I do all the cleaning in the house, but I ENJOY doing it. Cleanins is very therapeutic for me, and no one else can get it "clean enough" for me, so I don't even hire a housekeeper. While living overseas, it was different, but not in my real home. My DH is willing to help and always does help if asked, or even if not asked, as with cleaning up after dinner. Every once in a while, I'll feel the bathrooms needs the USMC treatment and I'll ask my former Marine groom to give it "the treatment." But we're talking once or twice a year here. Not more necessary than that given how clean I keep it. DH squeegees after every shower!! In talking to my girlfriends, I am the luckiest woman on the planet on that score. LOL.

DH does things like fix the cars and clean the garage and take out the garbage and recycling, take the vehicles in for inspection etc. Had a flat tire on Saturday and there was no question that he would take care of it.

Oh My!! We are SUCH a gender stereotype!!! Ha ha! I don't care, it works for us. Interesting too since in my household growing up, my mother was a doctor and did the heavy spring cleaning. But it was my father (the original Felix Unger) who did the daily (and I do mean DAILY) cleaning.

As to income, eh, clearly makes no difference in our case. I made more than DH until very recently. Now he makes slightly more, and is about to make considerably more when he starts a new job. Our cleaning habits won't change.

Ivette

I have not read the article you linked to yet, but maybe it's a control issue? Women with more power want to have more of everything else under their control?

My husband and I have gone back and forth on this, sometimes me doing more, sometimes him. If one is busier at work or working longer hours, then the other just automatically takes up the slack. I just graduated from school and find that now that I'm not doing homework, I AM doing more housework!

We both contribute to cleaning, yardwork, remodeling, roofing, snow removal, whatever the task may be. The proverbial "divide (the tasks) and conquer". Since I've become a stay-at-home (mostly retired), I tend to do the mundane things once a week and we enjoy doing things that take more work or people on the weekends - TOGETHER.

Hubby was a school janitor, cleaned an office, and cleaned a restaurant while he went to college, and there's little doubt he has a good handle on cleaning.

When our kids were at home, every Saturday morning we ALL had our cleaning tasks. Everyone took pride in the house and took more trouble to keep it clean. More than that, everyone knew HOW to clean, and there was never a perception that it was any one persons/genders job to do.

Our first key to cleaning is NOT to dirty. The second key - dust cloths are one-size-fits-all.

-Grainlady

We both do - pretty equally. But if it's unequal at all, I'd have to say that he does more. He used to make slightly more than me, I now make slightly more than him, but our salaries are fairly equal as well.

Since we work similar hours, our general rule of thumb is that if one of us is working, then the other one is working. If I'm starting dinner, he's either in there helping me or he's starting some laundry or cleaning cat boxes or *something*.

My theory on why "breadwinner wives" actually do more housework is that they are trying to make up for being sucessful. I mean that I think they are trying to say 'see, I do normal woman stuff too, I'm not a scary high-powered person too good to wash underwear'... as well as trying to prove that they are not trying to emasculate their hubbies by forcing them to do 'women's work' while they 'wear the pants in the family'.

Additionally, if someone is going to be judged for the way the house is kept, that person will be the woman. No one judges men for the way the house looks - it's the "woman's sphere" to put a Victorian label on it.

My housekeepers, of course!

Actually, aside from them, my husband and I do chores equally. We have designated certain rooms for each of us, and that is our territory to keep clean between the housekeeper visits. We did the same thing before hiring help, but obviously spent more time in each room.

I think it is a partnership, neither should do more or less than the other unless there is a medical reason.

You mean it's supposed to be clean?

I do the majority but my DH likes to make the vacuum marks.

That article could have been written about me. I work many more hours and earn a lot more money than DH. It is impossible to get him to do anything. For example, last week it was 0 degrees all week, so he couldn't work. I asked him to do a few things that would have taken maybe 8 hours total (he had the whole week). He didn't do a thing.

He also lies about what he has done. He will say he did something, like vacuum the bedroom, but when I go in there it is clear he didn't. He also will do a really lousy job and then say it wasn't worth doing because it didn't last. For example, our house has not been vaccumed in a month. I asked him to dust the horizontal surfaces and then to vacuum, because if he vacummed without dusting all the dust would just float down to the floors. He vacuumed one room and 2 days later declared it was a waste of time because it needed to be done again. Of course it did. We have a fluffy cat, and her fur floats around. If you don't get it all (dust and vac the entire house in one day), it just redistributes as soon as the heat comes on.

I've tried making certain things his responsibility to do, and it just doesn't get done. I am not a neat freak by any means. But he would be willing to have the house go one month without being vacuumed. He has NEVER cleaned a toilet, no matter how bad it gets. He has never stripped or made a bed (in fact, we slept on the mattress pad for days and he still didn't make it). He has never mopped a floor. He doesn't clean up spills he sees (there is something dried inside one of the fridge drawers, it's been there for months).

As you can tell, I am very resentful about this. I refuse to get a cleaning lady because it will be just another bill I have to pay, and I don't think we should need one when one person only works part time at most and we have no kids to make a mess.

We each do our own laundry. I do mine own because he thinks all colors should be mixed and everything goes in the dryer. If he has laundry in there I will do it when I do mine. But he is not allowed to touch my laundry because he has ruined too many $100 sweaters to count.

I don't do housework because I am trying to prove I can do "normal woman stuff". There are plenty of other "normal" woman things I do, other than cleaning! I do housework because if I didn't I would live in a total pig sty. We don't have trash pickup, and it got so bad with accumulated trash in the garage (because he didn't go to the transfer station for weeks) that we had flies and it stunk. I am now paying $30 per month for trash pickup.

I do 90% of it, and my wife and I make = salary. Mostly because her job is chaotic right now. As soon as we can financially afford it, whe will be looking elsewhere for sure.

sue36, sounds like your husband needs "training." That needs to be done early on though. HA!HA! My DH and I have our own routine tasks, i.e., he cleans the yard every morning (we have lots of animals), I clean the inside during the week, he does it weekends. He takes the garbage out, but I help if he's tired or busy with something else. He does the dishes for me when I'm tired, etc. We help each other out when one is busier than the other. It's a shared thing with us.

I'm home DH works and I do the house cleaning, the yard work etc. Years ago when I had 2 babies and DH didn't work much and wanted to go out an play hauling me and 2 babies with him he did as much housework as I did. NO WAY I was gonna have the time or the energy to clean and run most of the day with him.

Once DH retires he'll prolly start helping with the house again. Possibly the yard work. I've never really expected DH to do the yard work it was my idea to move to country and have a big yard so it should be my responsiblity to keep it up esp since DH HATES cutting grass has no idea what a weedeater is for.

When I worked, I did most of the housework, and now that I stay home with DD, I still do most of the housework. I've always considered birth order. I am the oldest in my family, so bossy and controlling. He was the baby of the family, his sisters bossed him around, and his momma cleaned his bathroom, did his laundry, etc. So, if I need something done by him, I need to tell him to do it. I wonder if those with equal cleaning aren't middle children, or only children. :) Christy

Interesting, Christy! Both my husband and I (sharing cleaning with some flux and flow depending on schedules) are second children! He has mentioned that his older brother was controlling. I don't think mine was, at least not obviously so, but somehow he always got what he wanted! We all had chores growing up but he managed to dodge his often enough in some clever way, and I had to do his then too. He was 3 1/2 years older so could outsmart me pretty well. I resented it, but knew that if I dodged too, the jobs would fall on our Mom, and I thought she worked hard enough already.

sue36, I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I think you are not alone in saying, "I do housework because if I didn't I would live in a total pig sty." I have heard many other women complaining too. His lying about doing it seems the worst; like he will say anything as long as you stop asking him to do something. Did he come from a family where Mom did everything for him? In my dating days I was shocked at the number of guys I knew who were so lazy: it usually came down to wanting to shrug the responsibility off on someone else. It would be ultimatum time for me! Who cooks? If that's you you could go on strike. Though if you stopped cleaning he likely would not care; it would hurt you. I know you don't want to pay someone else, but maybe it would save you valuable time and dull the resentment a bit. A lot of women are married to lazy guys and have to hire help just to save their sanity and energies for something else.

Yes, he came from a family in which his mother did everything for him. And she still would if given the opportunity. He and his brother are little princes, his poor sister can do nothing right.

I do most of the cooking. Part of the issue there is my fault - I am a really good cook. I have recently been able to get him to make some basic meals. But I have never come home to a cooked meal. If I went on strike he would just eat cereal, eggs (with Tabasco, yuck), or PB&J. He weighed 240 when we met, so he obviously didn't starve. I think he must have eaten a lot of subs and fast food.
Re: Training. I think I got him too old. He was close to 40 when we met and was 44 when we got married. Old dogs, new tricks and all that. I thought I was getting a self sufficient bachelor. He puts a ring on my finger and he all of a sudden becomes helpless.

I ask nicely, I always say thank you. But why do I have to? He doesn't ask me to pick up after myself. When I do stuff around here I don't get a thank you. My friends and I all seem to be married to the same men. If they do something they act like a 8 year old that just won the spelling bee ("look at me! look at what I did! Congratulate me!"). Oh, and when they take care of their own kids they call it "babysitting". It is not babysitting when it is your own child - it is called being a parent.

I tell my friends with sons to train them well, they will end up with a DIL who loves them.

I hear you, Sue36! I was starting to feel really alone until you got on this thread!

Me and soon-to-be-DH are both headstrong, eldest children. At his house his mom cooks and his dad does the dishes. At my house my mom cooked and my dad yelled at her to do the dishes, then she divorced him. In our house now, I cook and I do the dishes while he sits on the couch and reads a book. He has actually had the gall to explain to me that this is fair since he earns more money right now. (I just got my MA and am working from home until I find something open in my field... He sees no "working" in the "at home" part.) He sometimes does laundry (though I do need to run downstairs and rescue my sweaters from the dryer) and he does the lion's share of car repairs, but the message is clearly that his job is the rent, my job is be the maid, nyah nyah. I have every reason to believe that this will not change when I start my "real" job, either.

Do I call off the wedding over this? I've never been one to believe in one partner "training" the other, but some days I want to kill him. I just can't get into the heads of otherwise decent and caring men who can sit and read while their partner scrubs the bathroom.

-Jane who doesn't want to be bitter when she's old

Jane,
Honestly, if I were you, I would go to a couple's counselor and make sure you have the same expectations and ideas of what is equitable.

If you are working from home you are still working. And working from home you probably already do stuff here and there (get dinner in the oven, throw in a load of laundry, etc.) while you work. IMO, it is unacceptable for one person to sit while another person does housework unless the one sitting did his/her share already (maybe vacummed while you were at the gym or something).

Many men have been well trained to expect women to wait on them.

It has taken us a long time, but we finally have our system down. He makes money--I clean. He would clean, but it would be on his time frame, which doesn't mean it would meet the family needs.

When we were working opposite of each other so one of us was home with the babies, he was suppose to do things like the laundry. Sounds good, except his signal to do the laundry was when he ran out of underwear. So, can we all guess what was in the first couple of loads? And the rest became my job.

But a few years ago I found the Flylady system and I can get all of my housework done in 45 min. a day. He's still stuck working another 7.25 hours. I really figure I've got the better end of the deal. Now that the kids are in school, the entire day is mine to do what I want.

With Flylady, everyone in the house picks up after themselves. I think it's a different concept of who mops a floor. That doesn't mean the one who mainly "cleans" is waiting on other people or picking up after them. We all have the same level of responsibility to clean up our own messes, keeps our spaces clutter free and put items back when we are finished. I've never had to pick up after my husband. Or kids, once they were past the toddler stage. I figured if they were big enough to drop something, they were big enough to pick it back up. It really took very little work to teach the kids to pick up after themselves.

Gloria

Jane -

I wouldn't marry a man who thought it was ok to sit and read while I worked. Period.

I do not think that they amount of money earned should factor into household chores at all. I would agree that the number of hours worked is an important factor - if he's working 60 hour weeks and you're working 40 hour weeks, then it would seem equitable that he does less around the house, no matter what your salaries were.

When you say you are currently Working At Home - do you mean that you have a paid job for which the location just happens to be in your house? Or are you saying that you are a housewife at the moment? I would agree that a housewife should do more of the chores because essentaily that is her job. If you're truly working at home at a paid job (no matter the hourly rate!), then you're working just like he his and his treatment of you is not acceptable in my book.

Work is work, whether it's paid work, or household chores - and no matter if it takes place in an office building or in a home office. And no matter what the monetary value of the work, no one partner should have to carry more than half of the load on a normal basis.

If he can't understand that concept when presented in a calm and rational discussion, then I'd head for counseling - or run for the door.

-Jena

I read an article about how women shouldn't get mad at their husbands because they truly don't "see" the things that need to get done. My experience with men in general (husbands, boyfriends, friends' husbands, etc.) would seem to back that up. Until...

My mother got very ill and passed away. My father suddenly "saw" the dirty socks tossed in the corner of the room, saw that a sink needs to be scrubbed once in awhile, noticed the crumbs people dropped on the floor. And he miraculously develeloped the ability do something about this new "sight" he had - he cleaned! And he does it well, not in the incompetent "don't ask me to do this again" way most guys (in my experience) clean. His house is pretty darn clean. Cleaner than mine.

Many, many men are lazy - pure and simple. They are perfectly willing to damage their marriage and offend the person they supposedly care most about, not to mention teach their own children bad habits, because they won't get off their arses. [Notice I said "many", not "all".]

I agree, Sue. I stand by my birth order theory, but at the end of the day, they can just be lazy. My DH falls under that category. How about this, "hon, are you done with that? Please put it away, thanks." Only to find 'it' halfway to its final destination later on. I've always wondered what force stopped him halfway there, and compelled him to leave yet another task unfinished!!

Nonono... This is not a forum for bashing the lazy ones. :)

I'm not curious about why men don't do housework so much as why women *do*, regardless of how tired they are, whether they get help or not. I think the crux of the issue really comes back to us gals for "allowing" this standard of normalacy. Christy- Did your DH *ever* have to clear his own dishes at his Mom's house? Can we stop this trend at our sons?

Why is female tolerance for messiness generally so much lower? What is it that socializes us to get that way? Why do we first ask them to do chores, as a favor, instead of going straight to teasing them for being pigs? Does men's radar for dirt lower when they move in with someone or does women's actually increase? Is it the plight of non-middle children or something else? (I love that theory, btw.) :)

I know there are men out there who clean! G8rgrad98- Any honest insight on this? Do your guy friends do 90% of the house chores, too? Or do they tease you for it, or is it a non-issue?

Jena- No, I'm not a housewife. The grating part is that he has claimed he doesn't want one! It mystifies me.

You're right, I apologize to all of the un-lazy men :) As for cleaning his own plate, yeah right. I wonder how long she wiped his butt......:) Maybe it is the nurture in women. I like to please him, refill his glass, make him a good dinner (I love cooking), just little things I know he likes. He likes to buy me things. Sometimes more than I would spend on stuff, so I have to watch what I say. I mentioned a Coach Diaper Bag once, and had my sister not warned me, it would have been my Christmas present. I would have been working our budget for months!! I usually tell him that if wants to do something nice for me, empty the dishwasher! That shows that he appreciates the time I put into my day to day work, and that he wants to lighten my load. Granted, I am a SAHM now, so I'm willing to tackle the brunt of the housework. He does have a problem with finishing any job he starts, though!! Good topic Jane!

I do all the household cleaning. When we were dating, we each lived in our own apartment. I thoroughly cleaned mine once a week. I was so thorough I even washed my phone! When I visited him, I noticed he was slobby, a real Oscar Madison type. He piled dirty dishes in the sink and only washed them when he ran out of plates and glasses. His bed was never made. And his toilet had the most disgusting ring. Once he got sick. I went over to cook some meals for him and spent the whole day cleaning. It looked just as bad within 2 weeks. When I met his parents, I was surprised to see his Mom kept their house as neat as a pin. I found out she had never taught him to clean, he never had any chores to do, because she liked things done her way. After we got married, I asked him to help with the housework, but he refused. When I was very pregnant, I asked him to wash the kitchen floor in the house we were renting. He said no, I don't own the floor, I won't wash it. Well, we've owned a hoome for 26 years and I am still picking up after him and doing all the cleaning. I blame his mother for not training him, and myself for not re-educating him. To his credit, he does do most of the grocery shopping and a lot of the cooking. Just my story.

I have to say that my own standards aren't that high and I have a higher clutter tolerance than many women I know... perhaps it's just a matter of finding a guy with dirt/clutter tolerances similar to your own?

My MIL did NOT teach my DH to clean. I can guarantee it. Why? Because the woman has no idea how to clean her own house. So where did DH get it? Not from his first wife, she's a huge slob if her current house is anything to judge by... so I don't know. I think he just has in-born sense of fairness which tells him to work if I'm working.

I will add that he doesn't always know what needs doing, so there is some of that "I don't see the dirt" typical man thing in him - but at least he'll ask what I want done... So maybe that means that he adapts his level of dirt-tolerance to my own. Of course, sometimes I have to bite my tongue because he's not doing something the way I would do it... and I've learned that in most cases it's ok if he does it his own way. I used to get irritated because he couldn't remember to fold the towels the way I want them folded - now he doesn't fold towels. That's the only chore I can think of that he will really resist doing.

My DH had to learn to do everything when his late wife was terminally ill. He worked full time but still managed to do the laundry and most of the cooking. They always had a cleaning lady, once a week for the major stuff, but he did everything else.

When we got married I said I would do the housework. I knew what he'd been through and knew he hated doing laundry and other cleaning chores. So we made a deal. I do 90% of the cleaning, including laundry, but he likes to vacuum, so I gladly let him do it and he does a nice job. He also LIKES to wash dishes, especially pots and pans.

I guess I'm lucky.

I am young-ish (28) and so is my husband, so I think that we have a very different marriage than we would if we were from a different generation. My husband cleans and straightens instinctively, with no direction from me.

In fact, I have to confess that my husband is a far tidier person than me. Any clutter in our house sits for a day or so before mysteriously disappearing, no thanks to me. He rearranges the pantry any time it gets cluttered (the same with the linen closet and the garage and the basement), straightens the couch pillows daily, folds the towels in the bathroom beautifully, and tidies clutter magnets like the dining room table. Also, he does all the household ironing, most of the laundry, and at least half the dishes.

That being said, I see dirt and he doesn't. Gummy countertops are invisible to him, so are dirty sinks, dusty baseboards, and nasty light-fixtures. So I am the primary cleaner and he is the primary straightener. These two tasks consume roughly the same amount of time, so I would say we are very much splitting the chores.

I would also say that this is true for all the couples our age that we know: they really do split the chores pretty evenly.

Anyone want to weigh in on this? I'm wondering if other young wives and girlfriends feel the same way, or am I just lucky! :)

I am 29 :) Christy

(at least for 2 more months)

Thanks xantippe, I wish it were true but I'm 28, too. My younger sister's got it worse than I do (three jobs and all the cooking/cleaning while he plays video games), and she's just 22. And all of my friends my age have the same kind of issues. (One of my girlfriends even seems to get high on cleaning for her guy, but I can get my head around that since she doesn't work besides that.) Sounds like you're in a lucky group of friends!

You do bring up a good point about clutter vs dirt, though. My dirt tolerance is far, far lower than my clutter tolerance. I have an aunt and uncle who used to fight horribly after my aunt spent the day "cleaning" (like scrubbing floors) and my uncle came home and complained about the "mess" (like stacks of magazines on the coffee table)... it took them years to sort out that she was talking about dirt and he was talking about clutter. My own Dear Fiance will drip something sticky all over the kitchen floor but then freak out if I leave a stack of paperwork in the environs of the computer desk. What's up with that? (Like Christy's DH he likes to leave dishes halfway to the sink though... apparently dishes don't clutter the bookshelf.)

Any other thoughts on this?

My DH and I both work the same hours (at the same place).

I did 98% of the housework, while DH does 75% of the yardwork. He does empty wastecans and feeds the fish on his own - but that's it. He does the "YARD" work, but I take care of all flowerbeds. I say that I "did" 98% of the housework, because we now have a lady that cleans our house. I just got fed up one day after spending an hour scrubbing the bathroom. It was clean 30 minutes and DH decided he just HAD to trim his beard. After spending another hour cleaning the mess he had made, I told him that until he can clean up after himself or at least acknowledge that I clean the house, he can pay for a maid.

He never sees any messes he creates, but he does notice clutter (for the most part) and will pick up after himself since I implemented the 3 Day Rule (if it's not where it lives in 3 days, it goes in the garbage).

I also do all the cooking and laundry.

BTW - for the theory - I am an only child and DH his is older of 2 boys. MIL never made them do any housework or yardwork.

Wow, you know I just noticed this, but I'm talking about growing up at one's _Mom's_ house (not parents') and whether one's _Mom_ (not parents) taught us to do housework... The whole "Mom does housework" perspective is pretty ingrained.

Thanks for all your stories!

In general - I'm inside & DH is outside. That said, he does way more than his share inside too. If he sees something that needs to be done, he just does it. I rarely do anything on the outside - we've got acreage + our summers are brutal. He's definitely got the worst of the deal.....