AIBU to think this is a fair split?

[Yourcatisnotsorry]

Person A works Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, various shifts totaling 25 hours per week. No commute time, no out of hours work, low stress job.

Person B works Monday - Friday 9-6. No regular commute but some business trips with 14 hour days at least a couple of times a month. Regular out of hours/late night work and high pressure/stressful job.

3 primary-age children and some pets.

Person A does all the ironing, cleaning, gardening and 70% of the school runs plus after school childcare/taking kids to hobbies 3.30-6pm three days a week.

Person B does all the life admin, pays bills, sorts birthdays and play dates, Christmas, kids hobbies, appointments and holidays etc. All shopping (weekly food shop and anything needed for the house, pets and kids), meal planning and looks after the children after school 2 days a week from 6pm until they go to bed and all day Sunday.

Everything else such as looking after the kids on Saturday, general tidying up, DIY, laundry, cooking, kids homework and pet care are shared fairly equally. Both parents get time to do their hobbies/gym/socialize occasionally.

yanbu to think this is a fair split of chores and both parties should be able to manage their obligations.

yabu if you think one partner has it much tougher than the other.

Thank you all for taking the time to share advice, it’s very appreciated!

The post wasn’t about life admin, though I do hate it so whoever suggested creating a life admin business please do it!

I am B, I’m generally happy with my side of the deal and think it’s broadly fair.

A has been complaining and I wanted to sense check that I’m not being a monster expecting him to keep the house somewhat clean (we are not a high standards house we do not wash towels after every use or do weekly bed changes!).

I think B does more alone time with them as A has them alone 3-30-6 3 days a week with several hours of this time where one or all kids are in a hobby. B has them alone 6-9 (though bedtimes staggered so not all are up til 9) twice a week and pretty much all day Saturday (A will see them for a few hours before work usually but be back after bedtime

So to me this is another example of you minimising A's role.

A is doing: 7.5 hours of after school care a week during term time. I don't think the hobbies are here or there, they are still parent in charge for that time and presumably you signed the kids up to the hobbies because they enjoy them, so A is facilitating that.

A is also doing but you choose not to mention here but do in your OP but only in the context of how hard it is for B, numerous evenings when B is working late and also covering the business trips.

And then not mentioned at all but I assume A also covers a lot more days during the holidays because of their working pattern

I am not sure you appreciate what A is doing in terms of facilitating your career - if they didn't, your kids would have to miss out on hobbies, spend more time in holiday childcare and you would need to compromise on work and leave earlier etc, miss out on business trips

As I said earlier, I suspect this is maybe because it's not actually what you want? Like you're not valuing it because you would ideally have more work life balance but what I am trying to say is that it's not reasonable to minimise/downplay A's contributions to this extent

So get a different cleaner on a different day?
Or A goes out for a couple of hours?
Or moves around the house to get out of the way?

You probably aren't looking for ideas but...

• I pay primary school dinners and wraparound a month in advance. I except we might pay and not use the very occassional session (appointment etc) but I see this as acceptable for the convenience.
• I don't do any of DH's life admin, including anything to do with his family or car. I don't remind or prompt either.

DH still doesn't do much off his own back despite working 7 days a fortnight vs my 10 days. It has and is damaging our marriage.

No, I don't think A does.

Because I'm assuming much of it doesn't get done

If you were doing all the night wakings after you went back from maternity leave A loses all his moaning privileges for a good few years minimum

I think you do have a fairly even split in lots of ways. Life admin for school age children is huge though as is constant meal planning for a family 24/7 everyday day of every year on top of having the more demanding job. The reality is that if person B was the Dad they would just not have that expectation on them if they were the higher earner with the busiest job travel etc. In that case person A would undoubtedly be doing all of that too and you’re absolutely reasonable to expect A to be doing the cleaning/gardening/whatever else is on their list.

I think you’re making more of this than you might because you’re frazzled at work. I totally understand that by the way. I remember the feeling of overwhelm very well. It feels relentless but this too shall pass. Could you set aside ten minutes each evening for this rather than trying to fit it into your work day and feeling like it’s another job.

I'd say as long as you are both happy with it , it's pretty equal when you think of everything. Person B doing appointments and parties would not be very often. Paying bills can be managed online and direct debit.

Christmas and holidays sounds like something that could be managed together

YANBU apart from the towels and the beds sheets, You lost me there.

A just wouldn’t do it. Birthdays get forgotten, no food ordered, kids miss out because they don’t want to organise play dates or attendance at after school stuff. A is a man so some of it is harder (approaching a mum for a play date might be taken the wrong way etc.) and some is societal ingrained ‘women’s work’ that they just don’t think about (sending party invites and chasing for rsvps etc.

You're very understanding @Yourcatisnotsorry .

But A is a grown up and presumably not raised in the 1950s. His passivity would drive me crazy.

And not changing the sheets regularly! I'd love to have 18 hours a week to do the housework ... So A is not even doing his share of the load properly.

I think there are pluses and minuses to both so mostly think if you’re both finding it unmanageable it’s time to sit down and adjust. Should person A take a career break or cut down hours to free up the weekend? Can you outsource or automate some of this? Can you ignore the class WhatsApp?

appreciate with adhd small things can feel bigger - my brother has adhd and has to be very deliberate about each step of being an adult as he can get overwhelmed really quickly. So I agree with several others that you might both not be playing to your strengths in this setup.

my husband and I both work full time - he makes more money but that’s not relevant as we both work the same number of hours. I do all the kid admin - clothes, parties, play dates, school meetings etc etc never ending stuff as he isn’t great at that. He deals with the money as he is better at it. We rock paper scissors any time we need to call someone on the phone as we both hate it 🤣

id start with a blank slate and go from there. Clearly you need to keep working but everything else should be up for discussion.

But your husband isn't a SAHP, he works 25 hours a week. It's not really fair to compare him to a SAHM

I think you've made a mistake in trying to list tasks. Different people will have different views as to what tasks are harder than others.

What I'm seeing is that between (say) 7am-8pm, A and B equally share the childcare and household jobs that need doing.
However A has 3 days a week when the children are at school, which she can spend as she likes - yes some of it, but probably not all of it will be used on household jobs, and she has the luxury of being able to do them without children underfoot.

B never has any time between 7am-8pm when they are not either working or the children are there.

For that reason I'd say B has it harder. Although if A and B are not liking particular jobs that they are responsible for, they should perhaps swap some of them between them.

Could A work from a Starbucks or something on the cleaners day?

I know what you mean about nothing to compare it to - we are in a similar set up to you in that I’m female but earn much more and DH does more traditionally feminine domestic roles! Our set up is:

Me -
Work 40-50 hours, 35 outside of the home
Laundry
All life admin and organisation
Basic maintenance (building things, small repairs).

DH -
Work 35 hours, 0 outside of the home
Food shop
All cooking
General tidying
Pet care (food, litter trays, etc).

Both -
School and hobby runs
Dog walking

Outsourced -
Cleaner weekly
Gardener monthly

DH loves to cook and I’m very organised so this works for us. He works from a coffee shop while the cleaner is in as he finds it awkward to sit there.

Bit odd, isn't it, that such a service doesn't exist but cleaning and ironing services are everywhere? Almost as if those are real, majorly timeconsuming burdens that people are willing to pay to outsource, and 'life admin'...

I’m not about the easy life when it comes to my babies and I don’t need to be :-) I enjoy this stuff.

Then don't count it among the terrible burdens you have to bear? If you take all that stuff off the list you'll have hardly anything and then you can started scrubbing the bathrooms. Then both A and B will be happy! :-)

I’d take the cleaning. But I have seen dads numbers on the rsvps and my dh sent the last lot of birthday invites, we are both full time so he has to pull his weight! Other things he does- buys most of the birthday presents for kids friends, we have the kids make their own cards (but have some back up ones), the meal plan (I need to correct it for practicality sometimes but it is pretty good) all the admin for some of the activities, men can do it. When they care enough. Maybe you should start with joes having a party Saturday can you buy a present Wednesday? (Shrug if asked what to buy) My personal take is if you are the one who has to think of everything then the other one does whatever is asked. If you want to be management, then manage. If you want the other person to do all that, then jump when you’re told to jump.

I actually think our split is reasonably fair. A has been complaining they have a much tougher deal. I just wanted to get a sense check. We are generally happy and have been together decades. We have reversed typical gender roles as I’m female and A is male and so our lives are set up quite differently to our friends and family and it’s difficult to know whether it’s really fair. I have male colleagues with sahm wives who do literally nothing at home and never have their kids alone so I feel like I do relatively loads but maybe that is not the best benchmark!

I think A is unreasonable for moaning and thinking he has a tougher deal He doesn't; in fact, I think B does.

I also think it's because A is male ... and probably didn't grow up in a home where men were expected to carry their weight. So doing his share (and, again, I don't think he is in comparison to you) feels like more than his share in his head.

I'd show him this thread.

The hobbies are relevant as it’s child-free time. He drops them at dancing, drives home (5mins) then 1.15 hours at home then goes back (5mins drive).

A is not facilitating my career by giving anything up. Our earning differential existed way before we had children. He’s chosen to work part time as it’s a better balance for him and we are very lucky and don’t need the money. I work from home aside from the occasional long days, he works in a venue so any child sick days or workmen at the house etc. I deal with. All the extra hours I work are after the kids are in bed, it’s a hard boundary that I finish at 6. I make every sports day, play, presentation assembly etc.

I take the summer off on top of my 5 weeks annual leave so I’m off every school holiday.

My op is accurate about the amount of childcare we each do. I do more (and am glad to and this is not a problem for us). The cleaning is the thing!

It's not child free time in a particularly meaningful way though - you get home and have to turn around again in an hour.

If he didn't work part time, they wouldn't be able to do those hobbies, presumably?

I also noticed that in the OP you're very keen to stress how very hard you work some business trips with 14 hour days at least a couple of times a month. Regular out of hours/late night work but when it comes to childcare, you're not similarly willing to credit him with looking after the kids for those 14 hour days.

Wow at being able to get 11 weeks of holiday! That's a very good deal.. (but is actually not every single school holiday, that's more like 13 weeks a year)

It’s not ok that person A works part time and does none of the life admin. No way.

A lot of this doesn’t seem overly necessary. You could just choose not to participate in some of it and reduce the load a bit.

BUT I do think person A has got it pretty cushy. They should be doing all cleaning (properly), all laundry/ironing, food shopping and most of the cooking imo. They should also be the one that goes out to buy gifts etc that you have provided a list of or something.

So you WFH Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays when your DH isn't working and kids are at school. Does your OH spend all of those 18 hours doing housework? Does he get it all completed in that time or is he needing to also spend lots of time in the evenings and on Saturdays doing housework? So do you think, from what you see going on at home on those three days, that your OH has an unfair deal and is drowning in the relentlessness of a never-ending to-do list of household chores?

Or is he spending some or most of those 18 hours doing something else?

I work from home aside from the occasional long days, he works in a venue so any child sick days or workmen at the house etc. I deal with. All the extra hours I work are after the kids are in bed, it’s a hard boundary that I finish at 6. I make every sports day, play, presentation assembly etc.

Crikey, your husband has a very easy life! What does he do on the 3 days he doesn't work his few hours ... ?