Right and I don't believe him because I don't believe a household with multiple kids and a pet would be able to get away with sweeping twice every 30 days without it becoming disgusting. Even my own husband, who has very low standards for cleaning, will notice the floor is getting gross if we go one full week without sweeping or vacuuming, and break out the broom to at least clean up under the dining table. And this is very much a man who does not "see dirt" and did not even own a vacuum cleaner before living with me. If even he will be driven to grab a broom after 7 days, I just don't buy the PPs story. |
You're missing the larger point which that your kids need to learn not to complain to you. If I'd told my mom to sweep, she would even have been able to spank me she'd be laughing so hard. |
Ok, that's your family. It's #NotAllMen. If most families worked the way yours did, I bet we'd see a lot less commentary on unequal division of labor in marriages. Not sure why the people with good, equal marriages are so determined to tell everyone who doesn't have an equal or fair marriage on this thread that they are simply wrong about their own experience. After all if YOU book all your kids dentist appointments and enroll them in camp, then there is simply no way that MY husband has literally never done either of those things, ever. It's just odd that you would feel so certain that I am wrong about my lived experience. I bet if I told you my husband absolutely does 50% of everything you'd believe that. So why won't you believe when I tell the truth, which is that he's barely eking out 20%? |
You're welcome not to believe me; I don't really care. I know how often I sweep and I know how often there's resentment in my house about chores, which is much less than twice a month. Unhappy people often find the lives of happy people hard to fathom. |
I made no comments on your family. I made a comment on what you are able to observe about other people's families. You should learn to read more carefully. |
Did you miss the part where I pointed out I don't like the dirty floors either? This is so circular. If someone says "my husband never cleans the floors, even when they are disgusting," your response is that their standards for clean floors are too high and no one cares that much. If someone else says "actually my kids really hate it when the floors are covered in dirt and it attracts ants and other issues," then the argument is that the kids should clean the floors. If someone points out that not all kids are old enough to clean floors, well then we're back to having expectations of cleanliness that are too high. Look if you want to live in a freaking pig pen with cat litter and cracker crumbs and bits of dried mud and pet hair on the floor all the time, be my guest. Most people do not, and that's not some OCD standard, it's a normal attitude about cleanliness and hygiene. Given that keeping floors reasonably clean (not spotless, just not covered in detritus at all times) is generally going to require sweeping/vacuuming once or twice a week, then having a husband who refuses to ever sweep or vacuum actually absolutely creates a ton of labor for the wife in that marriage, labor he and the children benefit from. It is unequal. I look forward to Roomba PP coming back to explain that the problem is not a DH who refuses to pull his weight, but actually a wife who is too cheap to buy a robot to do her husband's basic cleaning for him, like a smart woman would. |
My husband does not do 50% or even close to it. He's not a terrible person but he often defaults to doing nothing, procrastinating, or claiming he can't do things that are child or household related because he doesn't know how, or work is busy right now (I also work, I also get busy).
Some of DH's reluctance to do things absolutely comes from a sense of privilege. He considers certain activities feminine (or at least not masculine) and won't do them. A lot of cleaning activities fall in this category. It's frustrating because he absolutely agrees these activities must be done, but he doesn't like to do them and won't. He is always grateful when I do them. He knows some of them are simply required for basic hygiene. But he will not do them. It is very frustrating. I would love to simply outsource cleaning more often to take the burden off of me but we can't presently afford that without really cutting back somewhere else. So I do like 90% of the cleaning. It's hard and absolutely leads to resentment. We have conversations about it periodically, where I say explicitly that I sometimes feel like I am the family maid or housekeeper (we have small children so this feeling is exacerbated because I am quite literally cleaning up after everyone as I am the only family member who cleans at all). I also hate the example this sets for our kids. Already our oldest has said things like "mommies like to clean" or "we'll get out of the way so mommy can clean" and I HATE IT. DH also presumes his job is more important than mine even though we make the same amount. When we had kids, we both talked about seeking out more flexility in our jobs, but only I followed through. This is also a source of resentment. I think he likes the idea of being a full parenting partner but when push comes to shove, he is afraid of the judgment of other men when he prioritizes his family over work. He says it's easier for me but it's not -- I get tons of pushback and there has been resentment at times when I've made arrangements to shift my schedule for daycare pickup or taken time off for a sick kid. I absolutely pay a professional price for being the default parent. When I'm also the only one cleaning, this really compounds the feeling that I am alone in making our family work while he benefits from it. I don't think my situation is that unusual. I'm sure there are people with more equal marriages, but when I talk to friends about my frustrations, they share many of them. I even have friends who are absolutely the breadwinners in their families but still don't feel their husbands do as much as they do with the kids or maintaining the house. These are very common problems. If my DH were to read this, he'd have a lot of excuses for why things are the way they are. Some of them would align with comments on the thread. But he would not claim that things are 50/50. In fact we recently had an argument about this and he said, "I feel like you won't be happy until we are splitting childcare and household duties 50/50." And I said yes, that sounds right, and he threw up his hands like this was an impossible expectation. Again, we both work FT. Dad privilege is absolutely real. If I were to really get fed up and divorce him, he'd still have it. Society expects less from men when it comes to kids and the home. And society expects women to fill in the gap without complaint. Even if your specific marriage is different, I don't see how you can argue otherwise. These dynamics in my marriage play out in millions of marriages in this country all the time. People who are truly 50/50 are the exception, not the rule. There is still a lot of work to be done in changing the expectations of others, the attitudes of men, etc. This is so obvious |
Happy to help! The main problem is once again your refusal to accept that your opinion is not a universal truth. If your husband doesn’t feel compelled to sweep or vacuum and is not actually demanding that YOU sweep or vacuum, then it means that the state of the floors has not actually crossed HIS “disgusting” threshold, regardless of how YOU feel about it. If HE was disgusted by the floors he would deal with the floors (or actively request or order you to deal with them which is an entirely separate problem not discussed thus far in this thread). A secondary problem is that you contradict yourself. First the roomba is no good as a compromise solution because it doesn’t do a good enough job, but now you’re claiming you don’t actually require spotless floors, just floors reasonably free of detritus. I have two roombas and they keep the floors in a general state of “eh, they’re fine” in between more active vacuuming which happens 1) whenever I feel like vacuuming, or 2) when I think “eww these floors are gross! I need to vacuum them immediately!” And I agree that someone like you and someone like me would not get along as roommates, but once again, that doesn’t mean you’re right/good/hardworking and I am wrong/bad/lazy, it simply means we have, once again, different standards. |
It’s a real d*ck move not to even attempt to host your own mother via (checks notes) providing a hot meal - and moreover to call your wife “crazy” for wanting to do so. y’all are being either truly dysfunctional or totally dishonest. |
Oh just stop. There actually ARE basic, minimal standards for raising children and having a minimally functioning homelife that provides them with social connections. If you deny this you’re either delusional or expecting your wife to do them. |
My guess is they have cleaners (that his wife manages). Having babies/toddlers crawl around on floors (with pets!) that are swept every 2 weeks is gross, sorry. |
dude, never get married, lol. what a loser. sweep your d*mn floor! |
You sound like an AWFUL partner (much less roommate). If you are married, you cannot think about stuff as needing "cross your threshold" for mattering, and if it doesn't, you get to not care about it at all. This is a great recipe for divorce. Here is a bunch of stuff I don't really care about but I do or make a priority because it is very important to my spouse: having a dog, prioritizing food experiences on vacation, living in the specific neighborhood where we live, planning around a sport for part of the year because it's important to my spouse, visiting or spending literally any time with his brother (who I honestly just dislike), Thanksgiving (his favorite holiday), I could go on. I don't merely tolerate the fact that these things matter to him. I actively participate in them, at least to some degree, because I love him an dit matters to him. If it is important to your spouse that the floors be free of detritus most of the time, you have options. You can help keep it clean, you can be more careful about getting it dirty, you can say "hey let's buy a Roomba -- $350 is worth you not hating to walk across the floors in our home!" Or suggest hiring a housecleaner. Whatever. But no, you do not get to say "I'm sorry, clean floors simply do not cross MY threshold for importance and therefore even though it is clearly something that bothers you a lot, I will do exactly nothing and expect you to resolve this issue for yourself even though I actively contribute to the problem by living here and freaking loving Ritz crackers." Unless you WANT to get divorced? Or maybe you want to stay married but you're hoping that if you can make yourself enough of an a$$hole, your spouse will stop bothering you for sex. I don't know. You do you, man. |
I reflexively started looking for a divorce lawyer upon reaching the phrase "A secondary problem is that you contradict yourself..." and I'm not even married to this loser. Imagine going to these lengths to justify not taking 2 minutes to grab a broom and sweep up the kitchen. Someone call the Whole Man Removal service for a clean up, please. |
Literally revolting. Those kids would have eaten several whole cats worth of cat hair by now. |