I work at home while Marcie has a seventy-six mile round trip per day. Plus, she works four ten hour days. Guess who does most of the housework and cooking in our house?
Yeah, I do.
My only reward is that Marcie allows me to adore her.
I think it is a hell of a good deal.
Exactly. I guess if you live in Florida or some other warm climate, the lawn chores go on all year, but here in Maryland, the yard-mowing season is just about over till March or April. Our house is brick, with aluminum trim, so no painting is ever needed.
On the other hand, with three kids, the laundry is unbelievable. My older two wear uniforms to school, and the first thing they do when they get home is change…that’s 2 outfits times 2 kids…4 outfits per day, plus making sure they have clean uniforms for school each day. I know for a fact hubby has no clue how to separate the laundry. He thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to wash undies and jeans and towels all together in hot water. When I was on bedrest for a complicated pregnancy, he would take the laundry to the laundromat and let them do it, for $1.00 a pound. Let me tell you, laundry is heavy! He easily spent $20-$25 a week doing that.
We have an older house, and don’t have a dishwasher. We are planning on remodeling the kitchen in the next year or two, but until then, I wash all the dishes. My husband has NEVER washed a dish in the time we’ve been together. When I was on bedrest, he bought paper plates and cups and plastic silverware. My mother and MIL would come over once a day to bring food and tidy up and wash whatever he had left in the sink.
I’m not really complaining, but sometimes I think he doesn’t understand how much I really do. He thinks laundry is a once-a-week thing…does he not see me there, at least three nights a week, folding clothes while watching TV? Does he not see me washing the dishes (by hand) EVERY NIGHT?
Aeryn! Ack! 
You could at least link it to this thread so people don’t think I’m handing them out to everyone!
Like I said, look at the responses here. All the guys perk right up- Should you have to do that to get chores done? Hell no. Does it work? Hell yes.
YOU do the math
He’s actually probobly getting worried that the list is getting shorter. Last week HE ADDED a chore. Men are from Mars my ass- Men (my man anyway) are cavemen. They will give in to sex favors. (Never deny sex for punishment, though. Bad, bad)
Zette
Wouldn’t work for me. He knows I give blow jobs on demand.
Sigh. I’m just too nice for my own good, aren’t I?
I get paid to be a fucking maid…I clean OTHER peoples’ houses, a small motel as well as a commercial building 5 nights a week…for a freaking living…I work Monday (2 hrs), Tuesday (2hrs), Wednesday (2hrs), Thursday (3-4 hrs, then 2hrs), Friday (5 hrs, then 3-4 hrs), Saturday (4hrs, then 2.5 hrs), and Sundays (3-4 hrs)…
I DO NOT want to come home and have to clean up the FUCKING PIG STY that 1 grown man and 2 small male children have decided is fine for them to live in…
what Dylan then has to do in her own house:
…2 sinkloads of dishes (dewt sometimes remembers to put away)
…kitchen table/counter/floor cleanup (sweeping and mopping)
…general dusting and vacuuming of a 5-bedroom/2 level home
…full cleaning of 2 bathrooms (even rinsing the tub after a filthy bath is an unfulfilled dream I have of my menfolk)
…changing of bedlinens
…all laundry, hanging up of (we do not own a working dryer…sigh), as well as all folding and putting away thereof
…plant care
…making of beds and general cleaning of rooms
…cleaning out of fridge and identification of green, growing things…
…70% of cat puke/shit/piss cleanup
…most cooking and clean up duties
plus, plus, plus…
mini-dewt said to me the other day (when I asked him to clean up his toys)…“mama, only girls do cleaning”…
I fell down…on the spot…and of course asked where the hell he got that idea…his one word reply…Daddy…(who denies this)
look, there is ALWAYS something to do with regards to housekeeping…ALWAYS…some daily, some weekly…some monthly…I just don’t want to feel like I am the one doing 90% of it all…all the time…
if on the days that I am in charge of 2 kids and house, I can get some maintenance done, why the hell can’t the man I live with not do the same???..that’s all…I just want some goddamned help…
even going on ‘strike’ doesn’t fucking help…I get fed up after a week, and my obsessive/compulsiveness kicks in and then I just have a bigger, ickier mess to clean up…
looks like Dylan and dewt are having a talk tonite…
Dylan,
I think SOMEBODY desparately needs a chore list for the gang!
You can bet your ass that if I heard my husband say anything about housework being “womens work”, he’d be paying for a maid to come in every day to pick up after him. That is just WRONG and disrespectful. Wow!
Zette
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Dylan *
**
Sorry for the lack of sympathy, but the rest of us who work 40, 50, or 60 hours a week have the same shit to deal with, and in less time. Taking your time estimates at the long range, you work 31 1/2 hours a week, 28 1/2 on the low end. Wah, muddafuggin wah.
I’m by no means anal-retentive, but I’m the clean one in the house. When time comes to pick up the living room, I’ve got, maybe, one beer can and an empty cigarette wrapper. Meanwhile there are, from the 2 females, several pairs of shoes, several pairs of socks/hose, bras, panties, crayons, multiple Diet Coke cans, paper plates with the remains of Lean Cuisine on the coffee table…and let’s not forget the chocolaty fingerprints on the piano keys. And though I often work at home, I’m fucking working, not here to clean house, and aside from the rare SDMB break, I’m busy. Dad and the boys the same way?
Women don’t have a corner on the market here
Aahhh, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone cleaned up AFTER THEMSELVES? That is what this thread is suppose to be about. Doing for yourself. Doing your fair share!!!
In MY dream world, the kids pick up after themselves, no shoes left in the middle of the floor where I can trip on them, no messes in the bedroom making it look like a tornado went through. No dishes left on the table - they know where the dishwasher is too.
And in my dream world, my husband finds his things himself, he makes it all the way to the laundry room with his dirty socks, he helps with the baths, the laundry, the clean-up,
because I am NOT the maid here, and I would have more free time in the evenings ( and energy, what, with all this help ) to pamper him, make mad passionate… well, you know ) and we would all love happily ever after…
But, alas, I will never live in my dream world, my house will never be spotless. My kids will never learn to do everything I need them to do. So, I deal. I bitch. Gets me nowhere!!!
Then, I think about what life would be like without my husband around, my kids running and playing, laughing and loving…my life would be boring !
Got to go clean now
Hey, Hey, Hey…careful about this:
You have no idea why she works that schedule. As most people here know, I work part time because I had a spinal fusion done and suffer incredible chronic pain. Don’t make assumptions about anyone. I come home fucking beat most days, same as someone who works 60 hours a week. The extra hours don’t mean shit if you can’t do much in them. Trust me on this one.
Zette
nope…women DO NOT have a corner on the market in regards to this issue… …by no means…I know of one poor guy who does 90% of the housework, and his wife complains that he never does anything…go figure…
and you are very correct about having the same shit to do in less time…however, my paltry 31 hours a week (outside of home…not including the hrs put in AT home)is ALL manual labour…no sitting, no resting, no coffee breaks…it’s cool, it’s ok…it pays some bills and is the only option open since we cannot afford daycare (mini-dewt has been on various waiting lists for 3 years)and one parent home with kiddies (while neither is full time employed…dewt builds fences and decks…summer and fall work only) is a strong ethical belief I have…
I used to work 50-60 hrs/wk…but that, with a 3 hr commute and all the housework quickly led to a nervous breakdown…if you work your 40-60 hours/ in whatever job you do, then have to come home and do the SAME shit at home for 7-8 MORE hrs, every day… it would probably drive you insane…
my main point I guess, is that I am majorly responsible for housekeeping, and it bugs the shit out of me to go spend 5-6 hours cleaning a lakeside mansion, then hurrying to job # 2, 3-4 hours cleaning 12 kitchen efficiency motel chalets, and come home to almost nothing having been done and dewt playing a video game, or posting here…and then having to clean parts of my house, then make dinner, clean up after dinner, then go to job # 3, sweep and mop floors and clean bathrooms in a commercial mall…to come home at 11 pm and find all my prevous cleaning undone…with more mess!!..it bugs me…
Reading your OP reminds me what PMS stands for.
I don’t work very many hours in comparison, perhaps, but I DO know what coming home fucking beat, with a back that is strained and energy that is nonexistant, is all about…I hear 'ya Zette…also…I believe dewt…he would never say that only girls clean…now, maybe mini-dewts 9yr old bro might say that…LOL…
and when dewt is the one working, I do not expect as much from him as on the days when he is not working…
and I dare anyone to come here, do the job I do for 1 month (my house and kids included), and then go back to whatever they do normally, and then condescend to me about it ONLY being x amount of hours…
stormi…I am here supporting you and indulging in midol…and I too wish that our dream lives would happen…maybe moving out for a few years…leave them in their own mess!!! bbbwwwwaaahahahahaha…at least till the kids move out…LOL
and somebody’s (??) sig here says it all:
women on average live 7 years longer than men…because it takes us that long to clean up their messes after their dead.
This may sound like an odd question, but when things get hectic, isn’t it OK to ask your SO for help? Talking about being stressed isn’t nagging. When the workload changes, like as your kids grow, or if you move, or your job situation changes, I think it is OK to renegotiate who does what.
That bonus blow job Sunday thing would work too, though.
Yes, that’s how the original “Bonus blowjob Sunday” got started. It was the final negotiation before firebombing the place
Zette
Wow, I feel lucky.
We have a pretty good system worked out. Whoever doesnt cook, does dishes. Who cooks is decided by who cares more about what the meal is. Snack dishes are the sole resposibility of whoever ate the snack.
Laundry is done on an individual basis (We have our own towels). Same with putting away clothes.
Other cleaning tasks (mopping, etc) are done by setting aside an amount of time and BOTH of us working steadily until all that needs to be done is done.
And it is never acceptable to leave your own mess laying around in public areas. Cleaning up after yourself is one of the first things they teach you in kindergarten.
I think it works out so well because we both have a lot of experience living in apartments with random room and housemates. Therefor, we both got used to taking care of ourselves whike kiving with others.
But for the rest of ya…I feel your pain. And I know things can get a lot messier (literally) when kidlets enter the picture. Good luck!
Things are a little different around here… I am going to start asking Lola if my dick looks like a dowsing rod whenever she asks me where her stuff is… when I mentioned this to her she just cracked up because she knows it’s the truth. She could be standing on whatever she was looking for and still ask me where the “whatever” is. If you could picture the accompanying physical actions that go along with “dick dowsing” you might get a few chuckles.
The kids are just as bad and after spending two hours in the morning tracking down everyone’s stuff I tend to get a trifle testy.
And what is the fucking deal with the garbage anyways? If it’s full take it out… DO NOT keep stacking things on top so that it collapses when I go to take it out. I have given this job to our boys, it lowers my blood pressure.
The next time I almost do a header over someone’s purse I might just fire it out the door. My boys used to leave their shoes right in the entry causing a tripping hazard to anyone coming in the door. You did not want to be them when I almost took a spill when I was carrying the baby in from the car. My solution was to just throw their shoes out the door and the rule here is that if you go outside without shoes you get grounded for a while. They have pretty well stopped leaving their stuff in the doorway so maybe it might work for purses.
One chore equals one blowjob? WOW. We’re on a point system here and Lola won’t tell me how many points I need to earn… all she needs to do for me is earn one point… she says just her being here is worth a point… she’s right and I’m done.