Men, women and chores

[Anonymous]

My husband puts on a show when we have company, helping with food prep, dishes, etc. The rest of the time: nada. He takes the trash out, though often not until it's overflowing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband puts on a show when we have company, helping with food prep, dishes, etc. The rest of the time: nada. He takes the trash out, though often not until it's overflowing.

And, of course, you do everything right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men who do housework and child care are described as wimps or bitches by other men. They see it as emasculating. Hire someone or stay home and recognize that this is REAL work with real value. Stop putting down women who do.

I’ve never heard other men calling a guy a wimp or a bitch for doing housework. You must live in a low SES area.

[Anonymous]

This goes for both men and women.

1. Don't marry someone who's a slob with hoarderish tendencies.

2. Don't marry someone who doesn't how to maintain basic cleanliness/tidiness in their living spaces. Sometimes, it's because of #1 and other times, it's because they were never taught to/someone cleaned up after them their whole lives (mom, sister, maid, etc).

3. Marry someone with comparable standards of cleanliness/tidiness.

I broke up with serious boyfriends, who were otherwise great guys, for reasons 1 and 2. I'm looking to be anyone's maid or psuedoparent.

Dh and I never had issues with division of labor when it came to cleanliness/tidiness because we're on the same page on how clean/tidy we want the house to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Some men are just lazy gross sh*tbirds and dummy wives enable them. If you’re tired of doing your husbands laundry and you’re both working outside the home, stop doing it. This isn’t rocket science.

No, their "dummy" mothers enabled them, just as most of you are doing with your sons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Some men are just lazy gross sh*tbirds and dummy wives enable them. If you’re tired of doing your husbands laundry and you’re both working outside the home, stop doing it. This isn’t rocket science.

Holy smokes, you pitiful and extremely bitter. Seek help ASAP.

Me not pitiful. Me not on the board complaining about my relationship because I didn’t pick someone lazy or gross. I find women who puck poorly then complain absolutely hilarious. Either pick someone with similar standards or pick up the slack. Either way works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I had an interesting conversation last night about a self help book I was reading. He stated that women care more about the house and chores more than men, so that's why they tend to do all the chores. I stated that men think women are going to do the chores, therefore all men need to do is wait around until women do them. They will never get bad enough to fall to most men's very low threshold where he would do it himself. To prove my point he actually thought bed sheets should be done quarterly and stated that a toilet could be cleaned monthly (DH isn't messy, so him saying this surprised me). He thought that we should just do more cleaning before we have guests, whereas I keep the house no more than 30 min from guest ready at all times because I find that easier to maintain.

To be fair, my DH does at least 50% of the household duties and works much harder at home than I do (he's finishing our basement, laying floors, and he cooks nightly), but he has never once in 12 years done any cleaning or laundry. I actually love our division of chores and we both think the other works harder than we do, which is key in my opinion, so this is about relationships in general, not mine specifically.

So maybe men's standards are too low and women's too high? Anyone else?

Interesting. In my household I care about the house than my wife does. I have a $1.6m home and she has yet to mop the floors once in three years. I do it almost every other month. She vacuums maybe 2-4 times a year. I also clean the dishes, clean my own laundry and constantly wipe down our bathroom counters and mirrors. I wish my wife was more like "regular" wives who cared about their home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Some men are just lazy gross sh*tbirds and dummy wives enable them. If you’re tired of doing your husbands laundry and you’re both working outside the home, stop doing it. This isn’t rocket science.

Holy smokes, you pitiful and extremely bitter. Seek help ASAP.

Me not pitiful. Me not on the board complaining about my relationship because I didn’t pick someone lazy or gross. I find women who puck poorly then complain absolutely hilarious. Either pick someone with similar standards or pick up the slack. Either way works.

You write bad.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. In my household I care about the house than my wife does. I have a $1.6m home and she has yet to mop the floors once in three years. I do it almost every other month. She vacuums maybe 2-4 times a year. I also clean the dishes, clean my own laundry and constantly wipe down our bathroom counters and mirrors. I wish my wife was more like "regular" wives who cared about their home.

you live in a 1.6 million dollar home, so you can probably afford weekly cleaners. I'm not being snarky--having our deep cleaning, sheets, etc done has kept our marriage on track. Cheaper than marriage therapy or maintaining two households post-divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men who do housework and child care are described as wimps or bitches by other men. They see it as emasculating. Hire someone or stay home and recognize that this is REAL work with real value. Stop putting down women who do.

Plenty of women don't put that high of value on men who are more involved with housework and child care. They're mostly not going to pass up the high-earning manly-man who isn't going to bother much with those things in favor of the guy who is less masculine but who will be a team player at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I had an interesting conversation last night about a self help book I was reading. He stated that women care more about the house and chores more than men, so that's why they tend to do all the chores. I stated that men think women are going to do the chores, therefore all men need to do is wait around until women do them. They will never get bad enough to fall to most men's very low threshold where he would do it himself. To prove my point he actually thought bed sheets should be done quarterly and stated that a toilet could be cleaned monthly (DH isn't messy, so him saying this surprised me). He thought that we should just do more cleaning before we have guests, whereas I keep the house no more than 30 min from guest ready at all times because I find that easier to maintain.

To be fair, my DH does at least 50% of the household duties and works much harder at home than I do (he's finishing our basement, laying floors, and he cooks nightly), but he has never once in 12 years done any cleaning or laundry. I actually love our division of chores and we both think the other works harder than we do, which is key in my opinion, so this is about relationships in general, not mine specifically.

So maybe men's standards are too low and women's too high? Anyone else?

sounds like you don't have any issues or young kids.

I would say some men don't even know what goes into maintaining a household so how on earth would they know what to do. Maybe they are told or it is explained to them, but they'd rather do other things so then your theory kids in: wait around for Mommy to do it.

[Anonymous]

7 years of trying to get my hairy mediterranean husband to wireless vacuum up all his hairs in the all the upstairs bathrooms - at least 2x a week. SO disgusting. Sticks on all kids and the baby's socks, pants, hair, clothes. So disgusting. The kids now point out the curly "daddy hairs" 10x a day. Also disgusting! we only have girls so this will continue to be His Issue and only his issue for years to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Some men are just lazy gross sh*tbirds and dummy wives enable them. If you’re tired of doing your husbands laundry and you’re both working outside the home, stop doing it. This isn’t rocket science.

No, their "dummy" mothers enabled them, just as most of you are doing with your sons.

MIL was like this with DH. She was a SAHM and was still doing his laundry in college, so it has been a struggle to get him to take on chores. FIL likes to point out that he never changed a diaper or cleaned the house in his life.

[Anonymous]

I depends. DH can't go to sleep unless the dishes are done. I choose to do them, because otherwise I will need to run around like a maniac (literally) with our 4 year old. My pet peeve is laundry: I hate when it piles up. DH does it regularly so that it doesn't. I wouldn't say men have lower standards than women. Both men and women in this culture are pretty sloppy. Few people take pride in their homes; most of them are rich enough to hire other people to do the dirty work.

My personal standards are quite high sanitation-wise. The floors and counters must be clean. I'm okay with toys all over the place, because I don't like to segregate kids from our adult lives altogether.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Some men are just lazy gross sh*tbirds and dummy wives enable them. If you’re tired of doing your husbands laundry and you’re both working outside the home, stop doing it. This isn’t rocket science.

No, their "dummy" mothers enabled them, just as most of you are doing with your sons.

MIL was like this with DH. She was a SAHM and was still doing his laundry in college, so it has been a struggle to get him to take on chores. FIL likes to point out that he never changed a diaper or cleaned the house in his life.

Neither would I, if I supported an able-bodied adult to take care of the household.

--a woman