Is it right women do more?

[NurtureGrow]

Please go gently.

I’ve been asking my husband to help me with housework since we met almost 5 years ago. He does ‘help’ sometimes, but he never does it fully. Ie the area/room is partly clean, there’s always more for me to do.

For me, doing things for each other is
important. I want him to find things clean and tidy. You can imagine after 5 years, it’s disappointing me, that I never find it as clean and tidy as I left it, and he never fully cleans an area for me. It’s always me.

He says he ‘can’t see it fully.’ ‘It’s not a priority’ he’s ‘doing his best.’

He’s also now saying that as he’s starting a business soon (going full-time in a week) he can’t do the business if he has to clean. I said this isn’t about the business, you’ve always been like this in a salaried role. You leave things for me to do.

It seems I have two choices: be submissive and accept it / or keep trying to make him understand. The latter isn’t working. I haven’t got extremely high standards, I would just like it left clean and tidy for me, as I do for him.

Example, I cleaned the kitchen earlier, it took 25 minutes. I’d just like him to do that for me, like sometimes, or ever. He says he can’t, it would take him 1 hour. He’s a genuinely nice person, but I just don’t think all this is right. We have a 1 year old baby.

Id genuinely like to know, please:
**
YABU - women do have to do more, male partners aren’t good at this. You shouldn’t keep asking him and accept it.
**
YANBU - he should do it fully sometimes, it’s not for you to always do

Thank you

Sadly I have to agree with this.

When I met my first 'D'H he was living in a student house (even though he was qualified) and it was a shit-tip. I gave him leeway for that because he lived with 3 others. 😣

When we got married he was a shift worker, so as he wasn't there a lot, I had time to do most of the domestic stuff.
I got fed up of never seeing him and me spending all the time working - either at home or in my career, so I asked him to come off shifts.

He did and nothing changed. He still wouldn't do anything about the house saying "he was tired" or as I worked shorter hours I should do it. 😡

Eventually I had an epiphany and realised I was married to a disrespectful, idle slob with entitlement issues. I also realised that it was my own fault.😞

So I put my foot down and went 'on strike' by stopping cooking, washing and cleaning. I got my meals at the hospital I worked at (my work clothes went through the laundry there).😄

He wasn't happy and complained, so I just asked him if his arms were broken !😆

He started having an affair with an employee and I divorced him.

Now they are married and she has to put up with him.😆

Years later I met a great guy that used to be in the forces and knows how to iron, clean shoes and cook. 😃

In general though so many men do one or two things and then talk about them like they’ve scrubbed the whole house while our (women’s) days off are spent actually cleaning the whole house.

I see this type of comment a lot and also read threads where women who say their partner does half/at least half are lying to themselves or are blind to how much they're really doing themselves.

There really isn't any need for anyone to spend whole days off cleaning the house. That is a choice.

I'll be honest, my standards have raised since living with my partner and, whilst my house was always clean, its now tidier too. And more organised. Because of him.

And l, on a Saturday morning, it's me sitting in bed for an extra half hour drinking tea whilst scrolling through MN and he's the one up cleaning the kitchen and mopping the floor. .

But I've also seen threads from women who've moved in with a man who has higher standards of cleanliness being told he is 'controlling' and 'abusive' for expecting high standards of cleanliness or housework (from both of them - not expectations of her to take it over, he just wants her to match him). How dare a man feel a woman isn't pulling her weight! That's a criticism we can only level at men.

This with bells on ! ^

So if you are both working work has to be split equally. It is possible you could split things that he is better at maybe. My DH is good in the garden and some things round the house, so we split according to what works for us. Be wary though of weaponised incompetence which men will some times use. In other words doing things so badly that you look round one day and find you are doing all the domestic stuff and childcare because "you are som much better at these things". I have many friends who over the years have found themselves in this position.

If your DH asked you to always keep the car clean, and make sure you always get the turbo up to temperature before you accelerate hard, you wouldn't do it because you genuinely wouldn't be able to see the value in it.

Stereotypes are there because they are mostly true.

Men have never, and will never, be any good at housekeeping. Why are you expecting any different?

Double post

lol no 🤪🤪

but you skivvy away if you want

but then I assume you're a bloke so expect women to scivvy for you

Do you honestly believe this shit? Do you think the differences between men and women are genetic or learned behaviour? My husband, even though he has a penis has managed to do his share of the housework and I manage to care for my own car because we are functioning adults.

This is why women are continually fucked from generation to generation because people have such low expectations of men.

@Chiseltip "Men have never, and will never, be any good at housekeeping. Why are you expecting any different?"

That's a load of horseshit

I know plenty of men who brought up kids after their wives died/left, care for elderly parents, and cook and bake.

They are learned skills.

And BTW I understand why a car with turbo has to be warned up before accelerating hard and not be shut down until it's idling.😏

My husband isn't great at cleaning or cooking .... well he is very capable at cleaning but doesnt think to do it. In fairness he works 70 hr weeks and has always been the breadwinner. I used to work ft then 0.8 once we had children.

I now don't work as I am a carer and SAHM but we have kept the cleaners, I do all food shop, prep, cooking, clean up. Bins. Pets. Gardening. Weekly bed sheet changes. Cleaning daily. Laundry; washing, folding, putting away. He does the ironing and car cleaning and some DIY repairs when needed. I also plan and book holidays and all child and medical admin (considerable due to a disability).

Yes most cleaners are women but I have to say the very best cleaner I ever had was a man!! Absolutely fantastic!

I just think you need to sit down with him and say you are getting resentful. Organise a weekly cleaner which takes a lot of the things like bathroom clean and whole house vacuuming off your list which makes the day to day cleaning you do feel less of a burden.

Get him to choose two or three specific jobs that he can commit to; emptying bins daily and putting bins out on bin day? Mowing? Clean the windows each week? Putting away folded laundry or putting a wash on each morning? Empty the dishwasher each morning?

Equality in terms of women going out to work is fantastic but it is actually a trap if we don't account for the womens' work that we used to do before women tended to go out to work. Womens burden has increased !! So we need to divide that up and if possible delegate to cleaners/gardeners if funds allow.

Sometimes we even have a man who comes to clean the car!!

You say he’s been like this since you met. He showed you who he was from the beginning. Why did you think that would change?

We have a rule that we both get the same amount of ‘free’ time (not doing paid work, not doing childcare, not doing necessary housework, etc) to do what we want with - exercise, hobbies, sit around not doing much. There are certain jobs one of us enjoys more but we make it balanced e.g. I might do tidying and he does the cooking. You could frame it like that - it would be hard for a kind and reasonable person to say that isn’t fair.

it dies become more difficult if you have different standards - luckily we’re both pretty slovenly so it works ok. Could you work on allowing there to be a bit more of a mess if that doesn’t make you too miserable? And he needs to work on ‘seeing’ the mess that is there and doing something about it - sounds like he’s not currently putting the effort in to do that, even though you’ve said it’s important to you, which isn’t great.

Bravo!! Yes. Men seem to be able to manage to hold down jobs that require the same (or more) skills that cleaning requires. Yet ‘can’t’ keep a house clean and tidy (often).

my view is that it’s internalised misogyny. I’ve not read the full thread so this has probably been said. But cleaning and caring have been seen as ‘women’s work’ and women have been viewed as inferior over decades. So men have internalised the belief that the work of cleaning and caring is also inferior and doesn’t require effort or conscious thought.

cleaning and caring actually are complex tasks that women are socialised to learn to do well.

read Fair Play by Eve Rodesky and get him to as well.

my ex insisted for years he didn’t see the mess and it was my standards not his. Yet when we agreed on minimum standards he was similar to me. He wanted a clean tidy house to the same standard as me. He believed his penis doesn’t mean he shouldn’t do it. He just simply didn’t want to apply himself to it. He had to for a while and within two weeks he was sat on the floor in the doorway sighing because he was ‘exhausted’. Welcome to my world for ten effing years.

This is mad. Do you truly think there’s something genetic about feeling the need to keep a car clean?

I’ve read all your updates OP and the phrase “weaponised incompetence” comes to mind.

You’re tying yourself in knots trying to work him out - in this way, as well as the housework, you’re putting in more effort than him.

Of course he knows how to put things in the right recycling box and clean a kitchen. As people point out, he’s not incompetent at work. He just doesn’t care enough to make the effort.

In my experience, men like this thrive off keeping you trying to “solve” it. It keeps you occupied. But it’s not solvable. It’s his choice to do this. People don’t change.

My DP is not a high earner (although I think he has a lot of skills). He is not an organised, naturally tidy person. I am very tidy and organised (to a fault, perhaps). But even my DP, who is chaotic, outdoorsy, was born on a farm, and spent his formative years literally among pigs and cows, has learned how to clean up and not leave a mess.

Because he cares about me and respects me.

Everyone has different preferences and standards, but effort is the most important thing. Men who claim they “can’t see it” and don’t try, but somehow hold down big boy jobs, are full of shit.

Agree. Not genetic. Being able to keep a house clean and tidy is a learned skill. My ex absolutely could do it. When he had to (or expose his massive hypocrisy) he could. He just simply didn’t want to put the effort in. He saw it as beneath him.

Why have you saddled yourself with such a useless human being?

While my DH doesn’t do stuff quite to my standard he’s really tries. He’s does most of our washing, all the ironing. He takes and sorts the bins out. We equally share dishwasher etc, I will end up doing more life admin, cleaning but if I ask him to help he does it without complaining and tries.

Yes. There is.

And it's the same reason most single men who live on their own don't give two flying fucks about matching curtains or throw pillows. They will happily eat every meal from the same bowl and are oblivious as to whether the toilet seat is left up or down.

Men don't care about housework. They never have. They never will. For them, things are about efficiency. So the cup left by the sink is fine because they will wash it when they need it. Laundry piled on the floor next to the bin is fine, because they know where it is when they need to wash it.

Men just don't care about stuff like this. Same as we don't care about keeping cars clean.

Oh, do keep your sexism to yourself.

I agree op. Are there things he can see which he could do more of?

eg my dh is truly excellent at laundry and he runs the whole show.

He also notices when the grass is long enough to be cut (I don’t!) or my car needs vacuuming.

Perhaps he could take on big periodic tasks that just need doing like:

moving big furniture/sofas and vacuuming once a month

running a cleaning cycle through the dishwasher and the washing machine once a month

cleaning the oven once a month

defrosting the freezer once every 6 months

cleaning the windows once a quarter

cleaning carpets once a year

and so on.

I think both need to do their share of both work full time. Doesn’t have to be the same things though. My husband actually does far more cleaning and washing than me and general house maintenance. I do pretty much all the cooking, food shop and sorting stuff. We divvy it up to the things we prefer.

My DH is autistic and grew up in a home where neither parent cared much about cleaning, tidying or having a nice environment to live in. I am completely the opposite with a mum who is a neat freak and cleaning nut.

We have a 50/50 split but have achieved it in a different way. DH's autism means he will do a task really well but may not spot another task alongside it. So he will tidy up after dinner, load the dishwasher and clean the surfaces but may not spot that the cloths and towels need changing in the kitchen. We originally had checklists but they're now mental checklists, just to make sure the job gets done. It probably sounds like I was treating him like a child but he realised he needed structure and just didn't have it.

We also play to our strengths. I love meal planning, he hates it. I loathe changing bedding and sorting laundry into loads, he likes doing it. So that's a split in our house. I very rarely put a load of washing or dishwashing on as he does it, he never sorts out tumble drying because I'm the one with the silk / cashmere / wool clothing and i'm precious about it.

I like finding holidays, he's super good at sorting out pensions and investments, insurances, switching energy tariffs and that sort of thing. Another split for us.

Cooking is done by whoever is free / finishes work first. Shopping deliveries are the same. Ours is coming tonight and I will be at a yoga class so DH will put it all away. He'll also start dinner, following the prompt on the menu board on the kitchen wall.

I quite like ironing (sad I know 😂) so I do that on Sunday but DH will literally do everything else on Sunday. He thinks I am a saint for liking ironing so I make the most of it 🤣.

We have a 'Sunday summit' on Sunday evening to make sure we plan the week ahead and spot any clashes over the next 6 weeks as we both travel for work. When our kids were younger we'd agree on pickups and drop offs during this slot. Often we'll work out who is cooking each day as we check who has late work meetings or is out at events.

I don't tolerate weaponised incompetence and there were some times when I had to point out to DH that his parents' examples wasn't great and theses were skills he needed to learn. Because he isn't a twat he listened and learned.

This works because we are committed to 50/50 and respect each other's jobs. We're fortunate to have a very good income so cleaning once a week and lawn mowing fortnightly get outsourced.

If he's willing there will be a way to get a 50/50 split but if he isn't this will just fester in your relationship.

100%. DH is much better at cleaning and I’m the one with the racing licence!!!!!

Of course it’s not right that women do more. The load should be shared 50-50.

BUT if he’s working and you’re at home, you should do the majority of the housework.

AND are your standards ridiculously high? Are you trying to maintain a show home with non stop cleaning and expect his standards to be the same?