How to get through to DH that doing 80% doesn't count?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Look we found the DH who wants extra credit for doing 30% of the laundry.

Oh so no we’re to the point where sorting, washing, and drying is 30% and folding and putting away is 70%.

Do you nuts even hear yourselves?

This is legitimately true. Sorting (why sort? toss everything in together on cold), putting in washer and moving to dryer takes max 4 minutes. Folding, hanging, matching socks, sorting by person etc and putting away a large load of clothes easily takes 10+min. If it takes you more than 4 minutes to dump a basket into one machine and then move that pile into another and then move it back out into a basket....something is wrong.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

NP here but this is bonkers. She would have cleaned her clothes on the weekend. Why are you defending him?

There’s no evidence of that. She just repeatedly says she would have, and yet she was too unmotivated or lazy to even fold the clothes until Sunday. It’s giving off the energy of the legends in their own minds type of guys going on about how THEY would have made that catch when watching the game. Sure you would have, buddy. That’s why you’re sitting on the couch *watching* someone else do something imperfectly (the horror).

I’m defending him because the person who did NOTHING is getting a ton of support for badmouthing the person who did SOMETHING (even if the something was the bare minimum - by definition the bare minimum is still adequate) and I find it bizarre.

I didn't do nothing. I did most of the laundry. Thats' the point. He did part of the laundry task and then left it for someone else to finish. Which I then did. But then he bragged about how he "did four loads of laundry" on Friday. But he didn't. He did zero loads of laundry -- he *started* four loads of laundry.

This is a conversation about how starting and abandoning a task is very frustrating for your partner who then has to complete it for you.

DH had the option of doing one load of laundry on Friday including folding and putting away and that would have been great. He could also like me have done zero loads of laundry and either done it on the weekend or done it with me on the weekend or let me do it while he did something else start to finish. He chose instead to start the laundry and then let it sit in the living room occupying it's one chair for two full days until someone else finished the task for him.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Look we found the DH who wants extra credit for doing 30% of the laundry.

Oh so no we’re to the point where sorting, washing, and drying is 30% and folding and putting away is 70%.

Do you nuts even hear yourselves?

NP. Most people do think in terms of manhours. Especially if you want to get the easy, lazy stuff only.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We view this much differently in our house. We look at tasks as a team and we work together on them. DH will carry the dirty clothes down to the washer, wash and dry, and place them in a space to be folded. I generally fold the piles and ask everyone to put their own folded clothes away. We each play a role and no one is angry. DH will fold when I’m overwhelmed with work. I will wash and dry when he’s traveling. It’s a team. No bean counting. I don’t see why people are so upset about folding laundry. Is it really that important?

Looking at the big picture, if your spouse hates folding, then just fold the laundry as a gift to them. I don’t like mowing the lawn, blowing leaves, or detailing cars. DH does those tasks without complaint.

It sounds like you each have your agreed-upon roles. That's a system I think works well. What doesn't work well is when people don't have specific responsibilities for each thing, and so it's all unpredictable and the DH views anything he does as "help" or a favor to his wife, rather than a commitment he agreed to.

Or when the DH is just really lazy and doesn't keep his commitments, then acts aggrieved when called out, that doesn't work either.

Yes for this system to work you need both partners who are willing to "own" tasks and just do them without being asked or reminded. But some men hide behind the idea of "we both do everything" and no one really owns any particular task. And this means that if they do part of a task then they should get credit for doing it at all even if their spouse finishes it (but for some reason doesn't get credit for finishing it because for some reason finishing an open task is viewed as "easy"). And if they don't do a task at all then that's okay too because after all their spouse can do it.

If you are married to a mature person who doesn't have a problem with taking responsibility for themselves and their home and children this can work well but if you are married to someone who is mostly looking to get out of doing stuff without getting in trouble (an adolescent approach to life) then an egalitarian "we both just pitch in until things are done" approach can give them a lot of cover for claiming to be doing 50% when they aren't. It really is how teenagers often approach chores -- halfassing them or pretending they didn't see it or didn't hear you ask them to do it or claiming "well I cleaned my room LAST week and now you're mad I didn't do it this week -- that's not fair!"

It is simply a question of maturity and responsiblity.

Just wait until your kids are teenagers pulling this same thing and your DH is STILL doing it and then they play off each other.

Gulp.

How much is nature (teens!) versus nurture (copying delinquent Dad) here??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It's just really really hard to know for sure what this will look like before you are in it. I am someone who way overestimated how much childcare my DH would do based on him being generally pretty comfortable around kids and saying all the right stuff about sharing the load. But the reality was that he would hide in the bathroom to avoid changing diapers and he can be incredibly impatient through the toddler and preschool years where kids just need a ton of attention and help with learning how to do stuff. And very disappointingly he did not step up with chores or household stuff as I took on more and more of the parenting that he just kind of opted out of -- it's always been about 60-40 in those areas and it stayed that way even as I took on way more childcare and parenting responsibilities and we both worked. But I don't know how I could possibly have known it would go this way when we were dating or even living together or the two years post-marriage and before kids. He isn't a misogynist. He does know how to clean and cook and he does do these things. He's a "good guy" and generally respectful to me. And yet after we had kids our division of labor at home went from 60-40 to like 80-20. And to him because he's doing the same amount of stuff he was doing pre-kids he thinks that should be enough and he just doesn't seem to understand there is SO much more to do with kids.

I really don't know how you fix this. So many women in this boat and the guys are not abusive jerks or anything but also women are doing so much more at home even when working similar jobs.

Okay, ding ding ding! Having a 60/40 split prior to having children is a RED FLAG that you missed. Any competent person should be able to do 50% of a two-adult-no-kid household. Him failing to do that was a RED FLAG. You probably thought it was no big deal and you're such a nice wife, but you should have drawn a line back then and insisted that he do his share. Instead, you taught him that you're happy to do the majority of the work.

I had a huge number of fights with my husband (or fiance at the time) about this stuff, and he honestly did not comprehend why I was being so intense about it, but it's really the only way to ensure that he truly understands you're serious about it and won't pick up his slack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It's just really really hard to know for sure what this will look like before you are in it. I am someone who way overestimated how much childcare my DH would do based on him being generally pretty comfortable around kids and saying all the right stuff about sharing the load. But the reality was that he would hide in the bathroom to avoid changing diapers and he can be incredibly impatient through the toddler and preschool years where kids just need a ton of attention and help with learning how to do stuff. And very disappointingly he did not step up with chores or household stuff as I took on more and more of the parenting that he just kind of opted out of -- it's always been about 60-40 in those areas and it stayed that way even as I took on way more childcare and parenting responsibilities and we both worked. But I don't know how I could possibly have known it would go this way when we were dating or even living together or the two years post-marriage and before kids. He isn't a misogynist. He does know how to clean and cook and he does do these things. He's a "good guy" and generally respectful to me. And yet after we had kids our division of labor at home went from 60-40 to like 80-20. And to him because he's doing the same amount of stuff he was doing pre-kids he thinks that should be enough and he just doesn't seem to understand there is SO much more to do with kids.

I really don't know how you fix this. So many women in this boat and the guys are not abusive jerks or anything but also women are doing so much more at home even when working similar jobs.

And why did you tolerate this? It didn't get this way overnight, right? If he's hiding in the bathroom, say "Please stop hiding in the bathroom. Come out and do your fair share of the parenting." And then you open the bathroom door, put the kid with the dirty diaper in with him, and close the door again.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Look we found the DH who wants extra credit for doing 30% of the laundry.

Oh so no we’re to the point where sorting, washing, and drying is 30% and folding and putting away is 70%.

Do you nuts even hear yourselves?

This is legitimately true. Sorting (why sort? toss everything in together on cold), putting in washer and moving to dryer takes max 4 minutes. Folding, hanging, matching socks, sorting by person etc and putting away a large load of clothes easily takes 10+min. If it takes you more than 4 minutes to dump a basket into one machine and then move that pile into another and then move it back out into a basket....something is wrong.

I actually taught the kids to sort the clean laundry by person and fold it.
One does it until they get it down to 10 minutes.
The adhd kid hemmed and hawed and took an hour yet hadn’t completed it. So she got the next load to sort/fold a week later too.

It’s still pulling teeth for her. And adhd/asd spouse. They half ass stuff they simply “don’t like to do.” No self discipline unless it’s their chosen favorite personal activity.

Meanwhile me and the non adhd kid get dumped on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We view this much differently in our house. We look at tasks as a team and we work together on them. DH will carry the dirty clothes down to the washer, wash and dry, and place them in a space to be folded. I generally fold the piles and ask everyone to put their own folded clothes away. We each play a role and no one is angry. DH will fold when I’m overwhelmed with work. I will wash and dry when he’s traveling. It’s a team. No bean counting. I don’t see why people are so upset about folding laundry. Is it really that important?

Looking at the big picture, if your spouse hates folding, then just fold the laundry as a gift to them. I don’t like mowing the lawn, blowing leaves, or detailing cars. DH does those tasks without complaint.

It sounds like you each have your agreed-upon roles. That's a system I think works well. What doesn't work well is when people don't have specific responsibilities for each thing, and so it's all unpredictable and the DH views anything he does as "help" or a favor to his wife, rather than a commitment he agreed to.

Or when the DH is just really lazy and doesn't keep his commitments, then acts aggrieved when called out, that doesn't work either.

Yes for this system to work you need both partners who are willing to "own" tasks and just do them without being asked or reminded. But some men hide behind the idea of "we both do everything" and no one really owns any particular task. And this means that if they do part of a task then they should get credit for doing it at all even if their spouse finishes it (but for some reason doesn't get credit for finishing it because for some reason finishing an open task is viewed as "easy"). And if they don't do a task at all then that's okay too because after all their spouse can do it.

If you are married to a mature person who doesn't have a problem with taking responsibility for themselves and their home and children this can work well but if you are married to someone who is mostly looking to get out of doing stuff without getting in trouble (an adolescent approach to life) then an egalitarian "we both just pitch in until things are done" approach can give them a lot of cover for claiming to be doing 50% when they aren't. It really is how teenagers often approach chores -- halfassing them or pretending they didn't see it or didn't hear you ask them to do it or claiming "well I cleaned my room LAST week and now you're mad I didn't do it this week -- that's not fair!"

It is simply a question of maturity and responsiblity.

Just wait until your kids are teenagers pulling this same thing and your DH is STILL doing it and then they play off each other.

Gulp.

How much is nature (teens!) versus nurture (copying delinquent Dad) here??

Immature parents raise immature children but when one parent is mature and responsible and the other is not it's complicated. A lot comes down to how the immature dad parents. If he's a hardass who expects his kids to do all the stuff he does not do (clean up after themselves and take responsibility for their schedule and belongings and show up as a contributing member of the household) the teens will sniff that out fast and call him on it. They will have a bad relationship and the kids will lose respect for him as they realize how little he does and how all his bluster and demands on them is hypocrisy. I think in these cases the kids figure it out and usually learn to be conscientious.

But if dad is very indulgent and both shirks his own responsibilities AND tells mom to lay off the kids for trying to get them to do chores or be responsible then all bets are off. Easy for mom to get stuck here because now she's got several adults or almost-adults in the house who don't clean or take responsiblity for themselves. Nightmare.

You also see in families with kids of both genders that sometimes the kids fall into the same gender division and the girls become highly conscientious and responsible and the boys follow in dad's footsteps. This is ripe for ongoign family strife well into adulthood because the girls risk either becoming people pleasing martyrs or becoming very resentful or both. And the boys will be surprised as they get older and realize that not all women agree to this arrangement where they are loveable screw ups who don't do anything and the women are expected to overperform at all times in order to make life function.

But also one of the things that happens is divorce and then dad has to get it together at least to a degree and all the kids become responsible because they now have to shuttle between households and keep track of their stuff plus navigate their parents divorce so everyone grows up real fast for better or worse but at least mom is no longer the only competent adult in the family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

NP here but this is bonkers. She would have cleaned her clothes on the weekend. Why are you defending him?

There’s no evidence of that. She just repeatedly says she would have, and yet she was too unmotivated or lazy to even fold the clothes until Sunday. It’s giving off the energy of the legends in their own minds type of guys going on about how THEY would have made that catch when watching the game. Sure you would have, buddy. That’s why you’re sitting on the couch *watching* someone else do something imperfectly (the horror).

I’m defending him because the person who did NOTHING is getting a ton of support for badmouthing the person who did SOMETHING (even if the something was the bare minimum - by definition the bare minimum is still adequate) and I find it bizarre.

I didn't do nothing. I did most of the laundry. Thats' the point. He did part of the laundry task and then left it for someone else to finish. Which I then did. But then he bragged about how he "did four loads of laundry" on Friday. But he didn't. He did zero loads of laundry -- he *started* four loads of laundry.

This is a conversation about how starting and abandoning a task is very frustrating for your partner who then has to complete it for you.

DH had the option of doing one load of laundry on Friday including folding and putting away and that would have been great. He could also like me have done zero loads of laundry and either done it on the weekend or done it with me on the weekend or let me do it while he did something else start to finish. He chose instead to start the laundry and then let it sit in the living room occupying its one chair for two full days until someone else finished the task for him.

I call mine Task Rabbit.

Reminds him that his low value to the family and low responsibility level is $10/hr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just really really hard to know for sure what this will look like before you are in it. I am someone who way overestimated how much childcare my DH would do based on him being generally pretty comfortable around kids and saying all the right stuff about sharing the load. But the reality was that he would hide in the bathroom to avoid changing diapers and he can be incredibly impatient through the toddler and preschool years where kids just need a ton of attention and help with learning how to do stuff. And very disappointingly he did not step up with chores or household stuff as I took on more and more of the parenting that he just kind of opted out of -- it's always been about 60-40 in those areas and it stayed that way even as I took on way more childcare and parenting responsibilities and we both worked. But I don't know how I could possibly have known it would go this way when we were dating or even living together or the two years post-marriage and before kids. He isn't a misogynist. He does know how to clean and cook and he does do these things. He's a "good guy" and generally respectful to me. And yet after we had kids our division of labor at home went from 60-40 to like 80-20. And to him because he's doing the same amount of stuff he was doing pre-kids he thinks that should be enough and he just doesn't seem to understand there is SO much more to do with kids.

I really don't know how you fix this. So many women in this boat and the guys are not abusive jerks or anything but also women are doing so much more at home even when working similar jobs.

And why did you tolerate this? It didn't get this way overnight, right? If he's hiding in the bathroom, say "Please stop hiding in the bathroom. Come out and do your fair share of the parenting." And then you open the bathroom door, put the kid with the dirty diaper in with him, and close the door again.

lol u think this works.

Try that five times a week and then get told to Shut up or F Off by your ManChild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just really really hard to know for sure what this will look like before you are in it. I am someone who way overestimated how much childcare my DH would do based on him being generally pretty comfortable around kids and saying all the right stuff about sharing the load. But the reality was that he would hide in the bathroom to avoid changing diapers and he can be incredibly impatient through the toddler and preschool years where kids just need a ton of attention and help with learning how to do stuff. And very disappointingly he did not step up with chores or household stuff as I took on more and more of the parenting that he just kind of opted out of -- it's always been about 60-40 in those areas and it stayed that way even as I took on way more childcare and parenting responsibilities and we both worked. But I don't know how I could possibly have known it would go this way when we were dating or even living together or the two years post-marriage and before kids. He isn't a misogynist. He does know how to clean and cook and he does do these things. He's a "good guy" and generally respectful to me. And yet after we had kids our division of labor at home went from 60-40 to like 80-20. And to him because he's doing the same amount of stuff he was doing pre-kids he thinks that should be enough and he just doesn't seem to understand there is SO much more to do with kids.

I really don't know how you fix this. So many women in this boat and the guys are not abusive jerks or anything but also women are doing so much more at home even when working similar jobs.

And why did you tolerate this? It didn't get this way overnight, right? If he's hiding in the bathroom, say "Please stop hiding in the bathroom. Come out and do your fair share of the parenting." And then you open the bathroom door, put the kid with the dirty diaper in with him, and close the door again.

lol u think this works.

Try that five times a week and then get told to Shut up or F Off by your ManChild.

If that's how it is, divorce. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We view this much differently in our house. We look at tasks as a team and we work together on them. DH will carry the dirty clothes down to the washer, wash and dry, and place them in a space to be folded. I generally fold the piles and ask everyone to put their own folded clothes away. We each play a role and no one is angry. DH will fold when I’m overwhelmed with work. I will wash and dry when he’s traveling. It’s a team. No bean counting. I don’t see why people are so upset about folding laundry. Is it really that important?

Looking at the big picture, if your spouse hates folding, then just fold the laundry as a gift to them. I don’t like mowing the lawn, blowing leaves, or detailing cars. DH does those tasks without complaint.

It sounds like you each have your agreed-upon roles. That's a system I think works well. What doesn't work well is when people don't have specific responsibilities for each thing, and so it's all unpredictable and the DH views anything he does as "help" or a favor to his wife, rather than a commitment he agreed to.

Or when the DH is just really lazy and doesn't keep his commitments, then acts aggrieved when called out, that doesn't work either.

Yes for this system to work you need both partners who are willing to "own" tasks and just do them without being asked or reminded. But some men hide behind the idea of "we both do everything" and no one really owns any particular task. And this means that if they do part of a task then they should get credit for doing it at all even if their spouse finishes it (but for some reason doesn't get credit for finishing it because for some reason finishing an open task is viewed as "easy"). And if they don't do a task at all then that's okay too because after all their spouse can do it.

If you are married to a mature person who doesn't have a problem with taking responsibility for themselves and their home and children this can work well but if you are married to someone who is mostly looking to get out of doing stuff without getting in trouble (an adolescent approach to life) then an egalitarian "we both just pitch in until things are done" approach can give them a lot of cover for claiming to be doing 50% when they aren't. It really is how teenagers often approach chores -- halfassing them or pretending they didn't see it or didn't hear you ask them to do it or claiming "well I cleaned my room LAST week and now you're mad I didn't do it this week -- that's not fair!"

It is simply a question of maturity and responsiblity.

Just wait until your kids are teenagers pulling this same thing and your DH is STILL doing it and then they play off each other.

Gulp.

How much is nature (teens!) versus nurture (copying delinquent Dad) here??

Immature parents raise immature children but when one parent is mature and responsible and the other is not it's complicated.

A lot comes down to how the immature dad parents. If he's a hardass who expects his kids to do all the stuff he does not do (clean up after themselves and take responsibility for their schedule and belongings and show up as a contributing member of the household) the teens will sniff that out fast and call him on it. They will have a bad relationship and the kids will lose respect for him as they realize how little he does and how all his bluster and demands on them is hypocrisy. I think in these cases the kids figure it out and usually learn to be conscientious.

But if dad is very indulgent and both shirks his own responsibilities AND tells mom to lay off the kids for trying to get them to do chores or be responsible then all bets are off. Easy for mom to get stuck here because now she's got several adults or almost-adults in the house who don't clean or take responsiblity for themselves. Nightmare.

You also see in families with kids of both genders that sometimes the kids fall into the same gender division and the girls become highly conscientious and responsible and the boys follow in dad's footsteps. This is ripe for ongoign family strife well into adulthood because the girls risk either becoming people pleasing martyrs or becoming very resentful or both. And the boys will be surprised as they get older and realize that not all women agree to this arrangement where they are loveable screw ups who don't do anything and the women are expected to overperform at all times in order to make life function.

But also one of the things that happens is divorce and then dad has to get it together at least to a degree and all the kids become responsible because they now have to shuttle between households and keep track of their stuff plus navigate their parents divorce so everyone grows up real fast for better or worse but at least mom is no longer the only competent adult in the family.

Hmm. No sure about this. Not the kind of experiment to run either.

Maybe once the youngest is 8 or 10 leave the marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just really really hard to know for sure what this will look like before you are in it. I am someone who way overestimated how much childcare my DH would do based on him being generally pretty comfortable around kids and saying all the right stuff about sharing the load. But the reality was that he would hide in the bathroom to avoid changing diapers and he can be incredibly impatient through the toddler and preschool years where kids just need a ton of attention and help with learning how to do stuff. And very disappointingly he did not step up with chores or household stuff as I took on more and more of the parenting that he just kind of opted out of -- it's always been about 60-40 in those areas and it stayed that way even as I took on way more childcare and parenting responsibilities and we both worked. But I don't know how I could possibly have known it would go this way when we were dating or even living together or the two years post-marriage and before kids. He isn't a misogynist. He does know how to clean and cook and he does do these things. He's a "good guy" and generally respectful to me. And yet after we had kids our division of labor at home went from 60-40 to like 80-20. And to him because he's doing the same amount of stuff he was doing pre-kids he thinks that should be enough and he just doesn't seem to understand there is SO much more to do with kids.

I really don't know how you fix this. So many women in this boat and the guys are not abusive jerks or anything but also women are doing so much more at home even when working similar jobs.

Okay, ding ding ding! Having a 60/40 split prior to having children is a RED FLAG that you missed. Any competent person should be able to do 50% of a two-adult-no-kid household. Him failing to do that was a RED FLAG. You probably thought it was no big deal and you're such a nice wife, but you should have drawn a line back then and insisted that he do his share. Instead, you taught him that you're happy to do the majority of the work.

I had a huge number of fights with my husband (or fiance at the time) about this stuff, and he honestly did not comprehend why I was being so intense about it, but it's really the only way to ensure that he truly understands you're serious about it and won't pick up his slack.

Sure but almost no women are socialized to think this. Instead they are told over and over again "well men just don't care as much about cleanliness" or "if you nag all the time you won't have a boyfriend at all" or "well marriage is about compromise."

Also if there is even a slight difference in earning then that will be used to justify the disparity sort of subconsciously and the woman will make what she thinks is a small bargain with herself -- she'll do 60% of the work at home if it means she only has to earn 40% of the money. But this becomes a massive compromise when kids show up because that 60% rapidly increases to 80% even though she's still making 40% of the money. And what if her DH burns out or hits a ceiling at work -- she could be earning 50% or more but he's still just doing the 40% of the pre-kids household duties and truly believes it's half of all total house and child responsiblities. And at that point they have kids and household finances premised on them both working. People get stuck.

You can say it's a red flag and it is but you also need to acknowledge that when a newly married or cohabitating woman says "my DH does half the cooking and the laundry but doesn't really do any of the cleaning -- should I worry about this" the overwhelming response will be "BE GRATEFUL HE'S COOKING AND DOING LAUNDRY YOU FOUND A KEEPER CAN'T YOU JUST HIRE A HOUSECLEANER." Like socially we really do not encourage women do demand truly 50% contributions at home including in those early years at home before kids. We consider men who cook and clean at all such a vast improvement over what most of us grew up with that it's hard to see how those little inequities will grow with kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Murder

He had it coming

He only had himself to blame

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just really really hard to know for sure what this will look like before you are in it. I am someone who way overestimated how much childcare my DH would do based on him being generally pretty comfortable around kids and saying all the right stuff about sharing the load. But the reality was that he would hide in the bathroom to avoid changing diapers and he can be incredibly impatient through the toddler and preschool years where kids just need a ton of attention and help with learning how to do stuff. And very disappointingly he did not step up with chores or household stuff as I took on more and more of the parenting that he just kind of opted out of -- it's always been about 60-40 in those areas and it stayed that way even as I took on way more childcare and parenting responsibilities and we both worked. But I don't know how I could possibly have known it would go this way when we were dating or even living together or the two years post-marriage and before kids. He isn't a misogynist. He does know how to clean and cook and he does do these things. He's a "good guy" and generally respectful to me. And yet after we had kids our division of labor at home went from 60-40 to like 80-20. And to him because he's doing the same amount of stuff he was doing pre-kids he thinks that should be enough and he just doesn't seem to understand there is SO much more to do with kids.

I really don't know how you fix this. So many women in this boat and the guys are not abusive jerks or anything but also women are doing so much more at home even when working similar jobs.

Okay, ding ding ding! Having a 60/40 split prior to having children is a RED FLAG that you missed. Any competent person should be able to do 50% of a two-adult-no-kid household. Him failing to do that was a RED FLAG. You probably thought it was no big deal and you're such a nice wife, but you should have drawn a line back then and insisted that he do his share. Instead, you taught him that you're happy to do the majority of the work.

I had a huge number of fights with my husband (or fiance at the time) about this stuff, and he honestly did not comprehend why I was being so intense about it, but it's really the only way to ensure that he truly understands you're serious about it and won't pick up his slack.

Sure but almost no women are socialized to think this. Instead they are told over and over again "well men just don't care as much about cleanliness" or "if you nag all the time you won't have a boyfriend at all" or "well marriage is about compromise."

Also if there is even a slight difference in earning then that will be used to justify the disparity sort of subconsciously and the woman will make what she thinks is a small bargain with herself -- she'll do 60% of the work at home if it means she only has to earn 40% of the money. But this becomes a massive compromise when kids show up because that 60% rapidly increases to 80% even though she's still making 40% of the money. And what if her DH burns out or hits a ceiling at work -- she could be earning 50% or more but he's still just doing the 40% of the pre-kids household duties and truly believes it's half of all total house and child responsiblities. And at that point they have kids and household finances premised on them both working. People get stuck.

You can say it's a red flag and it is but you also need to acknowledge that when a newly married or cohabitating woman says "my DH does half the cooking and the laundry but doesn't really do any of the cleaning -- should I worry about this" the overwhelming response will be "BE GRATEFUL HE'S COOKING AND DOING LAUNDRY YOU FOUND A KEEPER CAN'T YOU JUST HIRE A HOUSECLEANER." Like socially we really do not encourage women do demand truly 50% contributions at home including in those early years at home before kids. We consider men who cook and clean at all such a vast improvement over what most of us grew up with that it's hard to see how those little inequities will grow with kids.

Sounds like it makes more sense to plan on him working for pay and you running the household!