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[quote=Anonymous]For background, we are in our early 40's, have 2 school aged children, and I work half time while DH works full time in a demanding job but has a decent amount of flexibility. I am also the primary parent who handles 90% of kid related stuff (medical/dental appts, clothes, activity/camp signups, most kid transportation, etc.) We have no debt aside from a very affordable mortage and we are ahead on college and retirement savings. (You'll see in a minute why I added the money bit.)

One of our recurring issues, that comes up again and again with different topics, happened again this weekend. It is like groundhog day having the same fight over and over. Please advise, or tell me if I'm wrong or what I should do differently. This happens for all sorts of boring household maintenance but lets just say in this example its fixing the grout in the shower.

Me: I'm going to get some quotes to have the grout fixed in our shower.
Him: No, don't, I'm going to do that myself.
Me: Are you sure? You're very busy and I'd be happy to call someone. I've heard of a few good places to try.
Him: No, its fine, I'm going to do it.
Me. (Very skeptical) Um, okay, if you are sure.

Fast-forward 2/3/6/however many months.

Me: Hey, so we still didn't get the grout fixed, you mentioned you were going to take care of it.
Him: (Almost instantly defensive and mad) Well, I've been pretty busy, why don't you take care of it?
Me: Well I offered to call someone but you didn't want that.
Him: Why can't you just do it yourself? You can look it up how to do it on Youtube just the same as I can!
Me: Well, I don't really want to learn how to fix grout and I'd rather just pay someone who knows what they are doing.
Him: Goes on some rant about how women are capable of doing things, its sexist to assume he should do it (uh, I didn't), he doesn't want to pay to hire it out (we can easily afford it) and so on and so forth. 
Me: I usually respond angrily how this is just a normal part of home ownership, we need to take care of the house and then I admit I usually say something grumpy about how the house would just crumble to the ground if it were left up to him.

Its not productive and usually it ends with HIM mad at ME because I didn't go on youtube and learn how to regrout the shower and just do it myself. And this happens more or less the same any time we need something done to the house. It feels insane to me. I feel like my choices are just never bring any of this up ever and let the house fall into disrepair (I'm not really sure he would even notice, or not until it got REALLY bad) or we keep having this stupid fight. And of course numberous things around the house are still not done.

What should I do differently?[/quote]

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