Helping an inept partner improve at housework

[Tiredandbored]

I know there have been lots of threads about inept partners (usually men) who rarely lift a finger to help with housework and the general response is often to question why you married them.

However, can I ask if anyone has successfully found a way to improve this situation? My DH works hard and is good at his job, but when it comes to housework he is pretty useless.

I have tried asking him, telling him, listing everything that needs done for him to choose from, stopping doing some things... He agrees to do more and things improve for a short while, but very quickly it reverts back to the norm again.

Housework just isn't on his radar. It is never a priority for him, he doesn't notice when things need done, he doesn't mind if things are left not done.

I do get resentful, but this is not a LTB situation. Is there any suggestion of practical ways to get him to help more without me having to nag him?

I think this is exactly what's happening 😔

I have a cleaner -I know you say it will be your job to organise - but it pays dividends for me.

Sadly I dont think there are any easy answers and I also sadly agree with the many posts re it being a choice they make not to help.

God, it's so depressing. Fifty years of feminism and so many men are still like this.

OP, no one is 'rubbish' at housework. They are simply lazy and entitled. I used to do most of the cooking and house stuff, but then I got super busy at work so I simply stopped. I either focussed on my career, or did loads of unpaid labour, and I chose to focus on my career. DH was forced to pick up the slack. He now does all the cooking, because he knows I'll happily subsist on toast, and he likes his food. He does much of the housework too. He's crap at tidying - just can't seem to see the visual clutter - so every now and then I have to blitz, but on balance he pulls his weight now. So one way to change the situation is to simply behave like the average man. (This doesn't work so well with younger kids at home though, given most women will not let them suffer the consequences of an all out wifework strike.)

If you’re not going to leave him then resign yourself to the life of the unpaid housekeeper - he’s not going to change; he thinks it’s your job on some level whether he says so or not and your kids will grow up to think exactly the same - housework is womens work 🙄

I think part of this is frustration at being out of control. You say you don't wash his running kit - what about the rest of his clothes? If you are doing those why?

How about making a list if all the things you can drop doing for him:

Washing, ironing, family cards/gifts, hosting his family, any small admin task, any small piece if help he needs.

Ensure your focus is entirely on you and the children, cook what you all like etc. I say this because if you mentally put yourself your children first and do things for you and then it will be easier.

I suspect that if you look closely at his behaviour you will see that he prioritises himself. He may do stuff with the children but it will be in his terms and only if it suits him.

So change the balance, move him to the bottom of the pile. This isn't being unkind, it's using your energy for you and your children.

If when he lived on his own he did the bare minimum, and he's happy to pay for a cleaner I'd get a cleaner.

He doesn't want to do it.

You feel that you and he between you should do it; he doesn't feel that moral need that you do.

If he doesn't feel the need to do it, and doesn't do it on his own, it's actually not a reflection on you at all.

It's like my mum feels the need to iron everything. She gets upset that I don't iron bed linen. I fundamentally don't care, and I think the patriarchy has done a number in her. I don't iron bed linen. I'm not going to start just because she feels I should. If she bagged me about it constantly I'd agree to outsource it, but I'm not ironing bed linen because it's a waste of time.

"Stop having sex" is weird advice. Why would I want to deny myself something I enjoy to punish someone else? Seems a bit like cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Anyway I'm the slatternly one in our relationship. I don't notice mess and when I do it doesn't bother me - not anywhere near as much as DP anyway.

The answer is compromise on both sides, and to divvy up chores. He cooks and I wash up. I do the laundry, he hoovers. He waters the plants, I do the bathroom. Etc. We don't take over or comment on the other's jobs at all. And my office is my space and gets to look like a bomb site.

I think he should help more, simply because it's important to you. I can't imagine being in a relationship with someone knowing that something was obviously quite important to the other person, and basically not giving a shit how they felt.

Get a full deck of post it notes and write:

"I don't think women are my equal, I think they're my slaves - Dad." And stick it on every dirty toilet, every unwashed pot, every screwed up piece of laundry he's "hung up" to dry, stick them round his office, on the shopping bags, on the kitchen floor and work surfaces.

Then sit down with him and explain in words of one syllable that the post it notes demonstrate what he is telling you and what he is teaching his kids.

Never mention it again, but just put a post-it on any job he's ignored going forward.

Leave them for guests and family to see.

If that doesn't cure him, he's a hopeless case.

Does your life work in such a way that you can both do it together e.g. you need a meal so you prepare it together, clear away together and wash up together. If you don't, what is he doing while you are doing it? Save it until he is there and insist you do it together.

If that doesn't work, insist on equal leisure so you organise something for when you would normally eat and ask him to have the meal ready for when you get back. Make it harder for him to just let you do it. When he doesn't step up just do it for you and the kids so he has to make his own meal and show your upset and disappointment in him.

Can you make a plan for dividing chores? My DH hates bathrooms but is great at hoovering so he does that. People do have different standards as well, if you have high standard and he doesn’t I can see how it doesn’t work

Surely you sit down as a family list all the day to day chores and rota them. Like in a student house. Stuck it on the fridge if you like.
Should you need to with a fully grown adult, no, but other ways are not working. It also shows the DC who is responsible for what and that everyone has to pull their weight

I had a conversation along these lines with my DH. I told him every thing he left for me to do, which was pretty much everything, was as if he had had left me a note saying "fuck you". And I would point it out: "Hey DH this pile of washing here, you've left me another fuck you". He was shocked by how many I would find and call out just waking through the house.
I was also fully prepared to leave him over it which shocked him into action.
Getting a cleaner isn't the answer because the problem is his attitude towards you.

It's not the housework he doesn't care about-it's you. Sorry.

This is how it makes me feel. I know he doesn't care about doing housework, I know it's at the very bottom of his list of priorities, but it matters to me that he helps out and I haven't been able to get him to understand that this alone should be enough motivation for him to do it.

But the other side of the perspective is that - as someone who's very easy-going about mess - it's also important to me to have a life where I'm not cleaning, tidying, mopping etc every minute of the day. Housework isn't my priority because other things are more important to me, and I expect DP to understand that. I do housework as and when it's necessary and in line with how we've divvied up chores, but going above and beyond to make the house pristine at all times is not something I'll do, no matter how much DP prefers that.

I'm actually not that house-proud. I do like it to be clean enough that if someone pops in I'm not embarrassed, but I don't enjoy cleaning. I'm certainly not spending hours on housework, but when I add up the time spent on meal planning, cooking, doing laundry and cleaning as well as all the life-admin and child-related tasks it is the disparity between us that I find frustrating. The mental load is very much on me.

Also, it's the lack of effort at times. If I do something I do it right. Sometimes DH will do a chore, but it's half-hearted and often leads to more work instead of less. For example, hanging washing rumpled on the airer so it doesn't dry properly, or emptying the dishwasher and just chucking the lunchboxes randomly into a cupboard instead of fitting them together so they are ready for the kids.

I feel sad that the only options or suggestions appear to be the extremes of leaving him (which I'm not going to) or accepting this is the way it is and he's not going to change.

We have kids, so I can't stop doing stuff or it will impact them

Yet these children are also his children, and he thinks it's OK not to cook their food or do their laundry?

@Tiredandbored, if you’re on FB, join a group called Bridging the Gap Community. It’s all about helping women identity the gender based gaps in their life, giving them the language to describe what’s happening and advice on how to address it to bring balance. There are some tools on there such as ‘Fair Play’ which is a game for couples to help divide chores including the mental load. Unsurprisingly, most posts are about domestic labour gaps. I’ll warn you though, it’s often depressing reading and the success stories are few and far between. Much easier being a single parent imo!

Make sure it's only his laundry that he deals with.

Do not touch his festering running gear again.

He's doing a half arsed job because he knows you will pick up the slack. You'll fix the wet laundry on the dryer. Then you'll fold it and iron it and put it away. I assume he's still sleeping in your shared bed, too.

He's waving the middle finger at you, right in your face. He wants to see how little housework he can get away with and still enjoy the comforts of home and marriage. You need to make it clear to him that his laziness and disrespect are corrosive to the relationship, and you're not going to accept it any more.

I think @WinterDeWinter's post is excellent, and I urge you to take that tack with your H.

I could have written your posts, OP, and I put up with it because I loved him and thought he was doing his best and had many other good qualities, such as loyalty. Then he left me for another woman, out of the blue... I miss him, but life is so much easier without him. I'm not sure there's a real future with someone who doesn't, or can't, care enough about you to pull his weight. It is sad. Perhaps we should focus on bringing up our sons to care and our daughters not to settle.

Not necessarily, I do not dust, vacuum or clean bathroom. DH has always done these jobs and he’s tidier and more keen to wash up than I am. I do washing, cooking most of shopping, bill paying, organising hse maintenance. We share gardening and childcare

What does he do for his job? Does he need to be micromanged? Does he need a daily list of things that need doing provided by his boss every day? If the answer to any of that is no then this is weaponised incompetence. He knows what clothes on the airer should look like. He is hoping you never ask him again. Personally I would just make him do it every time until he "gets the hang of it".

His lack of effort will eventually lead to contempt and once you are in the contempt zone you will want to leave your marriage. Do you know that statistically married women do more housework than single women? Because they end up doing more stuff because their husband makes more work for them.

Get these, it points out the inequality between household chores including the mental load.
If he cares for you he will pay attention to this.
If not....

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I read the 'fuck you' thing on here years ago. I don't know if it was you or a different poster but it helped me explain it to DH. It made a huge difference. Before that he'd have said he just hadn't noticed/hadn't thought. Ironically now our DCs are older I work fewer hours than DH in a less stressful job and happily do more than half of domestic stuff! I feel like the responsibility is shared equally though which is the important thing and DH definitely does a fair share of everything