I have an egalitarian marriage, and I HATE it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your problem isn’t egalitarianism. It’s that you’re bad at communicating and delegating.

This. We have an equal marriage and it works. We make about the same $ and have split most of the chores along strengths and preferences. I cook since i do it better and faster. Dh cleans up when i cook and he does all the laundry. Groceries are split but a common list. Yard stuff is split based on specific jobs, i like to garden so order plants and plant and he does clean up and lawn. We split bedtimes for the kids and spend time with them together and 1-1. DH does most of the after school activities for oldest from research and sign up to taking her. And i do dr appts since my workday is more flexible. We talk a lot about plans and schedules but once someone owns a task they own it and the other one butts out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

My wife has what you want in my marriage - I am out of the house and earn a lot of money. And my wife is now miserable because she feels at age 46 she never had a real career and is resentful of me for having mine.

Not saying that you would feel the same, just answering your question.

I wonder if your wife feels the way she feels because she is inherently dissatisfied or more because the cultural tides have turned more aggressively, and she craves the status that being the wife of a successful husband used to confer but now does not.

I became a SAHM in 2012. Being the wife of a successful person didn’t confer status then and it doesn’t now. I think that the cultural tide is swinging to “all labor is a valuable contribution.”

2012 is less than 10 years ago. That is not the period I am referring to when I say “used to”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP your problem isn’t egalitarianism. It’s that you’re bad at communicating and delegating.

This. We have an equal marriage and it works. We make about the same $ and have split most of the chores along strengths and preferences. I cook since i do it better and faster. Dh cleans up when i cook and he does all the laundry. Groceries are split but a common list. Yard stuff is split based on specific jobs, i like to garden so order plants and plant and he does clean up and lawn. We split bedtimes for the kids and spend time with them together and 1-1. DH does most of the after school activities for oldest from research and sign up to taking her. And i do dr appts since my workday is more flexible. We talk a lot about plans and schedules but once someone owns a task they own it and the other one butts out.

I doubt that it's that. Men half ass things or just don't do them. Her husband is a grown man. She's shouldn't have to nag him each week to do housework.

[Anonymous]

I mean because I worked really really hard to get where I am and I don't want to give that up. My husband and I both work government or public interest obs for work/life balance and while we both could make more in the corporate world, having balance matters.

I also don't want to be in the situation my parents were in. My Dad was diagnosed with an aggressive tumor when he was just 36 years old. He basically went into surgery with a 50/50 shot it would work. It did work and my Dad's still here, but my family faced losing its sole income. My mom decided after that to finish her PhD.

I learned two lessons from that: 1) I maintain solid life insurance and 2) even with a solid spouse in a loving marriage and a good career, that can be disappear on you.

[Anonymous]

I really don't think your communication issues with your DH will be solved by you working part-time or SAH. You are conflating different problems.

[Anonymous]

I basically have what you want, OP, though my DH is not a particularly high earner. My PT job has very high hourly pay though, so that balances it out a bit. We are pretty happy.

I’d still describe our marriage as egalitarian. We don’t split things 50/50 but we both do everything: childcare, cleaning, earn money. I do more of the long term planning (ok, basically all) and that’s the one part where I feel like my DH is a bit if a shirker. A lot of men seem to hate and/or are bad at that too. Stuff like finding a pediatric dentist, looking into summer camps for next year, figuring out vacation and family visit schedules, etc.

But that’s a major reason I prefer our current set up to one where we both work FT. I’d be doing that planning and household management piece no matter what. I’ve tried delegating at least part of it to DH and it causes strife. He resents it because he feels like he’ll fail and then I’ll be mad. It is absolutely a bit of learned helplessness. So I decided early on after we had kids that if I was going to be the family executive, I needed more bandwidth for it. It was really hard to do it with a full time job, especially with really little kids.

[Anonymous]

Take note of one issue at a time and work to find a solution. The solution should be equally doable for both parties before deciding that is the way you will do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women who have that arrangement complain because —for their family— it doesn’t work in practice the way it is supposed to work in theory. Just like your current arrangement isn’t working in practice for your family.

Though, honestly, you sound like a troll when you write “egalitarian marriage”. Who would want an unequal marriage. Just say that you want to work PT and focus on housework.

Yes I picked the wrong word, you are right. I don’t think there is a single word to describe the concept of sharing all responsibilities instead of dividing and conquering.

I actually think you did pick the right word. An an egalitarian marriage is when both parties take on equal responsibility for both paid and unpaid labor. You have a traditional marriage if one party assumes most of the responsibility for paid labor and the other for unpaid labor.

But OP to respond to your question: I think that moms don’t like working part time because they suddenly become the one who has to be flexible and on call with everything. They no longer get the benefit of a nanny or childcare but they still have to work some, so ultimately it winds up being more work, especially if the idea is that DH will have to do less housework.

I agree with PPs that you need a really firm division of labor. Kick your husband out of your kitchen.

Surely a traditional marriage can only be termed that if the male is the one taking on the money earning role?

Also agree that you need to be in charge of the part you really care about and let your husband be in charge of the other things that may matter less to you and more to him.

[Anonymous]

You don’t have an egalitarian marriage because you seem to be carrying all the mental load. I never have to communicate with my husband because I know he is just going to get stuff done. We have clearly defined roles, although we don’t bean count. For example he handles dental/orthodontist appointments, I handle medical. He does all the cooking and grocery shopping (but I’ll stop at the store if I see we need something) and I handle laundry, finances, registration for kid activities/camps, and keeping the bathrooms clean and trash and recycling. And so forth. Some of the split is the result of who is more talented (he’s a great cook for example) and some are just by chance (he happened to take our oldest to his first orthodontist appointment and just kind of stuck with it.). We have a shared Google calendar that my whole family uses (including my now teenagers) and a shared gmail that I use for school and activities so we both see everything. We have a strong partnership and philosophy that we are in this thing together so if he texts me that he got hung up at work and can I pivot to pick the kids up instead of him, it’s fine because I know he’d do the same for me without question. He did a lot of the aftercare pickups when the kids were little and even had the numbers of a few other kids parents to text to sign out our kids if he was a running a few minutes late, and he’d do the same for them.

We’ve been married now over 20 years and life is great. You can do this better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

My wife has what you want in my marriage - I am out of the house and earn a lot of money. And my wife is now miserable because she feels at age 46 she never had a real career and is resentful of me for having mine.

Not saying that you would feel the same, just answering your question.

I wonder if your wife feels the way she feels because she is inherently dissatisfied or more because the cultural tides have turned more aggressively, and she craves the status that being the wife of a successful husband used to confer but now does not.

I became a SAHM in 2012. Being the wife of a successful person didn’t confer status then and it doesn’t now. I think that the cultural tide is swinging to “all labor is a valuable contribution.”

There was a point, relatively recently, that it did confer status. Look up the NYTimes article "The opt out revolution" by Lisa Belkin which summarized the deal. For a successful professional woman, to drop everything and envelope herself in domestic bliss demonstrated to the world that her husband is doing really, really well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women who have that arrangement complain because —for their family— it doesn’t work in practice the way it is supposed to work in theory. Just like your current arrangement isn’t working in practice for your family.

Though, honestly, you sound like a troll when you write “egalitarian marriage”. Who would want an unequal marriage. Just say that you want to work PT and focus on housework.

I have this arrangement and find no need to complain. It’s ideal. Because I’m part-time, we can use aftercare and preschool so we save money mot paying a nanny. Yes, most of the cleaning falls to me. But, because I still work, we kept our bi-weekly cleaners and nobody gets angry if we just do takeout or sandwiches for dinner sometimes. My DH is able to focus 100% on his job and earned a nice promotion recently. He still does outside, lawn work. We both play with our kids and hang out with them when possible. It’s good and there’s no reason OP shouldn’t strive for something similar if she wants to.

But yeah, egalitarian is the wrong word. Both my DH and I hold 50% of the “power” in our marriage. Sometimes his way wins, sometimes mine does. That said, he doesn’t whine about cleaning and cooking and I don’t whine about the lawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t have an egalitarian marriage because you seem to be carrying all the mental load. I never have to communicate with my husband because I know he is just going to get stuff done. We have clearly defined roles, although we don’t bean count. For example he handles dental/orthodontist appointments, I handle medical. He does all the cooking and grocery shopping (but I’ll stop at the store if I see we need something) and I handle laundry, finances, registration for kid activities/camps, and keeping the bathrooms clean and trash and recycling. And so forth. Some of the split is the result of who is more talented (he’s a great cook for example) and some are just by chance (he happened to take our oldest to his first orthodontist appointment and just kind of stuck with it.). We have a shared Google calendar that my whole family uses (including my now teenagers) and a shared gmail that I use for school and activities so we both see everything. We have a strong partnership and philosophy that we are in this thing together so if he texts me that he got hung up at work and can I pivot to pick the kids up instead of him, it’s fine because I know he’d do the same for me without question. He did a lot of the aftercare pickups when the kids were little and even had the numbers of a few other kids parents to text to sign out our kids if he was a running a few minutes late, and he’d do the same for them.

We’ve been married now over 20 years and life is great. You can do this better.

This. “Egalitarian” isn’t “one person does all the planning and the other person in theory executes 50% of the time”

Those marriages do look miserable and the husband usually wants a gold star for doing less than half. I would outsource the cleaning, keep the cooking for yourself and give (entirely) responsibilities to DH.

[Anonymous]

OP why do you think men don’t want to work part time and take on domestic responsibilities while their wives work full time?

There’s your answer about why women don’t like that arrangement for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

My wife has what you want in my marriage - I am out of the house and earn a lot of money. And my wife is now miserable because she feels at age 46 she never had a real career and is resentful of me for having mine.

Not saying that you would feel the same, just answering your question.

I get that. I’ve been SAH, had part time work, and worked FT while my spouse stayed at home.
As long as you make enough money to pay all of your bills, save, and outsource a little, the best deal is to be the WOH partner with your spouse picking up all of the unpaid, low status work at home. It’s the same amount of work (maybe less), but you get all of the stat, financial security, accolades, awards, travel, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

My wife has what you want in my marriage - I am out of the house and earn a lot of money. And my wife is now miserable because she feels at age 46 she never had a real career and is resentful of me for having mine.

Not saying that you would feel the same, just answering your question.

This. I’ve seen this over and over and over.

You have to be honest with yourself about what you want out of life and many people are so swept up in the daily grind of what society expects that they don’t know. Then in your 40s, the reality of not having a career hits and major resentment develops. That’s the kind of bitterness you cannot let go of easily because your kids are older, everyone is moving on, and you’ve sacrificed your self and your passions for a transient project of, what, 10-12 years?

If your dream is to be a mother and homemaker and you are realistic about what that means, day to day and in the big picture, fine. If you have any aspirations for self realization then please pursue those and do not subject your family to this level of resentment. The grass is always greener. FWIW I have the kind of partnership you describe and I feel lucky. I know that I want a career, another world to explore and a channel for my passions — challenges and opportunities to grow outside of the claustrophobic world of chores that never get done and little ones who need you constantly. There is definitely a price to pay for this, namely juggling in the early years, but for me it was a bargain compared to feeling trapped, resentful, and unfulfilled for the rest of my life.