover & floor mopping. We run a couple of washes plus put all the clean clothes away that have accumulated on the spare bed during the week. It usually takes about an hour and DC aren't allowed anywhere until it's done so whilst they moan, they do now do it and house looks lovely for the weekend. I usually wipe down toilets/clean sinks & hoover as and when needed in between because no one else seems to notice or be bothered.

We are both full time with two kids - one toddler and an eight year old.

I have a cleaner for 2hr per week on a Friday.

The rest of the time 🤷🏽‍♀️ I wipe down surfaces and run the hoover over what's necessary. I also do the ironing. He does the bins/puts the washing on/sorts the clothes ready for ironing.

Dishwasher is split to whoever is standing nearest, takes two minutes.

Husband also does all of the cooking so that's the trade off for me doing the ironing.

I'm very fortunate to have a capable man, first DH was a dickhead.

We don't have a list, we just tend to see what needs doing and if you have the time/energy then you do it. That said we have fallen into certain things so e.g. I do all the shopping and most of the cooking, and he does most of the laundry. We both do dishwasher/hoovering/cleaning as and when. Deep cleaning probably doesn't get done as often as it should and that's where some kind of list/schedule would be helpful. We used to do Team TOMM and that did help.

OP, like your DH, I do most of the cooking because I like it and DH is terrible. But I also do the washing up after dinner. DH does the final kitchen clean at the end of the evening - sometimes unloading the dishwasher, or just a quick tidy up where people have had a snack or a drink or whatever.

I also do all the shopping and meal planning, not just the cooking.

We have a cleaner fortnightly who does the heavy lifting. Like your DH, mine was resistant. Until we almost got divorced over it because I was so frustrated at the constant state of the house.

DH does the bulk of the laundry and day to day tidying up. I am more likely to set up the robot vacuum to run but he does do it or will get the proper vacuum out occasionally. He cleans the bathrooms on the non-cleaner week (usually) and changes the bedding every week. He also does bins and basic gardening.

I take on all the mental load of thinking about DC school/clubs etc. He sorts the bigger but less frequent stuff - insurance, MOTs etc.

I am the main breadwinner and work full time. He is part time and earns much less. But his non-working hours is childcare time.

As to your question about how often to clean fridges, I'd say no more frequently than once a month for a proper, everything out scrub-down. Probably longer if nothing spills or is smelly. I clean the door more frequently as people touch it all the time and it seems to get mucky more quickly.

We have just fallen into doing certain things, me - cooking, shopping, keeping it tidy, packed lunches DH - ALL washing up, ALL ironing 🤣🤣, bathrooms, bed changing, garden. It’s a pretty even split, we both just get on with it if it needs done. Never argued about who does what, we do washing equally (he puts it out, I get it in). I haven’t cleared up after dinner for years, I cook and serve up, then move from the table to the sofa at 6.30pm and DH clears up and brings me a cuppa half an hour later.

I have retired early, we had a cleaner when we both worked and I even kept her after I retired, she relocated so now I don’t have her. I miss her.

I do all the cooking because it can be ready much earlier, then DH or DS pack the dishwasher and clear up. I have always done a bit more it’s mainly because my standards are higher. For instance DH office at home is nothing to do with me, I could not work in that sort of a mess, it’s bloody awful. He keeps the door shut.

@knackerarmous we both cook depending on who feels like it. Whoever cooks tidies up unless they are poorly or tired. Then if he makes a bomb-site he clears up. I tidy as I go along. He does more gardening, I hoover. Whoever remembers, does the bins. I fix stuff. We both do the bathrooms. I would have the ump if he left me to clear up his cooking mess! Though sometimes I go round with the cloth later 😆

I do all the housework ie, laundry, ironing, cleaning, bed changing. hoovering. mopping, cooking, grocery shopping. I also do most of the school runs. Basically I run the house.

DH does grass cutting, diy tasks that are beyond me, general maintenance in garden, bins.

I work part time at home. He works insanely hard in a big job and earns most of the money.

It works for us and I’m happy with the split- I actually really enjoy housework and find it quite mindful. I usually listen to audiobooks as I go.

Currently I'm on maternity leave so I do bits here and there when baby naps.
Normally we split it relatively equally, eg if the living room needs doing I'll polish things and clear surfaces while he tidies and hoovers the floor. I tend to fill dishwasher and he empties it. I do the washing, he does the ironing etc.
It works reasonably well for us.

DH is full time, I work 3 days a week.

We both have certain ‘jobs’ that we prefer to do - I do all of the laundry because he’s useless at it and I’d rather he didn’t ruin my clothes. Whilst DH doesn’t like the way I stack the dishwasher or mow the lawns so he prefers to do those tasks.

I do all of the cooking and he always cleans the kitchen afterwards. He does most of the general picking things up and putting them away - our kids are 7 and 3 so there are always toys, school bags and things left lying around. We probably both do equal amounts of vacuuming as and when it needs doing. I tend to deep clean the bathrooms on my days off, he puts the bins out, I mop the hard floors.

Food shopping is delivered, we tend to sit down together on a Friday night once the kids are in bed and open a bottle of wine we do the week aheads meal planning on Ocado.

I highly doubt she works (which is fine). When I took a career break, I would do all of this (and husband took a little back seat because he was working FT). House maintenance became my FT job, only it didn't pay, and the harsh truth is, the role of a 'home maker' will never be as valuable as the role of being able to 'pay for the home'. And as a society we are conditioned to value what pays. Some things will not change. So I would rather be tired from paid work than housework (which might I add, IS FAR MORE EXHAUSTING AND TEDIOUS THAN PAID WORK!!!!!!!). At least in paid work, you have the added benefit of being able to socialise, meet people and have some healthy time away from your own 4 walls and the people who need you.

House is too big so we have a cleaner three days a week. We also have a handyman and a gardener. My husband does 90% of the cooking although the kids are old enough to look after themselves, that or my mother will feed them.

Seriously: what the fuck is wrong with men? Why do so many of them find it so difficult to, for example, cook a fucking meal without the kitchen being a total bomb site? So many messages to this effect on the thread?

Phew! I finally found someone like me

I find it meditative and my DH works his bollocks off in two very physical jobs

LOVE an audio book too, makes it so much easier!

Because no one lavishes praise on the person who cleans the kitchen.

Feeding people, instant positive feedback & giving pleasure (hopefully). Dressed up as ‘a chore’.

This is also why men love too cater for a showy, culinary dinner party, but not feed the fussy fucking kids Every. Sodding. Day.

My husband didn't want a cleaner either. But he didn't start cleaning. So we hired a regular cleaner.

Exactly @NoSquirrels

Usual need for huge gratification for enjoyable “effort”. Same up and down the fucking country.

I do the bathrooms, DH empties the bins. One of us hoovers upstairs, one of us hoovers downstairs. DDs are in charge of cleaning their rooms (cough!). I cook, DH loads the dishwasher. DH does lawns and hedges, I do other gardening. Laundry is done between me, DM (also lives with us) and DDs. DH does pitch in if asked. Everyone has to put their own clothes away. DM does a bit of wiping surfaces and dusting also. I order the food, DH picks up the food shopping (click and collect plus a few extras from different shops like pet food.) I do less regular stuff like dusting, cleaning the stove so I probably do a bit more overall. Generally we spend about four hours over the weekend or during the course of the week on chores. It seems a reasonable balance - I have plenty of time for other things and don't feel overwhelmed by mess or dirt usually.