Chores

[bunny85]

Hi everyone. I would like to hear a perspective if what my husband does around the house is more or less fair. He was raised in a household where his mum did everything and his dad nothing, so already this is a bad start kinda. So he works 6 days a week and I work 4. So he does bins, loading/unloading dishwasher (not every single day but often), makes the kids ready and takes them to school in the morning (every day) and pick ups 2-3 days a week. Does DIY too when needed. He wakes up to the kids at night if needed most of the time. Some bath times.

I do: all cooking and all washing and putting away stuff. All ordering and all mental load. All homework and everything school related and all admin.

We have a cleaner once a week.

I keep thinking that I do mainly all the stuff and he gets mad as he thinks he does more than enough. I don’t know, what does everyone think?

Well I sleep quite deeply and he just hears them first and gets up. School runs he does because it’s just more convenient this way as the school is on his way to/from work. And I think it’s fair this way anyway since I do quite a lot.

Before we met he used to live on takeaways and ready meals. One of those people🤷🏻‍♀️

I know, exactly

Ha ha I do have a solution for this due to my “Mrs whiplash” working girl days but it’s not for everyone lol
However my advice for regular couples would still be “get the whip out” metaphorical speaking as men are definitely pliable creatures and certainly use a rewards & denial based system.

Think I shall write a book 🤔

Given you work 2 days less than him and at least one of those days is off without children I think it’s a generally fair split.

I think your dh has it easy.
Why don’t you swap jobs so he does all the cooking and laundry and you do the bins and empty the dishwasher. I know which I’d rather do!
Also what the hell is doing the bins? Seriously. It takes seconds to put your rubbish in the dustbin. Then seconds to wheel the dustbin to the street. Unless of course you live in a massive pile and have to wheel your bin down a 2 mile uneven drive on foot. But seriously it isn’t even a job in our house. I make sure the bathroom bin is emptied every weekend and the day before the bin collection. Either I or dh put the dustbin on the street.
Dh does all our cooking and meal prep. I do the washing up by hand. We both do laundry and I prefer to iron as I like how I do it better than dh but he will iron.
I do the gardening as I like it. Dh does all diy except decorating which falls to me.
When my dcs were young I did all school runs. Metal load. Gardening, car washing, decorating, laundry, ironing, cleaning, cooking, cleaning of kitchen after cooking, buying and organising presents, dishwasher, homework, bathing kids, taking DCs to varies hobbies. I was married to someone else then. I also worked 5 days a week. It caused huge resentment and the person I was married to is now my ex h.
I would try swapping the jobs I listed if your dh thinks he does more.

@Amiacoolorwarmcolour“Why don’t swap jobs so he does all the cooking and laundry and you do the bins and empty the dishwasher. I know which I’d rather do”
Wouldn’t she have to literally swap jobs with him and work more days and longer days for that to make sense? You can’t just cherry pick one thing when there’s plenty of other ways the DH is doing more.

When you say you do quite a lot, can you genuinely not see that your DH does more? If anything he should be on here making a post about you!! I’m not 100% sure if I believe this post is real or not because you’ve listed all the things you both do and it’s clear to see you DH does more from the list yet you still believe you do more

Sounds like a fair split

If anything it sounds as if he does more than you.

I understand about the cooking i hate it but my DP loves it so it works here. He does the cooking i wash up/tidy kitchen. I'll be honest cleaning the kitchen is a really laborious task after hes done a yummy home cooked meal from scratch! We dont have a cleaner so I do that and all the washing (i don't mind the washing) but he does hoover the stairs and upstairs, I do hoovering and mopping downstairs....now im thinking I want s cleaner 😂

Fact he does all school runs to be is amazing and I would have been elated to have someone do that for me. I’d have gladly taken the cooking in exchange for that. Let him pay for a weekly takeaway if he won’t cook on his one day off.

Just as a contrast: I do all the cooking and he does the washing up. The rest of the stuff gets done by whoever does it first. Some weeks it might me doing most of it and other weeks it’s my partner who does most of it. We also have a family meeting once a week (with DS) to talk about life admin & planning the week ahead.

School run: DP drops off, I pick up.

To be honest he pays for takeaways twice or sometimes even 3 times a week if I’m very busy or tired. However this money technically is ours as we have a joint budget.

Him working 6 days and you 4 would mean I would expect most chores and household management to fall on you

rule of thumb equal amount of “free”
time- to go for a run or out with mates

He takes the kids to school as it’s on his way to work, I can’t believe people are suggesting that’s equivalent to cooking a family meal. He loads the dishwasher “sometimes”. He barely does anything.

Wow, even better then. If you can afford it. I guess at least he is paying for a takeaway and not expecting you to cook. Pretty unhealthy though, so him cooking once a week on his day off wouldn’t be unreasonable. Plenty of quick meals he could make.

There’s loads of stuff like changing the beds, tidying children’s rooms, beating doormats, cleaning windows, sorting and decluttering, the garden, etc too - are these balanced? Keeping on top of school supplies? Finding and buying craft supplies? Deciding the grocery list and buying it and putting it away?
There is SO much mental load, is it shared or does he mainly do what he’s told? Not just about obvious appointments but keeping on top of measuring feet for new shoes, putting bird seed out, organising hair cuts, maintaining a full medicine cupboard, checking for headlice, etc, etc.

To be fair in this aspect though, he also makes them simple breakfast (like a toast or cereal or scrambled eggs or porridge) and gets them ready, which in itself is stressful. Takes the snacks for school etc.

Exactly! Most of it is on me. He would do an odd job if asked such as changing the sheets etc. He does all the gardening though. Window cleaning we have a cleaner. We also have a cleaner once a week for a general clean too

Would getting Hello Fresh or similar and splitting the cooking for a while work?

Could you allocate other household task for him, including the mental load of them?

So he actually does cook. And he orders 3 takeaways a week and you have a cleaner. And you get out of night wake ups as you sleep too deeply. Here’s my teeny tiny violin.

Why don’t you look to prep meals in advance on your day off if you only work 4? Your children are of school age. Might ease the load midweek when you can’t be bothered.
so does he take them to school even on your day off?
sounds like for someone that works 6 days out of 7 is doing his fair share when you only work 4 days.

I really appreciate the waking up set up. My genuine problem with it is that if I wake up at night I then feel really groggy the next day and get a headache.

As for cooking, I didn’t realise this could be called cooking. He can boil pasta which he does or put pizza in the oven. I never looked at it as cooking to be honest but if it is perhaps I’ve been unfair. I don’t have a problem admitting it, I just needed a genuine perspective as I hate if someone would try to take advantage of me

Yes I think I should. I do try to cook family meals but I’m not great at cooking and am constantly stuck for ideas. I have to order all the ingredients for it online too, which is what I do (our weekly shop) and he never does, he doesn’t even have a clue how it’s done

Unfortunately refuses. He genuinely thinks he’s doing plenty