AIBU to be sick of sexist allocation? Need a list.

[DoneWithCleaning]

Well - I know I am not BU, but posting here for traffic.

He does loads around the house. He is a skilled tradesman, and enjoys cooking.
But - he has chosen to cook. He has chosen to use his skills in the house.
I get no choice. I am left with the grotty cleaning because he won't do it.

He will push a vacuum round - that is not too emasculating
but he won't use the brush attachment to do the dusting while he is at it.

He will cook, using (it feels like) every utensil and pan in the kitchen, because men cook
but he won't wipe the counters, and definitely won't clean the sink

He will do the veg patch and mow the lawn
but won't touch the flowerbeds

He will take the black bin bags out front
but won't empty the small bins in each room

He will do the tyre pressures on my car
but won't sew a button on his trousers

He will shop for food for the meals he cooks
but won't buy breakfast cereal, let alone toothpaste or laundry stuff

You get the picture.
We need a proper sit down discussion and re-assignment of duties.
Do you know of any published lists of 'all household tasks and mental load'. I had a look at the Fair Play cards, but they are a bit heavy on children's stuff (no kids at home) and mental load, and only had one card for ALL cleaning.

The split doesn't sound too bad to me.

It's not about the volume of work, it is about the sexist split.
Why should I always be the one to clean the toilet instead of cook a meal or mow the lawn?

I could insist on cooking half the meals and doing my car tyres myself and so on, but he wouldn't clean the toilet voluntarily.

Fair Play suggests making your own cards. I did this, realised it was even more unevenly split than I thought, asked him to do some of it which he hasn’t and now I’m planning my exit route

Go for it then but sounds like picking a fight over nothing to me. I would much rather clean a toilet than mow the bastard lawn.

@Ablondiebutagoody
I would rather do almost anything than clean a toilet.
That is what is unfair.
He has picked the things he likes/doesn't mind doing.
I am left with the rest.

Thanks.
I may have to make my own cards. I will have to time myself and him (surreptitiously) to get the fair allocation of time.

Difficult.
I can do a meal in 30 mins. He takes at least an hour.
He can vacuum in 10 mins, because he doesn't do it properly, like going in to all the corners and moving chairs/coffee table etc.

Just adding to my own thread with an update because I need to vent!

I picked up the kindling basket to go and get some from outside, which meant walking through the kitchen. The dishwasher had just finished.
He tried to physically take the basket off me and said "I'll do that, you do the dishwasher".
I held on to the basket and said (quite crossly) "No I'm doing this, you do the dishwasher".

Because of course fetching wood for a fire is manly, but emptying a dishwasher is woman's work, and he might even have to get his hands wet. 😡

@DoneWithCleaning i hear you. My DH is pretty good around the house so to speak but he leaves things for me to do that he doesn’t like/cba with. So for example- he will empty the dishwasher but leave the cutlery basket as he can’t be bothered putting cutlery away. He does the ironing but leaves any “complicated” items for me. He will give the toilet /sink a wipe but not mop the bathroom floor.

in his case, it’s not sexism - it’s just fiddly things and things he just can’t be bothered doing. I let it go because he does do a lot but it does wind me up a bit!

It sounds like he's not doing any task fully. Cleaning up anything you've left on the counter is part of the cooking process. Buying household items is part of shopping for groceries, not just the food. It sounds like in effect you're running after him to complete the task in a lot of these examples (not the buttons and tyre one, where one has no relation to the other).

Surely it's a partnership and you do the jobs you are best at. So if you can mow the lawn but he can do it better then he does it. I know plenty of people who use the hoover everyday but just give it a quick whip round and only move the furniture out once every week or 2. If you want the furniture moved every time you hoover then you do it. Yes the dishwasher would annoy me but as its tipping down here I would have happily sent him outside whilst I did the dishwasher

Did he do the dishwasher?

This man appears to do more than all the men on the whole of MN since it began.
While the division of labour might in your eyes be sexist, surely it's better than nowt.
You could make a big deal of this, particularly as he is not doing the jobs he does to a high enough standard
You could divorce him if it's so grating
Is your end goal a full revision of duties?

Write out chores you enjoy doing. If that includes cooking and mowing the lawn then fine, if not leave it off. Then write what you truly hate, is that only cleaning the toilet and dusting? Then you split; one week one of you gets cooking + toilets while the other gets mowing + dusting, then swap. But I wouldn't be pitching battles about who does which bin when neither task is fun nor awful.

We both hate cleaning bathrooms and changing beds, so we have a cleaner to do that. Is than another option?

Can you afford a cleaner?

Yes he did.
But if anything needs a quick scrub with the scourer to 'finish' it, he won't do it - he'll put it back in the dishwasher. (Yes, the dishwasher is old and crap).
And he doesn't dry anything, so if the upside-down mugs have a tiny pool of water on them, they just go straight into the cupboard making the cupboard wet.

The more I think about it, he really does have an issue with any job that means getting his hands wet.

Yes, he does a reasonable amount of housework. I would have divorced him year ago if he didn't pull his weight.

Yes, I think my end goal is a full revision of duties - I will make a set of "Fair Play" cards, amended as needed, after Christmas.

I get exactly what you mean OP, and I'm surprised (disappointed?) that you're basically being told you're lucky he lifts a finger.

He'll cook but not wash up
He won't clean the toilet, but it's fine for you to do it
Gathering the firewood is preferable to him than the dishwasher (see above re washing up)
Veg is manly, flowers are girly
It's fine for you to clean the toilet but not him

He is picking and choosing what he prefers, but also seems to be making value judgements on the task ie if it's wimmins work it's beneath him and for you to do by default as it has to get done.

Not sure what I'd do, but what he's doing feels really disrespectful on a deep level.

We have had cleaners in the past.
I said to him before we got the first one that I would only have a male cleaner - to make a point. He can't just pay another woman to do what he doesn't want to do.
But there are no male cleaners out there (I wonder why? 🤔)

The first cleaner was wonderful - fast and efficient. But she left to do other work.
Then we had a series of three who were lazy and slow, and left early, absolute piss-takers. So we gave up.
Possibly the issue was I told him to find the cleaners, so instead of going through a proper agency he got friends-of-friends-of-friends who weren't of a professional mindset.

But I meant you get a cleaner who only does YOUR jobs, not his.

@shuffleofftobuffalo
Yes, thank you for getting it.

I don't think he personally disrespects me on the whole. We wouldn't be together if the disrespect was affecting any other area of the relationship.

But he is basically misogynistic over housework.

His half-arsed work would infuriate me. Wondering if he's actually taking the piss and actively choosing to do a shit job?

YES.
The cleaner did all the cleaning. Stuff that I would be doing otherwise.

I would have been happy to save the money and just share out our jobs in a less sexist way. He would rather pay someone that do 'woman's work'.

A woman's work always weirdly seems to be the jobs that men don't want to do

He did clean the bathroom once, about a year ago, after many arguments and conversations.
He took FOUR HOURS.

OMG that place was sparkling, spotless in every tiny corner! I think he was trying to prove a point.
But he hasn't done it since.

I will not give up on this.

you also have the mental load of making sure jobs are done correctly