Have ordered Wifework....slightly concerned about the after effects

[TheProvincialLady]

I hadn't encountered Wifework before lurking on the feminist boards, but it sounds so interesting that I have just ordered it from Amazon and I'm really looking forward to reading it. But at the same time a little concerned about what I will actually DO with the enhanced knowledge that I am a Wife.

I willingly gave up work when I had the DC. We both discussed this and it was what I had always thought would be the best thing for the children. 5 years later, we have two children and I work a few hours a week (and really enjoy it). But I am now basically responsible for all the housework, all of the time. And getting the children ready. My husband does help, but he is not responsible and I'm not sure how this happened. It affects my choice of job but not his, the hours I work but not his, etc. Before children I still did more housework - partly because our standards are somewhat different - but also because he was raised to do nothing in the way of housework and has an underlying belief that it gets done anyway.

Anyway, a slight resentment of all this has been bubbling under the surface for some years now I suppose, and now it is all about to come to a head when I read Wifework. As the children get older I want to work more hours outside the home and so DH and I will be more equal in that respect, and I can foresee a battle over the housework and the children. So how can I approach this in a constructive way?

I posted this on the feminist board because I value your opinions and would be interested in any theoretical stuff as well as practical advice. Thanks.

no the rubbish would stay in the garden until the next week.

Trouble is, 4 months of rubbish piled up in the average sized house is your issue if you have to live there - I couldn't live with that.

Me neither.
But the principle holds in other circs.

I choose our cars. I drive them. I fill them with petrol, check the oil/washer bottles/tyres. I pay the insurance, deal with servicing and the MOT and pay the road fund tax. Any repairs that need doing, I sort out and pay (at least half). DH paid for the car. He isn't in the least interested in cars, or driving.

DH, on the other hand, is fabulous at emptying the bins, tidying up, paying the milk bill, doing the washing, sorting out the boys' rooms, paying the paper bill. All of which he does without me having to ask, tell, remind, etc.

How can you not remember when your bin is overflowing? I don't get that at all.

When I say 'our cars' it sounds like we run a fleet! We have one car.

custardo I properly laughed at the curry thing. Oh, yes, been there!

I don't get why Harman gets the blame? Society works in men's favour for hundreds of years ... surely men should, erm, take the responsibility at least partly for sorting out the inequality!

Re. 'husbandwork' - I own, maintain and drive my car (DH can't drive in the UK), and it is not exactly difficult! Much less frequent problems, and what I notice is every bloody thing with your car is geared up so you cannot, unless you make a huge effort, forget it or fuck up. Petrol warning lights, letter from the insurance company when I need to renew, sticker on the windscreen from the MOT people telling me when I need to renew, etc. etc. These aren't hard things to remember - certainly no harder than remembering to do the washing and take it out the maching when it's done (and that's a much more frequent job) - but the number of reminders is amazing really, when you think about it.

(Oh, and legally, if you let your MOT expire ... you can get permission to drive it in anyway. If you forget to get the tax disc ordered ... you can get it late and if you don't drive anywhere you are very unlikely to get fined. Etc Etc. It just seems interesting there's so much flexibility, certainly I've never had to panic about my car and planning when to do things, and I am hugely disorganized. It seems very different from the more time critical/ less forgiving aspects of wifework.)

custardo - Also with the bins thing he blatantly can see it bothers you more so you will sort it. Look just dont care it will get done in the end probably after the one time off missing it. I bet after he missed it you started faffing about it and he thought oh fuck it never mind she will sort it. Hence never taking responsibility for it.

For some people though they find it hard to stop caring about these things so much but you have to if you want to sort the problems out

no i never sort it. i end up being the person telling the person to sort it - the nag. i don't want to be put in the position where i am that person.

there is no solution here - i just want it recognised that there is not always a solution.

i have had chats about how him forgetting is equal to him saying that this is unimportant and therefore is disrespectful etc etc. i am very articulate y'know!

and its not only the bins. its everything. i 'manage' everything i point and direct everyone to do everything. if i don't it doesn't get done

not a little bit untidy, but hugely prime time television disgustingly untidy. i have been ill for three weeks, i have just been in a car accident this weekend. the house is a shithole. its a shithole becuase i haen't 'managed' people. i havent pointed and said 'oi you - washing up...oi you clean the kitchen sides etc....tc...'

dh has been supreme lovepot caring for me, but that doesn't negte the need to do the most tedious of tasks

i know you mean well, and i know you think that there aren't human beings who can be this disgusting. but there are.

i have got to the stage where there are no plates, i have left the bins.

A lot of what Wifework talks about is the managing aspect. We split the cooking, but I'm the one who meal plans, for example. Which means that if we don't have the ingredients for something and end up scrambling, the unspoken thing is that I have failed. But because menu planning is a job I do sitting down on the couch after hours, it's not visible as actual housework, so neither of us blink an eyelid that I do it in my ostensible leisure time, while he plays computer games. Ditto: present buying for small children, clothes shopping, errand running like dry cleaning. All things I'm fine with doing, but all invisible. Even when I think about, do we split the chores, I rarely take those into account.

And then there's emotional work, which does form part of Wifework and is very, very invisible. If we've had a bit of a spat it will always, always be me who initiates the 'we should talk about what happened there' conversation. Or if the sex life has fallen off. Or if something we're doing, parenting-wise, needs tweaking. So that's work, and it does put the initiator in the insidious position of then being responsible for how the conversation goes. You know, because if I approach it wrongly, or at the wrong time, there's an element of 'well I feel attacked and therefore won't discuss it/did you have to bring that up when we were having such a nice evening/you should have known that I'm tired and stressed about That Thing At Work and the last thing I need is this', and we're a pretty great team so this isn't major for us, but it's still a Thing.

Yes that additional thing of it's not just you who has to address the issue, you have to do the work of gauging when the best time to address the issue - all this is work, all this is unrecognised and taken for granted not just by the men who benefit from it, but by the women who are exhausted by it.

interesting thread.

i haven't read the book. i'm not a wife and never have been. i also haven't lived with anyone (other than my son obviously) for eons.

what i find remarkable from the outsider perspective is how women can continue to find someone attractive who doesn't take responsibility for themselves. a lot of what i read and see of marriages entails a woman sort of parenting a grown man and i really struggle to see how someone 'acting' or being incompetent is attractive.

and when men apparently do not know when birthdays are, don't know what's going on with their child's education or health, don't know what day the bins are collected etc doesn't that just make them appear utterly selfish or incompetent or just plain not giving a shit?

a lot of what has been discussed is the woman's fault perspective - she's taken too much on, she's laid down bad foundations etc but what about from the male perspective? they're not children or of lesser intelligence inherently and they too have agency and make choices and influence reality so???

Yes I also find that a bit of a mystery SaF - how anyone can actually muster any sexual attraction for a man who doesn't take responsibility for himself, his home, his environment. There's something crushingly unsexy about it from my perspective.

Some guy the other day in the office remarked that his wife bought his clothes for him. My estimation of him just plummeted. I can't help it, I regard him with a completely different eye now, and a less respectful one.

Men who laughingly tell me they're not sure where their vacuum keeper is kept, are guaranteed to kill my libido. Instantly. I just can't find that attitude sexually arousing, it's a real dampener. Thinking about it, it's a dealbreaker for me, I could have no strings attached sex with a man like that, but I couldn't have one as a real partner and I certainly couldn't share my home with one.

Overthrow the outdated system. Change the structure.

In the meanwhile, kick their lazy arses and make them wake up.

Who ARE these great big men-babies who don't play fair?

And why on earth do women live with them?

HG, I think women live with them because they don't start out like that.

It's why it's so important for both men and women to be ultra aware of how easy it is to fall into patterns which neither of them really want to or think are fair.

That's why Wifework is such a good book. It should be on the PHSE syllabus.

Custardo poor you, that's bloody miserable.

Yes, the managing aspect can be exhausting. Your family can be marvellous at doing stuff when asked but unless they are really taking responsibility, it's still you who has to keep on top of what needs doing when and who's doing it. Delegation often requires negotiation, which is work too, then there's chasing people up when the job isn't done or isn't done properly ... the rest of them never have that niggling what have I forgotten feeling because they are relying on you to remind them ... and when you do, you're nagging.

I've seen the management aspects of wifework compared to project management a couple of times but consider this: if you were at work and you were asked to take responsibility for part x of y project and you didn't - if your boss had to continually remind you of what you are supposed to be doing, would you think they were nagging you? In fact, would you blame them if they eventually got fed up with you and let you go? We are responsible for household management but at the same time, the word 'nagging' strips us of the authority to manage effectively.