People who have managed to get a reluctant DH/DP to help with housework, what did you do?

[kokosnuss]

I currently do all the cleaning, but when I raise it, DH takes offence and insists he does help and says that I just 'don't see' all the things he does. I suspect that all he does is sometimes take the bins out or throw something away that's gone off in the fridge.

To that end I was thinking of writing out all the tasks that need doing at least weekly on our chalkboard, and suggesting we tick them off when they've been done to keep track. If he really helps as much as he thinks he does, then no problem, he will find himself ticking some off. If (as I suspect) he does almost nothing, hopefully he can then visually see just how much I'm doing compared to him.

What have others done that seemed to work?

P.S. please no unhelpful posts along lines of 'get rid of this manchild'. People don't realistically end otherwise happy marriages because DH is averse to a duster. I'm sure there are things he'd change about me too.

Stop doing anything, then it will be much more obvious when he does something?

The first thing is to align your standards and expectations. If yours are high, and his are low, then you need to meet somewhere in the middle.

We do 50:50 in our house, but we have done since we started living together, I was never the one burdened with all the domestic chores, and that didn't happen by accident either. It helps that neither of us have particularly high standards - we both work FT and have a DD. Housework comes lower down our list of priorities than many other people!

Do you work? Stop doing his laundry/ dishes etc

OK, well get the word 'help' out of your vocabulary,
It's not HELP.
It's doing his fair share.
I had to do this with my ExH.
He took it all on board and it was resolved very quickly.
I did a whole list of everything.
and then we split it.
I chose 1 and he chose 1 etc.... until they were all dished out evenly.
Do it. It will change your life.
(if he sticks to it!!)

We got a cleaner. It's totally worth it.

He's your partner not your child! Writing in a chalkboard is extremely childish. I don't understand how this situation arose. Stop doing his stuff and start acting as a partnership not a mother child relationship!

Do a weekly rota. It’s the only way to keep it completely 50/50. So for example on a Monday you could do the dishes and laundry and he could do the hoovering and bins. Tuesday you could do the ironing and the polishing and he could clean the bathroom etc.

I thought about the various tasks that would effect him if i stopped doing it. Then i stopped doing it. And told him if he did something for me, i would do something for him. And stick to it. If he doesnt eat because i havent made dinner and he is too lazy to make beans on toast thats his issue. My aim is for him to understand, appreciate and respect my contribution to the house. If i dont get that, then i stop doing things for him

This type of thread comes up time and time again on Mumsnet.

But HOW do these men become so useless in the first place?

When you first got together did he do more or did you 'like playing house' and doing all the chores?

I genuinely don't understand how these useless men end up with wives/partners - surely when you are courting you get a 'feel' for how they behave? or are they just putting on a good act?

My marriage is far from perfect but when we got together we both had lived on our own, managed our own cooking, housework, laundry etc.

I think some men are just lazy. If I disappeared tomorrow, DH wouldn't start doing the housework. He'd just live in a tip. Whereas I don't want to live in a tip.

There are pay-offs to his laziness, for example he's really chilled and laid back, and we have a great time together. I need that in him, as I'm quite highly-strung and with the wrong person, could get quite intense. So he balances me out.

It's just in the tidying/cleaning area that there isn't a good balance.

I think someone might have a point about just getting a cleaner and taking the whole issue off the table. Then we'd have more time to just enjoy being together, as we both work full-time.

I'm just a bit wary of letting someone into my house. What do you generally do, have them come when you're in and watch them clean (which feels a bit awkward), or give them a key and know that a stranger has access to your property?

Screamed a lot

Took ten years but finally we are there

I don’t recommend this tho....

My dh has always generally been pretty good. He doesn't have the mentality that I should do everything at all and we've always had a very egalitarian relationship, but the problem I realised was that we had different standards. He was much more comfortable to live in chaos and filth than me (to be fair, MIL's house is disgusting even though her partner is retired and she, by choice, has only ever worked part-time and they have all the time in the world to clean). But after we realised that we were going to have to figure something out before I lost my mind with the state of things (this did take a lot of crying and tense discussion for him to understand how much it stressed me out), basically we each took our own jobs. There are things he does daily/weekly and things I do daily/weekly. So if the washing up doesn't get done, we know it's him because that's his job. Whereas I do the cooking and meal planning. I do most of the clothes washing for the dc (not him, he's always done his own), but he does the bins. So basically we have our own things that are ours to do and if it's left undone we know who is being lazy about it. We never made a chart or anything, but if that helps, then do it.

But I also second the idea of getting a cleaner. It doesn't mean you don't have to clean (unless you have like 'staff'). But it makes it easier and less stressful. We have a cleaner who comes every two weeks to do the deep cleaning (hoovering, scrubbing floors, cleaning bathrooms, kitchen, etc.). We still need to share the day to day jobs of running a household, but that's much easier when you aren't spending Saturday morning stressing about who needs to mop the kitchen floor. I don't mind doing the cooking and he doesn't mind doing the washing up every day when that's all we really need to do to make the house look like it's in reasonable shape.

I write a list - it's not necessarily a list for him but for both of us. I leave it on the side and then we just cross things off as they are done. I've found he does much more now as he can see on the list what needs doing and just gets on with it so I don't have to ask.

You just give the cleaner a key.
I have one and basically live on my own.
I hate cleaning but there will still be things you need to share out.
Washing, cooking, shopping, loading dishwasher, emptying dishwasher, changing bedding, changing towels, wiping down kitchen surfaces, present buying, card buying, gardening, bins, etc......
The cleaner won't necessarily do all of that.

Yes, stop calling it help.

He wants the advantage of living with another adult, in a family, where he gets nice things happen to him like food made, company, laughs, sex, companionship, mutual support?

Then he plays as part of the team or he ends up in a filthy bedsit on his own, because you will eventually just not want him taking up space any more. :)

Tell him this calmly, pleasantly. Tell him you really do feel that it's fair to warn him. That from now on, if he carries on like this, you still might still shout, get upset, or huff and puff and do it yourself. This isn't some drama llama 'final warning'. It's just you making sure he knows what he's doing , long term, is eroding the relationship.

Say you really hope it sinks in and he realises what he's doing - showing himself up as not on your side.

One day - you'll run out of love and respect for someone like that.

He's been warned.

Anyone who doesn't understand how this situation arises should read this, which explains it perfectly. www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

Firstly lower your expectations.
Secondly provide them with a list. It's annoying having to give my OH instructions when she lives here (and should know what needs doing) but less annoying than living in filth or doing it all myself.
Thirdly give them the jobs you hate. We both know I still end up doing more of the chores so she can do the washing up more because I hate doing it.

Or get a cleaner.

I’d get a cleaner, but you still need to tidy.
In terms of the jobs list, write it together. There may be things he’s doing that you don’t realise. We did a list, as my husband thinks that I don’t do enough cleaning, but when we added things like shopping, laundry, gardening, sorting out the bills et cetera, it turned out that our workloads were pretty equal.