Husbands itp: what chores do you do?

[Winter_Wolf]

Y'know, I'm getting curious about this article. Was it one of those throwaway things or was it in some sort of psychology journal? If it's actually attempting to be serious, seems like they'd have to mention somewhere how traditionalist the married people's families were. My wife's family is Chinese traditionalist, so there's a lot of baggage from that alone. Including the part where my wife had literally never lived by herself. There are a lot of skills she'd never had cause to become proficient in, because she practically never had to do them. I come from rural Alaskan traditional, so there are many things which are wildly different, not least of which is being able to live alone and without such things as most people with proper access to metropolitan areas take for granted. My hometown is one of the few places where I've lived that changing the oil in a vehicle is a life skill for everyone, as is outboard motor and propeller maintenance.

I'm also getting the sense that we're starting to creep into wife bashing. My I'm aware of my participation in that. After all, my wife isn't here to present her side. This doesn't mean anyone has or hasn't said anything factually untrue, but even Festivus is about airing grievances directly to people's faces. Granted, there are some things best said with a wall of bulletproof plexiglass between people.

[Cristo Meyers]

Y'know, I'm getting curious about this article. Was it one of those throwaway things or was it in some sort of psychology journal?

Same here. The statistic does strike me as the kind of thing you'd see on a throwaway article, even if it is interesting to poke around it a bit.

[tomandtish]

I found quite a few articles citing the article in question. However, most of the articles do a good job of pointing out that correlation does not equal causation.

Simply put, they explain that where chores are shared in a more modern style (as opposed to "traditional" gender roles), you are more likely to have more modern attitudes about everything, including marriage to begin with. In short, they aren't getting divorced because of the chores, but because divorce is more likely seen as an acceptable option to whatever problems they are having.

[Telonius]

Another source of tension is that my wife doesn't consider what other people think or know (aka she expects everybody to be able to read her mind). As an example she used to put 'chicken' down on the shopping list and I'm supposed to be able to know what cut or type of chicken she wants (chicken thighs/drumsticks, chicken breast, whole chicken, chicken wings, chicken nuggets, chicken burgers, etc, etc) from that.
I've repeatedly mentioned it to her but she forgets (or deliberately ignores me), so I started creatively interpreting the list. She now adds more detail.

There's a technological solution for that one, at least at our grocery store. Wegmans has an ipad app that lets you put stuff on a grocery list. It displays the product's exact name, and has a picture next to it. It'll even tell you which aisle the thing is in, so you're tracking down that one weird thing in a single place and not the whole store. (We had a running joke about hunting down the pork and beans through the whole store, only to find it in the kosher aisle...)

[J-H]

There's a technological solution for that one, at least at our grocery store. Wegmans has an ipad app that lets you put stuff on a grocery list. It displays the product's exact name, and has a picture next to it. It'll even tell you which aisle the thing is in, so you're tracking down that one weird thing in a single place and not the whole store. (We had a running joke about hunting down the pork and beans through the whole store, only to find it in the kosher aisle...)

NICE! I hope this becomes widely adopted. Stores vary widely on what goes with what, especially for "slightly odd" items (tartar sauce & lemon juice come to mind: Not with condiments, not with sauces; not with fruit and not with fruit juices).

[BWR]

To make sure I got the point home, I would then show my children this video and knowing how children are with stupid inane songs, they would repeat it ad infinitum until she murdered me.

No kids but I sing it enough to get my gf upset with me.

On topic, not legally married but have been living together for nearly 11 years.
I do almost all the cleaning - both tidying and washing.
I do all the dishes. Even if I'm out traveling and she's at home I do the dishes. once I came home after 10 days abroad to find nothing had been done.
For the first 9 years or so she did most of the cooking (though I would often help out and make the odd meal). The last couple of years I have taken over most of this as well.
I do yard work and anything remotely handimanly that I am capable of (not much, so we usually end up calling my dad, who knows how to do everything).
She does most of the shopping.
We split laundry about equally.

[cobaltstarfire]

It's interesting to see all these perspectives. It seems women spend a lot of time instructing men what to do (what might be called, perhaps uncharitably, nagging), and while I obviously can't speak for any of you, each partner can hold a very different perspective. cobaltstarfire views her instructions as a valuable component of her marriage, whereas Winter_Wolf seems to hold a negative opinion of his wife's instructions.

I don't "Tell" him or "instruct" him on how to do things, I ask him if we can take care of this or that, or if he can do whatever I can't physically do. If he doesn't want to do whatever it is, I don't make him, or anything. Usually it's something that he's going to do on his own eventually regardless of if I asked him to or not. The deal is that he's very bad about procrastinating, and I have to stay on top of that so that we don't end up dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety on his part later. If it annoys him so be it, being mildly annoyed is better than having an anxious break down later on.

Some of the things he does, he also just doesn't let me most of the time. Especially anything that is likely to aggravate my physical problems.

Some of the "get the ball rolling" stuff isn't necessarily chores either, but leisure activities. For example going to the park for a walk. He loves walking but the weather here is too hot for him so he never even thinks about it any more. So I take it upon myself to point out how nice the weather is when it's in a tolerable range for him, and would he like to go over to the green belt? I also suggest foods and things for us to try out just to change things up in our routine, this is mainly for our mental health as we are both prone to depression.

The rest of it is getting planning done for stuff like visiting family members, he tends to forget to ask for time off soon enough, which means we can't get affordable plain tickets, which means we can't visit them when he had originally wanted to.

I'm sure sometimes my reminders/suggestions do bother him, and well, that's a two way street. We're both human and not perfect after all.

There is little to no tension in our relationship sooo, well you guys can imply that you think I'm lazy and worthless all you want, but the guy and I are fine and make each other happy sooo it doesn't really matter what outside parties think about it.

(We technically are not married, we're life partners. We've considered officially becoming married simply because it'll make certain things easier.)

[Grinner]

There is little to no tension in our relationship sooo, well you guys can imply that you think I'm lazy and worthless all you want, but the guy and I are fine and make each other happy sooo it doesn't really matter what outside parties think about it.

...You're reading too deeply. I never thought you were lazy or worthless. The psychology is just interesting.

[cobaltstarfire]

...You're reading too deeply. I never thought you were lazy or worthless. The psychology is just interesting.

Not anything you said in particular, a few others though were making those implications.

And it's not entirely unfounded, I feel very guilty that I still haven't been able to find a job, that said we both do what we can, and it's fine. Probably helps that anxieties aside we're very laid back people who don't usually have heavy expectations for most things.

[Grinner]

And it's not entirely unfounded, I feel very guilty that I still haven't been able to find a job, that said we both do what we can, and it's fine. Probably helps that anxieties aside we're very laid back people who don't usually have heavy expectations for most things.

I'm sure you'll do fine. You seem like an honest person.

[aurilee]

I saw another "wife in the playground" answer, so I'll throw in my 2 cents as well.

My husband and I split our chores mainly based on preference, not gender. He likes doing dishes and dusting, I like cleaning the bathroom and mopping floors. He'll help me cook sometimes, but I'm generally more efficient at it, and he's under the distinct impression that I'm a better cook (I'm not, I just have more experience than him), so he doesn't like to cook by himself. I'm also much less squeamish about killing bugs, so if I'm at home, he'll ask me to do it. :)

Everything that isn't dictated by preference just sort of got divvied up by habit. I tend to take out the trash, and he tends to take out the recycling. I also usually do the laundry, and he usually does "tidying" and organising/sorting.

If you consider technical stuff to be chores too, then those are divvied up too. I'm in networking as a career, so I take care of troubleshooting/setting up the home network and talking to our ISP. We're both similarly competent and knowledgeable with computers so we generally just take care of our own stuff (things like troubleshooting, upgrading computer components etc). A/V stuff is usually a joint effort as we stumble through it.

All in all it's fairly equitable and there's always an implicit agreement that we can ask each other for help. If there's a lot of dishes, then I'll help out drying, or if I'm particularly tired he'll carry the laundry down to the basement. We're also both pretty lazy, so there's rarely a conflict about that.

Technically, I'm the main breadwinner, but that doesn't really affect tasks much. The only task that he'll really do simply because he's at home during the day is download/install any new games we want to play so that once I get home I don't have to wait 2 hours to play something on my computer/xbox.

EDIT: Regarding some comments about "instructing" one partner to do something...It happens both ways in our relationship, and I think it's fine. As I mentioned above, we're both rather lazy, so whoever is feeling less lazy is generally expected to push the other one and say "we really need to do chores now". Occasionally early in our relationship my husband or myself have felt "nagged", but we communicated it, apologised and move on. The nagging doesn't really happen any more, because we understand our limits (for instance, I get tired easily due to my health, and my husband knows not to push me when I'm like that) and I for one am happy to get a kick in the pants when I'm being too lazy for my own good.

[Icewraith]

Icewraith, it sounds like your marriage is one of the most problem-free ones on this thread. Congrats!

As for mine ... yeah.

Oh, believe me, we have our problems. They're just not related to chore assignment.

Of course we're including "man stuff". Chores are chores. Plus, I know many men to whom a simple oil change is mysterious. Then again legally disposing of waste oil and the cost of the oil itself often comes out more than going to a place to get it done, so it's a bit of a wash. But being unable to properly sharpen and hone blades is unforgivable in my book. But I'm one of those "knife guys" so I'm biased.

The chore I hate is lawn mowing. Then again even with medication to the eyeballs I'm still dying afterwards and I invariably get a major sinus infection. You see a guy in a respirator mask mowing a lawn, might be me.

Don't have a lawn (yet), but I'm one of those guys who doesn't know how to change his oil. Mainly because my dad was also one of those guys, so he couldn't teach me.

It's interesting to see all these perspectives. It seems women spend a lot of time instructing men what to do (what might be called, perhaps uncharitably, nagging), and while I obviously can't speak for any of you, each partner can hold a very different perspective. cobaltstarfire views her instructions as a valuable component of her marriage, whereas Winter_Wolf seems to hold a negative opinion of his wife's instructions.



Most auto stores I've been to will recycle it for you free of charge.

You left out the bit where she puts the raid together and then I lead it. She likes organizing and planning things, and I'm at best ambivalent. I work a 9-hour day and usually get home just in time to eat, take the dogs out, and log on to raid. She's also the social one, so she does most of our social and event planning.

However, that doesn't mean she's in charge, or that she nags me when she's planning our social activities.

We technically have a very traditional marriage, in that I have "the final say". However, all that really means is that I am the tiebreaker if we reach a deadlock, but as the one with that responsibility, I absolutely must take her best interests, opinions, and expertise into account instead of doing the "wuh-man stay in kitchen and let man decide stuff, man decide you bring him beer and give him childs and not wear shoes" stereotypical crap. "The final say" will cause a lot of issues if I use it irresponsibly, so I have just as much incentive to have her agreement on things as she does my agreement.

I have therefore delegated as her responsibililty the majority of the stuff she likes doing, the stuff she does better than me, and the stuff best done while I'm at work. Any major decision that either of us makes that affects the other we run by the other before finalizing it (whenever possible). So things like major purchases, insurance changes, decor strategies, we talk about before doing and if the other one doesn't care they just go along with it.

[Cristo Meyers]

Not anything you said in particular, a few others though were making those implications.

Sorry. That wasn't my intent, I just really couldn't think of a different way to put it.

[Crow]

The chore of working 50 hours a week to pay the home loan and bills.

Which cannot be stated enough. I've noticed among coworkers that some of the stay at home partners "forget" what kind of stress this puts on a person. Being away from the family *and* bearing the burden of the family finance can be very stressful, especially if they are working a job they don't particularly like.

I still think the benefit of having a parent home and available for the children makes it worth it. You can't replace parenting.

[danzibr]

My my, this thread took off. Interesting replies.

I forgot to mention I do little to no mowing. I used to do more, then we got a riding mower.

[Cristo Meyers]

Which cannot be stated enough. I've noticed among coworkers that some of the stay at home partners "forget" what kind of stress this puts on a person. Being away from the family *and* bearing the burden of the family finance can be very stressful, especially if they are working a job they don't particularly like.

Though the converse of that is also true. All the organizing, schedule keeping, listing functions are also work. That's why it's important to get on the same page and figure this stuff out. Leaving it up in the air just leaves room for more stress to work its way in.

I forgot to mention I do little to no mowing. I used to do more, then we got a riding mower.

Which reminds me: the grass is starting to turn green again. Should probably get the oil changed out in the mower sometime soon...

[Brother Oni]

If it's actually attempting to be serious, seems like they'd have to mention somewhere how traditionalist the married people's families were. My wife's family is Chinese traditionalist, so there's a lot of baggage from that alone. Including the part where my wife had literally never lived by herself.

This is interesting as both my family and my wife's father's side of the family are fairly traditional but modernised due to various reasons (British rule and living in Tokyo respectively) - I'm often compared to her sisters' husbands who are very culturally Japanese in that they expect the woman to handle all the domestic chores and they get envious that I help out around the house without asking (at least that's what I get from my limited Japanese).

As for wife bashing, we've just had our 13th wedding anniversary (together for ~16) so despite my our little niggles, I still love her dearly. I'm well aware of my own faults that drive her up the wall (becoming a grumpy old man for starters).

There's a technological solution for that one, at least at our grocery store. Wegmans has an ipad app that lets you put stuff on a grocery list. It displays the product's exact name, and has a picture next to it. It'll even tell you which aisle the thing is in, so you're tracking down that one weird thing in a single place and not the whole store. (We had a running joke about hunting down the pork and beans through the whole store, only to find it in the kosher aisle...)

Unfortunately we haven't got that over here in the UK, but I'll suggest the idea to her, despite it eliminating a source of amusement.

No kids but I sing it enough to get my gf upset with me.

Try the McDonalds pineapple song and see if it drives her to (justifiable) homicide.

There is little to no tension in our relationship sooo, well you guys can imply that you think I'm lazy and worthless all you want, but the guy and I are fine and make each other happy sooo it doesn't really matter what outside parties think about it.

I'd like to apologise if that's what you inferred, it certainly wasn't my intent to pass judgement on other peoples' relationships, just comments on my own. As others have said, everybody's relationship is different and if it works for both you and him and you're both happy with it then who am I to say otherwise?

[Cero Oscura]

I do pretty much everything (cooking, cleaning, shopping, animal care, working ~45 hours a week, etc.) because she's in vet school. On a related note, being in vet school takes up a huge amount of time and comes with some really unfair requirements on the student. Even as I write this, she is on a shift in the radiology lab where she spends her hours having nothing to do and not being allowed to be on a phone or laptop or read a book, all while being charged money for the experience. All I can really do to help is keep her workload at home to a minimum.

No kids, thankfully, but we do have 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 lizards, and two foster kittens that she's bottle-feeding, so the housework can be extensive at times.

Anyone want a kitten?

[Grinner]

This is interesting as both my family and my wife's father's side of the family are fairly traditional but modernised due to various reasons (British rule and living in Tokyo respectively) - I'm often compared to her sisters' husbands who are very culturally Japanese in that they expect the woman to handle all the domestic chores and they get envious that I help out around the house without asking (at least that's what I get from my limited Japanese)

Fixed that for you?

[Peat]

Not a husband yet - rather on a trial living together period in which she works and I don't (yay falling for women overseas).

I do most of the cooking, vacuuming and cleaning

She helps with that from time to time. She's also more likely to water the plants and does all the social arrangements... but then she would, I'm in her country, these are her friends I'm co-opting. She also does all the driving.

We split doing the dishes, laundry and shopping

I also unlock characters on Mario Kart (it's a real chore consarn it!)

I get the feeling she's used to the idea that the woman does most of the housework. Part of me would love to lean on that... the other part would hate to. Fortunately, her working 50 hour weeks kills my baser instincts dead on this.

She teases me that she'd have to be the handy one in our relationship as and when we get married (we occasionally look at rings online). This is probably true. She also jokes about how she'd like to be a trophy wife. Well, yeah...

[veti]

In my household, both parents work full-time jobs.

The male half of the sketch is responsible for everything that happens in the kitchen. That includes shopping (and shopping lists), cooking, cleaning, and most of the total household waste. He also does fun stuff like household finances, and consumer research before deciding on major purchases. Oh, and mowing the lawn, and hardware maintenance when required.

The female half handles most of the rest of the house. That includes vacuuming, laundry, bathrooms and bedrooms. She also handles most bills, and all those parts of the garden that aren't lawn.

Childcare is shared, with the wife handling about two-thirds, the husband one-third. He takes them to school in the mornings, she picks them up in the afternoon. She also handles appointments, inventory management, packing for school, and homework. Processes such as policing of screen time, brushing of teeth, bathing, dressing, bedtimes and bedtime reading are a joint venture, with both parties contributing roughly evenly.

[Brother Oni]

Fixed that for you?

Dammit.

That's what I get for editing my thoughts as I go along and not proof reading.

[dascarletm]

Let's see...here is our theoretical chore distribution

What I do
Work 40-60 hours a week
Pay Bills
Take out trash
Fix stuff
Clean Bathroom
Drive
What she does
Run her youtube channel
Edit videos for her clients
Cook
Get Groceries
Clean
Dishes
Groom/exercise dog
Laundry
What neither of us does
Yardwork... I hate it, she hates it. Hired people to do it for me.

I end up doing the dishes and cleaning a lot since she's not motivated for those things. I usually have to nag her about her other chores too. We end up eating out a lot because she doesn't end up getting food or wants to cook.

[cobaltstarfire]

I finally tracked down an apartment we can move to, one that has laundry in unit and doesn't mind that we have 4 animals.


This has been the worst chore ever really. Because the guy hates this place (which I also tracked down, researched, and such, it really is terrible, but better than most other places in the area) he gets so incredibly anxious and agitated when I try to get him to even look over and give the Ok on places that it's felt like pulling teeth for the past 4-5 months.

It's been extra frustrating because I don't know the area we're planning to move to, but he does since he lived there his whole life before moving here. All I had to go off of at first was "I don't want to be near the college" So the first month was really just spent through trial and error figuring out what parts of the city are unlikely to be up to his standards.

I'm very excited about this, because it means we'll no longer have to use a laundromat to do our laundry, which means I can independently just do the laundry every day or so. I'm also excited because he can have a proper office. He works remotely and rather than sitting at a desk he just sits hunched over in a chair all day right now. We're also more than doubling the space we have to live in, which is nice. (We live in something like 692 square feet right now, it's tiiiiiny, too small when it was just us two and our cat, much less after 3 more adopted us...)

Of course that means the next kind of teeth pulling will start, preparing to move. Another thing he'd like to never ever talk about or think about even though he hates it here and wants to move. I figure I'll start packing stuff a little at a time and throwing out things we don't want to take, that way when he has no choice but to deal with it most of it will already be done and ready to go.

[Winter_Wolf]

@cobaltstarfire: That's... is your guy trying to find reasons to be unhappy? I'd have been right there with you scouting places. Especially if I was from the area I was moving to.

In general, I admire your skill at understatement. The situation you're describing is less pulling teeth and more "here's a pair of rusty pliers; pull out one of your own teeth." Sure the whole moving process is a hassle, but it's also the stage of most possibilities. Hopefully your guy gets on board with it. Like actually on board and actively participating.

[cobaltstarfire]

The whole moving thing is just a huge ordeal for him. I talked to his mother about this over Christmas for some advice, and it's just one of those things.

This is going to be the first time in his life where he's really had to pack up and move cross country (when he moved down he just filled his car with the things he could and drove), thinking about the logistics (finding a place, shipping, car moving, transporting the cats and our plants, talking to alllll the people that need to be talked to in order to do these things) I think it all just overwhelms and scares him because it's a really huge unknown on many levels.

It's frustrating but end of the day I don't mind picking up this particular slack because he already takes care of many other things like paying bills. This is also something I have more experience with than him, and with any luck we won't ever have to make such a large move again.

[Winter_Wolf]

It's only really problematic when you get used to not doing it every year or so. But yeah I suppose I can appreciate where he's coming from. I truly miss the days when everything worth taking fit into a sedan and wherever you wanted to go you'd be good to go without having to plan crap like movers. But it's good, moving really helps keep down all that crap people accumulate even though it'll never be missed.

[Mightymosy]

My better half loves tidying up (she find it therapeutic) if she has sufficient time for it (which she doesn't if we consider the little dwarf which I proudly call "daughter" that runs around my house). I do the shopping (I'm used to it, and while she prepares most of the grocery list, I know the shops better), I find cooking therapeutic (but she finds the mess I leave behind me in kitchen non-therapeutic...) and I don't mind taking out the trash and my "fixed" chores are only the "dirty" jobs (cleaning the shower, toilet and killing the spiders).

I also don't seem to grasp the idea of "dusting" and have little patience for arranging my clothes to neat little columns (I hang everything and don't care about it then).

We split the ironing - usually it's a chase who gets to do it since the one who is ironing selects the movie to watch.

It was determined on case-by-case modus, usually after a discussion. We also acquired some "habits" from each other (e.g. she doesn't clean the oven before I start cooking, I don't put my clothes everywhere just to specific places). It helped our overall happiness that we were able to compromise on most things.

I must say that this topic is quite interesting - and I have my own theory. It's the little stuff - such as this - which brings people to divorce. Big trouble actually make two people who love each other stick together (e.g. ilnesses, hard pregnancies, deaths in families, etc.) - it's the small stuff that makes you sick of the other person and ultimately leads to the divorce.

Oh, most definitely! A romantic sidequest, I can glance over, but bearing complaints about how the how appartment isn't cleaned sufficiently or other semi-important stuff 24/7, that can drive the most patient man insane

[Bimo]

Seems to me like love, grace, and humility from both husband and wife are necessary to make a marriage (and chore-distribution!) work. My wife and I are by no means perfect (far from it!), but we enjoy a blessed marriage. We mess up a lot (well, I do, anyway), but we strive to each give 100%. None of this 50/50 junk. We're both all in. Seems to work that way. And where we stumble and fall, forgiveness abounds!

So in light of that, we try to cultivate a cooperative willingness to each do any chore that needs doing. However, knowing each other, we each pay special attention to those chores that we know the other really hates doing. Hah.

For instance, I try to keep the dishes washed and the trash taken out. My wife tries to do the folding of clothes--because I'm sort of impatient and despise it. And as for all the others, we usually tag-team the bathrooms, living room, clothes-washing, etc.

Teamwork makes the dream work!

[danzibr]

Seems to me like love, grace, and humility from both husband and wife are necessary to make a marriage (and chore-distribution!) work. My wife and I are by no means perfect (far from it!), but we enjoy a blessed marriage. We mess up a lot (well, I do, anyway), but we strive to each give 100%. None of this 50/50 junk. We're both all in. Seems to work that way. And where we stumble and fall, forgiveness abounds!

So in light of that, we try to cultivate a cooperative willingness to each do any chore that needs doing. However, knowing each other, we each pay special attention to those chores that we know the other really hates doing. Hah.

For instance, I try to keep the dishes washed and the trash taken out. My wife tries to do the folding of clothes--because I'm sort of impatient and despise it. And as for all the others, we usually tag-team the bathrooms, living room, clothes-washing, etc.

Teamwork makes the dream work!

Ya know, I totally agree with this.

Me, I put in an 8-hour work day, come home, greet my family, then go straight to doing dishes and laundry (if there are any to be done). I do it as a favor to my wife, and consider it a sacrifice when I do so (mild sacrifice, but still). I sometimes cook supper or breakfast. It's like... a competition of doing favors. Makes everyone happy.