Consequences of stopping wife work...

[Lostfraggle]

On the whole I think DH pulls his weight a lot, and I have stopped as much unequal wife work as I can. However, sometimes me not doing the wife work has a negative consequence on me. What do you do then?

For example:

I seem to be the only person in our household (DH, me, 2 teenage DC who regularly go into the town centre and spend money) who ever buys wrapping paper or Christmas wrapping paper. No one has agreed that I ma in charge of wrapping paper supplies. I also wrap my presents in good time, partly so that I know if I need to get more paper.

This year I decided to buy a certain amount of Christmas paper (in fact I bought most of it discounted in Jan 2024), but when it ran out, not replace it when I had finished wrapping my presents. Any of the rest of the family could have checked at any time if there was enough for them to wrap their presents.

DH only decided to wrap his presents on Christmas Eve (or the day before?). He found there was no wrapping paper in the house so had to go into town to get some. And some other last minute things he needed (which could have been predicted days or weeks in advance). Exactly when there was masses of cleaning and cooking to do because we were hosting several different large groups over the next two days. So I had to do more of that because he hadn't planned ahead and got wrapping paper on the numerous occasions when he was in town in the previous days and had to do a special trip.

Surely it's wife work /extra mental load to remind him days in advance, or when he was going into town earlier in December - "remember to check if there's enough wrapping paper!" Or to myself buy enough for him as well as me (which is inconvenient, as I can't carry multiple rolls with my shopping as I walk or cycle to the shops).

There are loads of other examples where I haven't done the wife work/held the mental load but where it creates more inconvenience/ a bad impact FOR ME, not just a negative consequence for him (which would be fine).

How do you manage that?! Given DH generally does do stuff for the household, and is overall a Good Egg, do I just suck it up and do the wifework where I know it's in my interests? I'd really rather not have to!

He doesn't have to think ahead because you do it.

We get informed when the DCs appointments are by the dentist. Usually he takes them but if it's on a day I can do, I put them in the diary and tell him I'll do it.

We absolutely do have clear responsibilities for loads of stuff, eg only one of us is responsible for the each of following items, I think it's fairly evenly split, and that usually works - planning and doing the weekly food shop, all car related stuff, putting bins out, the ironing, the clothes washing and drying, everything to do with a particular hobby of the DC, all mending /sewing, all clearing out and donating /selling/ chucking. Etc etc.

Other stuff is probably 50/50 - cooking, cleaning, garden stuff, washing up, stacking /unstacking the dishwasher.

But it's all the other stuff where there isn't a clear responsible person that seems to fall to me. Eg Christmas wrapping paper! But also a bunch of other things that are trivial in themselves but feel like they add up. And you can't list every single possible thing that needs doing and allocate either me or DH, that would be ridiculous.

Divide and conquer; buy the wrapping paper, make sure he’s doing something else to compensate.

But what are you actually hoping for in this example? That he buys all the wrapping paper? Or just his own? It sounds like you gave a good division of labour so personally I’d just agree that something out of the ‘undefined’ bucket is now his job and I’d buy extra wrapping paper.

On boxing day you say ok dinner and clean up is on you, I had to do all the prep Christmas Eve while you did last minute runs to the shop for everything you needed for Christmas that hadn’t crossed your mind until Christmas Eve, you don’t end up frantically covering for both of us because I’m disorganised so I’ll be taking today off.

Same!

This. It’s just another commodity, albeit seasonal. Like toilet roll, kitchen roll - you’d put it on the list or say you’ve used the last bit, so whoever’s going to the shop needs to get it.

And like toilet roll, best to give a heads-up BEFORE you get to the cardboard insert.

I would've still made my DH do equal cleaning/cooking etc for guests on top of him going out to get the wrapping - or said he needs to do the chores first and wrapping second as he should have sorted it days ago.

I wouldn't pick up the slack - if he didn't do his share, he'd need to do it after. That's how you get an equal relationship. If I absolutely HAD to do more for some reason (buying wrapping paper wouldn't cut it, but there would be other valid reasons) I'd ask him to take on more the next day while I had a rest.

I think purposefully NOT buying enough paper, and then purposefully keeping silent about it was passive aggressive and petty. You're absolutely right that all these little things add up and it's annoying but you were really silly on this one. A better option would be to say, "I've used up all the paper so when you're next in town, you'll need to get some for your gifts." Because it IS a small, ad hoc one.

Having said that, the overall lack of planning and forethought I do 100% get. DH was completely gobsmacked when he told me he didn't "feel like" doing his last shopping on the day allocated and I reacted badly when he said he would do it "tomorrow" instead... he literally hadn't thought for 10 seconds about the fact that "tomorrow" I was a) working and b) doing all the Christmas prep and that he was in charge of lookinga fter the DC. So I do totally understnad your frustration. But in our case, I pointed out that he was being thoughtless and that actually, he needed to go today, as planned. And he did.

Yes he has. For the other naysayers, we have been together for 35 years. I earn over £100k but work far less hard than him. There was a period when his earning hit 7 figures. Our input has been team family. No complaints, no regrets.

how much effort does it take to add some gift wrap and sellotape to the supermarket delivery?

I couldn’t give a shit about the gift wrap more concern for provisions for you as a lot of women get shafted. if it works it works

FWIW I think you’re right OP, but I don’t think you’ll change things without some kind of conversation. Only you know what’s likely to work best, but I’d probably straightforwardly state that your contributions like buying wrapping paper, are taken for granted, and make him understand that you had to do additional work because he went out at the last minute to buy more paper. It is fine, indeed helpful, to explain that this upset you and made you angry. But then find a solution you can both work with, whether it’s checking over leftover Christmas stuff together at the start of December, adding wrapping paper to the weekly shop before Christmas, or whatever. It’s tempting to want the other person to come up with exactly the solution you want, but try and be open minded in case he has good ideas.

I think it’s good to do jobs the other spouse usually does from time to time, and have jobs that aren’t assigned, so to speak, as it stops us taking each other for granted, and stops us getting deskilled.

If you work through this once, you’ll be able to use the wrapping paper example if the same issue comes up again, which might be helpful.

If you want to stop buying Christmas wrapping paper, then you need to tell him that he's doing it instead..

Same as if he no longer wanted to mow the lawn or do the bins.

Sometimes you need to carry the load and sometimes you don't. When all the wrapping paper is gone tell your family.

If he pulls his weight in other areas then I'm afraid this is on you, you used the last of the wrapping paper and kept quiet about it and ultimately it backfired.

You do come across as slightly petty and you tried to set your husband up to fall without appreciating the effect it would have so close to Christmas.

How is it ‘work’ to buy wrapping paper? You just get it at the supermarket along with everything else.

I don't think letting someone know you've used up the last of a household good is "reminding" someone. I would have just texted DH to let him know I've used all the wrapping paper so if he still has gifts to wrap he should get some on the way home. Just as I would if I used up the last of the toilet paper.

To be fair, we always have leftover wrapping paper from the year before so I assume some is always available. Wrapping gifts isn't some big undertaking that requires planning. I don't do a stock take before sitting down to wrap my gifts. I just look for what I need in the moment and if there's something missing I'll pick it up next time I'm out and wrap stuff then.

It's sounds like you've conflated "wife work" with just being a good housemate. There's a middle ground between having an uneven division of household labour and acting like you're two strangers living in a house share.

As you were buying wrapping paper anyway, I don't see it as 'wife work' and you could have just bought enough

Just as if my DH was cleaning his car, it wouldn't occur to him to ignore mine

@WhiteHairedMyrtle thank you for that blog/link.

This is what happens when you play games.

I find for myself this is a further boundary thing.
I don't let him opt out of the next thing on the list just because he messed up another.
So, I'd have been saying 'well, how are you going to go to the shops and do X, Y, Z that you're supporting me with today?'.
I'd then expect him to juggle the list of tasks between us so that perhaps I had a busy day but had my feet up by 4 whilst he finished, or he could achieve X first then Y and Z later.

The mistake is in him, and people rarely learn from mistakes unless they feel them.

As you've said, his mistake shouldn't make your life harder.

This seems extremely petty. Life can be challenging enough so why sweat the very small stuff? Christmas meant to be the season of goodwill not resenting what are very minor tasks that fall to a wife usually. I’ve always bought the family wrapping paper and dunno what I’m missing here but genuinely never seen it as a big deal. Must be more to the resentment as don’t get why this is worth lengthy debate.

@Lostfraggle my own experience with the wife work situation.

As I started to hand over to DH many tasks that needed doing, I found my myself still being frustrated. And yes it was often over those tasks that happen once in the year and/or can’t be assigned easily to someone.
It stayed like that for quite a while tbh.
When did that frustration stop? When I actually properly stopped feeling in charge of the tasks I had ‘delegated’.

I found that, to reduce wife work, you need to reduce the mental load. And to reduce the mental load, you need to not feel responsible at all for the task.
imo this is really hard with ‘shared tasks’. They’re still in your mind so you still do all the lifting/checking up etc…
It can happen for tasks where you can step back fully like doing the weekly food shop. It takes a lot of effort to properly step back imo. And quite a bit of time to get used to it too (on both sides)
Its also much harder to do when dcs are affected.

From what you’ve described, it sounds like you are closer to 50/50, so I’d work towards stopping thinking about what your dh needs to do. Like what youve done with his gift giving for his side of the family.
And still buy the wrapping paper when it goes down (just like I’d hope he’d do the same fir you - buy more wrapping paper than he needs so you have some too iyswim)

I agree with @steppingin
All the people saying, this is OPs fault, she's playing games etc - that's how it becomes unequal. Partners don't do stuff, you find it makes it more difficult for you, and so you do it.
They need to feel the consequences.
Not found a solution yet to the situations where it would be the DC that felt the consequences though. 😔

Well this is funny to me as I assumed my hubby wouldn’t and he bought loads (as did I) so we should be good for a couple of years.

I find my husband thinks of things when he gets to them.

I take exception to the word wife work. Simply
don't enable behaviour that means you are doing more or have to pick up the slack. Do I care if my husband doesn’t think of these things? No because the balance is equal in other ways and he does loads I wouldn’t think about.

If this was a work problem how would you solve it? Make a list coming up to Christmas and assign responsibilities and deadlines. Otherwise, once again you are asking him to read your mind, work to your timeline (even if his is late and a bit crazy) and understand that you will be miffed if he doesn’t.