AIBU to think housework has nothing to do with money?

[EuclidianGeometryFan]

Not a TAAT, but I have seen the opinion expressed that if a couple are paying 50% each into the house, that the housework should be split 50/50.

To my mind, that is crazy. The housework split and financial split have nothing to do with each other.
Financial contributions depend on income.
Housework contributions depend on time available.
So if one person has a long commute and the other works part time, they split the housework so that they have equal 'time off' or leisure time, to either go out or to sit and do whatever they want.

Obviously the two are related in that if you are working part time or not working, you have less money to contribute, but you have more time (though if you are ill you may not achieve much housework in that time).
If you can't trust your part-time partner to put a reasonable amount of effort into housework (including childcare) when you are out at work, it is a doomed relationship.

Couples should decide together about who works what hours and what the financial arrangements will be, without regard to housework.

And, more importantly, they should look at who gets what leisure time and relaxation time without regard to who is paying what.
Otherwise the person earning less just becomes the domestic servant of the one who earns more.

Yanbu its about time and energy available

If youre working all hours as an nhs nurse and your man has family money so is more wealthy, but doesnt work, he should be taking care of the home 🤷‍♀️

I agree. A lot of people use “I earn more” to imply
their partner should be their skivvy.

I agree its about time availability and physical or mental capacity.

Otherwise, you could work more hours, in a more tiring job in a sector that pays less well than your partner and find that apparently its also your job to clean up because you contribute less financially.

I feel that a fair divide of both is everything split proportionately, so if one earns significantly more then they pay more, same with house work etc, if one is home more they do a bigger share of that

My DH is aboard a lot with work so I do everything at home and I work. I knew what I was getting into when we had children so I don’t resent it at all.

When DH is home, I don’t expect him to do half the housework etc (he does help.) What I like is he engages with our children and spends a lot of time with them which they both love and benefit from and I love seeing it.

It should be based on time, not money. If a couple is both working full-time, then it should be 50/50.

Money should have nothing to do with it. It's about the capacity to actually do it. And I don't mean the time left after hobbies and things we choose to do, because in my world the things that need doing are prioritised.

But as an example, in furlough times my husband wasn't working. He was still contributing his usual amount financially but why on earth would I have gone out to work all day and then come home and started cooking and cleaning when he's been there all day and available to do it? And more importantly, why would he want that? By his own admission it took no more than an hour or 2 a day, because he just kept on top of it and developed a system. We then got to enjoy time together instead of him sitting on his arse all day and then sitting on his arse in the evening watching me do housework and cook.

TBH I think most threads about division of housework really come down to ‘I am expected to do more because I’m female’.

Everything else is just excuses to justify it.

Thats why the women who earn far more still seem to end up being responsible for most of the housework…

The fairest way, I think, is to start from the other end and aim for each person being left with a similar amount of leisure time and spending money. Not that it needs to be mathematically exact, but thinking about it that way can be helpful.

I dunno cause the thread your talking about the woman left her job because her MH was a mess, saved up and is using her savings to cover her share of outgoings. Whilst she's recovering at home she's paying her usual outgoings and now also having to take over her partners share of the chores and he's expecting her to do that because she has more "time". He isn't paying any extra to the outgoings but now has stopped doing chores.

How is that fair?

They are very much linked because the person who gives up their time to do domestic labour, could have used that time to earn money instead. So it is not "fair" by any standard that they contribute 50% financially AND do 100% of domestic labour.

I would say that engaging with the DC counts as 'housework' for the purposes of this discussion - he is not going out alone or sitting on the sofa scrolling his phone ignoring them. He is keeping the children occupied and caring for them (no matter what their age), so that doesn't count towards his personal leisure time. (Even if playing with DC is more fun than laundry).

I am not talking about a particular other thread. MN does not permit posting a thread about a thread (TAAT).

I agree, this is the only sensible answer. So much else depends on the other circumstances and choices made by the couple - there's a world of difference between someone who has very little income because of ill-health or who works very long/physical hours for little money (who should not probably be expected to do more than 50% of the housework, potentially much less) and someone who doesn't work or works a very low hours/low stress job entirely through choice, no young children and who therefore has a lot of spare time/energy for housework and I would say it's fair they do more. They still shouldn't be the other person's skivvy/maid though - to me there should still be a degree of respect for your partner and not making their life needlessly hard, so even if you are exempted by agreement from say the laundry you still shouldn't leave dirty pants lying on the floor, or even if washing up isn't your job you can carry your coffee mug through to the sink rather than just scattering them over the house thoughtlessly. That's just disrespectful and unkind.

There's other complicating factors too such as any children living at home and caring for them, how much they're able to help, plus whether or not the couple can afford a cleaner or other domestic help and how that affects the split / household economy. And the old chestnut of the mental load / emotional labour as well...

That’s the crux of it. Females have a greater expectation to do housework.

Yanbu, when I was a sahm I became the sole anything doer in our house! Looking at that awful thread where the dh takes his dirty work jumper or whatever off then steps over it for his wife to clean up it just makes me mad- yes the person at home more should do a bit more but it doesn’t make them a 24/7 cleaner, cater and slave!!!

I think it is much more nuanced than who has more free time. Me and my ex both worked full time, him is a low paid, passion driven role, where he had a commute and would be out of the house 8am-7pm or later but he was doing something day in day out that he loved. By contrast, I am in a dull and stressful job and was earning 4 times his salary working from home. I was picking up most of the household expenses and he enjoyed a lifestyle with me that was well beyond anything he could have afforded on his own. I also ended up doing most of the household tasks because I was at home. It absolutely killed our relationship.

I couldn't see what he was contributing or anything that he was doing that made my life better. Yes I has more time because I wasn't commuting, and could get a food shop delivered when I was at home, and stick the dinner on before he got back from work, and run the vacuum cleaner round between him leaving the house and me starting work....

We probably both had the same amount of hobby time...but he was contributing next to nothing to the household financially or workwise.

Yes to the 50/50 leisure time.

The exception might be if one person starts making unilateral decisions that make them
earn less / be less available but with no advantage to the household.

For ex, I decide to take a job with v long commute, no benefits to the household (higher pay etc), DH against it but I still go ahead so now he has to do all the before/after school childcare. It would be fair for him to say that I’m now supposed to have less free time at the weekend than him (basically, my choice to spend more time commuting: it comes out of my free time).

Other ex, I decide to leave a well paid job for a lower paid one, no advantage for the household, DH against it. The difference is more than what would be needed to pay for a cleaner. It would be fair if DH asked me to take on all the cleaning.

Basically this.

I note he is your ex.

In general, this is when people need to discuss things as a couple, and agree together a way forward.
If you are not happy with him working very long hours for low pay, you need to ask him to change jobs. If he refuses, you need to reconsider the relationship.
He may be contributing very little in either time or money, but does he bring other things to the relationship? Is the time you do have together high-quality? Is he very loving and respectful, etc. etc.
Ultimately, if it is not working for you, then you can end it, especially if you don't yet have children.

As you said, he wasn't doing anything that made your life better.

Reminds me of a friend, whose then boyfriend used to have a cleaner service. When she moved in he cancelled the cleaner service as he no longer needed one apparently as my friend had moved in…

Yes he's my ex. But according to the logic here he did nothing wrong. He worked longer hours, and so I picked up more of the housework. By similar mumsnet logic, I earned more so I paid more.

Yes we could have spoken about it, (and we did many, many times) but it doesn't change the fact that by the logic here I was wrong and he was right. It killed our relationship.

To say earnings don't matter, its time available for yourself, is too simple. I would say you need to look at contribution to the household and family, I felt I bringing everything to the table, that is never sustainable.

There is housework and there is picking up after another adult. Housework is just something you do as you go. But you don't create work for someone else just because you earn more. You don't leave household chores you've seen because you think someone else should do them.

It is not about whether he was 'wrong' for both earning less and working longer hours. It is that this was not agreed as a couple. It was the lack of agreement that killed the relationship.
For example, if he had had a definite plan to get promoted and reduce his hours, and you agreed to support him meantime, that might have worked. Or if you had felt that what he did bring to the house and relationship was enough, e.g. in terms of quality time and emotional support, it might have worked.

The point is that these things have to be agreed by both parties. It can't be a blanket "it is wrong to both earn less and work longer hours than your partner".

I don't think there are blanket rules about this. Relationships are meant to be a partnership and you do what you are both happy with and works for you both.

I used to live a boyfriend who earned over twice what I did, so he paid twice what I did towards running the household. However, he worked 10 minutes away from our home in a desk job. I had a very physical NMW job where 2 hours each day was spent commuting to/from there. So, even though he earned more, he did more housework. I worked alternate weekends, and he would make a packed lunch for me on those day.

My dad is very much of the mindset that housework is a woman's job. Even in retirement, he does not lift a finger. My mum works full time and has to do everything at home too. I never want to put myself in that position.