AIBU about chores at home?

[Mumofone1711]

Hi, I’m after some honest opinions after a bit of a disagreement with my OH. We have one teenager (who does nothing around the house, but that’s for another day!) and a dog. We both work full time. OH has a pretty physical outdoors job that also involves quite a bit of driving. He leaves fairly early so in the mornings he gets up, gets himself ready, makes his own lunch (if I haven’t made it the night before) and heads to work. I WFH 3 days per week and from the office 2 days which is about a 40 minute commute. Before I start work each day (7.30 on WFH days and 9am on office days) I feed the dog, unload the dishwasher, make lunches for myself and DD, hang washing to dry, make the beds, get myself ready and do the school run. Days I’m at home I spend my lunch break walking the dog (we have a dog walker on days I’m in the office). After work (usually finish/am home between 5.30 and 6pm) I cook dinner (fresh food from scratch every night), put away dry washing, put another load in to wash on delay, then I might plan the next weeks meals / do the food order / general life admin and watch a bit of tv before bed. OH is usually home from work an hour or two before I finish. He’ll often notice a few jobs that might need doing like running the Hoover round, cleaning the inside of the windows, mowing the grass etc. then he’ll have a shower and watch tv or do hobbies until dinner is ready. He then helps with the clearing up and relaxes in the evening. We have a cleaner once a fortnight so there isn’t a huge amount of cleaning that needs doing - I keep the house pretty tidy. OH made a comment today about how it’s only him and the cleaner who keep the house clean as I don’t do any cleaning. It’s really upset me as I do so many other things (OH never cooks, has never once done a food shop, never puts on a load of washing, doesn’t deal with any finances or life admin, never does the school run) but when I confronted him he stood by what he’d said and can’t see why I’m a bit put out. I feel like household tasks are pretty fairly split but should I be doing more in terms of cleaning?

Stop doing it at all then

You say he might ‘notice’ a few jobs that need doing, does he not do them and are they left for you?
you need to speak to him about it and tell him how you feel as it seems things need to change!

No he does do them - he’s probably more perceptive than me to be fair as I’m very much a planner and check off my list each day. I think I’ve always just thought that all things considered, we share things at least 50/50, so the fact he called me out for not doing any spot cleaning / hoovering was a bit of a surprise when he never does any of the things that ‘need’ doing each day

Why is the fact that your teenager does nothing "for another day". This is a whole household issue, and your teenager is not immune. It takes work to run a household and it is not your work. You and DH both work full time so should be taking equal shares of the work with your teenager doing about ¾ of a full adult share. You currently seem to be doing more than half, with DH doing the rest but not noticing all the stuff you do when he's not around so he's thinking that actually he's doing more than half. The solution involves both DH and the teenager learning more about the full list of chores that need doing, and a more equitable sharing of that load which if the teenager starts pulling their weight will result in both you and DH doing less housework than you currently do. Presumably you aren't actively trying to raise an over-entitled parasite who thinks that other people exist to serve them? Parenting a teenager to train them into pulling their wwight is certainly hard - it's a lot easier to just do the task yourself than to make the teenager do it, but both you and DH need to be committed to doing that hard work of parenting to raise a fulling functioning adult in the end.

In terms of main jobs (your post had a lot of padding)

It sounds like you do cooking, laundry and dog care.

And your OH does a lot of the cleaning that the cleaner doesn't.

You also do a lot of things for your teen that they should be able to manage themselves.

I'd personally suggest mixing it up a bit - why don't you do more of the cleaning and DH do more of the cooking and laundry? It might give you more insight into what the other does.

And stop running round doing things for your teen.

The first post pretty much nails it.
Stop doing stufff!! He'll soon realise.

That said, the teen needs to help out. Mine deal with the dishwasher and breakfast plates before they go to school - makes my departure easier if I just need to make lunch for all 3 of us, plus my breakfast. I just leave the kitchen in a mess, and the teens sort it after making their own breakfast.

They also hang up washing - but we'd not have washing that early in the morning - and do washing up and vacuuming.

I think probably he doesn’t see the work you are putting in with the other things you do, so you are not overly unreasonable to be miffed- but why not suggest that he takes over e.g. shopping and cooking and you will give tidying a go in the time you save and that might work better for him?