Having never had a SO, I can’t speak from direct experience. However, I’ve observed my parents for years and here’s how things worked with them:
Mom would do most of the indoor chores. Dad would do all of the outdoor chores. Dad would nearly always do the cooking, which was a good thing (trust me on this). Both worked, although until a few years ago my mom only worked parttime, because my siblings and I were too young to care for ourselves. Mom quite often complained about the work she did, while my father rarely made a peep of protest, even when shouldering an unfair burden.
My dad was both capable and willing to do more around the house, but when he did something, mom would tell him he did it wrong and an argument ensued.
Not only that, my mom is extremely sexist in dividing up chores for me and my sibs. Boys mow lawn, girls do laundry, boys kill spider, girls go get boy to kill spider, etc.
HOPEFULLY, if (big if) I ever get a SO, she won’t be much like my mother. And hopefully, I’ll be a lot like my dad.
Bless you, Tom, you sound like a gem. My parents also were that typical fifties couple, but when she became ill with cancer, he waited on her, and did all the housework, and took care of her at home in the final stages of her illness (with some support from hospice staff).
And my dad is also the one who showed me his special patent pending baby hold that always seemed to keep babies happy, so he must have done quite a lot of that even though he worked full time (and then some, he was a public school band director who brought work home at night and taught summer band also).
My ideal mate would be the one who pitches in with the work until it is done, and does not wait to be asked or told what to do. I suppose it also helps to have an agreed on state of cleanliness or tasks that need to be completed.
Where do you people find these idiots? and why do you put up with them?
My house, growing up. If it needed to be done, it got done. Usually by whomever happened to be standing nearest the mess. None of this “division of labor” bull. My Mom told you to hop, you made froglike noises and got to work. Both parents can Cook, and I am dang good myself. Both cleaned the kitchen. Outside work was mowing, mostly. And that was the kids job. Seeing as how all we had to do was run the mower over the front yard.
My house, now. Wife works. I tend kids. Jobs still get done. I do all cooking, as my wife is continually impressed by my talents. And I’m better.
Female, 34, married 6+ years. He’ll be 40 next week. Central Florida. We have issues with this. (I love my husband, wouldn’t trade him for anything, but…) He wants the house clean, but doesn’t want to do the cleaning. I do the cooking. I do the bill-paying. I do 90% of the laundry. I do ALL of the bathroom cleaning. He’ll do the 10% of the laundry if I ask him to. He’ll vacuum, but won’t dust or pick up. He’ll help with cleaning the kitchen, but only if I ask, or if I am feeling poorly (or he wants sex.) I take care of the pets (They’re YOUR pets, it’s your JOB to take care of them, he says, as he pets the cat in his lap and plays tug-of-war with the dog…)
Then when he does something? He announces it. “I cleaned the kitchen, honey.” “I washed a load of towels, dear.” What do you want, a freaking medal? Way I see it, we both work 40 hours a week, with me frequently working more. I earn about $3/hour more than him. Why the hell is it “helping me” with the few things he does, instead of him seeing it as doing what is his part as a responsible adult? Oh, sure, he mows once a week. But he doesn’t do anything with MY truck, I take care of it myself (getting oil changes, washing, etc.) He doesn’t garden or anything like that. So what the hell is his share of this?
Sorry for the rant, but this is a subject dear to my heart. He was raised by a 50’s-type couple and is used to seeing men waited on hand-and-foot. He knows intellectually that isn’t fair in our situation, but doesn’t choose to do anything about it. I am amazed how a husband so loving, thoughtful and sweet in other ways can be so dense about this!!! :mad:
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and they meet at Earth. This is kinda the same problem Belgium had with the French and Germans, if you think about it.
My ex-wife and I never had any problems with housework–we both cooked, and cleaned, and did laundry, etc. There were some differences–what I would cook was pretty simple, whereas she would cook more involved things, for example–but it was pretty much 50-50.
TroubleAgain, I know what you mean. If you wanted to start WWIII, you could probably print out this thread and show it to him, but if you’re somewhat happy, is it worth the effort? Sad when you think about it.
I wonder if any men like your husband will read this and post here, and actually admit to doing this.
MysterEcks, I knew there was some reason I liked you (besides your erudite and intelligent posts)!
I think that might be a good reason to live with someone before you marry him, because I actually talked about this to my first husband before we were married. He talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.
Maybe sometimes it comes down to the abuse of power thing: doing it because you know you can get away with it.
This was more the reason I divorced both of my husbands than the actual housework thing, there were other abuses of power. And it is a reason that I am very leery of ever marrying again.
Probably not, my arachnid friend. I love him incredibly and he loves me too. He is wonderful in just about every other way. I have written out a letter to him, detailing all of my feelings about this, because I don’t fight or argue well. I get very upset and cry and can’t express my logically thought out points. But I’ve never given it to him, because he always apologizes before I can do that and starts to do more around the house again, and I feel strange about giving him the letter. It lasts for a while, but…
The next step for us will be to rigidly define (on paper) a fairer division of labor. But I don’t want to go there, because two caring, mature adults shouldn’t have to do that.
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This is sort of what I mean by an abuse of power, they do better for a while, but know that they will appease and eventually be able to slip back into the old ways. But maybe as the whole power structure changes, years down the line, younger women will not have to deal with this as much, especially if people like tatertot try to teach their sons different ways.
And it sounds like there are postitive aspects to your relationship which make up for this issue. In my previous relationships, there were not.
Here’s one. Why do I do most of the housework? Because my choices are nag,do it myself or leave it undone.I don’t have particularly high housekeeping standards, but I don’t want every dish we own to be piled up on the counter growing mold before any are washed.At some point, I get annoyed that we haven’t got any clean dishes and load the dishwasher. He then comes home and says I didn’t have to do it, he was going to do it tonight.I have to admit though, it didn’t get like this until we had kids, who multiplied the housework and added some new chores ( supervising homework, driving to activities, etc).I suspect part of the reason is we seem to be living in a 1950’s time warp, where most of the women we know either don’t have jobs, only work part-time,or have a very different sort of job than I do.He compares himself to the other men he knows and says he does more housework etc. than they do ( which is true) Then I ask him if I can quit my job and work part-time as a cashier in Rite Aid like their wives do.I maintain that the proper comparison for him to make is not how much he does compared to the men he knows, but how much he does compared to me. Am I looking for a divorce? No, but if I ever do this will be a major reason
I do have an s.o. with whom I now live. This arrangement came up faster than we thought it would, through a situation I won’t go into here.
Sometimes I think I hurt his feelings by not taking everything he says on faith. My thought is that some of us women don’t go so much by someone saying “I love you,” as by the actions that show whether or not this is true, or if the person loves us in the way we wish to be loved.
Faith builds up through the years, not by someone just saying they love you, but by observing their actions and whether or not those actions match with what is said.
Well, Feynn accurately described our living situation. It’s also similar to Scarlett67’s except that you have to add four kids to the mix.
I honestly could not be with someone who felt that all of the housework was my job. I grew up believing in the equality of men and women. Whoever has more time does more housework. That can vary from day to day.
Incidently, when I do graduate and get a job, Feynn plans on dropping to part time work to stay at home more and take care of the house.
The fella I live with is quite neat, organized, hardworking and houseproud. He can and does clean like a demon. I, on the other hand, am a slob who must be prodded with a sharp stick [or run out of underwear] before getting off my butt to start a load of laundry. I do clean the bathrooms, which he hates, and do 95% of all cooking, because I can; however, I would estimate the division of labor to be 85% he vs 14% me [I give the dog 1% for picking up any food item .001 seconds after it hits the floor and sucking it down. She gets every molecule.] I can clean, and well, but I generally just don’t. BUT…
…the likely difference between myself and my central Minnesota male slob counterparts is that I hate living like this and feel guilty as sin, and I bet they don’t. I have absolutely no excuse for this, it is a ghastly flaw. I do make special efforts to clean when my SO’s working late, stressed, ill, or otherwise needing less extraneous BS in his life, so that when he gets home at 10:45 he’s not looking at a kitchen full of scummy pots. But I suck, I admit it, and I’m trying to change. In aid of which, I’d better go deal with the organisms in the sink. Oh, and I’m from the East Coast, he’s from Chicago, and we live in the midwest. Me: raised by dish-doing Dad and bone-clean but untidy Mom, Him: single-mother.
I love my parents. My mom does international business manager stuff all of the time. She works twelve hour days five-six days a week more often than not. She works hard, because my dad refuses to get a job. Admittedly, its hard for him, he is one of those ‘so smart society hurts’ people. This would be fine if he would have the human decency to parent the kids. However, parenting is not something he understands. He doesn’t see it as a giving relationship, he sees it as a getting relationship. “What do kids do for me?” He won’t clean. His version of cleaning is to scream at the kids until they run and hide, sulk until mom gets home, and explain what horrible brats ‘her’ kids are.
I want him gone. I want him gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. I don’t know what my mom would do with my sisters, but it has to be better than what he would. I could take one of them, if it comes to that.
Growl. “Division of labor”
My goal for a future relationship is division of labor by who has the most time and ability. (I hate doing dishes, but I like cooking and laundry. Dead spiders earn blow jobs.) Tho I like doing almost any chore with someone.
Sorry for the rant. Its a touchy issue. My mom is a wonderful person and deserves so much better than what she has done with her life.
I’m wondering if there are any other stay at home parents that are going through the same things as I am. I don’t think MisterTot understands what I go through during my day, and he feels the same, vice versa. I’m not your typical fifties wifey, either…things are so different now. 3 or 4 days a week, I’m doing volunteer work, the kidlet only goes to school for 3 hours a day right now…it’s not like when I was a child and my mother could let me run out and play while she got things done. I’d be arrested! I’m not complaining that my job is terribly hard - it’s just that frankly, I’m not in the home as much as he thinks and don’t have the time that he thinks I do. I wish Ophrah would come and do one of those “switch jobs for a weeks” things for our family…might open both of our eyes.
This might not be related, but I’m wondering if the fact that we got married so young and had a baby right away (two weeks after the wedding, matter of fact) has some bearing on this. A lot of our peers just can’t understand that I do indeed like being home, and that the small bit of money I could earn by taking a regular job is just not worth it to us. I’m wondering if we had other couples our age going through the same struggles, if it would help us.
It can happen, BlackKnight. Very easily, I know several girls, myself included, who would enjoy such a set up. Look carefully at what you really want though. House-dad is rough stuff. I had one. It is a lot of work. And your kids will not like you if you screw it up. (You can fire your dad. Trust me.) The same is for house-moming but society is more gentle with it.
The housewife deal makes me ill. I could go for working part time at something little and fun. I will always have a job though. None of this, “What are you doing with my money?” crap.
Sad when you think about it.