How can we fairly share household chores without rows or resentment?

[GentleDog]

Please help me work this out with my husband! It's a common problem, I think, really rather boring but I am not making any headway. How will he commit to take on some of the household labour and execute it?
He works 4 days, I'm 4.5 days with school holidays off. I do the dusting, hoovering, mopping, laundry, the bathroom, the food shop every week. I do the vast majority of the cooking. I also look after the finances, house admin, book holidays. I do the less regular cleaning jobs, e.g. filters, vents, descaling etc in the school holidays. He loads the dishwasher when I've cooked and will usually wipe down the worktops and hob. I usually empty the disgusting sink strainer thing and wipe round the sink. If I ask him to put some laundry in the tumble dryer he will do so, but invariably he will not think to get it back out. I might hang out a load of washing in the morning, he wouldn't think to bring it in when dry. He seems to think the kitchen bins need only to be emptied the night before the binmen come; the rest of the week he squishes everything down. Then the kitchen stinks so I also take the bins out to the garage and struggle to empty them as they've been compressed so much.
At the start of this year our cleaner retired. We agreed that he would clean the bathroom and upstairs on his non working day. I would sort the rest. I think he's cleaned the bathroom maybe three times since then. If I ask him about it he gets defensive. I tried to explain last weekend that I'm feeling anxious about returning to work after the school holidays as there'll be so much less time for me to do all the things I've done over the summer. His response was that the food shopping doesn't have to be done in person, I could get a delivery. This irritated me beyond belief! I feel resentful, frustrated, put upon, uncared for and taken for granted. I just do not know how to share this load. We have been together donkeys years and this is nothing new, however it feels exacerbated this year since the cleaner left and he dropped a day of work.

@GentleDogTesco do a price match on lots of Aldi items. I do a big on line shop once a month then top ups from Aldi. Or I will get what I can from Tesco then the items I know are cheaper from Aldi. It means I’ve still got to go to the shop but my list is a lot smaller and therefore a lot quicker.

I hate the way people say 'just get a cleaner' when round here, it costs £20 an hour so would be at least £60 a week to have a 3 cleaned on a weekly basis. That's around £3k a year! If I worked 4 days a week, like OP's husband does, I'd clean the house thoroughly on my day off.

Get another cleaner, which he pays for.

Any decent cleaner will do the job better than OP's husband, so it's money well spent. And she should tell him that he needs to pay for it.

But that's not how things work. In reality ,he won't find or pay for a cleaner just because she tells him to, any more than he'll do his fair share of cleaning just because she tells him to. Plus, it's £3k less going into the family income. I agree with @CeciliaMars - getting a cleaner is a big expense, especially when there are 2 people who are capable of cleaning for free.

OP - the only thing that worked for us was a rota with every job listed each week that we then ticked off as we did our allocated job. Bloody annoying though, I shouldn't have to remind other adults to clean - but it's difficult when you have different standards and expectations to those of your partner. 32 years into our marriage and it's still a niggle point.

Tell him to bloody well grow up and he is a fully functioning adult that is acting worse than a juvenile.
Remind him his dick won't drop off of he keeps the place he lives in clean. He is lazy. He knows dam well bins need emptying etc..

I struggle to get my head around needing spreadsheets to show what house work needs doing. Unbelievable!!! I work part time but that doesn't mean dh doesn't change the bedding, clean the windows , do the weekly shop, mop the floor etc.

The thing is my boys have seen their dad do normal household tasks such as hoovering, pegging washing out on the line etc its normal to them so when they bought their homes they just did normal house things. What is your Dhs background OP? You say things have got worse since he dropped a days work. What do you think is going on. Is he just a lazy sod or something else?

You seem to take over a lot of his tasks. E.g. the bin - don't do it! Particularly as his squishing method has made it far too heavy for you.
If he doesn't care about the bathroom, are there any things he will care about? Presumably he will care if there is no food so let him do the shopping - tell him how much you spend per week and let him sort that task on the same budget.
AI might be useful at coming up with a list of weekly chores - saves (i) you the job of having to think of the list and (ii) him perceiving you to be nagging him when his tasks have been set by a neutral entity

At the very least, stop doing his laundry.

Surelyv there was a time when he washed and ironed his own clothes, so he does know what it requires.

Your cleaner has retired but surely she's not the only cleaner in the area? He won't change. Get another cleaner so you don't argue as it's not worth your nerves

"The thing is my boys have seen their dad do normal household tasks such as hoovering, pegging washing out on the line etc its normal to them so when they bought their homes they just did normal house things."

Yes, it's not a good thing for kids - especially boys - to be raised seeing Dad getting pandered to and sitting there with his feet up smoking his pipe (figuratively) while Mum runs around like a frazzled blue-arsed fly from morning to night.

I feel sorry for the poor women who will get with these badly raised boys later. The shitty time-stealing cycle is just perpetuated.

Also, what if you can't afford a cleaner? What if the kids later can't afford a cleaner?

I have half taken his suggestion of getting a delivery and have booked a click and collect for him to pick up on his way home from the office tomorrow. It is still more expensive than Lidl but will see how it goes.

Yes, exactly. We're in the southeast so that is exactly the cost.

I earn more than he does.

Alas, no. He had his mum before me! We just fell into this routine when we first moved in together. Unfortunately, it now feels very uneven as I work more than he does, earn more than he does and have a demanding job.

For my household we just split floors, he knows ground floor will not be cleaned if he doesn’t do it & vice versa. I haven’t cleaned ground floor in years. He does all the laundry & ironing because I hate it (& it wouldn’t get done regularly if left to me) & he hates cooking unless it’s freezer to oven so I do majority of that, only time it ever varies is if our child does it as part of chores or one of us is away. Just stop doing it is my advice

So. You earn more. Work longer weeks in term time and do more around the house by a country mile. Hmmmm. What does he bring to the team?

Is there a medical reason he has chosen to go part time - or is he doing 5 days work condensed into 4 days and getting paid for 5 days ?

As otherwise he needs to return to working 5 days and earning 5 days worth and you can get another cleaner.

Or is he considerably older ? and needed to reduce his hours - as you say you have been together donkeys years so neither of you are young.

You don't mention children ? except that you have school holidays off is that because you work in education ?

Why should they pay for a cleaner if they don’t want to ? He works 4 days a week he should be doing his share.
He’s just lazy git.

Herein lies your problem. You took over from his mummy and now you're expecting him to change. I think you need to decide what you'll do if he can't/won't change.

Can’t you both write all the tasks that need doing, frequency and timings. Then each pick the ones you ‘enjoy’ and divide the rest to get a reasonably fair allocation. If he won’t engage, that’s how much he cares about you.

Is this life better than being single?

Drop the rope. Don't do anything for him. If he doesn't contribute to the household, he's not part of the household. Don't cook for him, shop for him or do his laundry or ironing. Chuck any mess he leaves into a big box.

Work out what really annoys you and just deal with that. For me, it would be the bin. I hate it when people overfill the bin. Get into a routine of taking the bin out every morning, even if it's only half full. Annoying and unnecessary, yes, but at least you won't have to deal with an overfilled bin and rubbish falling on the floor.

Do you have two bathrooms? If so, start using one bathroom with the children and just stop using (and cleaning) the other one.

I second The Organised Mum Method. Every day has a tick sheet (or a tick on the app) of jobs to do and each day is a different room with no cleaning at the weekend. You could assign yourselves certain days (e.g. you are Monday, Wednesday and Friday one week, Tuesday and Thursday the next, he is the opposite).

It is so simple a monkey could do it. It will give your husband a definitive standard to meet instead of him being able to whinge that he didn't realise 'cleaning the kitchen' meant wiping down the sides / mopping the floor / emptying the bin.

I believe you can amend the lists too so you could add 'empty kitchen bin into wheelie bin' twice a week then the bin will never get over full.

Obviously if he's a lazy sod then he won't do the cleaning whatever you do, but if he just needs a set guidance routine then this will give him that structure.

I stopped doing some of the jobs and made them dhs responsibility but I don’t dictate when or how he does them. For example hoovering is his responsibility he does it fortnightly or if we have guests. I would do it weekly but it’s not my job so I leave him to it. He does bins if it smells I’ll stick it in the garden. His own ironing / breakfasts/ lunches . All bills payments/ renewal, I don’t remind him at all if I goes wrong he sorts it. Cars same. And garden I don’t even think about it. We split cooking 50/50 I don’t get involved on his nights. Food shop delivered when he’s in to unpack it. Anything for his family. Half the kids clubs.
The only way it works is if you relinquish control of his jobs you don’t get to decide when/ how he does them but you do get to drop them from your mental load.