Just accepting unequal division of labor

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

You have just reverse engineered the formerly long-standing idea that women, by nature, are suited towards tending the home and the domestic sphere of influence, which in turn, makes the world a better place to live.

To rail against nature and expect men to act as women is an exercise in futility. As evidenced by all the women in this thread who keep trying, and failing at it. The answer is literally right there in your face.

Wow just wow. I think we time travelled to the past. Do you know history? There have been so many women who made their contribution in the working world and made it a better place. Yes, many women stayed at home and raised children and that is important too. But, men can raise children and be part of it as well.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You two sit together and make a pact to be intentionally kind, fair and helpful. No keeping scores, just try to be a good team.

DP. Yeah, tried that. Just does not work with someone with weak executive function. Structure works. Good intentions do not.

Good intentions make all the difference, structure only helps execute them. Unless one understands and feels genuinely concerned about unfairly overburdening their partner, nothing would change.

So for the first time in their life they will simply *feel* bad for dumping on their wife and suddenly function like a true adult??!!

Ok.

No. Thats why you date and live with one you intend to share a life, kids, home, finances and chores with. You make informed decision of if they'll make a caring partner or not. You may decide their shortcomings are worth it or not.

Lol.

As if living in an apartment and working until 7pm with a male who owns 5 shirts, 3 trousers, and a subway pass is any indication of how he will deal with a needy kid, 4 Br house and yard, 4 people’s work, school and sports schedules, and two sets of grandparents.

Yeah. Keep not processing that answer everytime someone answers your exact question.

+1. For some reason there is a subset of DCUMers who NEED to believe you can accurately predict what kind of husband and father a man will be mid-career based on what kind of bachelor and boyfriend he was early career. It’s obviously asinine if you just think about it a tiny bit.

My husband used to plan and cook for large dinner parties as a bachelor in grad school. Now he can barely make himself toast.

NP. I'm one of these people, I guess. Obviously life got harder and more complex, but when I look at my husband and all my friends husbands... yeah. I could have accurately predicted who would have been a partner in childrearing and home keeping and who wouldn't. And I would have been pretty close to right. Not perfectly, some stepped up more, some stepped up less. But the dude whose apartment was filthy... is still not cleaning. The dudes who shrugged their shoulders at wedding planning and said "whatever" are still shrugging their shoulders about anything household or kid related. The ones who happily took on a large chunk of life responsibilities (like, who did all the cooking for their GF when they moved in together, not just on special occasions, but the regular day-to-day grind) are now cooking for their families of four. The one who could not get their act together to plan a vacation or who was always dreaming about the next big thing... can't handle any kid logistics and has four unfinished house projects going at any given time, most of which will never get completed.

The real difference I noted is that some women cared about this stuff and those who didn't seem to notice or care because (as you note) - when you're young and single, this stuff doesn't matter much. But the signs were there, in most cases, if you were looking for them.

Again, you are making the mistake of thinking that all other women are just clones of you making different choices.

All those women who married guys who don't cook or clean or help -- what are their dads like? What were their childhoods like? What were their ex-boyfriends like? What were their lives like when they were dating these men? How is their self esteem? Their mental health? What are their jobs like?

Different people have different options, outlooks, contexts, etc. It sounds like you were someone who had a very clear idea what married life with kids would look like and require of you AND your partner. Great for you! Many women have no idea because they grew up in dysfunctional homes or had parents with very old fashioned divisions of labor. Some women have low self esteem and might notice that their boyfriend isn't perfect but convince themselves that it's the best they can do. Still other women just don't realize how much work and logistics kids will take. And yet other women don't have great options -- they may not have the looks or the charisma or the background to attract the kind of men who will be great partners. And so on and so on and son on.

Congratulations to you for just knowing more about life and being better at picking a spouse and also having the right choices and the ability to select a partner who can show up in that way. Seriously -- I'm happy for you.

But judging women who didn't know, didn't have the backgrounds or context to know, didn't have the same choices, made do with what they had and hoped for the best, because they are not sufficiently like you, is just arrogance and myopia. You basically have nothing of value to offer others because you have an outlook that literally everything about life from dating to retirement is predictable based on signs that you can read and others can't. Yay? You can show yourself out.

DP but you make a lot of good points. When I was looking for a spouse, I was very concerned about inclination to be unfaithful because my father had blown up 3 (then, now 4) due to his cheating. I was especially looking for strong impulse control and shared values around fidelity.

Maybe if the biggest problem in my childhood had been division of labor I would have been more focused on these subtle signs PP saw (although I still don’t think I would have seen them, DH was an accomplished home chef and tidy bordering on OCD) but my childhood was so chaotic, I honestly can’t remember how my parents and various stepparents split up household chores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

[Anonymous]

NP: Ha at least does not get annoyed if you remind them. You guys are lucky. My DH with ADHD does not remember does not want to do lists and if reminded blows up and rages at me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if you assign him a list of chores (doing the executive function piece for him) each night so it’s not just you sitting there catching up while he unwinds?

For me that’s the thing that would just be unacceptable.

“I’m tired, I need to watch tv. I had a long day. I didn’t sleep well again. I was up early, working.”

DP, but this. There is always an excuse.

A lot of this comes down to a game of chicken where my DH is willing to let a lot of things about our kids and our home get REALLY bad before he would step in and actually take the lead on them. And even then, he'd start with "Hey I noticed the kids fingernails are really long and dirty, we should probably do something about that" before actually doing anything -- "we" in this case means me.

I think I'd have to get like a terminal disease before he'd actually rouse himself to do a lot of this stuff, and even then I know he'd panic and be telling me that he just could never in a million years figure out how to sign our kids up for summer camp on his own, can I do it?

I think if I died, he'd get his mom to come live with him. But she's almost 80.

I can't die.

+1000 I think this is the crux of it for a lot of families (and I do not believe that ALL of these DHs have ADHD). I think women generally have higher standards for things like healthy meals, kid enrichment, clean and organized home.

So a lot of these men aren't shirking in their minds; they just think their wives should chill out more instead of they should be stepping up and doing more. And honestly? Sometimes they might be right. Sometimes.

Ok, then what’s a basic baseline for your house, yard, child-raising?

And should only one parent keep to the baseline or both? Or equal amounts of time at baseline and below baseline.

Let’s assume no above baseline so F nutrition, bedtimes, fancy ECs, and supplementing at home. Just let the Tiger Parents win that one.

It's interesting to me that people will write this dynamic off as "well she just has higher standards, that's not his fault" but WHY do so many women have higher standards of cleanliness, nutrition, organization, timeliness, etc., than their husbands? This explanation acts as though women collectively are just unrealistic about what needs to be done or how well it has to be done, but what if, as a society, we just decided to live down to the standards of all these men? What would society look like? Dirty houses, kids late for school 3/5 days, no vacations because nothing gets planned, meals mostly fast food or whatever can be thrown together last minute, schools bare bones and no fundraising or extra programming because no PTA at all (be honest, what percent of your PTA is men versus women, and what percent of the men are there WITH their wives and not in instead of them), and so on.

Like it's easy to roll our eyes at women and say "ugh, chill out, your standards are too high." But then we all collectively benefit from women who decided that the bare minimum wasn't good enough. Do you REALLY want to live in a world designed by a man who thinks most things can be put off or not done at all if it means he gets to spend more time playing video games?

Nobody wants to live in that world, including men, but they have learned from experience that women aren’t going to live in a pigsty and eat cereal for dinner, nor are women going to divorce and leave their kids 50% with a man who lives in a pigsty and eats cereal for dinner. It becomes a game of chicken like a PP said. Men don’t do it because they don’t have to.

then why do they do that and still expect respect or sx?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP: Ha at least does not get annoyed if you remind them. You guys are lucky. My DH with ADHD does not remember does not want to do lists and if reminded blows up and rages at me.

+1 its ridiculous and exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

Disagree. It is exhausting to remind another adult to do their share. And ask in a way that doesn’t offend them somehow. Totally annoying. I’d rather skip all that and do it myself.

[Anonymous]

I will let the house fall down before I will do everything that is needed. If he can't use his eyes and see some things that need to be done and DO THEM, then they aren't going to get done. It is not easier to do everything myself.

I do manage to feed us pretty reliably and keep things like toilet paper in the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you two sat down together each day and divided what needed to be done, would he be able to do it?

I'm the ADHD spouse and I make myself daily lists of what I need to do. DH and I also sit down weekly to discuss the upcoming week and who is doing what when (dinner, taking DS to practice, etc).

My lists are pretty much the only way I'm able to function. I put EVERYTHING on there, even just emptying the dishwasher.

+1

I know it’s not fair to my spouse, but I make it clear that I absolutely need them to TELL me what to do, and then I will do it. It’s not fun for me either and I am trying my best. I hope my spouse doesn’t resent me!

You…hope your spouse doesn’t resent you for knowingly treating them unfairly? That’s not ADHD that’s delusional.

There are about 100 ways you can manage executive function without expecting your spouse to do it for you.

[Anonymous]

There is a reason 70% of divorces are initiated by women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

Adding “micromanager” on top of everything else is indeed exhausting. Especially when the man never does what he agrees to do then accuses the wife of “nagging” and not “asking”
nicely enough. Then as a last resort claims the wife is being “crazy” for thinking the thing needs to be done.
I would not mind asking at all if DH actually just did the thing. But he does not, and makes it very unpleasant. This is the actual dynamic that ends up with the mom as a default parent - she gives up asking and micromanaging because DH makes it very unpleasant and it becomes easier to just do everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

Disagree. It is exhausting to remind another adult to do their share. And ask in a way that doesn’t offend them somehow. Totally annoying. I’d rather skip all that and do it myself.

+1, also many household and childcare tasks are not discrete tasks. They have multiple steps and require you to figure something out or problem solve. So telling your ADHD spouse "book a sitter for Saturday" won't work because he's instantly overwhelmed by the multistep process. With anything like that, it is easier to do it yourself than break it down into bite size pieces for your spouse, plus be ready to step in if the inevitably procrastinate until the last minute, get overwhelmed, and need help anyway.

I guess it's a good way to get the trash taken out or get laundry done, but those are not the hard parts of managing a household.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d have a conversation about chore division, agree on the division, and then make checklists that you hang on the fridge or wherever it is he goes most and will see it. And completely feel free to remind him after the kids are in bed to go do whatever is on his list.

This is so annoying though. Having to remind someone to do their share of the work is just more exhausting than doing the chores yourself.

Get real! Reminding someone to go shovel the driveway or clean the bathrooms or go buy all the stuff on this list at the grocery store is not even close to being “more exhausting” than doing it yourself.

Some people need to be micromanaged. It’s not ideal but there is no need to be overly dramatic about what a hardship it is for their handler…

Adding “micromanager” on top of everything else is indeed exhausting. Especially when the man never does what he agrees to do then accuses the wife of “nagging” and not “asking”
nicely enough. Then as a last resort claims the wife is being “crazy” for thinking the thing needs to be done.
I would not mind asking at all if DH actually just did the thing. But he does not, and makes it very unpleasant. This is the actual dynamic that ends up with the mom as a default parent - she gives up asking and micromanaging because DH makes it very unpleasant and it becomes easier to just do everything.

This! My DH gets so mad if I tell him to do anything. I MUST ask. But he also views asks as things he can say no to for any reason. "Can you give DD a bath?" "No, I'm playing a video game right now." Dude, it's 6 pm on a weekday and I'm making dinner, this is not an optional request.

Sometimes even when I ask he gets mad. "I feel like you think I work for you." No, you definitely don't work for me, if you did I would fire you for being so freaking lazy. I'm trying to get you to help me out on the shared project we undertook together, but You've decided is my thing for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you two sat down together each day and divided what needed to be done, would he be able to do it?

I'm the ADHD spouse and I make myself daily lists of what I need to do. DH and I also sit down weekly to discuss the upcoming week and who is doing what when (dinner, taking DS to practice, etc).

My lists are pretty much the only way I'm able to function. I put EVERYTHING on there, even just emptying the dishwasher.

+1

I know it’s not fair to my spouse, but I make it clear that I absolutely need them to TELL me what to do, and then I will do it. It’s not fun for me either and I am trying my best. I hope my spouse doesn’t resent me!

You…hope your spouse doesn’t resent you for knowingly treating them unfairly? That’s not ADHD that’s delusional.

There are about 100 ways you can manage executive function without expecting your spouse to do it for you.

This. Ever heard the phrase "a man is not a plan"? It means women should not rely on a man coming along and providing for them financially-- women have to get jobs and earn their own money. And most men are not interested in a woman who lives with her parents with no job. You need to be able to demonstrate at least a minimum ability to support yourself because who wants to marry dead weight?

Well the expectation that you will just find a high functioning spouse to come and manage your life for you and tell you what to do is also not a plan. Do you think high functioning people are eager to take on adult dependents? We're not. Pull your weight.

[Anonymous]

All these people whose husbands get super angry about requests have larger issues than ADHD. Their husbands need meds or they should dump him. I’m not living my life with someone that is angry all the time. My husband has ADHD and has never yelled at me.