Did creating a master list of chores and divvying them up help your marriage?

[Anonymous]

I keep track of everything that needs to be done and my DH and I communicate about who will do what.
It requires talking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It illustrated to DW, who was the one who felt overburdened, how much I was actually doing. Evidence that ran contrary to her feelings was not welcome.

I would love to know what my DH thinks he does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It illustrated to DW, who was the one who felt overburdened, how much I was actually doing. Evidence that ran contrary to her feelings was not welcome.

+1

[Anonymous]

We did early in the marriage. However when babies came along, my DH took on almost every chore. He realizes that I do more "work" with the kids than he does. So he covers for me in all other areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did this once - it was a good exercise because it showed (to both of us) the little areas that take up lots of time that are taken for granted by the other party - like reviewing and sorting the mail, feeding and doing the cat litter, grocery shopping, clothes shopping, filling out childrens' forms of all sorts, filling and emptying diswasher, making the food list and thinking about what breakfast/lunch/dinner will be, home maintenance, changing light bulbs, making drs appts, keeping the family calendar, doing bills, etc. Also if there were chores that the other person was doing that they really hated but their counterpart didn't mind - trading tasks didn't seem so burdensome.

Really agree with this. When DH and I went through a similar exercise, DH realized I was doing more than he realized so he picked up some slack but I also realized he was doing more than I originally thought so I needed to give him more credit. Sometimes, when things get overwhelming, it can be hard to believe that the other person is really pulling their weight because there is just so much to do.

[Anonymous]

Yes, this helped us. I don't suggest making an exhaustive list of every chore: focus on the regularly occurring ones that take some time/planning. For us, it's dinner, dishes, daycare, bedtime, and trash/recycling. DH does trash, I do daycare (it works out better), and we have assigned days for the others.

We have since defaulted into alternating other things -- who goes to the grocery this week, who is doing bath time tonight -- without really talking about it.

There are still some inequalities -- I do all of DC's laundry, for example -- but generally the other stuff can be handled case by case.

[Anonymous]

Meant to add -- the big benefit for us is that it gives us each some space to have downtime / me time. If it's my night to do dishes, I can sit and look at my phone for a minute and not feel time pressure to show I am pulling my weight with the evening routine. DH can finish his chores, see that the dishes aren't done, and go do his own thing rather than wonder whether I am planning to do them.

[Anonymous]

Yes it helped a lot!

I made list and assigned myself the task of watching TV and eating pizza. I assigned everything else to my partner. I think this is working perfectly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes it helped a lot!

I made list and assigned myself the task of watching TV and eating pizza. I assigned everything else to my partner. I think this is working perfectly.

Everything else includes her having sex with someone else I assume so yes I can see how that would work.

[Anonymous]

I think it could work if it's a mutual thing, like, we need some kind of system and a way to keep track of things so let's make a chart.

I think it's patronizing and causes resent for one person to throw a chore chart at the other and say "you don't do sh*t! I do all the work! You're useless!"

[Anonymous]

We didn't do a list of assigned chores, because we felt like more flexibility might work for us given the ebbs and flows of work schedules and such. Since we both felt we were doing more than our fair share, though, we started putting together a list of everything that needed to be done that day/week, both routine chores and one-off items, and initialing next to them when they were done. It worked to keep track of who was actually doing how much so that we were dealing with facts rather than impressions in those conversations, and served as a little check on the person who might be slacking a bit one week when they see a whole slew of the other person's initials and almost none of their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it could work if it's a mutual thing, like, we need some kind of system and a way to keep track of things so let's make a chart.

I think it's patronizing and causes resent for one person to throw a chore chart at the other and say "you don't do sh*t! I do all the work! You're useless!"

Even if it's true? I do all of the work inside the house, we hire help for the yard. I do 75% of the kids' stuff. We both work full time. When I got my H to admit that he didn't pull his weight, he didn't agree to step up and pull his weight. His response was, well, I was the one who wanted to get married and have kids. I am not particularly concerned if HE resents ME.

[Anonymous]

This helped us a lot. We were bickering over chores bc we both felt like we did more than the other person, and bc I usually "noticed" first (or maybe complained prematurely) about things that needed to be done (I resented putting in that mental labor, and he felt nagged). We made a list and did our best to divide it up evenly so we each had some daily chores, some weekly ones, some occasional ones. Now I don't worry about things that are his job, and vice versa (except in special circumstances, like one of us is out of town or we have company coming and just need to clean up the house).

I can see how it might seem to rigid for some, but for me at least it really cut down on the chore resentment. It doesn't mean we can't help each other out, but there is one person who is "in charge" of each thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. It illustrated to DW, who was the one who felt overburdened, how much I was actually doing. Evidence that ran contrary to her feelings was not welcome.

+1

+2 I hear so much complaining from women, but never from the men. And all thread men I know are incredible hard working.

[Anonymous]

Start the chore list right after you figure out how much time you waste on social media.