Domestic violence jokes go in domestic violence threads. Just like housework jokes go in housework threads. Really, people. Simple Sesame Street logic.
I don’t know either.
WhyNot, that would work. I know people have different approaches to housework; my husband isn’t much of a housecleaner, but when he had assigned jobs, he would just do them, because that’s how he is. I’m hoping that tesseract can have a good discussion with her husband about how to make them both happier.
A. This isn’t a thread about housework.
B. You don’t like the context of jokes, so you insult people?
C. You get called on it, and then, *you *give the rolleyes…
Play nice.
Best wishes,
hh
Hey, save that PBS talk for Cafe Society.
It sounds to me like the OP is trying to run the household while she’s working. My suggestion? Let it go. Learn to like the way he’s running his household. He’s in charge of it now, not you. As long as the dishes get done, the kid is fed, and the clothes get washed and put away, then he’s a successful houseperson.
When I first starting playing the breadwinner role, I was jealous that my girlfriend-fiancee-wife was getting to sit around all day. Sure, she ran the household excellently, but that’s a 3-hour job, tops! What did I do? I learned to live with it. She’ll do her thing, and I’ll do mine. I’ll come and go to work as I please and she’ll cook whatever the hell she damn well pleases. She’ll take what money I give her and I’ll take whatever clothes she wants to wash for me.
Now of course there can be (and are) requests from both sides. And we usually accomodate those requests. But that’s beside the point. The point is that there’s a division of labor and we both respect that.
I sense that the OP isn’t really upset about housework. She’s jealous of the happy-fun time that the husband gets, and that’s brought on by a 50-hour work week. That’s the problem, not a dirty tub.
OP, ask yourself: Would a reasonable person be offended to live in a house in this condition? If the answer is yes (be honest!), then you just need to lower your standard of “clean” and live in his world. It’s not your house anymore, it’s his. Stay in your lane!
A couple of days off is nice, but after that he needs to start pulling his own weight or it will really mess up the marriage and it will also put him in a bad place with his own self esteem. He needs to do every chore around the house and then make sure the elderly neighbors have their light bulbs changed and spiders killed. One spouse sitting around watching sports (or napping) while the other is working 40 plus hours a week is not a good idea.
It is another matter entirely if he is not married. Then by all means be a manly man and live in your own filth like The Second Stone.
According to the OP, most of those things are not being achieved. OP reports husband cooks around 3 days a week, he does the laundry partially but doesn’t fold or put away, and she comes home to dirty dishes, which presumably are from several days ago since he only cooks every other day.
Do you really think thats a “successful houseperson?” By your definition?
First of all, I want to say thanks so much for all the helpful responses. Flylady is a great idea and I’m going to suggest it. One of my favorite comments was WhyNot’s that she doubts I would have married a jerk, and I did not. However, I think, he, like I, does not do well without structure. OK, he does worse than I do without structure. A couple of things:
When his contract first ended (three months ago?), I thought, OK, it’s a nice chance for a vacation for him, he can chill (and at that point we thought he might get another job), relax, whatever, and he’ll be fresh and ready to tackle school. But I didn’t realize he would put our kid in daycare and still do mostly nothing.
I am happy to go with whatever his standard of cleanliness is if he would have one. He has a very sporadic standard – he will clean up the kitchen very nicely and then leave it for days. And days. I am not picky. I am a little messy myself. I really don’t care if there is a little mess – all I’m asking for the basics. And, my niece usually loads and unloads the dishwasher (though she is actually way more of a slacker than my husband – another story and I have not told the story so please don’t jump right away to “you are an enabler and I only have yourself to blame” or whatever) so he doesn’t have to do that.
I am working on changing my work/life balance - I have had several meetings at work, got some cases taken away from me, and I am going to work less hopefully next year. I am going to read some of this thread to him also (I told him I was going to ask you guys about this.) Thanks again and I’ll keep you posted.
He has a standard, as evidenced by his occasional cleaning. You seem to think that your opinion of what cleaning standards should be was delivered on stone tablets from Mt Sinai. Anyone who disagrees with you is either lazy or evil, and must change as soon as possible. This is the type of attitude that destroys marriages.
You have the right to express your needs and wants and then to talk about this issue and come to a solution that is agreeable to both parties. But earning more money than he does not make him your servant.
This is so much more antagonistic than what is called for. She’s clearly unhappy and feels like she is being unduly burdened by the current division of labor. It has nothing to do with earning more than him and everything to do with working 50 hours a week. I rather suspect that if he were volunteering 50 hours a week for a cause he passionately endorsed, she wouldn’t feel the same at all, though he would still be making no income.
She’s trying to gather opinions to develop an approach that is fair to both of them and allows both of them to be happy. Calling her a bitch with a god-complex who will destroy her marriage is not helpful.
ETA: if’s she’d currently doing the housework, it may well be that he has higher standards than what he is actually producing, but doesn’t need to produce at that level because she already is. So the assumption that he gets nothing from the clean house she is producing is really baseless.
By analogy: if he does all the shopping and cooking, it doesn’t mean that she would be happy with no food, it just would mean she didn’t have to do anything to get what she wants. This may be the same.
A slight hijack, but there are perfectly valid reasons for children to go to daycare on at least a part-time basis even when one parent is stay-at-home - if you can afford it, there are opportunities for peer social interaction and structured play and learning that are good for the kids.
Of course, if you’re at home, able-bodied and the kids are out of the house, you’ve got no excuse not to do at least basic chores.
I really don’t see how expecting laundry to be folded and put away and the kitchen cleaned is “the type of attitude that destroys marriages.” And how is she expecting him to be a servant? She has no time, he has time. And he doesn’t have the excuse of having a kid underfoot since he’s put their kid in daycare. Therefore, the person who has time to do so should clean. It’s basic division of labor - she labors outside the home; he labors inside the home. I’m guessing she wouldn’t give a second thought to pitching in after she’s home, and she certainly doesn’t sound like she expects him to work on the house all day, so how is her expectation unreasonable?
We all bring unspoken and unconcious expectations into relationships. One of hers involves how clean a house should be. If you share her assumptions it is obvious that the husband should too. But the fact is he does not share her expectation and conflict has arisen. Those who share her expectations of cleanliness level will be on her side. The OP seems like a reasonable person with reasonable expectations of cleanliness, but everyone thinks their personal assumptions are reasonable. Watch Wife Swap, everyone is convinced that there is only one way to do things and they have discovered it. However, the fact is there is no one level of cleanliness that is correct for every couple. They need to find out the correct level for them.
How a couple deals with conflict ultimately decides how succesful a relationship is. It does not really matter what the conflict is about, what matters is how the conflict is resolved. She is treating him as a servant by acting as if his wishes do not matter, only hers.
I think the bolded part is a huge assumption on your part. My own assumption is that the husband probably has pretty similar expectations, but would just rather not do the chores for a variety of different reasons. One possiblity might be that if the neice is living there for free, he may feel she should be doing more than the occasional loading of the dishwasher, but feels that as she’s the OP’s relation she should be the one to bring this up the neice. Not the OP’s fault that he hasn’t communicated this to her, but communication doesn’t really seem to be anyone’s strong point–might come with working 50+ hours a week, at least for her.
The stuff about her treating him like a servant is just more BS and you keep mentioning money, but the OP hasn’t said anything about that. The issue is TIME. But, I suppose if one day he decides he doesn’t want to bother picking up the kids from daycare because he’s too busy online it will be because she’s treating him like a chauffeur.
It doesn’t sound that way to me. But neither you and I are there, so we don’t really know. I’m just providing a rubric here for figuring out if he actually is pulling his weight and the OP doesn’t realize it, or he’s slacking off and needs to get into gear. I’ll let the couple in question give him his, uh, “final score”.
I don’t think it’s an assumption. I think it’s valid. The husband thinks X is the standard, she thinks it’s Y. They need to come to a middle ground, or at least say “I disagree with this but I’ll do it for your sake.” The source of this tension is either stress-induced puppy-kicking or it’s a different set of priorities and standards. Both are easily solved once the couple determines which it is.
It is not a matter of expectation of level of cleanliness. It is a matter of him doing some constructive work with his time. If he was paid to clean someone else’s home he could manage a hospital level of cleanliness in the time allotted. Instead he is sitting around doing virtually nothing and ruining his partnership and his own self esteem and work ethic. I would have no problem with this if he were not a husband and a daddy. But he is becoming a dependent, not an asset to the wife and child. It is a bad habit to get into and it is not an easy one to get out of.
Please note. I have never been married so I know little about relationships. But I know a lot about men sitting around as I have decades of experience. A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.
True, but you can also do the same thing without daycare. Before my wife went to work, she joined the local Mom’s club and had play dates with them and their kids.
Heck, if you can afford it, you can have a maid and a nanny, and sit by the pool all day. But what’s not right is to be a stay-at-home parent, put the kids in daycare, sit all day at the computer, and expect the full-time working parent to do the cooking and house cleaning.
Hate to break this to everyone, but it is about expectations. Since the OP is working more hours, she is expecting him to match (division of labor-wise) the number of hours. If she’s putting in 60 hours a week and he’s only putting in 20, then the most reasonable and sensible solution is to strive for 40 hours each. If they both commit to the 40 hours each, then the dishes would be clean more often, laundry cleaned, folded and put away, and other day to day chores would be on a short list rather than a long one. On the other side, the OP would be less stressed after coming home at a more reasonable hour and have more energy to give to the child and husband. And that would create a positive return for both husband and child.
But since the OP has noticed that her expectations are not being met, she must make the first move in a good faith gesture (creating a proactive approach to change) of reducing her hours and request the husband to increase his. The husband (and I suspect he’s depressed, btw) will see it (hopefully) as a positive move that you are making yourself more available to him and your child. Do not expect the husband to “pick it up a notch” without any communication on the matter, nor just a one-sided demand by the OP, especially if he’s depressed.
My question is whether or not the OP knows if he’s showing signs of depression or knows for sure if he’s not.
You should split things 50/50. Your thing seems to be paying bills. Since you spend about 9-9.5 hours a day doing that, he should spend comparable time with domestic chores. If he can’t keep get the cooking/cleaning/childcare done in 9 hours a day, something is seriously wrong with him. When I was on paternity leave, I did almost all the housework and quite a bit of taking care of the baby (her third, but my first to survive to be brought home; I barely let her take care of him, lol). When I was briefly between jobs, I did all the housework. When I was dealing at night, going to class during the day and shuttling kids around school/dance/gymnastics in the afternoon, I still helped with the house! Being a homemaker may be a full-time job with respect to scheduling, but it is a series of mundane, not particularly strenuous, definately not intellectually rigorous tasks. But, scheduling is often freeform and flexible with plenty of downtime. Honestly, if I started working on the house when my wife left for work and didn’t stop cleaning until she came home, it would be spotless!
If the niece were not there, ypur husband should do all the housework. There’s no way it takes more than 40 hours of honest work to run a household of two adults and one child if the child is in daycare.
You should be doing no housework. You’re supporting everyone. It’s absurd that you should be asked to work when you get home.
The neice changes the equation, but the fact remains that as an adult, your husband should be filling his days with productive activities, whether it’s housework, doing part time work, improving the home in some way, or whatever. He’s a grownup. Start working.
Frankly, Ravenman, I don’t think your reaction’s an overreaction at all. It’s disgusting for an adult to mooch off their spouse like this.