To think doing DIY in the house isn't equal to doing chores?

[HuckleBuckBerry]

My husband and I are at a bit of a stale mate.

I feel like he doesn't do enough in the house and this came to a head the other week.

I essentially do everything at home. We both work 5 days a week but with him working a couple more hours per day than I do.

I make every meal, I do every nursery drop and collect, I do every bath time with DC, put on every wash (inc putting out to dry), wash every plate, hoover every room etc etc.. any daily chore I do.

My husband thinks the fact he is the one who fixes things or does the DIY jobs in the house means he does contribute equally. I disagree. The stuff I do is every single day. The things he's talking about (painting, putting up a shelf, fixing a fence panel in the garden or whatever), is perhaps once a month if that.

Aibu to think doing DIY in the house is not the same as daily chores and it's not a get out for doing them? Nor is working a couple more hours than your spouse.

YANBU. You should both be getting roughly equal downtime. So, if he's working more hours, then it's not unreasonable that you are doing more of the day to day chores. But unless you're doing 20 hours a week and he's doing 40, it seems ridiculous that his occasional bit of DIY compensates for you doing all the day to day cooking, childcare, cleaning, meal prep etc.

No, not that same, as it’s the frequency of the domestic chores that makes them so demanding.

If he’s not doing the chores, he’s probably not really aware of how much time they take.

I’d avise a week away so he can remind himself what managing the home / children looks like.

Do you have equal leisure time? That is what is fair.

Remember to include the mental load, is commute time counted/lunch hours etc etc

Ask him if he wants to swap then?

Of course it’s not the same. It’s stuff that doesn’t need doing all the time and it falls into the category of doing things you like fixing or doing, rather than cleaning the loo.

No we don't. He does work more than me I appreciate. So I always expected to do more than him at home but not everything. If I'm not in work I'm with DC. Every single night waking, or every single early morning weekend get up I do too.

Tell him you will cook as often as he does DIY. Same goes for every other job.
Total unequal physical and mental load.

I agree, making a big effort for a specific task now and then when needed does not = having responsibilities every. single. day. He gets the satisfaction that a task is over when it's over. You know you will have to do these things over and over and they won't even be very satisfying because you won't probably won't get much recognition or probably even any thanks.

'I make every meal, I do every nursery drop and collect, I do every bath time with DC, put on every wash (inc putting out to dry), wash every plate, hoover every room etc etc.. any daily chore I do.'

Why?

Oh and yes the mental load stuff don't even get me started.

He might throw me some money for example but I have to be the one to realise DC needs new clothes or whatever. Or make every doctors app (and attend), every vet app for the pets, every food shop, anything we do I.e. holidays or days out I plan.

Get your excel spreadsheet out and plot it out and do a lovely graph evidencing how you do more each day/week/month.

You do half the DIY, he does half of: all chores and drop off and parenting

Because they don't get done if I don't.

With respect that means you'll be locked into all the domestic work forevermore. Why should you be? He works 10 hours more than you a week but that doesn't absolve him of pulling his weight as a parents and domestic partner.

Stop enabling him.

You need to speak to him and tell him that things aren’t going to continue as they are. Working a couple of more hours each day doesn’t mean he gets to do nothing other than a bit of diy.

Many years ago, it was a different situation but a similar outcome - basically, DH could see the chores he did. But he massively massively underestimated the chores I did. Made worse by the fact that I do enjoy cooking so in his head, cooking wasn't a chore for me - just a nice little treat at the end of every day.

As he was bitching about taking out the bins, I suggested that we should swap. If my life was SOOOOO much easier, I'd happily pick up the dog poo, mow the lawn, do the bins and the laundry and he could do everything else.... then I listed just what I'd done int he last day or so from shopping, to cleaning, to calling the school to paying some bills etc,

Well, he did not take me up on my offer. He also stepped up more to do more of the other chores.

You should have addressed this with him as soon as it started happening. He’s being lazy and you’re facilitating his laziness. You’re doing the right thing by now challenging him over it. Don’t let him bullshit or gaslight you into making you believe he’s doing his fair share. You may as well be a single parent, he’s doing so little.

We are renovating on our third house but first with a child (aged 3). With the previous 2 we worked together on the house and shared the chore. Now we have a preschooler to keep occupied my partner does pretty much all the DIY and we share the chores. He does the majority of the cooking and the day to day cleaning and I do the weekly cleaning chores and the washing. Generally my partner has one day for DIY at the weekend and I do a few chores around looking after my daughter and the other day we both juggle chores around looking after our daughter. If we have grandparents available we use them for either babysitters or to help my partner with the diy. This probably happens once every couple of months alternating between my parents and his.

I think you need to sit down together and divide tasks that need done in the home. Include childcare responsibilities and DIY, gardening etc etc... if it's something that's productive for your home then it's work and should be seen as such and that should average out so (as others have said) you have equal down time. Diy/ gardening etc don't need done all the time. At the moment I'm doing more in our garden so dh is doing more in the home so that we're spending equal amounts of time across the day doing work for our home. Unless you're doing a renovation or something that means there is an endless DIY list that dh is permanently working on then yanbu. Even if there is I'd still swap things around between you so every day doesn't feel like groundhog day

They're completely different kinds of work, with diametrically opposed satisfaction levels. You put up a shelf, you can look at that shelf as often as you like, at any time in the future, and think "Good shelf. I did great work there!"

You wipe the shelf down, you get to think "Shelf looks nice and clean now." You get to think that once, immediately after you cleaned it. A couple of hours later it'll have started collecting dust. In a few days the shelf will be gathering clutter, more dust, and something may have leaked on it or it may have acquired dirty mug rings. It needs wiping again - and again - and again, for ever.

Meanwhile, Mr Dunnit still gets satisfaction from the level sturdiness of His Shelf, years or even decades later. Ms Neverdun keeps performing the thankless, soul-destroying task of cleaning it. With the same energy, she could've installed hundreds of shelves all over the house.

She needs help!

YANBU what a waster! He’s happy for you both to work equally but not do housework or parenting equally. What a peach. Doesn’t he want to collect his child from nursery for goodness sake?? That’s such a nice experience.

He’s wrong. Daily tasks should be evenly distributed between you, you could do a little more given he works a little longer.

My DH tried to argue that he renewed our insurance policies (once a year) and did a few other bits of annual admin, so therefore that was a comparable contribution to the household. Nah mate…

I seem to be the odd one out here, but if he’s working a couple more hours than you, that would suggest that you’re at home for a couple of extra hours without him.

This is the same situation in my house too, and I personally want to get everything done before my DH gets home, so that we can spend the evening relaxing together instead of him doing chores whilst I sit and watch.

If OP is the one to do literally everything in the family apart from the occasional DYI she's likely to be spending a hell if a lot more time on it than a mere ten hours a week.

OP- is he open to doing a really thorough accounting of your respective time budgets? If not, it's probably time to reduce your load where it hurts only him - stop doing his laundry; eat with the kids and don't provide dinner for him. When he turns up, tell him it's now your downtime, too.

@JustJessi did you read the bit where she does every night waking and early morning?