We’ve needed an APW post about dividing up chores and household responsibilities for a while now, and I’ve really dragged my feet about writing one. Why? Well, unlike lots of you, in our house I’m the one who’s really untalented in the chore department, so I felt like I shouldn’t write the post. Until I realized that maybe that made me the *perfect* person to write the post, since I could see it from both sides.
So, before we dive into my thoughts about dividing household responsibilities, let me talk a little about how it is in our house. There are a lot of things I do fairly well: make money, make sure the bills get paid, keep things tidy. In fact, I grew up in a messy house, and as a result, I’m a compulsive tidier. When the house is a mess I feel like I’m slowly going insane, so I make sure the house stays very neat (David is not so good at this bit). What I’m terrible at is cleaning, not to mention cooking. (I know, I just said I was bad at cooking. The Lady-blog-o-sphere might fire me.)
In our house, David runs the ship in terms of actual cleaning, which means I sometimes find myself ordered to mop a floor, hyperventilating because I’m confused about how to do it. He also runs the ship when it comes to cooking (which is good, because he adores it and is good at it), and I handle the vigorous eating, complimenting, and the cleaning up. That’s our imperfect deal. Really, we should probably have a chore wheel, but we’ve never gotten around to it. Our real dream is to one day have a cleaning person. In the meantime, our house is presentable and we’re generally happy(ish).
So with that, lets dive into chores, divvying them up, and busting myths (as written by the lousy one at chores).
Cleaning Myths
Myth #1: It’s not help if you have to ask for it
This is the comment I hear most often around APW. It usually goes like this, “I love my partner, and (s)he means well, but I always have to ask him for help. That makes me feel like it’s all on my shoulders and I might as well do it myself.”
Here is the thing (are you ready?): your partner can’t read your mind. If you’re dealing with the chore problem in the first place, chances are they are not very good at the chores in question. They are not quite sure how you clean a toilet (even if you’ve showed them), or how often a toilet needs to be cleaned, or when it’s been cleaned according to your standards. This means they are probably not going to volunteer to clean a toilet (they are not stupid, that would just be throwing themselves into the lion’s mouth). Until you get a system in place, you’re going to need to ask for help, and that’s a great thing. We should all get BETTER at asking our partners for help, not worse. Asking for help means you’re good at communicating your needs, not that your partner doesn’t love you.
Myth #2: (S)He’s not that good at it, so I just have to do it over anyway
Y’all, for those of us that didn’t grow up trained in the art of chores, chores are: unpleasant (just like they are for everyone), embarrassing (because how were we supposed to know that you didn’t clean the inside of a toilet with a scrub brush?), and scary (because we get yelled at for not doing them right). This is not a particularly compelling mix.
If we gather our nerve, and our scrub brushes, and dive into doing chores, and Every Single Time our partner comes along behind us and tells us we did it wrong and does it over, guess what? We’re going to stop doing chores altogether. All that unpleasantness and then it’s done over any way? Just do it your d*mn self, since you know how you want it done.
So here is what I’m allowing you: when your partner is learning a chore, you can give them one simple suggestion each time. “Hey honey, you know, most people don’t clean toilets with scrub brushes. Why don’t you try this toilet bowl scrubber.” If you want to super sneakily improve upon the chore when your partner is out of the house, you can, but you might not want to mention that you did. They will get better, but you have to encourage them.
Myth #3: (S)He’s just not that into cleaning
This is the kicker of all myths. I’ve heard people in the comments say over and over again, “Well, I need to do all the cleaning, because my partner is just not that into cleaning. He leaves his dishes on the living room floor, and that’s all he’s interested in doing.” Because here is the thing: Are you interested in living in a generally tidy house? Is (s)he interested in keeping your rage-full monster self at bay? Then (s)he just got interested in cleaning.
This is the crux of what marriage is about. We’re into keeping our partners happy. We’re into growing as people so that we’re better partners. So if your partner isn’t that interested in cleaning, I suggest you go home and sit down and have a conversation where you explain that you’re not that interested in picking up after them, so the two of you are going to work this out. Now.
Your Game Plan
Have A Game Plan
You may need to keep asking your partner for help no matter what, but it will really help if you sit down and come up with some ground rules. Maybe you clean the house together every Sunday. Maybe you draw up a list of all the chores that need to be done (and how often), and you divide them up. This is helpful because it gives your partner a really clear idea of what to expect, and a feeling that the rules are not going to change on them every two seconds, and that they have to keep reading your mind on a subject they know very little about.
Embrace Roles (Even If They Change)
One of the things that makes household chores such a tinderbox is gender roles. It’s really easy to get caught up in the endless cycle of thinking, “If I’m a woman, and I do the cooking what does that MEAN?” If you and your partner have divided chores along the lines of who is good at what, or a random distribution of the chores that everyone hates… then it doesn’t mean anything. Cooking is only oppressive if you’re feeling oppressed by it. Cooking is not oppressive because you’re a woman. And if you start hating cooking? Switch. You can keep changing your minds on roles forever.
That said, there are good things about clear roles, even if they change over time. I’m supposed to do the dishes every single night. It’s my job. On nights that I get David to help me out, he doesn’t say, “Well of course I’ll do them, the dishes are everyone’s responsibility.” He says, “You owe me one.” And I do. It’s really helpful that I understand that, because it makes us fight less.
Remember To Ask For Help
Even with all this, you’re going to have to keep asking for help. Chores are going to continue to be unpleasant, embarrassing, and scary for the near term, so come Sunday morning, you may need to play cheerleader, “We’re going to clean the house together, and it’s not going to be that bad.” And remember, a little grumbling is par for the course.
Let Them Screw It Up (and be proud of themselves)
Remember how I said you can’t walk behind your partner re-doing all their chores? Well, for serious, you can’t. You need to give them a chore, trust them with it, and then compliment them when they work hard and do it wrong. They are learning. I know chores seem easy if you’ve done them all your life, but trust me, if you haven’t, they aren’t. So when your partner proudly shows you the tub that (s)he just spent 45 minutes cleaning and still looks like a mess to you? Remember, it looks really clean to them, and they worked hard on it. So give them a hug, and tell them good job. The more you do this, the more often they’ll clean the tub, and the better and faster at it they will become.
Lower Your Standards
If your standards for a clean house look nothing like your partner’s standards for a clean house, it’s possible you’ll have to meet in the middle somewhere (or divide and play to your strengths). I like a neater house than David does, so I do most of the tidying. It’s not always as neat as I would like, but we work at it, and I live. David likes a cleaner house than I do. That means he heads up the cleaning effort, and it’s not always as clean as he wants. But we’re getting better all the time. Are our standards lower together than they would be apart? Maybe. But combined, we make a pretty good team, and that’s good enough for me.
So chores. And gender. And household responsibilities. Lets do this thing. Discussion, on.
THANK YOU. I have been waiting for this post for months! I didn’t know what it would look like, but you hit all of my issues.
Asking for help is the big thing for me. Chris does this thing where he jokingly accuses me of nagging when I ask him to do a chore. When I ask him if he really thinks I’m being unfairly demanding, he says no, he’s just kidding – but then he does it again the next time. Ladies (and gentlemen?), how do you deal with the perception that asking for help is nagging? How do you make it more pleasant?
February 10, 2011 4:50 am
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Oh, that sounds so frustrating! My partner doesn’t quite accuse me of nagging, but I’m so worried he will that I think I project all kinds of bad feelings onto him. I’m working on recognizing my guilt as something that comes from me and my fears about my role in our relationship, not something that comes from him.
Right now I’m focusing on trying to recognize times when I do something that goes against my immediate inclinations in order to help him out, and how I feel about it. This doesn’t need to be a chore in the domestic sense–I’m talking things like going out at night to meet his friends at a bar, even though it’s freezing out and socializing makes me anxious, and I’d really rather be at home reading a book, and why can’t he just chill out and READ like I do? For the first, say, 20 minutes of our expedition, I’m crabby and cold and thinking about all the reading I could be doing and feeling anxious about what I’m going to say to these people I have nothing in common with. And then I chill out and end up having a good time, and I feel glad I went out and grateful that he encouraged me to do something that seemed slightly unpleasant but was, in fact, satisfying and good for my life and for our relationship.
This is, I think, kind of how cleaning goes. I’m usually the one who gets motivated to clean before he does (though not always), and he is often reluctant to get started, but afterward he, too, enjoys having a clean house and feels satisfied to have cleaned it. In the same way that he contributes to our relationship by encouraging me to socialize even when it’s cold and I’m nervous, I contribute to our relationship by cleaning and encouraging him to clean even when we’re feeling kind of lazy and would prefer to just go to bed already. I don’t resent him for pushing me socially–I see it as one of his strengths, even if it is sometimes difficult for me. So why the heck can’t good housekeeping be a strength I bring to the relationship? (The answer, I think, has a lot to do with ingrained cultural notions of women’s work, which is pretty effed up.)
So I guess my approach is a lot more conceptual than practical. But I often find it more effective to examine and alter my attitudes toward a situation rather than going all-out to change it, particularly if it involves a combination of necessary facts (the house must be cleaned) and habits that are hard to change (your partner accusing you jokingly of nagging).
February 10, 2011 5:08 am
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Thank you, Kira. Between what you just said about good housekeeping being a strength to bring to a relationship & the post above, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. We just had the biggest, most ridiculous argument over taking out the trash last night!
Thanks–I’m going to go be a rational person again.
February 10, 2011 5:54 am
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Oh! I wish I could say this “Thanks–I’m going to go be a rational person again” and do it. Sometimes my irrationality just consumes me. Eek!
February 11, 2011 7:55 pm
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Frankly, I don’t think that the nagging “joke” is funny at all, and I’d tell him so. Repeatedly making that comment signals to you that managing the household is completely your responsibility, and that he’s just “helping”. It’s like when the mom asks the dad for babysitting help. Running a household and rearing a child are mutual responsibilities.
I’d sit down with him and put together a list of things that need to be done and divvy out responsibility together. It’s up to him when he does it. If he doesn’t do it by an agreed on schedule, then there are consequences, whatever works for your family.
February 10, 2011 5:11 am
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I get the “nagging” comment from time to time. Oddly, though, I don’t get it when I’m actually nagging ;)
I agree with sitting down to review what needs to be done. I’ve also once or twice reminded my Fiancee that I’m going to be his wife. And his partner. And I’m not his mother, maid or caretaker.
I’ve found that it works to talk to him about everything that’s bothering me. Instead of always offering to help, I sometimes offer to barter “Hey, I’ll take care of XYZ chore that you really hate to do if you would be willing to do ABC for me.” Or, have discussions about how to handle things when they don’t actually need to be handled (talk about the house cleaning schedule when the house is actually clean…so it’s not always “Please clean the toilet.” it’s “We should clean the toilet once a week…” or whatever). That way, it’s discussed and agreed upon at a time that is not the moment that it needs to get done, you know?
February 10, 2011 7:06 am
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A couple possibilities:
1) Straight-up honesty. “When you joke that I’m nagging it really bothers me.”
2) Doing it first. “I don’t want to sound like I’m nagging, but would you…”
3) Putting the solution in his court. “How would you like me to tell you when I need help so it doesn’t sound like I’m nagging?”
February 10, 2011 8:44 am
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Perfect. I especially like 1 & 3 because they address the problem at hand, while #2 reinforces that your partner is justified in accusing you (however jokingly) of nagging.
February 10, 2011 12:29 pm
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I would add to this: name his behavior. Tell you why it bothers you. Suggest a behavior you would prefer:
Ex. When you accuse me of nagging, it hurts me and makes me feel that cleaning our home is my responsibility. In the future, it would be really helpful if you could try to see us as a team who are keeping our house clean together and be more supportive of my efforts to get you involved.
February 10, 2011 1:38 pm
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Nagging is as much HOW you say something as WHAT you say.
At one point I was at my wits end with this very issue and my then-husband. In desperation, tried writing down my requests for help, and re-read them a few days later while tidying up (and fuming, because I was tidying up. Again.). Wow, was that eye opening and not in a good way. What sounded like a simple and fair request for help in my head was actually a badly veiled complaint by the time it got out of my mouth. It wasn’t the words themselves, it was the tone of voice. I got a lot more careful about how I asked for help, and he got a lot better about helping when I asked.
February 10, 2011 9:28 am
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My in-laws do this and it works great. They also write little encouraging, grateful notes to go with requests. There is something so sweet about getting up in the morning and seeing a note thanking you for a yummy dinner.
February 10, 2011 12:31 pm
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I love that idea!
February 10, 2011 5:35 pm
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About a year after we moved in together, I asked G how I could ask or remind him to do things without us both feeling like I’m nagging. He said “write it down”. So I do. If we need something from the shops and he’s passing them later, I text him. If there are jobs at home that he said he’d do or that I think he’d do better than me, I write it on our kitchen board. It works both ways, he also puts jobs for me on there too. The best thing about this is that it avoids my worry about how to ask without sounding like a nag and it avoids the uncomfortable conversation when I get all coy about asking and make a long-winded deal out of it and and he gets defensive. Win win!
It is possible that we are, to a degree, avoiding the adult conversation we should be having but to us it feels like a neat way round one of the conversations that triggers arguments for us. Stuff gets done – eventually – we’re both still adjusting on this one, and no-one gets strangled.
February 10, 2011 9:30 am
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My husband has also commented on how he likes the ‘writing it down’ method. I’m used to it because I’m so forgetful that I use that for myself, and now we have a running list for the house. It’s great.
February 10, 2011 10:57 am
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We go one step further technology-wise and text each other. Notes and lists always seem to get lost or left behind at our house. Probably because it’s such a mess :)
But yeah, when I’m working and Husband is at home he’ll send me “We’re out of beer/milk/Cheez-Its” texts and I’ll pick something up on the way home. Same way, if I’ve reached my dirty dishes pile limit I’ll shoot him a text when I get to the office that says “Almost didn’t make it to work – Dishes avalanche almost blocked the Pass.”
It helps us feel less oppressed by the drudgery to make the messages a little silly.
February 10, 2011 1:20 pm
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Oh, I love cheez-its. Can I also text you when I’m out? I can’t get them up here in Canada. :)
February 11, 2011 10:46 am
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My husband actually refuses to do something when I ask him, because the asking bothers him. Then I stab him in the eyes, and THAT really starts a fight.
Seriously though, we need to work something out.
I totally fail at #2, though. When dishes are still dirty after washing? I’m like “What the hell is this?”
Moral: don’t marry grumpy Italian ladies like me.
February 10, 2011 11:25 am
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Thanks for the great laugh! I always have the same reaction and only recently have been able to stop the verbal-diarrhea which I’m so accustomed to. I’ve tried to say this a bit more politely, but I think I still need to be much more subtle.
February 10, 2011 1:39 pm
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I used to have this problem all the time! My husband is super bad at seeing the mess around the house. Unless it’s a pile or dirty dishes or laundry, it’s somehow not visible to him. True story, once I had people coming home with me after work. My husband was home, so I called and asked him to do a quick scan/tidy.
He did the dishes, but LEFT MY BRA on the sofa. sigh
So we’ve come to a deal. I am not allowed to get pissed that he doesn’t see what I see. And, on the flip side, he’s not allowed to call me a nag for asking him to pick things up. It took a while for this to work on both ends (three years?), but I think we’ve finally gotten there.
February 11, 2011 9:30 am
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I’m terrible at tidy. So is my husband. We’re both pretty good at cleaning, though we don’t do it as often as we should. I don’t mind cleaning, but I HATE tidying, because every time I tidy? It’s a project, because everything is a cluttered mess. (You should see my desk at work.) I tell myself if we had a bigger place it would be “easier,” but I’m sure that’s a lie. (Except, we probably would have cocktail parties more often, which would force us to tidy up.)
For cooking, he does most of it, because I’m a disaster in the kitchen. I help – I cut vegetables (sometimes), I make rice (if we’re doing stir fry, which we do a lot), I do all of the dishes, etc. It’s an even split, and it works for us.
February 10, 2011 4:52 am
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We have a bigger place, and honestly, it’s just meant more things to clutter. I feel like shelling out the money for good storage solutions would help. For real even. The storage we have bought has helped immensely.
February 10, 2011 7:06 am
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Oh my gosh, The Container Store. The Container Store!!!!
February 10, 2011 7:51 am
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We’ve started doing this, and it HAS helped immensely.
February 10, 2011 4:46 pm
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The only way to get rid of clutter is to get rid of it! Seriously, rearranging and adding more space just rearranges your clutter and gives you more space for more clutter.
But if it doesn’t seem to bother either one of you, do you really need to bother with tidying?
February 10, 2011 8:21 am
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It actually DOES bother me. I go through phases where I say, “THAT’S IT, EVERYTHING IS GETTING TOSSED.” Except now half the stuff isn’t mine to toss. Erm.
(Not to say he doesn’t ever tidy his stuff … he does. He’s better at it than me, actually. But he also is very particular about keeping certain paper clutter or recycling it. Our building does not have recycling and because we live in a building, we’re not eligible for municipal recycling … so we have to drive an hour to recycle. It makes me see red over his need to be green.)
And you’re right – a lot of it is stuff we need to get rid of. However, a lot of the problem is, my husband is an English professor. I actually pared down my “book clutter” (donated), down to only the ones I knew I would either a. read again (and again and again, like my hardback copy of Watership Down, my all-time favorite book); or b. are special to me (i.e., my Frank McCourt and William Kennedy autographed editions). I also got a Kindle for Christmas, because I’m too instant-gratification for the Library. (I tried, for a year; I don’t like the main branch in my city, and the satellite branches have spotty hours. I didn’t make it ONCE.)
Anyway, he has other reasons for wanting his book collection, which is MASSIVE. It takes up most of our wall space in the living room. This has caused most of our problems. However, people “wanting to buy [us] wedding gifts!” actually forced us to both de-clutter and organize our space better. We’re *almost* there, but not quite. There is also all the paper clutter that we need to keep and is just not filed well – we need to work on that.
So, in the short term, more space WOULD = less clutter … but I don’t think it would work that way in the long run.
February 10, 2011 4:32 pm
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Yay, Watership Down! That’s my favorite too, and one of the few books I’ve re-read over and over again. (sorry I’m off-topic, couldn’t help myself :-D)
February 10, 2011 6:58 pm
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Girl, I hear you. My future hubby and I are both hard-core readers. I’m like you, I’ve pared my book collection down to what’s beloved and what will get reread. Haven’t quite been able to convince him to do the same.
Sounds like you’ve already made strides, though. Good luck with the rest! It’s a forever ongoing process.
February 11, 2011 7:39 am
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Ha ha ha ha…this made me laugh out loud. My husband and I have the EXACT same situation, just different books. He’s a software engineer so we have almost an entire room dedicated to his coding books that are all titled with various symbols and program names. He wants to keep them as references in case he ever needs them!
We’re also on a massive over-a-year-long project to try to get rid of “stuff.” This past Christmas we told our families to not give us gifts b/c we just cannot let anything more into the house. The only way we allow ourselves to get something new is if we get rid of something else first.
It’s AMAZING how much stuff we still manage to bring into the house.
February 16, 2011 9:34 am
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I grew up in a HUGE house and my bedroom, at least, was generally a HUGE mess. I actually like smaller spaces because:
1. There is less to mess up.
2. Smaller spaces are quicker and easier to clean.
I used to get really intimidated by my messy bedroom. But now I look at my small apartment living room and think, there’s really not that much mess, it just looks bad because it’s more mess in proportion to space.
And also, yes! My fiancé and I are both totally messy and both never clean enough. I’m happy to do the bathroom–it’s a straightforward task and I like a clean and shiny bathroom (though I guess I don’t dislike grubby dingy bathrooms enough or I’d clean it more often)–but we haven’t figured out what he can be in charge of to balance it out. Usually he just does other general cleaning while I do the bathroom, which works ok.
February 10, 2011 9:53 am
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Ha yeah, bathroom cleaning is my fave because (except for the tub), it’s quick and easy. I can do it in under a half hour, which is a bonus.
February 10, 2011 4:33 pm
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There’s another option here: outsourcing.
My husband I spent years sometimes fighting and more often just freaking out together about the cleanliness of our home, especially once we adopted a cute but constantly shedding cat. As soon as it was financially possible, we hired a cleaning service to visit our apartment once every two weeks. (We were careful to seek out a company that’s committed to treating its employees well and using environmentally friendly products whenever possible.) We’re both Megs — we can keep up the tidying in between visits, but scrubbing the floors and toilets is just beyond us. Now the dirt never gets truly terrible, and for a couple of brief moments a month our house sparkles. It is absolutely the best money we spend as a couple.
February 10, 2011 5:01 am
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I’d also add that this may be possible for you sooner than you might think. The woman we hired charges $50 to clean our (very small) apartment every other week. I bet it doesn’t take her more than an hour (it would take us far longer, especially once you factor in the procrastinating) and she works for herself, so I feel pretty good about that being a fair wage. It’s nice mostly just because neither of us much likes to clean (and so we just tend not to, leaving me not thilled with the dirty house, plus feeling guilty about not cleaning it). The relationship factors are also a plus- not just because it eliminates a potential point of tension, but also because it gives me one less thing to feel conflicted about from an “am I at risk of being constrained by gender roles” perspective. (I’d say that, overall, we contribute about the same to the household – he might do a little more because he’s more responsible about getting his share done – but I spend more time thinking/worrying about household things.)
February 10, 2011 5:15 am
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This is really something I want to look into myself. It’s not a priority/in our budget right now, but I’m hoping in the next couple of years we can do this.
February 10, 2011 4:36 pm
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Getting a cleaning person was one of the best decisions my family ever made when we were growing up. Cleaning used to drive my mother nuts. My dad and us kids would wind up angry and in tears for not doing things to her satisfaction, and she was miserable with the state of her house. We finally got a lady to come in every few weeks, and family dynamics changed dramatically. My mom became a happier person and we all got along better.
It isn’t the DIT solution that I’m sure we are talking about here, but the compromises we made (like not going out to eat or to movies) to afford the cleaning lady really worked for our family, and led to a more peaceful home.
February 10, 2011 6:45 am
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to validate you, i’d say that making a joint decision to hire something to clean is definitely a DIT solution.
February 10, 2011 7:09 am
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Ariel Gore writes in The Mother Trip about how getting a cleaner was waaaaay better value than paying a therapist.
February 10, 2011 7:53 am
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i have been wanting to get a cleaning “helper” for quite sometime. i guess the thing i worry about is finding someone who 1) will do a good job 2) we can afford. also,and i’m mostly over this one, but i feel like hiring someone to clean our incredibly small condo is a mark of failure on my part. i know its not, but cleaning feels like something i should be able to do, you know??
so two questions?
-where do you find a respectable cleaning service/person?
-what are reasonable prices?
February 10, 2011 6:59 am
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Where to find – ask neighbors, co-workers, friends, etc. That’s how I found my cleaning person. Self-employed cleaners are probably going to be cheaper than a service, although that’s not always true.
Reasonable rates – I live in the Detroit area and I pay $75 every other week to have my 1100 sq ft house cleaned (2 bathrooms, and I have a St. Bernard).
February 10, 2011 7:29 am
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We asked for recommendations from friends. I wanted someone that was trusted by people we trust, since we were giving them keys to our house. We pay $50 every other week for our approx. 600 sq ft apartment (one bathroom, tiny kitchen) in Boston – based on the very little research I did, that seems to be a good price, but not so good that it would be hard to replicate. Another person quoted us $60-80 (depending on frequency), I think, for our previous, similar-sized apartment – that might have been higher to account for the fact that there was minimal free parking in our old neighborhood. That felt a little high, though, and we didn’t hire her.
Don’t feel like a failure! I am confident that I have every ability to keep my apartment clean, and I am sure you do, too. I probably couldn’t do as good a job (in the same time frame) as the cleaning person, as she is a professional with vastly more experience, but I could definitely keep it more than clean enough. I hate cleaning, though, so I just don’t think it is a good use of my time. Think of it like comparative advantage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
February 10, 2011 7:37 am
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YES YES YES to Comparative advantage!!
February 10, 2011 8:22 am
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Jessica,
I’m in Boston and would love to know who you’re using. Could you email me? katherine dot a dot evans at gmail dot com.
Thanks!
February 10, 2011 12:36 pm
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We used to have two self-employed ladies come clean our 4 story, 6 bedroom, 3 bathroom group-house for $125 plus tip in the DC area. If you aren’t going through a service, ask friends and co-workers, put it out on FB. You aren’t signing a contract, so if you don’t like their work, you can always try someone else next time.
February 10, 2011 7:38 am
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I’m right there with ya Sarah!
I too feel like a failure for not being able to clean my freaking shower! Seriously?! Then I remember that I work and am going to graduate school, it would be totally remarkable for me to have time to clean the shower and honestly I would much rather take that time to make dinner then clean. So, we hired someone. We found her through craigslist she did a really awesome job we were able to work out a deal where we pay her half and traded for the other half of the fee, then she found out we were gay and stopped showing up… frustrating! So, now until we can find someone else I have my younger sister who is in high school and could use some cash come and clean twice a month. She isn’t a good and while it was awkward a first we’ve found a way to make it work and she knows she is a HUGE help to me and I feel good to be able to give her some fun money during her senior year.
I’ve noticed that prices differ by city, so check craigslist, see what the standard rates are and pay what you are comfortable paying. I’ve also found that it is really important to do a walk-through with the person before hand to point out any specifics you want done or to mention the sticky faucet that only turns off if you do_____. That kind of stuff is really helpful to get the results you want.
February 10, 2011 7:40 am
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I was a self-employed cleaner all through high school (because I love vacuuming and I’m a complete clean-freak) and I charged $15/hour. If you have any friends/siblings/cousins or other connections to highschoolers or college kids, you may be able to find a good and affordable cleaner. As others have said, if you try them once or twice and they can’t meet your standards, you can always find another.
I know I vastly preferred cleaning jobs to babysitting! I’m much more of a neat-freak than a play-with-babies person.
February 11, 2011 6:23 am
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So my question to this is-what do you do when your fiance is 100% against hiring someone? He sees it as a class thing (only elites have a person come in clean after them) and really strongly objects to the entire idea. That being said, he doesn’t really help with any of the cleaning as he spends crazy long hours working on the PhD.
Meanwhile, I’m drowning.
There’s work, there’s co-planning the wedding (somehow he finds time for THAT), and there’s cleaning a 3 level townhouse. I’ve tried talking to him. I’ve tried going on ‘strike’ but the grossness just drives me insane so I always cave. Help.
February 10, 2011 7:52 am
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If you fiance is totally against hiring a cleaner, maybe you should make a chore wheel. I feel like this would be a good time to bring in some outside source, like a book on negotiation, to help the conversation along. Would he do his share if his specific chores were clearly stated on a wheel or whiteboard?
This is a great conversation to have before you’re married. I’m the non-cleaner in our house, and I resisted getting help for the same reason that your fiance states. It took months of ugly fighting and me acting like a truculent child every time my beau asked me to swiffer before I realized that the easiest solution was the one I’d been fighting against all that time. I think there has to be a way for your fiance to understand that, even if he’s not 100% comfortable with the idea of help, he needs to be 100% comfortable with making you happy, and compromising on what is, ultimately, a very, very little thing. (Reading the 5 Love Languages together and discussing could be a good way into this discussion!) Good luck! This is a bizarrely hard conversation to have!
February 10, 2011 8:08 am
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I had this same running conversation with the Hubs-Elect until 2 nights ago. When in another fit to find matching socks (I have stopped matching them for him) he exclaims…”First order of business after the wedding is hiring a cleaning person!” AWWWW…Let him come to it on his own. They feel like it was their own original thought and if that doesnt work… Ask for a try out, how does he know he will hate it unless you guys try?
February 10, 2011 8:27 am
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What does he think the solution should be? Hopefully his solution is not you going insane, right? What would he say if you said, “The cleaning thing is driving me insane. What should we do?” It IS both of your problem. Like Meg said in Myth #3, he is interested in your happiness, therefore he is interested in cleaning. Maybe the two of you together will come up with some off the wall solution you never would have thought of on your own.
February 10, 2011 8:48 am
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Being Latinos ourselves, my family has tried to take the perspective that in hiring self-employed Latino cleaning ppl, we feel that we are supporting Latino small business owners. Its also nice to learn names instead of referring to someone as “the help” and remembering to treat them with the same respect and courtesy that you give a handyman, mechanic, plumber or other professional you might hire.
Sorry if thats a little off topic. Elitism is something my fiance and I discuss often being from two very different cultural backgrounds. I think part of the solution is not eliminating or distancing what makes us uncomfortable, but changing our perspectives and actions in a way that works toward making it right.
February 10, 2011 8:53 am
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I totally agree with this. I’ve found the whole thing a little bit creepy in the past, but I am currently quite comfortable with hiring someone that I 1) pay fairly and 2) treat with respect (as, of course, we should always do with anyone, but Valerie’s comment about “the help” illustrate the fact that this is historically not always the case in this particular relationship). I’m not hiring a cleaning person because I think I’m too good to clean and they aren’t, but rather because I use money (which is essentially a way to store time/effort) that I made by spending time on an activity that I enjoy (my job) to free myself from spending time on something I don’t enjoy. An alternative would be to find a job in which I worked fewer hours for a lower total compensation, and then spending my own time on cleaning, but, back to comparative advantage, above, that doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t maximize my talents and interests.
It’s a little bit like buying food – you can go and buy all raw ingredients, and then spend time washing, chopping, cooking, etc.; you can spend a bit more money to buy prepared ingredients (bagged salad, chopped vegetables), and then just spend time on cooking; or you can spend the most money and the least time and get takeout. In each of those cases, someone else is doing increasingly more work, and you are paying more, accordingly. I make different choices at different times based on how much I enjoy the particular tasks involved and how much money and time I have available at the moment in question.
February 10, 2011 9:04 am
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YES!
It’s no different than any other service we pay for. It’s a “time and money” issue.
February 10, 2011 11:20 am
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There’s a difference between doing your own dishes and putting away your own laundry, so that someone can come in and do the deep cleaning, and doing absolutely nothing for yourself and expecting the hired cleaner to pick up after you no matter what.
Explaining the difference to your guy might help. I know my husband was pretty reluctant to think about the idea (for the same perception reason) until I reminded him that we would still be doing our laundry, throwing away our trash, washing our dishes and generally tidying. If and when we get a cleaner, it would be for what my mom always called “Saturday chores”: scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen, dusting and polishing, vacuuming etc. We’ll still be doing our day-to-day things.
Putting it in that perspective helped him to make sense of it and realize we’re not looking for a maid … just help with the big tasks.
February 10, 2011 9:08 am
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Wait a second… he has a problem with the perceived classism of hiring someone to do housework, but he has no problem with the sexism inherent in having his fiancee do it all?
February 10, 2011 9:43 am
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Maybe I’m more naive, but I necessarily see sexism in lolo7835′s comment. It sounds like a case of one person’s workload may not permit time for cleaning, so the other person is picking up the slack. All of it. So maybe insensitivity or lack of awareness, but I didn’t see it being about sexism. Maybe just me?
At any rate, I thought Marina’s suggestion is a good one.
February 10, 2011 10:55 am
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Oh no! The Mr is a pretty liberated guy-but as Heather G said between teaching classes and writing his thesis (and doing all the research for said thesis), he’s exhausted and tired when he comes home. Since I tend to be home more often I have more time. I have told him that I need help with the cleaning, and he’s always very helpful, but once the cycle of coursework picks up again….well…..
I also can’t help but wonder sometimes if it’s the appearance of elitism that he worries about. I mean, how many PhD students have a cleaning person? I also really appreciate Sarah’s thought “There’s a difference between doing your own dishes and putting away your own laundry, so that someone can come in and do the deep cleaning, and doing absolutely nothing for yourself and expecting the hired cleaner to pick up after you no matter what.” I’m totally going to talk to him this weekend and about how I’m going insane and see what happens.
February 11, 2011 6:27 am
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My husband and I struggled with this before we hired someone. But ultimately, it came down to a few factors.
I am miserable when the house is too messy/dirty.
I don’t have the time to do my fair share of the cleaning at this time, and even if I did, I can think of many, many better ways to spend it.
It’s not about class, it’s about priorities. When I look at the best ways to spend my time and my husband’s, mopping is not one of them. Fighting over cleaning is not another one.
We pay $70 every other week to have a self-employed woman come in and clean (plus a new year’s bonus). She was recommended by a friend. How did we afford the extra expense? We canceled our cable/Tivo service.
And we feel really good about helping this woman make a living.
February 11, 2011 9:38 am
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I have to admit, the idea of a hiring a cleaning person makes me feel a little uncomfortable and far too privileged, but I could get on board if I knew I was supporting a small business owner who was working for themselves and I was paying them a fair wage. Now if only I could afford a fair wage! ;)
February 10, 2011 9:44 am
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Not me.
Because I remember when women stayed at home, no one expected the men to do much housework, if at all. Working was thought to be contribution enough. He did outside chores, but that never added up to the hours of housework.
So why are women stuck doing more than men used to do?
I would NEVER feel bad about getting help when I’m working full-time.
February 10, 2011 11:11 am
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It is not a “class” thing. It’s a “time” thing.
Here’s an oldie – Mary Kay, the cosmetics giant, once said that women who are in business need to hire a housekeeper if they plan to succeed in a very big way.
Think about it. She was famous for creating a multi-million dollar business at a time when only men rose to that level. She knew all those men had someone at home running the household so they could focus on scaling the heights of business. Not an option for her since she was divorced and had children to support too.
February 10, 2011 11:08 am
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I actually worked as a “self-employed” cleaning person for a friend of mine for 4 years. She grew up in a clean-freak house and if she cleaned her house and then her family messed it up she got mad at them. To save their family they agreed to hire someone. They generally hired a friend of theirs who they knew could use some extra cash. As a part-time teacher going to graduate school in the evening, I needed some extra cash. I went in for three hours once a week and dusted, cleaned counters, did the floors, and cleaned the bathrooms. I did not do dishes, laundry, taking out the kitchen trash or general tidying. They provided all the cleaning supplies.
If you are looking for someone, maybe try advertising at the local colleges. My hours with the family were flexible. If I could come on a Friday I did, if not I went on Saturday. I could change from morning to afternoon if I needed to. It’s really not a bad part-time job.
Doing that also taught me that when I get down to it, cleaning doesn’t have to take forever. I cleaned their house (2 stories, office, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) in three hours every week.
Just thought I’d throw out the perspective of the cleaner to this conversation.
February 10, 2011 10:02 am
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This will be our third week with a cleaning person. She’s just starting out working for herself, and the service she provides us is pretty amazing. In addition to the sweepingdustingscrubbing, she *does* take out the trash, and do dishes if there happen to be any, and throw in some laundry, and do occasional ironing. She comes once a week – it has been a revelation to walk into to a fully clean home!
An unintended-but-welcome consequence: I, the decidedly not-neat one, am starting to get more mindful about keeping things tidy. Not only because now I’m paying for the place to get that way, but because with everything else looking good it’s not hard to identify what needs doing — and do it — without feeling overwhelmed.
Another unexpected benefit: it turns out BF loveslovesLOVES coming home to a clean house– even though he has long *said* he doesn’t mind shouldering most of the tidying burden. One day we may have to give up our domestic goddess. If that day comes, I’ll be more aware of how much he actually *does* appreciate the extra help and act accordingly.
Last bit: for us, it really helped to do a Goodwill purge and invest in a few organizational items. We got two of those Closetmaid Cubicals and some fabric drawers. Those, too have been a revelation– great storage for things we otherwise struggled with: shoes all about, sweaters, toliet paper stored two rooms away, an overflowing medical and first aid cabinet, etc.
February 10, 2011 2:24 pm
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Alright, so I hired a cleaning person the month BEFORE our wedding. It was the best. Our house was clean when the hordes of people came over to help with pre-wedding stuff and I wasn’t stuck cleaning or being embarrassed or anything of the sort. We pay $90 for one cleaning visit per month, living in D.C. in a 1200 sqft apartment in the city.
My mom used to clean offices for money on the weekends when we were kids and she’d always bring us along to help vacuum or dust or whatever and we could see how proud she was after an office was finished. I never felt guilty about hiring a cleaning person because I know that the money goes to real people. In this economy, I’m proud to be able to support jobs for people who really need them. Also, a clean house makes me sane and I’m TOTALLY unprepared to spend the time or psychological energy worrying about whether my house is clean. I’m also not very good at it. (No, the dear husband doesn’t understand the first thing about why cleaning is better than sitting in filth. And he’d argue that an unclean house is “just fine.” Which would kill me if we had to have that talk again. Ever. Ever. We’ve had it quite enough times thankyouverymuch.)
So recently, my mom has come up on hard times. Hrm…what did we decide to do? We made the uber controversial decision to offer our house cleaning job to MY MOM. (I know! It was intense to even think about at first!) In the end, though, I thought about some things. First, if we lived how people used to live, we’d be supporting my mom and she’d be helping around the house enjoying some family-supported version of retirement. In fact, I think the best kinds of households in any era and in any country are the ones where there are generations of people working together to achieve overarching financial security for the whole family. **By working together.**
I know it’s controversial, but I’m really pleased with the decision. And she accepted the job offer. And now we’re talking about fully supporting her retirement by hiring her as our at-home daycare provider; we’re planning to try and get pregnant next year, so the timing could work out well for her plans, too.
I have to say – I know it isn’t for every couple and every mom, but my mom cleans better than I ever will. And she derives a sense of satisfaction from it that I never will. And the same is probably true of day-to-day childcare. If this isn’t as viable an answer for that ever-present question of “who is the wife to the modern-day wife – who VERY clearly needs her own 1950s-style wife?”…then maybe I could hear from the commenters why not? I’m hoping this works out for everyone involved and that we really do find a way to work together to meet our common goal of security and happiness (and community!) for each of us.
February 22, 2011 7:23 am
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YES! Someday, when we make real money, I am definitely in favor of hiring someone to help with keeping the house clean. Because, you know, we both work full time as it is, and I want to come home to my house and not work anymore. The class/elitism implications of “hiring help” used to give me pause, but in thinking about it, I would be delighted to provide someone with that income and employment if my income allowed. It is another way of sharing the wealth by giving back to your local economy.
In the meantime, since we can’t afford outside help right now, I will say this. Buying a Roomba was the best thing we ever did for our relationship. We bought it as a mutual dating anniversary present which made BH very nervous after I shared with him the story of when my dad bought my mom a new vacuum. She wanted a new vacuum, but not as an anniversary present, and I think you can probably imagine the rest. That story is legend. But I digress – since we agreed that we both wanted a Roomba, and we usually set aside some joint money for an anniversary celebration/present, that’s what we decided to do.
Seriously guys, that little robot changed our chore gripes forever. We have hardwood floors and a dog that completely blows out his coat twice/year and oh man, we have weather patterns of dog hair in our apartment. Vacuuming every day really sucks (ha!), and we used to get really pissy at each other about it, but now we don’t have to vacuum because the robot does.
I feel almost the same way about having a slow-cooker. We both like to cook, but there are some days when it’s just too much. If we can anticipate those days we just throw a bunch of stuff and some chicken broth in the slow cooker before we leave for work and come home to delicious soup/stew.
So in our case, we can’t afford to outsource, but we can afford to automate (and dammit my next apartment WILL have a dishwasher, because there’s really no reason to have to do that ourselves in this day and age). It is a good thing.
Now our weekly chores are cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. And doing the laundry. We can usually manage to divvy that up without killing each other. We should probably dust more often but neither of us cares enough to fret about it.
February 10, 2011 3:14 pm
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Amazing post. I was so relieved to read myth #1. I feel like whenever I ask for help or point out chores my fiance could do, I’m a nag. But if I leave it to him to notice that the recycling is overflowing, I go crazy and get passive aggressive. He’s mentioned that I’m really not a nag if I ask him to do something, and it’s great to see here that it’s not uncommon to have a problem asking for help with these things.
I also like the “game plan” and “embracing roles” points. Not all chores have to be shared. I actually like cooking and grocery shopping (plus I’m good at looking for deals), so I take over most food-related activities. I’m pretty clueless when it comes to our car, so my fiance gets the oil changed and makes sure our brakes don’t die. It seems a little gender-based, but that’s what works for us. And I think that’s being a modern couple should be about–finding your strengths and weaknesses and working to make yourselves an overall happy and successful couple.
February 10, 2011 5:03 am
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You’re definitely not a nag because this is so true!
“Are you interested in living in a generally tidy house? Is (s)he interested in keeping your rage-full monster self at bay? Then (s)he just got interested in cleaning.”
Sometimes I feel bad for nagging. If he thinks I’m being unfair, I find a nicer/better way to ask. Because making him feel bad about cleaning is a sure way for him to NOT want to clean.
February 10, 2011 6:15 am
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Good point about finding the right way to ask! A certain tone or phrase can make anyone feel like they’re pushed into a chore. Asking nicely or a gentle reminder makes your partner feel like they’re being helpful.
February 10, 2011 6:41 am
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I’ve had a lot of trouble asking for help in the past, but lately I’ve been using a different tactic. In the mornings I’ll tell him that I’ve started loading the dishwasher but haven’t finished it, or that I’ve run the dishwasher but it needs to be unloaded (for example). More often then not, when I get home in the evenings he’s finished the task. I like talking to him about chores this way because it feels like a “household update” and not a plea for help. If he forgets or doesn’t get to it I don’t take it as personally- there’s no “i asked him for help and he didn’t do it so he must not care about my needs” drama.
February 10, 2011 7:18 am
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Point #1 really spoke to me. Just a few days ago, I was complaining to my husband that if I have to ask him to do housework, it feels like the onus of cleaning is still on me. And then it turns into a gender-role dilemma and I just shut down..but it’s cleaning the bathroom! And the dishes! Not that big a crisis in the long run, especially as he takes care of the food shopping and cooking.
I was going to email this post to my husband in a “see, I’m right” kind of way, but instead I emailed it in a “argh, I need to acknowledge that I can be a crazy person” way. And that’s why I love this website – it makes us acknowledge what we can both be doing better.
February 10, 2011 10:48 am
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Thanks for mentioning the scrub brush for the toilet bowl dilemma, because that is one of our cleaning issues: differing strategies. My fiance more or less freaked out the first time I used Pledge on a non-wood surface, and I had to show him the little pictures on the back of the can that say it is OK to do that. Similarly, he had to teach me to beat our doormat and sink-adjacent area rug on the porch; I’d been trying to use a vacuum on them with little success. Cleaning is just another way that couples come into sharing a life with different ideas about how to live. It can be a struggle, but it can be great to learn from each other.
February 10, 2011 5:04 am
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Ha, my husband looked at me like I was crazy when I used pledge on our leather furniture. Its actually a really good way to condition the leather (and less messy than saddle soap), but he always had cloth couches growing up so it looked totally weird to him.
February 10, 2011 6:08 am
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This is one of our biggest issues too. It has been a long road but we’re finally coming around. I have tried recommending better ways to clean a bathroom (as in not using paper towels and water to clean the sink). However, it does come across as nagging and the boy often shuts down. I know I have to get better at my suggestions and the tone I use. Better that he’s finally cleaning the bathroom, right? His response was always, “You have your way and I have mine.” Problem was things weren’t being disinfected. They were just surface clean. It’s definitely important to understand that there are right ways to ask for help or give tips and their are wrong ways.
February 19, 2011 7:48 am
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I’ve got to bigtime disagree with you on Myth #1. It is NOT help if you are the only one thinking of and managing what needs to be done. For the first five months of our marriage, my husband never did any cleaning or cooking, even though I asked him to do specific things. Another example: the first time he offered to put a lunch together for me was last week, which is seven months after we married. Being responsible for half of the home stuff is definitively *not* waiting for someone else to tell you when things need to be done; it is looking around and doing what needs to be done without prompting. I understand that people have different standards, but you come to a mutual standard by talking or what we did: we spent a day cleaning the house so that everyone was happy, thereby setting a mutual standard, and then took pictures to document.
I’ve found that I am not nearly as resentful after it finally got through to my husband that I am not his maid or his mother, and that he was not carrying his weight when it comes to housework. Now that he is doing his portion of the work, I find myself more inclined and able to pay attention to my housework weaknesses. My husband is not as skilled at cooking or cleaning as I am.I hope he gets better in time, but it’s much more important that he a) try and b) take off my plate some of that organizational thinking that I would have to otherwise do.
February 10, 2011 5:06 am
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It’s entirely possible I just misinterpreted what Meg was saying (I’m sure she’ll clarify if I have!) but I got the impression in Myth #1 that she wasn’t really referring to a partner who literally does nothing to help around the house, ever, without being asked, but rather a partner who sometimes just needs to be reminded to do specific chores. You mention that your husband still wouldn’t do anything, even when you asked, and I totally agree that that’s a problem that needs to be addressed at a deeper level and definitely warrants a solid discussion about why that’s unfair. However I agree with Meg that if your partner just needs a quick reminder and (s)he’s on his/her feet helping out, that’s not a negative thing.
February 10, 2011 5:16 am
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I don’t disagree with you or Meg, but I’ve got a semantic disagreement with the discussion of Point 1. I think it IS help when you have to ask for it, but sometimes that’s ALL it is. It is him/her HELPING you with YOUR responsibility. Because if I’ve got to figure out what needs to be cleaned, set aside the time for us both to do it, ask him to set aside the time, make sure we have cleaning products (because they’re not on his radar) and spend the afternoon telling him what to do (“Oh, you’re done vacuuming? Ok, dust the living room next.”), then sure, he’s helping me – but helping me with something that is entirely my responsibility. And while that’s better than it being entirely my responsibility and my having to do it all myself, it is not good enough.
When David helps with the dishes, he doesn’t take ownership of that chore – he owes you one because dishes are your responsibility. If you always have to ask for help with everything, it’s ALL your responsibility, and your partner is always going to be in the position of “doing you a favor” every time he/she does anything around the house, and never taking ownership of any of the chores – leaving you with ownership of all of them.
February 10, 2011 5:26 am
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Hmm. Good point. I have to agree with you. I think a big part of it is if you’re (not you specifically, just “you” in general) reworking the way you and your partner are doing chores, it probably has to be dealing with lots of the issues Meg has raised. Sure, if the only thing you change is asking for help, it absolutely is still all your responsibility. But if you also have conversations about responsibilities, and why you care about chores and why they don’t, and divide up roles and encourage each other, etc…. I really think those responsibilities would start shifting.
February 10, 2011 5:57 am
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Speaking as someone who is really a dim bulb about these things, I think that, unfortunately, you may just have to accept that you need to teach your partner, and it may take a little time and repetition. And/or make a list, print it out, and put it up somewhere so that you don’t need to tell him every week or however often you clean. Although I also think that your semantic argument is pretty interesting, and I’m wondering if I could switch my brain around somehow by adopting that way of thinking. If I think about it in terms of I need to keep the apartment clean and my husband is only helping me, I wonder if I will be more pro-active. Pulling the old switcheroo here. I like the idea of taking ownership.
February 10, 2011 9:43 am
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Thanks OPTATHY, this is exactly what I was thinking. To me, the most important issue with chores is the mental energy. I don’t want to give up part of my brain to constantly monitoring how clean (or messy) our apt is and “rounding up the troops” to clean it. It helps to have a mutually agreed on system (every Saturday X,Y,Z will be cleaned, every night A,B,C will be completed before bed, etc) but I think it’s also important to not let yourself always be the judge of how clean it needs to be. My fiance and I take turns being “in charge” (usually based on who has more energy that day) which works pretty well for us. When I’m in charge I know the place will get completely clean to my standards. When he’s in charge I know I can zone out to Kardashians and just worry about whatever chores he gives me instead of monitoring the whole apartment. Plus, we have different ideas about which chores are essential (if it was up to me, we would never mop the floors. If it was up to him, the sink would have dried food particles stuck to it all the time), so when we take turns everything is getting clean at some point.
February 10, 2011 6:45 am
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@Kayleigh Amen. I’m completely stuck on the mental energy thing.
In all our previous conversations about cleaning. the resolution has been that I’ll just ask him to do the cleaning that I’d like him to do. But that leaves me still holding all the mental energy and planning and it’s really starting to bug. It’s still my bag, he just does it when asked.
I think the chore wheel/schedule is going to be the way forward. I need to outsource my mental energy spent on cleaning and put it in a place where we both are responsible for it.
February 10, 2011 7:25 am
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Another thing that works well for my fiance and me is to divide up responsibility rather than the chore itself. He hates grocery shopping, so I monitor our food situation and make a trip to the store when we need groceries. Sometimes he comes with me, or meets me afterward to help carry bags, but he doesn’t have to use the mental energy of monitoring the fridge or making up a list. I hate garbage/recycling duty, so my fiance manages that. I like that 0% of my brain goes to thinking about whether the trash is too full or whether it needs to go out tonight before rain storm tomorrow, etc. Sometimes when he’s taking it out, I’ll grab a bag and help, but there’s no resentment involved.
There’s a big mental shift involved in dividing up Responsibility instead of Work, and it really does change the dynamic. I think when one partner is nagging the other to clean, or even nicely distributing duties, there’s a sense that that partner has a stronger ownership of the home.
February 10, 2011 7:48 am
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Well, thats why I brought up setting up systems. But I still think the bottom line is that, if one partner is weaker at something (say me and caring for cars), you’re going to ask for help and keep asking for it for a while. You need to drill into them that it’s their responsibility too, but asking for help is not the enemy. WE all have to ask our partners for things, and all of our partners have areas of weakness. Asking for help is what we do while they are improving.
February 10, 2011 7:45 am
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I think this is a good point, but it’s really the one thing I’ve got major issues with because my guy isn’t strong at anything cleaning-wise! His mother always did it growing up – he didn’t even know what a duster was for! At my house, everyone knew how to do everything. Everyone cleaned and started as soon as they could walk – slightly later for jobs involving chemicals. I even had a kid sized broom that I actually used – not just pretend.
I hope that just keeping at it, asking for help, and someday he’ll realize that the sink is gross or the toilet needs cleaning. It’s just very frustrating in the meanwhile. Also, while we can’t afford a cleaning person, we’re saving up for things like the swiffer vacuum that make things quite a bit easier and quicker.
Maybe we should look into a ‘system’. I’ll have to see what he thinks about that.
February 10, 2011 9:57 am
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I think a key part of the solution is involving your partner in the development of a system or plan. For example, in my house I’m the problem with chores. And so we’ve talked about it a lot. and he pointed out that it is emotionally upsetting that I don’t hold up my end of the bargain. And that really stuck with me, so I asked him to refer to that when I was dropping the ball (good old fashioned I statements). Anyway, that’s really worked for us.
I think if you’re the one who’s bad at remembering to do chores, it is, in part, your responsibility to establish the system, you know?
February 10, 2011 12:39 pm
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Totally agree. Also (as the disgusting messy partner) don’t consider a failure of the system you come up with a personal or relationship failure. If the first system you come up with doesn’t work, figure out why and try again. I’m terrible at “vacuum on Tuesday” type schedules (sometimes I work late on Tuesday. What happens when the new season of Glee starts? What if we go out for the evening?)
Having failed at that system I find I do a lot better at “vacuuming must happen at at least every 13 days” because I can mark when I actually did vacuum (gold stars for me) and when I’m at like 9 days and don’t have a headache and Glee is a rerun and I got a good night sleep the night before I can just knock all my sh*t out.
February 10, 2011 1:50 pm
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Oh, do I have thoughts about this. Which are: Sure, it’s help, even if you have to ask. But it’s also WORK to be keeping track of what needs doing on an ongoing basis. And that work should be recognized and taken into account as part of the overall division of labor. In my marriage, I’m the one that keeps the mental list of what we need to pick up at the store next time. This was happening naturally, and it pissed me off that I was spending mental energy on it and my husband would never remember to get anything unless I reminded him right before he went out. But realistically, my husband was not going to change; he has a really bad memory for these kind of things. So we embraced it; now I do the work of keeping track, and he washes my breakfast dishes every morning. I don’t feel resentful anymore, because the mental work that I do is recognized and compensated.
Oh, and this was actually meant to be in response to Kayleigh, above. Oh well.
February 10, 2011 8:06 am
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We definitely both have our strengths and weaknesses. I’m a tidier, I get a thrill out of making everything in my house neat and organized and well-aligned. Chris is unfazed by clutter, but can’t handle a messy kitchen or dishes lying in the sink. End result? He does most of the dishes and general kitchen wipe-downs, I do most of the tidying – it works and we’re happy with it.
I have an irrational fear of vacuum cleaners, so Chris does 100% of household vacuuming, while I do 100% of the household dusting (I secretly love it, I have an awesome little ‘dust glove’ that I get to wear and I get great satisfaction out of making things sparkle).
The bathroom is 50/50 territory, as is the laundry. Everything to do with food is shared, from grocery shopping to cooking, because we’re both foodies who adore cooking. That being said, at every meal time, there’s usually a leader and a follower, one person who has the majority of creative control over that particular meal, while the other helps and follows along (and sneaks extra spices into the pan while the other isn’t looking) ;) Of course we split this role evenly, usually the ‘leader’ for the evening is whoever picked the meal for that night, and the other happily takes on the helper role.
Our system works beautifully and the end result of having clear roles is that I don’t think we’ve ever had an arguement over chores. Sure we have our little annoyances – Chris walks in the door at the end of the day, and immediately takes his socks off and leaves them on the floor, I make my morning tea, and proceed to leaves the spoon sitting on the counter by the sink, where it sticks and leaves a tea stain (oops!) but we’ve both accepted these as quirky habits, not deliberate attempts to annoy eachother.
February 10, 2011 5:08 am
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Exactly on the socks thing!!
February 10, 2011 5:12 am
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When I moved in with my boyfriend he used to do that tea bag thing and it drove me mad!! So I bought a little teapot shaped dish which I showed off to him and now they always go there…mind you, they don’t often make it from there into the bin but every little helps!
February 10, 2011 5:51 am
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+1! That was the number-one annoying factor in the first year or so of our relationship. My partner has, sweetly, changed his habits to accommodate my annoyance, but he revealed recently that he takes great delight in leaving his socks in the living room when I’m on vacation. I think it’s kind of sweet now.
February 10, 2011 5:56 am
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“we’ve both accepted these as quirky habits, not deliberate attempts to annoy eachother.”
That has totally been the key for me too. :)
February 10, 2011 8:51 am
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This one is key!
My FH is somewhat obsessive about how his socks are organized and once freaked about how I was looping the edge of one over the top to hold both pairs together.
What saves this and turns it from bad into funny is that he freaked out in such a gentle way that we were able to quickly and easily agree that I do my socks, he does his socks. When he does laundry, my socks go into my drawer and I sort them myself. Vice versa when I do laundry. And we had a great laugh, and there’s never been resentment since.
February 10, 2011 11:06 am
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We also quickly agreed that we could not fold each others’ laundry. We did each others’ socks and shirts wrong. So now we fold together.
February 10, 2011 4:19 pm
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Doing it together is my favorite solution. Grocery shopping together, folding laundry together, cooking together – SO much more fun than doing any of it alone. :)
February 13, 2011 11:40 am
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I get great satisfaction out of cleaning too, only with me it’s the kitchen. That’s probably why it gets cleaned most often. It’s something that I can see a definite change through my effort and it makes the effort worth it. Instant gratification!
February 10, 2011 10:06 am
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Ooh, where can I get a dust glove?! And no, I’m not kidding. :-D
February 10, 2011 10:36 am
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I think I got it at Home Hardware! (I’m located in Canada) I think it’s the type of thing you can pick up at most all-purpose home-type stores – possibly even in the cleaning aisle at the grocery store, if your local store is comprehensive enough. It basically looks like a mitten, except made out of microfibre that attracts and traps all the dust. It’s basically the greatest cleaning invention ever.
February 10, 2011 11:55 am
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I have definitely fallen prey to the “I do X chore and I am a woman, what does this mean?” trap, and my poor husband has been subject to me freaking out about it from time to time. (Case in point, him making a joke about never putting things in the dishwasher, me going off and saying I don’t do X amount of the chores because I’m a woman, and don’t you forget it buster!) Sigh. But I do cook – and I genuinely love it. But he cooks sometimes too, and there’s certain things he specializes in (like homemade pizza!). He knows I hate to do the dishes, and so he steps up to do that often too. The thing that has made it tougher this first year of our marriage is that he is out of the home a lot more than I am, so in many cases I do things just because I have the time. That being said, he is better at “clean” than I am, so I have gotten some instructions and pieces of advice (like, “The bathrooms should be spotless when we have guests coming over”). We have gotten very good at dividing up the major apartment clean before we have company, each playing to our strengths (which includes him cleaning bathrooms).
Right now it’s all a moot point because the military has taken him away for a few months, so I am doing everything, essentially living on my own while married. I don’t mind so much (there’s less dishes and laundry to do for one thing), but I look forward to having my helper back!
February 10, 2011 5:09 am
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Upfront caveat: I have a cleaning lady who comes twice a week (in South Africa this is very common).
That said, husband and I decided on some broad brush strokes when we moved in together. I am the boss of the kitchen, he is the boss of the garden, technology and big diy type projects. This is directly related to our skills and interests. In practice, this means that I do a lot of day to day stuff (grocery shopping and dishes), but he is a great and interested cook so we split that fairly evenly, and he makes amazing things happen in our house and garden (like building our deck from scratch). When I get frustrated that I’m doing the dishes AGAIN, it helps a bit to look at the really big picture (like over a year for example) and see that we both contribute a lot, just in different ways. (That said, neither of us has to clean toilets or do laundry – best money we spend every month!)
February 10, 2011 5:09 am
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There was an NYT article recently that said (as far as I remember) that couples who had clearly assigned chores/tasks felt the least resentment & that both were on board, even if they weren’t doing the same amount. THe key is apparently having the jobs set out rather than up for constant exhausting negotiation.
February 10, 2011 5:10 am
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We do have very well delineated roles with some chores, but others are more fluid. I love vacuuming (absolutely love it, I have no idea why) so I do all the floor sweeping and vacuuming. Early on, he got assigned to clean the bathroom, which I despise doing. Does he do it the way I would like? No, he uses the most toxic cleaning products and sponges in the toilet but I keep my mouth shut. But does it get clean enough? Yes, and I never have to worry about cleaning the bathroom, which is awesome. Also, I dust because I don’t think he even notices dust.
February 10, 2011 5:30 am
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I think this is so key! My partner and I have another roommate at the moment so it’s hard to really divvy up the chores like that, but once we live by ourselves I think it will really benefit us to have a clear division of chores. I like the idea of some chores that are always yours (like I’ll probably do most of the laundry and he does most of the yardwork) and then some chores that maybe alternate on a weekly or monthly basis like dusting or cleaning the bathroom.
I think that really helps with the “is this my job because I’m a woman” issue, also. No, it’s my job because that’s what the chore board says this month, internal struggle dissolved.
February 10, 2011 6:53 am
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Indeed.
February 10, 2011 7:47 am
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That article was awesome.
February 10, 2011 7:55 am
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I’d love to read that article.
My husband and I are actually pretty great with chores, but now that we’re living out of a van on the road, we’re discovering other things that wouldn’t necessarily be classified as “chores” but if we divided our roles and understood what they were, I’m thinking that it’d make some things a lot less stressful.
Kind of like, “okay, we’re arriving in a new town tomorrow. I’ll find us an Internet cafe and lunch spot and you can figure out where we’re going to sleep.” The constant searching for where to eat, work, sleep, run, etc. is surprisingly exhausting.
Thanks for the perspective… I believe there’ll be a conversation in the very near future. :)
And then when we finally get to set up a campsite (darn this cold weather in the South!), we’ll be able to assign some of the upkeep chores as needed.
February 10, 2011 8:14 am
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I also find this true in my own experience. But I think the relation to gender roles can legitimately be tricky. I think that I, and I imagine others, often end up doing more “feminine” tasks like cooking, grocery shopping, etc just because we were raised as women and got more familiarity with those tasks and in many cases came to really enjoy them. Ditto for men and DIY, yardwork, etc. Which is fine if it works for a particular set of heterosexual partners. But I think that such divisions can *look* more or less even, while the traditionally feminine roles actually are harder because they involve 1) expending more mental energy keeping track of stuff on an ongoing basis, and 2) tasks that just MUST BE DONE every day, or at least very regularly (cooking dinner, for example) and therefore cramp your schedule much more.
This is not an argument against taking on specific roles–my husband and I definitely do, and I do think that it has allowed us to minimize conflict about housework. But it’s an argument for making sure that your responsibilities are balanced not only in terms of total physical labor required but also in a number of other ways.
February 10, 2011 8:19 am
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I love that you distinguished clean and tidy. I swear I have been trying to figure out that distinction for years to try to articulate what I need to roommates and then my partner.
Now I have no problem asking for help and my husband usually does what I ask him to but we get into fights every once in awhile when I do the chore I have asked him to do before he does. I realized why I do this last night. It is because he usually complains and claims the mess is not his before relenting and cleaning. I find myself just doing the chore because he is complaining about it. I think in the future I will have to ignore these rants of his and just wait it out.
Also, I just need to rant, so thanks in advance. I sometimes come home from work and there is mud all over the floor or crumbs all over the kitchen that I knew was clean when I left. I will ask my husband about it (nicely, mind you, usually it is a gentle nudge so he cleans it up) and his answer is always “I don’t know, it wasn’t me.” Well, I know it was not me. So who was it? The “trash-your-house” fairies? Ugh! Is he that clueless. It makes me feel like I am losing my mind. Rant over. Thanks.
February 10, 2011 5:21 am
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Wait it out. I watched both my father and brother get out of cleaning my entire childhood because they complained about it and dragged their feet, so my mother guilted me into it because it was easier than nagging them through the entire process.
Now that both my brother and I are grown and out of the house my father no longer has the extra help to rely on and *magically* has become capable of food shopping/vacuuming/cleaning. Granted, he still back-seat cooks from the living room but I blame that on the advent of the food network.
February 10, 2011 6:25 am
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Hahahaha, “it wasn’t me.” Well I’m glad THAT settles it!
February 10, 2011 8:17 am
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I remember reading a NYT article a couple of years ago where the author worked on ignoring these kind of actions from her husband that drove her crazy. She ignored them consistently for a while and he eventually stopped doing it because he wasn’t getting any kind of reaction from her. I don’t know if that will work in the muddy floor situations, but maybe when he complains about doing chores that you’ve asked him to help with it will?
February 10, 2011 8:30 am
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If it’s the same article I’m thinking of, the basic idea is to reward desired behavior and ignore undesired. It’s a really interesting article published as part of the Modern Love series, and the author got her ideas from, of all place, animal trainers. It’s called “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html
February 10, 2011 11:41 pm
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YES. That’s it! Thank you
February 11, 2011 7:40 am
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My boyfriend uses the “I don’t know, it wasn’t me” line ALL the time! I’m so happy to know he’s not the only one. He does little absent-minded things all the time without noticing what he’s doing, and then when I point them out, he insists he didn’t do them. And I feel the same way – did the fairies do it? ‘Cause it sure wasn’t me!
But anyway, regardless of who made the mess, someone obviously has to clean it up, and him complaining about it just pushes more of the responsibility to you (similar to the way “I didn’t do it” pushes more of the blame to you). That’s what I’m trying to get my boyfriend to understand lately. For example, I thought he said he’d pay the cable bill last week. He thought I would do it. It didn’t get paid, so now we both have a problem to fix, no matter which of us is right. (Although, of course, this time, I’m right!)
February 10, 2011 10:54 am
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Baby, now that we’re married it isn’t your mess or my mess it’s *our* mess. And it’s your turn to clean it up.
February 10, 2011 2:03 pm
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YES! #1 is definitely a problem for me – I sometimes freak out that by asking Eric to do something, I’m fulfilling the archetypal Nagging Woman role (complete with Marge Simpson grumble). To which, because he is swell, Eric always says is ridiculous, and that asking does not equal nagging.
I’m getting a lot better about being upfront about chores, because when we first moved in together i had a tendency to walk around the apartment picking things up and sighing loudly (NOT my most attractive quality, ha!).
Other than that, though, our system is really good. We share daily stuff pretty evenly split, and then every weekend we clean together – we crank up the tunes, make some more coffee, and get it done in less than an hour.
February 10, 2011 5:35 am
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I’m so glad that you started a talk about this. I can’t wait to see the other comments. In our house, I’m more of the cleaner, but he usually helps cook and does the dishes daily. Sometime’s he’ll suprise me by cleaning up our office area or sweeping up, which is great. But I think it mostly evens out in the end. Now that I’m unemployed, I’ve taken on a little bit more of the home stuff, but when we’re both working we have a pretty equal split. We never really formally came to an agreement on who does what, but it ended up workin for us.
February 10, 2011 5:48 am
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This was a really helpful post! I have one comment about switching roles: you can switch roles or pick up extra chores temporarily, without one partner owing the other. Usually, I cook, and my partner does the dishes. A few weeks ago, I made a fairly elaborate dinner, and afterwards he installed a bunch of kitten-safety-locks on the cabinets. While he was doing this, I did the dishes. He said, “Those are my job–you didn’t have to do those.” But he was doing another chore, and I was happy to pick up his usual job for the night. So he didn’t owe me one–but he did do the dishes the next night.
February 10, 2011 5:51 am
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“We should all get BETTER at asking our partners for help, not worse. Asking for help means you’re good at communicating your needs, not that your partner doesn’t love you.”
Thanks for this! We’re of the chip-in-when-you-see-a-mess, split-duties-when-we-decide-to-clean, discuss-when-we’re-feeling-resentful/taken advantage-of persuasion. It works really well for us (for now). But your reminder that asking for help is beneficial for couples’ communication is a blessing!
Good post :)
February 10, 2011 5:52 am
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Love your description of your persuasion. I was about to write a whole paragraph about our balance and that sentence summed it up perfectly!
February 10, 2011 7:01 am
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I am closer to Meg on this than I am to most of the other women who have posted so far. I am not domestic AT ALL, and I am the one who ignores the chores. My husband does all of the cooking, and while he is not an obsessive cleaner, he does do most of the cleaning too.
I know this isn’t fair to him and that I need to pick up the slack. I hate hearing about men who leave all the chores to their wives, but….a tiny part of me feels not so bad about ignoring chores because I’m the woman and it’s going against gender roles for me to ignore the chores. As in, men should feel bad about leaving chores to wives because they’re reinforcing the patriarchy and whatnot, but that point does not apply to my chore slackerdom. I’d be curious to know if any other women on here feel that way, too.
Before I get yelled at by anyone, I know that “subverting gender roles” is not a real reason to be a jerk to your spouse. Time to make the chore wheel this weekend! :)
February 10, 2011 5:54 am
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I’m not of the same camp, but I totally understand what you’re saying when it comes to feeling happy — proud, even? — about going against the prescribed gender roles. I feel that in other aspects of my life, and I’m sure it’s something with which many of us struggle.
February 10, 2011 8:21 am
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Hey, that doesn’t mean you have to embrace the lady roles. How are you at gadget, computer, money and car chores? I am the official designated checkbook balancer and car-registration-getter, while the future Mr. is the cook.
February 10, 2011 9:55 am
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I totally do this too. I’m a disgusting person to live with, I never clean and rarely tidy (my 10 former roommates can attest to this). Husband just does the lion’s share of the housework and sometimes when he starts attacking a giant pile of dishes that I created I think, “Hm. This is really crappy of me. I should help him. But I don’t want to.” And about half of the time I ask if he wants my help and he usually turns me down. I think because he knows how much I hate it and he doesn’t have strong feelings one way or the other.
Anyway, Husband knows that he can always ask for help. And he does. Some days he looks around and says “Okay, this has gone too far” and then we do an hour long blitz-clean and I don’t complain at all.
Other than that I justify myself thinking about all the other stuff I bring to the relationship. I provide 60% of our income. I set up the house – finding someplace that meets our needs, arranging everything inside it in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and functional. I make sure we see our families often enough and I do all the gift-buying, calendar-keeping and birthday-remembering. And frankly, Husband hates that stuff as much as I hate cleaning.
February 10, 2011 2:15 pm
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I like that you differentiated between cleaning and tidying as well. I’m a cleaner and my boyfriend P is a tidier. One day while I was at work he told me about how he had spent all day tidying the apartment, yet when I got home everything was still dirty. Dishes still in the sink, bunny hay still all over the floor. And I just thought, “so…what did you DO all day?” But then I came to realize the difference between the two. Very enlightening.
I have no problem asking for help, and P doesn’t have any problem fulfilling my requests. I don’t really think we split the chores evenly, which I didn’t mind when I was working part-time because I could clean things the way I wanted them to be clean (I’m so particular). There will be some shifting of responsibilities as I’m starting to work more hours now, and I’ll just have to give up my particularity. Right now he cooks almost every night, does the dishes sometimes and tidies the apartment when necessary. I do the dishes the other half of the time, vacuum and clean the apartment (like scrubbing, washing, etc).
What irks me though is that whenever I’m trying to clean up the house before people come over, and I’m freaking because I don’t have time to get everything done, he’ll always say, “Did you see Dan’s place? Guys don’t care about that stuff?” Dan’s place was vile. Everything was dirty, every dish in the apartment were piled in and around the kitchen sink and some nasty smell was coming from the kitchen. And that’s fine, maybe Dan likes his apartment that way, and doesn’t mind visiting other people’s place who look the same. BUT, I DO care. I hate going over to someone’s house and essentially sitting in their filth. It makes me uncomfortable and unwelcome. I don’t want people to feel the same way when they come over to our place. So I say to P, “That’s fine that Dan doesn’t care. But it’s not just Dan coming over tonight, and maybe some of the people coming over DO care. So can you please help me [insert chore here] so I can relax before they get here.” I’m learning to become less anal about the place being picture perfect when guests come over. It’s okay to have stuff sitting out, if it’s in neat piles. But essentially like kitchen, bathroom and living room still need to be clean, to me. End vent.
February 10, 2011 6:04 am
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Did this Dan have a washcloth MOLDED onto the shower wall? Because I stayed there once, for sure.
February 10, 2011 11:44 pm
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When my (now) fiancée moved in with me, we hit the ground running with chores and who would do what…He grew up in a family where the women (no matter how many hours they worked inside or outside of the home) took care of all of the cleaning, cooking, laundry and whatever else needed to get done. I grew up in a home where my mother worked part time, took care of the food/laundry and my father took care of the home/cars/lawn. That was fine, it worked for our parents, but I knew that we needed to find something that worked for us (me: the tidy construction manager who is better at building a home than keeping one truly clean, and he: the good at a little bit of EVERYTHING man who has a higher tolerance for mess than I do). It’s evolved a bit since we first created our home together, and I’m sure it will continue to change as we change, our family changes, and our home changes, but for now, it’s working out quite alright.
I think the most important thing in setting up your house chores is to keep the communication open, like Meg said. Asking for help is so huge in a relationship. I started out asking once in a while, but other times getting frustrated and upset that something wasn’t done that I would huff and puff about it while I took care of the chore. His response was always “I don’t know that you don’t like when I do/don’t do _____. If you need help, tell me you need help, don’t get mad at me about something that you expect me to know that I need to take care of without telling me I need to take care of it.” I mean, apparently he’s not a mind reader. Who knew?
In our house, one person cooks, the other person cleans the dishes afterwards. We both help to empty the dishwasher when it’s clean because we both hate doing it. We both spend time doing the deep cleaning that is required of the house when it’s required. We both make the bed together. He grocery shops while I fold laundry. It’s beginning to turn into a very workable rhythm.
February 10, 2011 6:07 am
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I second embracing the chores even if they change! We’ve been through a LOT of changes in our short (almost 2 years) of marriage… job loss, etc… which has really changed how things are run in our house. My husband and I talked about it the other day and both agreed that it was perhaps a blessing in disguise (for lots of reasons) but also on the chore front, because early on in our marriage I was trying to be “super wife” for some reason – which meant I was doing a majority of the chores & all the cooking. Then my husband lost his job and my business started to take off (& I was working full-time besides that)… so he was forced into taking over the household duties for the last year. He loved it because it kept him busy and made him feel like he was doing something to contribute to our marriage, since he couldn’t contribute money at the time. He mentioned at the time that he had no idea how much work and time I was putting into keeping the house in order… and said he’d never let that all fall on my shoulders again. *yay!*
Now he’s back in school and working part-time and our chores are still wonderfully divided. If it hadn’t been for his lay-off I’m not sure we would have addressed this issue head-on so early in our marriage. It helps to have things separated too – like Meg said… that way if you do help out with one or the other’s given chore – the “You owe me one” card can be pretty fabulous. We definitely use it in our house. :) And sometimes we do things without saying “You owe me one” too… of course – because we just feel like being helpful and sweet to each other now & then. :)
February 10, 2011 6:16 am
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Very cool it worked out that way! I have known women whose husband is laid off, while the wife still works full time. The husband lays around all day watching t.v. etc and the wife comes home from work and still has all of the cooking/cleaning responsibility. I would go mad! Glad that didn’t happen to you!
February 10, 2011 7:14 am
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When my then-boyfriend was laid off, it started off like that, and after a month, I realized what was happening and called him on it. He then realized how unfair it was, and totally shaped up. Two plus years(and full time work) later and I still don’t do dishes or vacuum and he still pulls his fair share of the work. Sometimes you just need to call someone on their sh*t to make them change.
February 10, 2011 8:35 am
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Don’t get me wrong, there were moments of that and some growing pains along the way… but after a bit of adjusting to the changes we were both happy and good to go with how things were arranged. :) Now I’m the one getting in trouble for leaving my clothes on the bathroom floor! haha My how times have changed… :)
February 10, 2011 9:38 pm
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So Moose made salad last night and I just about pooped myself with excitement. I kept looking at the vegetables and going “You CUT these? OMG!” Not because he doesn’t cook, but because the thought of having to cut vegetables is reason enough for me not to ever prepare my own food.
On the other hand, our dishes went directly onto the living room floor when we were done so clearly there is work to be done here.
How long do you think we can get away with pretending like we’re still in college?
February 10, 2011 6:16 am
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“How long do you think we can get away with pretending like we’re still in college?”
Exactly to this!! My husband and I are both busy, un-organized, messy and untidy people by nature and we’ve sat down multiple times about how we’re not in university any more now that we live in a “real” house that we’re trying to make into a home.
It has been quite a struggle to get ourselves motivated to keep the place clean and tidy, especially when neither of us is very invested in the outcome.
I’ve found that having guests over is the best way to get the place clean, because while we don’t mind the mess- it’s kind of embarrassing to have other people come over and see it.
February 10, 2011 8:24 am
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I’m secretly terrified that having children means I’m going to have to start planning out proper meals for dinner instead of our current system of fixing something from cold cuts/veggies/heating up soup/and or having cereal. Seriously, we eat like 6 year olds left to their own devices (but slightly healthier) during the week. I just can’t be bothered to make dinner knowing we both try to go to the gym 2-3 weeknights each. Sigh.
February 10, 2011 1:58 pm
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When I found myself in a similar situation, I used Sunday evenings to prepare a few things to eat throughout the week — roast chicken, casserole, soups. It took me a while to figure out how much to make (not meals for the whole week, because I won’t eat all of them) and what I liked heated up later and what languished in the fridge. But it also became an unwinding time — I had time to myself, doing something I like but don’t always have time for (and yet is necessary). It was a nice cap to the weekend before the work week started again.
February 10, 2011 11:48 pm
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Well, I turn 30 this year and we still eat on a coffee table in front of the tv in the basement and forget plates down there for days.
So, um, I vote a while.
February 10, 2011 8:37 am
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We eat at the coffee table too. (It’s three feet away from the dining table.) I vote that coffee tables are completely acceptable and normal dining surfaces.
February 10, 2011 9:06 am
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We recently completed our lovely dining set (got the table last summer and the chairs last month). I believe we’ve eaten at it maybe twice since. It’s always at the coffee table for us, or the kitchen counter. I imagine when there are small people in the house we’ll move more towards the table. But right now we get dinner ready right about the same time prime-time TV comes on (which also contributes to eating at the couch).
February 10, 2011 10:12 am
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We usually eat on the couch, but when one of us goes “all out” cooking grown-up food with 3 different food groups represented we eat at the dining room table. It’s kind of fun and it turns dinner into an at-home date night. Plus I know when I’m the one that made the effort I like that we sit at a real table and pay attention to the meal (as opposed to shoveling it mindlessly into our faces while watching tv like usual).
February 10, 2011 2:24 pm
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I love this post! Thanks Meg. What’s been working for us (living together for just over a year) resulted of a major meltdown. The Vikings were playing but the apartment was filthy and I got all “I am cleaning this house ALONE and all you can do is just watch football?!?!’. During halftime, I wrote down every chore that needed down by sundown on sunday (including both cleaning and tidying and now our weekly shoot-to-be-done by time) and we split them up. It has to be fast before the Vikings came back on so we couldn’t really stress over who got what, just 50/50. Now I can do my half when football is playing and M can do his half whenever he wants and I don’t worry about it getting down. That was probably the toughest part for me, the learning to trust that it will get down, even if I don’t constantly remind him to do it.
February 10, 2011 6:21 am
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Ha! I always do my chores during football too. :) Or hockey, or soccer, or baseball.
February 10, 2011 8:03 am
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In our house, we both respect the sports-time rule. Nothing gets done when a live game is on, generally speaking. Unless it’s random teams playing. And even then . . . questionable.
February 10, 2011 8:26 am
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The only problem, at least for me, is for 7 months of the year, there’s hockey on for ~8 hours a weekend day…
February 10, 2011 8:44 am
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Thank goodness for commercial breaks.
February 10, 2011 9:05 am
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With Centre Ice, there’s always another game. :) Nah, that’s what lame parings like Tampa -Atlanta is for…
February 10, 2011 9:12 am
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During football season, Saturday and Sunday afternoons are laundry time, i.e., I take stuff out of the drier and heap it next to him on the couch. He mindlessly folds (not so well, but hey, don’t look the gift horse in the mouth, or whatever that expression is) while I do other things. It’s beautiful.
February 10, 2011 11:48 am
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I can never get miffed at “wasting time watching sports” because you will be killed on sight if you interrupt American Idol. We’ve come to an understanding that we each have our own sacred time that shall not be sullied by multitasking. It isn’t wasting time when it’s the thing you love.
We have the same perspective on his golf-playing and my going to watch bands play at bars. Very little is so pressing that we’d ask the other to skip that.
February 10, 2011 2:30 pm
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Man, this is AWESOME. My favorites are “Have a game plan,” and “Lower your standards.” Having a game plan is like having a business plan! You gotta have it to succeed and make a profit, and your profit is a clean house. And I think lowering your standards is key. So you think that having a huge stack of magazines on the coffee table is unacceptable, but your partner thinks it’s perfectly fine? Both opinions are equal. You aren’t right just because you’re tidier.
February 10, 2011 6:26 am
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amen to #1! like many folks here, I worry SO MUCH about being a nag when really it’s just about standards and practices–I am much less comfortable with dirt than my partner is, and I’m much more invested in preventative maintenance, whereas he prefers to wait until things are extremely dirty before he cleans them. He also has the attention span of a goldfish–in my bachelor days, I would clean once a week and spend basically 4-5 hours cleaning the hell out of everything in my apartment, but he just can’t focus for that long and thus if I give him a laundry list, it ain’t getting done.
After a positively embarrassing amount of trial and error, we finally just sat down and had a conversation wherein he volunteered that it was totally okay for me to tell him to do things and that I shouldn’t feel like I was nagging him. It still took some getting used to but I’m much more comfortable with it now–we work opposite shifts, and so when I get up in the morning, I’ll come up with one or two things for each of us to do around the house and text him midday asking him to do the dishes or fold the laundry or take the books back to the library or whatever. And it gets done!
In turn, though, we had to trade–I have OCD and am extremely neurotic about “my stuff”–don’t touch it, don’t move it, don’t do anything to it or I will freak out. I had to work very hard on gradually allowing him to actually touch my belongings, because one of the reasons he’d struggled with the housework in the past was because he knew if he touched anything that was “mine,” I would stomp my feet and yell about it later.
anyway, my point is: have lots of awkward conversations. try stuff. if it doesn’t work for you, try moar stuff.
February 10, 2011 6:28 am
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“have lots of awkward conversations. try stuff. if it doesn’t work for you, try moar stuff.”
Love this.
February 10, 2011 7:12 am
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Great post! We are a little more lax when it comes to roles – we both take turns cleaning the bathroom, kitchen, etc. whenever we have the time and feel it needs to be done. We will often spend Saturday mornings cleaning together – usually if we are having people over. I think I fall into more of the tidying role while he falls into the cleaner, although neither of us is super strict about that.
I do all the cooking and grocery shopping because I enjoy it – I’ve definitely felt the “oh no am I just conforming to stereotypes!?!” but then I realized I really enjoy both of those things, so who cares?
The only thing I’m trying to get him to help more with is the laundry…this is the man who would let all of his clothes pile up for a month then just do 12 loads in a row. Yep. Not happening anymore.
February 10, 2011 6:29 am
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Wow, you almost described my marriage right here :)
We also usually have a Saturday morning joint clean – which usually involves standing in the middle of the apartment assessing the damage and then divying up the chores (taking turns with the least liked ones like cleaning the bathroom).
I also do all the laundry because I actually love it – am I the only one?! The smell of freshly tumbled clothes and the folding process gives me such contentment!
But then that also equals out because he’s more tidy than I am and will go round picking up after me every evening. At the start of our marriage I got really insecure about him tidying my stuff, assuming he was resenting having to do it (my former room mate used to do this too in a totally passive-agressive way!), but he just said he knows he likes it tidier than me so when he does it he’s doing it for him, not me, therefore doesn’t feel pissed off. Huh, I married a mature man :)
February 10, 2011 8:10 am
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oh, and what I meant to say before I got distracted by the thought of clean clothes…
I also have crazy moments of thinking “I do all the laundry! What about my feminist credentials?!” And then realise that’s just rubbish because a) I enjoy it and b) it’s part of a bigger share of chores which I am happy with.
February 10, 2011 8:12 am
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I actually really like folding laundry (and doing the laundry now that its in my apartment). Its so fast and easy compared to other chores it almost feels like cheating. Plus any chore that can be done mindlessly while watching tv and having a glass of wine almost doesn’t count as a chore in my book.
February 10, 2011 2:11 pm
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Yes, now that I have a washer and dryer in my apartment, I enjoy doing laundry. But before, when I used to have to go to my old apartment building’s dark, dirty basement with a low ceiling and bugs on the floor? Yeah, then I didn’t like it at all. And a year and a year after the move, I am still so happy to have a washer and dryer. I guess 8 years of going without can make a person pretty thankful. :)
February 11, 2011 12:11 pm
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One major thing that was missed is positive feedback. You have to thank them and give them positive feedback when they are doing something well. That alone will make them more inclined next time!
Also, check out this interesting article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html Her premise is that she trained her husband like she trained animals. ONLY positive feedback. If her husband was doing something she didn’t like, she ignored him. No negative feedback, just nothing. Then, when he was doing something good, she gave him positive feedback. Its a way to reinforce good behavior while not creating hard feelings.
February 10, 2011 6:30 am
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As long as they never find out that you “trained” them.
I sort of use this and have over time, but I try to always think of it as just focusing on the positive instead of the negative. I make it a point to say “Thanks for emptying the dishwasher!” not because he never does, but because I appreciate not being the one to do it. And I don’t remark on negative things unless we are actually having a calm, sit-down division-of-labor discussion.
February 10, 2011 6:52 am
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I definitely agree that positive feedback works better than negative feedback…but the tone of this article gives me the creeps. I hate it when people talk about “training” their husbands. He’s not a puppy, he’s a human with strengths and weaknesses just like you. And if I ever heard by husband claim that he was training me, ooh boy, would there be trouble.
February 10, 2011 8:19 am
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Hmmm. I thank, but I don’t think of it as positive feedback . . . just being appreciative. He thanks me for doing some things, and I thank him for doing other things . . . because we are genuinely grateful to the other person for doing it. The idea of training is kind of dangerous territory, IMHO.
February 10, 2011 8:31 am
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Exactly. Thanking each other for what we do is key to keeping resentment away.
February 10, 2011 10:35 am
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Yes – I was scrolling through the comments to see if anyone mentioned positive feedback and gratitude.
We thank each other ALL THE TIME. If I walk in and he’s doing the dishes, I say thank you. If he walks in and realizes that I straightened up the living room, he says thank you. We probably say thank you to each other 10 times a day. But it doesn’t seem weird or forced because we’re used to it. And you would think that once you’re used to it, that hearing thank you wouldn’t have an impact, but it totally does.
Hearing thank you makes me feel appreciated. Saying thank you reminds me that he’s contributing to our household and makes me feel grateful. So it is actually beneficial whether you’re saying it or hearing it.
February 10, 2011 3:41 pm
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as an addendum to point #2 “she’s not doing it *right*” is an issue i have. it’s me being ocd, but the *way* things are done is important to me. i mean, it’s important to my crazy-brain, though i really recognize that it doesn’t matter. my main thing is the dishes. so, once i realized that i was standing around wincing about her doing the dishes “wrong” – but perfectly *well* – i just left. i go into the other room, because my crazy-brain just can’t watch my ocd methods not being followed. so i don’t watch. and i come back when she’s done and give her a kiss and our dishes are clean! perfectly clean.
this also applies to more mundane concerns like “i don’t like to use bleach in our house” but, if you are cleaning the bathroom, not me, and using bleach is how you clean the bathroom, then it’s my job to let it go. at least until we’re better at this. right now we are baby chore-doers, and i think trying to do everything the (nontoxic) way i would like is just asking too much. when we “grow up” a little, this is something i will probably bring up again. but not the dishes – they’re fine.
February 10, 2011 6:35 am
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I think it’s awesome that you do that! C and I are both particular but totally opposite ways, to the point that I’ve asked him to leave the room while I wipe the counters. :)
February 10, 2011 6:53 am
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I do this as well. Can’t watch! Walking away is great in a variety of situations.
February 10, 2011 8:37 am
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This is how I am with cooking and dishes. My fiance makes turns the kitchen into a Disaster Zone while doing both of these things (water everywhere, grease/sauce splashes, etc.). So I just leave because, ultimately, he cleans up his Disaster Zone and we have a clean area again.
February 10, 2011 9:17 am
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Meg, your set up is the mirror image of ours. I cook – he washes up. He tidies – but I clean. I cook because I like it, and because if I never washed up again, it would be too soon.
I thought this was pretty traditionally divided, but I get rounds of congratulations any time I mention that J is washing the pots, as if I have somehow tamed a caveman. These come from all sorts of women, including J’s mother. So even though I cook and clean, the expectation clearly is that I should do all of it.
February 10, 2011 6:35 am
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This is fantastic. My fiance and I have been shacking up for about 10 months now but we’ve never had any sort of conversation about who would do what, aside from kitchen-related stuff: He loves to cook and is great at it, whereas my presence near a stove makes him visibly nervous, so I almost always do the dishes. The rest of it kinda falls to our natural tendencies, which are basically him not caring all that much and me tolerating clutter up to a point and then going TOTALLY BONKERS and needing to tidy like my life depends upon it. It took me a little while to figure out how to express this to him, how to let him know I wasn’t passive-aggressively cleaning or mad at him for contributing to the me. I remember he was even trying to call me away from it one night and I was like, “No, I really just need you to let me do this right now”– kind of a watershed moment in our domestic life, for me at least.
That said, um, cleaning? Toilet scrubbing? Vacuuming? I am kind of feeling gross, having read this and some comments, because I’m realizing… that doesn’t happen too much at our place. Just when things get really obviously dire. I think my natural avoidance of cleaning is actually exacerbated by him not really caring. Although, man, the quickest way to his heart is not through his stomach– because, like I said, my cooking is not exactly encouraged– but through his eyeballs, specifically at the sight of a totally empty sink and a full dish-drainer. Swoon.
February 10, 2011 6:44 am
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“The rest of it kinda falls to our natural tendencies, which are basically him not caring all that much and me tolerating clutter up to a point and then going TOTALLY BONKERS and needing to tidy like my life depends upon it.”
Oh, I’m totally with you there. Plus we both grew up in households with cleaning ladies, so there are probably things that we’re missing in cleaning that I’m not even aware we’re supposed to do. I keep rationalizing that we still live in student housing and, someday, when we have REAL place of our own, things will be different. Or, more likely, we’ll keep it tidy and hire someone to help clean.
February 10, 2011 7:40 am
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A girlfriend of mine once casually mentioned that she was washing her walls as part of spring cleaning. What?!?! You mean people actually set aside time and energy to wash down their walls, with like, hot soapy water? This concept was so entirely foreign to me I can’t even tell you. And then I felt like pigpen in comparison for days.
February 10, 2011 2:14 pm
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For what it’s worth, I had no idea that anyone would ever wash their walls. Unless like… toddlers had drawn all over them with crayon?… I don’t even know.
So anyway yeah, I think you’re probably normal. :)
February 10, 2011 9:48 pm
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I wash my walls (guilty as charged). Mostly I’ll wipe around lightswitches, doorposts — places more likely to be touched and thus pick up oil from our skin. I’m also a housecleaner by trade, so I notice. I never would do it except now I SEE these things. It drives me bonkers sometimes.
February 10, 2011 11:55 pm
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I washed my walls for the first time when I moved into our new apartment this summer. But it was because there was tons of dust/dirt/visibly-not-clean-stuff stuck to it. But now that I have done it once, I don’t plan on doing it again in this apartment. My mother-in-law, however, makes it a part of her spring cleaning. In fact, it had never occurred to me to wash the walls until she came over to help us clean the apartment before we moved our stuff in, and she volunteered to help wash the walls. :)
February 11, 2011 12:24 pm
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Meg, only you can make chores posts awesome. I was laughing out loud a bunch and just have to say hell to the yes. :)
I was always the partner sighing and fixing things and nagging until one day I realized that I hated feeling like the mom and that it was really bad for my significant other. So I just did my thing and stuck to our agreement. Then I met C and he is older than I am and very particular about things and we’ve had to have the “if you fix what I put in the dishwasher ONE MORE TIME I’LL SCREAM!” conversation. :) We’re both tidy and we both cook/clean, but he tends to the be the instigator about cleaning everything but the bathroom (that’s me).
Over the summer we were laying out long-term chore plans, and I flipped when he started to say that he’d do the yard stuff and I ‘could garden’. I grew up in a family of women and I was the one to do the traditionally male chores and I hate to be stereotypically female. I had to accept that if we divide things up and they happen to fall in typical gender roles and I still like what I’m doing, that’s okay.
(I kind of love that you aren’t awesome at cooking. I think I would cry if you were fab at every.single.thing).
February 10, 2011 6:50 am
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Hehe, YES with the dishwasher comment. I think it’s his engineer brain but my husband has a very exact way of fitting things in that I am somehow incapable of figuring out :)
February 10, 2011 8:16 am
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I think I married the only engineer who can’t optimize a dishwasher… :)
February 10, 2011 9:14 am
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this is cracking me up! I’m marrying an engineer who asked me “not to put things in the dishwasher all weird.” …ok?
February 10, 2011 9:25 am
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Morgan, I’m with you – my engineer boyfriend can’t seem to grasp the concept of a space utilizing dishwasher load. I think maybe we should get some diagrams involved so I quit spending my time reorganizing!
February 10, 2011 10:26 am
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I call it having different “dishwasher religions”.
February 10, 2011 11:15 am
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In the last couple of weeks David and I have really been trying to get this down. Before we moved into together we decided that I would be the cooking boss and David would be the cleaning boss but somehow that ended up with me being the cooking and cleaning boss and every week Dave freaking out because he hadn’t cleaned anything and it ALL needed to be gone and there was pet hair everywhere. So we did as Meg suggested. We made a chore wheel. With two chores a night. And David does his two chores while I make dinner. At first he was really really down on the idea because it made him feel like he was eight or something but now he’s way down for the cause. For us, not being structured didn’t work.
I also have a chronic illness and David had has to pick up a lot of the slack with me being pretty damn unwell recently so he’s getting a better idea of what it takes to keep our house on a roll. I’m still in charge of managing our money and doing most of the grocery shopping but David’s been cooking a lot and doing almost all the cleaning and taking care of our pets and worrying about the car maintence etc.
February 10, 2011 6:55 am
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We divide chores similarly. I’m a cluttered sort of person. It’s just the way I am. I tend to have a few little projects going at a time, scattered around. However I have pretty high cleanliness standards. My husband on the other hand, has lower cleaning standards than I do, but hates a mess. For instance, he’d be likely to say “Why are you cleaning the tub/stove/etc?It doesn’t look dirty!” Or I’ll say “I’m going to flip through those newspapers for coupons, really I am!” and he’ll give me a look and ask me when exactly, since they’ve been on the table for a week.
So I’m in charge of the scrubbing, he’s in charge of the tidying. Overall, it works well for us. Neither of us feels like we’re picking up the other’s slack. Instead we recognize that we compliment each other well.
February 10, 2011 7:01 am
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My husband and I are the same way. He doesn’t want anything sitting on the kitchen table unless we’re sitting down to eat (which rarely happens) but dust on the bookshelf he’ll never care about. So he picks up and I scrub, with one exception. I hate to clean the bathroom and he does an excellent job and he doesn’t mind doing it.
February 10, 2011 11:31 am
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OMG, welcome to my life! My partner and I have different messiness thresholds and growing up with a cleaning woman and living with a neat freak aunt means that I crack first. We tend to have a fundamental difference in that she can read a book or play on the computer, while I am preoccupied by the things I need to do around the house, so I’ll stop after a chapter, get up and tidy for half an hour before I can go back to it. (Or if I’m mad, I’ll tidy to give myself something to do while I process)
I can’t really be upset with the dynamic that we have because it’s one that I set up – after we were dating for a while, I started doing her laundry, taking the dishes out of her room to the kitchen, emptying her dishwasher… partly because I wanted clean dishes but partly because I wanted order. But the dynamic we currently have is me doing a lot of the household chores and being quietly resentful and it has to change. I’m trying to get better about voicing what I need (an issue for me in general) and she’s trying to do more. It’s just hard. There are times where we sit around and go ‘we really need to clean in here.’ Sometimes it’s just hard because I’m the only one to get up and do it. And I say that it’s OK that she’s doing something that’s not cleaning and sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
This… probably makes no sense.
February 10, 2011 7:11 am
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I get it. Our dynamic is very similar, and also needs to change. I think coming up with a game plan and adding structure is probably the best bet for us. But yea, what it comes down to for me is that it’s hard to be the partner with the “cleaning initiative” all the time.
February 10, 2011 11:16 am
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I know this might sound odd, but Ilya and never discuss whose going to do what. It just kind of happened. I love cooking so I do most of it and I don’t mind even cleaning up. He does the laundry because its so hard for me to carry our stuff down the stairs and to the laundry room (we live in an apartment). The big cleaning stuff we assign a day to clean together so we just kind of do it together, although he ends up doing more of the heavy lifting. I think it makes us bond because believe it or not, we have fun in the process. Anyone else bond over cleaning?
February 10, 2011 7:18 am
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Yayayayayay this post is awesome.
You had me at “leaving dishes on the living room floor.”
February 10, 2011 7:27 am
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When my husband and I originally moved in together, it was he who moved into my house. Somehow, that implicitly made me the one “in charge” of the housework. My house, my mop, I guess. Several house moves later it had become an ingrained resentment in me. We tried hiring someone, but it never met my standards and it really wasn’t what we wanted to spend our money on.
I should point out that we are both quite tidy people, and other household chores (bill-paying, laundry, lawn care, cooking, dishes) get split up amicably. It was just the cleaning. Finally, six months or so ago, we adopted the Saturday morning cleanup routine. We start at 9 AM at opposite ends of the house, and keep going until we meet in the (approximate) middle. Then we’re done for the week. Total time invested? About 1 1/2 hours each. It’s the perfect solution and we haven’t had a fight about housework since.
February 10, 2011 7:27 am
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Yes, I literally JUST figured this out as I was reading down the page! He moved into my house, and so yea, it’s remained all MY stuff to deal with even though he’s lived there for 3 years.
I do most of the cleaning because I’ve been cleaning this house for years and have “methods,” I put away the groceries because “I have a system,” I pay ALL the bills because they’re in my name (including renegotiating insurance rates, cable packages, ordering heating oil, etc.), I take care of the car insurance/inspection/registration because it’s “my” car, and when we did renovations last year I managed the entire thing from taking out a loan to picking out finishes to coordinating the contractors because it’s “my” house…
Definitely something to be discussed…
February 10, 2011 11:23 am
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I love this post, it’s perfectly timed! In the interest of keeping my “rage-monster” at bay I might just have to make my husband read this post!
The key to this conversation for us is going to be that we are both imperfect. He needs to carry more household weight and I need to let go and stop correcting everything he does. Even though I try to be really nice about it… in the end, it’s still negative feedback.
February 10, 2011 7:39 am
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I mostly cook but occasionally Nick steps in because I run out of ideas, I’m working late, etc. The man…wields kitchen utensils…and most produce…like a space alien. He chops an onion in the most complicated, inefficient, and cartoonish way possible. I used to belittle him about puzzling kitchen habits and “incorrect” cleaning methods but I got sick of feeling like a huffy know-it-all. I was channeling the naggy, chore-prescriptivist household I grew up in.
He still occasionally catches me wide-eyed, observing his food prep, and playfully says, “Walk away! Walk away!”
With chores, I really cling to that “protect the relationship” chestnut. There’s no right way.
February 10, 2011 7:42 am
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Hear hear . . . the “right” way is the way that gets it done!
February 10, 2011 8:41 am
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“Walk away! Walk away!”
I love it.
February 10, 2011 9:06 am
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I never thought about it before writing this comment, but the playful “walk away! walk away!” is a really helpful signal. For us it has come to mean “I know that what I’m doing is insane…I need for it to not matter right now”. It’s not defensive or hostile, and it often preempts the nag.
February 10, 2011 9:52 am
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I have a stated vow to never become my mother, who, though well-meaning nearly reduced a girlfriend of mine to tears in high school because that friend was somehow making cookies wrong. No, I’m not entirely sure how its possible to screw up chocolate chip cookie dough batter but apparently it is.
My adult version of “walk away mom” involves strategic deployment of glasses of white wine and photo albums.
February 10, 2011 2:19 pm
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“The man…wields kitchen utensils…and most produce…like a space alien.” LOL!!!!!!!!!!
February 10, 2011 9:29 am
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LOL! Like a space alien…hehe!
I sometimes have the opposite problem. BH will (without even realizing it) stand there in the kitchen while we are cooking together and ask me HOW to chop a GD carrot. WHAAAT!?!? This from the guy who far supercedes my cooking talents. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to chop a carrot, and it isn’t that I tell him he’s doing it wrong (I asked him about this because I really didn’t think I did that and it turns out I don’t). When he does this “how do I chop the carrot? should I put the milk back in the fridge? where does the salt go?” kind of questioning, it is totally maddening! Seriously? Yes, the milk should go back in the fridge – I can’t believe you just asked me that. And why do I need to tell you that.
We’ve come to the conclusion that when he gets in this mode it’s just because his mind is on other things and it is less mentally derailing for him to request very specific instructions about things he is quite capable of doing himself than it is to interrupt his train of thought to arrive at that himself. Either that or he’s really just talking aloud to himself about what needs to get done and it comes out in the form of a query to me. Weird, and for some reason totally gets on my nerves.
But the humorous deflection like you’ve described works here too.
“Should I put put the milk back in the fridge?”
“No you should either put it in the oven or pour it over the cat that is begging at your feet. Your call.”
The unexpected response usually snaps him out of it and gets us both laughing rather than annoyed with each other.
February 10, 2011 4:15 pm
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My internalize mother makes me feel guilty for not keeping a clean house. You see my mother was a killer housewife. When all of her peers were getting promoted and being really successful working women, she left all of that to be a mom. And while I know she loved the mom part, I think the probably hated every minute of the housewife part, but she was really, really good at it. Fresh baked bread and cookies every week, the house was always clean even if it wasn’t tidy, home cooked dinner every night and she even cleaned up afterwards most nights. She even homeschooled all three of us kids for 10 years! So, as far as housewife I feel like I have HUGE shoes to fill, and I really don’t even know if I want to fill them. But it is what I’m used to.
My partner on the other hand had a working mom, who hired help and brought home take-out. I’m certainly not saying that either one is better then the other, just very, very different. So, now an adult myself with a house, and a job, and graduate school, and a blog that deserve more time then I give it and I feel guilty for not filling my mother’s shoes. My partner’s offer to help is to call for take-out and hire someone to clean. Which, my internalizes mother sees as a failure. (Just to be clear, I really don’t know what my actual mother thinks, haven’t asked her…)
Sometimes, we are out own worst critics. I need to find a way to be okay not being housewife of the year without being a workaholic. I think accepting that I am doing and accomplishing a lot is really important, and if paying someone to come and clean twice a month makes it so my partner and i can spend our evenings curled up on the couch together instead of standing on our heads cleaning bathtubs, I think that is something we can work with!
Awesome post Meg, thanks for getting us thinking and talking about chores outside of fighting with our SOs :)
February 10, 2011 7:45 am
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“Myth #1: It’s not help if you have to ask for it
This is the comment I hear most often around APW. It usually goes like this, “I love my partner, and (s)he means well, but I always have to ask him for help. That makes me feel like it’s all on my shoulders and I might as well do it myself.”
Here is the thing (are you ready?): your partner can’t read your mind.”
Annnd that’s as far as i got….amen!! this is true for so much. If you voice your thoughts or wants/needs/desires, it’s not genuine when your partner fulfills them.
Agree times a million!!!
Back to reading…
February 10, 2011 7:46 am
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Meg,
This is so wise and well-written I don’t want to add one single word.
Best advice: Read Meg’s instructions over and over until it becomes second-nature. It will avoid a lot of fights. I could have used it decades ago myself.
February 10, 2011 7:47 am
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Someone recommended chorebuster.net to me when I moved in with my fella, and I really love it. We sat down and agreed on how often we’d like each task done, and how hard on a scale of 1-10 each thing was. The website generates a “fair” schedule that we just print out and post on the fridge. So I never have to feel like it’s ME telling him to do things- it’s a totally impartial computer thingy that we set up together.
February 10, 2011 7:48 am
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OMG, this is going to change my life! Thanks so much Kate :)
February 10, 2011 11:33 am
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I love Chorebuster as well! My boyfriend is pretty good about doing chores, but we used to have a roommate that would only chip in if told. We still use it and I like it because we can do a few chores a day and not wind up having to spend hours at a time keeping our apartment clean.
And it’s free!
http://www.chorebuster.net
February 18, 2011 9:15 am
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This may be one of my favorite APW posts ever.
I completely agree with the playing to your strengths thing. A completely even 50/50 split on every chore could never work with us (or, I suspect, with most couples). Mark does pretty much all the cooking because he’s badass at it, but I’m slowly learning to cook (and enjoying it) so our roles might change as the years carry on.
The thing I’ve always struggled with is having higher clean and tidy standards than him. Lowering my standards while he raises his has been the thing we’ve most struggled with in the great domain of Chores. But we’re getting better.
February 10, 2011 7:48 am
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I’m also the tidier, and he’s the cleaner. I don’t care if dust is on everything, as long as everything is in its place. And while it drives me bananas that everything can’t always be put away (for the love of God, why are receipts always ALL over the house?!?), I try to keep in mind that it drives him nuts that the floor hasn’t been cleaned in months. (Shhhhh, it happens.) That being said, we’ve kind of developed rules that work for us. He makes awesome eggs and sandwiches, so breakfast and lunch are usually his domain, whereas I’m usually the Queen of Dinner. We try to let the person who doesn’t cook do the dishes. I told him I’m never cleaning a bathroom again in my life, so he scrubs the tub and toilet. I’ll clean the stove because I care about it, but he does all of the ironing because I have absolutely no patience for that. The vacuum cleaner makes him want to throw things and punch holes in walls, so I do that. And on and on and on. It’s not perfect, but it seems to work well for us and even out well. I actually consider myself pretty damn lucky.
What I have learned along the lines of not following behind your partner and “correcting” them . . . yeah, try really, really hard to avoid that. Even though I don’t like to clean and I like it when he cooks (a lot), I do like things being done just so. You know, why are you making such a mess when you cook?, and this rag needs to be used for that, but baking soda has to be used on that with this sponge, always in a clockwise motion (okay, I’m not that bad, but you get it). It was getting to the point where I would annoy myself. So if he’s doing something, I just go about my business and leave him to it. It’ll be done, and it’ll be awesome, and we’ll both be happy.
February 10, 2011 7:49 am
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I love this post. One thing jumped out at me –
“Asking for help means you’re good at communicating your needs, not that your partner doesn’t love you.”
This little nugget of logic makes perfect, clear, wonderful sense when I read it – and I’ve had this realization before – but somehow asking for help always becomes an awful emotional mess! I either feel guilty for having to ask for help, or attempt to guilt-trip my partner for failing to read my mind. I might have to print that statement out and post it above my desk.
February 10, 2011 7:51 am
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OMG!
It just occurred to me that after the wedding I won’t have to do it all myself!
wow.
February 10, 2011 7:54 am
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This is a little off-topic, but a little food for thought this morning :)
We are both terrible tidiers. We have several piles around the apartment that are just clutter and overflowing with stuff stuff stuff. I got a gift subscription to Martha Stewart’s Whole Living, which I really wouldn’t recommend in general but had a GREAT article on reducing clutter in the most recent issue (March 2011 “Cleaning House” by Susanna Sonnenberg). I can’t find a link to it, but it gave great advice on how to declutter your life and the effects it can have on your mental health. The author said many of the things that other commenters here have said– that she felt guilty for not cleaning the piles and just avoided them and was unable to use her house for things like parties and entertaining because she was so embarassed. She said that as she slowly decluttered, her family’s living space became a much more calming environment to live in; the free spaces she created in her home helped her create free spaces in her mind that gave her the ability to open herself up to new opportunities and experiences.
The practical approach to decluttering was to look at each item and question its: 1) Use 2) Monetary Value and 3) Sentimental Value. This broke down into asking yourself: Do I use this? How often? If it has a monetary value, but I no longer use it, thrift it! No monetary value? trash it! The author said if an item sustains you emotionally, great, keep it, but think long and hard about it. Does the item have a negative association? Get it out.
The author also talked about the value of “nothing” and our urge to fill any empty space with more things– photos, shelves, knick knacks. She said she fought that and instead brought in house plants, which futher enriched her living environment.
The article really inspired me to start on my own clutter, tackling a little bit at a time and free up physical and mental space. Like I said, a little food for thought about the benefits of chores!
[The book that the article referenced was called Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston.]
February 10, 2011 7:57 am
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This reminds me of that William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
February 10, 2011 8:07 am
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Love it! I might have to make that my mantra on my De-Clutter journey!
February 10, 2011 8:59 am
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I love this post, Meg. LOVE IT. Because I am the bad chore one of the couple. I like actual cleaning (scrubbing, dusting, mopping, you name it) but I hate tidying and I tend not to clean when it’s not already tidy. I think another thing that’s really important to mention when having this talk is being realistic. My fiance is so ambitious when it comes to these discussions, whether it be finances or what we’ll accomplish, that the goals he has in mind are rarely attainable. That makes it so easy to give up on.
Just curious, do you think how we clean has any reflection on our parents? I grew up watching my dad clean the house every week, so I never had any preconceived notions of my partner not having a responsibility to help around the house. Of course, some days I feel like I need to whip my own ass into gear and do a better job at keeping up!
February 10, 2011 8:02 am
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We didn’t have a lot of chores in my house growing up and I now think it was a real detriment. I had a friend growing up whose mother said she believed she would be doing a disservice by not teaching her children how to do chores, because they’d be overwhelmed when they grew up.
As children, whenever I’d go over to their house to play, my friend could not play until she finished whatever task her mother had given her. Sometimes that meant I’d help her fold clothes so we could move on to our own activities.
Although she divided their chores according to traditional roles, there is no denying that those kids became super competent. Her daughter married young and had a large family. She didn’t bat an eye at running a household and always seemed so relaxed as a consequence.
Funny thing, every time she gave birth to another baby, her husband ran the house and it turned out that he ran a spotless house!
Yeah, I do think we are products of our environment for often than not. But we can change.
February 10, 2011 8:45 am
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In general, our chores are evenly distributed, even though we don’t have assigned tasks. We do have different standards and methods. I tend to think I get things done more quickly and a little more thoroughly; but if N cleans the bathroom, even if he doesn’t scrub that spot off the shower curtain, I’m happy that the bathroom is mostly clean (and certainly MUCH cleaner than when he started).
The part I struggle with is “Embrace Roles (Even If They Change).” I really like meal planning, coupon clipping and cooking. I also really like sewing and decorating and arranging our house; very stereotypically “woman’s work.” When it is just N and me, I don’t really think twice about it, because I know he doesn’t expect me to do all of those things just because I’m the wife. But we both come from pretty small towns and our in families, gender roles are clearly defined, especially in his.
For example, not long after we sent out the thank you notes for our wedding, we went to his cousin’s wedding. I got multiple comments about how people received our thank you note, and they could tell N helped and how nice it was of him. First of all, my handwriting is awful, so I’m sure some of those notes had actually been written by me (mostly I just think that part is funny). The thing that bothers me is that we BOTH received the gifts. They are for OUR life together. Shouldn’t we BOTH express our gratitude? Why is it the woman’s responsibility to write the thank you notes? We work the same number of hours outside the home; we both have other interests and responsibilities outside of work. We have exactly the same amount of time to write thank you notes.
So I feel all this pressure and expectation to be a good little wife and keep a tidy house and keep my man fed and fat and happy, and mostly it just makes me want to rebel. My instinct when visiting my in-laws is to bring some food item to share to maybe ease the burden of entertaining and to show gratitude for their hospitality, but then I don’t want to bring food, because I feel like that reinforces their idea that it is my responsibility to cook because I’m the wife. I know it’s somewhat petty; I know I shouldn’t let what other people think of my marriage and/or what they expect my role to be to get under my skin, but that is easier said than done.
Another example, just because I’m bad at letting things go… We were talking with N’s parents about remodeling our kitchen and N mentioned how nice it would be to finally get a dishwasher. His dad gestured toward me and said something like, “You’ve already got one.” or “Isn’t that why you got married?” My blood boiled. It was meant as a joke, but it was a hard joke to take, because I know that is how my father-in-law actually sees me.
So my problem isn’t really getting caught in the “If I’m a woman, and I do the cooking what does that MEAN?” cycle within my relationship. When we are in our own little world, I know it means I like to cook and N is grateful. My problem is that I get too caught up in the vicious “what does it MEAN” cycle when I think about the outside world and others’ expectations of my role in the relationship. Why can’t it just be as simple as, “I like baking and I like to do nice things for people when they let me stay with them for the weekend, so here are some lovely muffins.” I try not to let it get to me, but it really does drive me crazy.
February 10, 2011 8:10 am
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Yes! I hate when being a nice person is at odds with being a feminist. Like if you go to someone’s house for dinner and then afterwards all the women jump up to clean. You feel like a jerk if you just sit there and don’t help clean, but then you feel like you’re betraying feminism if you head off to the kitchen with the other women folk.
February 10, 2011 8:18 am
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Kayleigh, that’s a pet peeve of mine too. I seem to have fairly recently gotten into a circle where the women clean up after dinner – especially at one house. It bugs me on two levels.
First, my understanding is that a guest invited to dinner does NOT clean in the first place. This issue shouldn’t even be coming up.
Second, as you said, you look like a jerk if you don’t help the other women.
I’m out of luck because in the house where this occurs the most, the hostess evidently isn’t bothered by the division between men and women, and she doesn’t know etiquette.
Not my house, so I just go along.
February 10, 2011 8:34 am
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Class of 1980, This is exactly how I feel at the future mother-n-law’s house. I respect her role in the house and it’s how it’s always been. At the same time, I feel resentful if I’m the only person helping with cooking, cleaning, etc. I think she expects it because I am the only other woman (all brothers and no other girlfriends/wives). Or maybe she doesn’t and I’m just ultra sensitive. At any rate, my guy and I have an equal division of labor (thankfully), but he tends to fall into his “role” when he goes back home. So, I’ve dealt with this in a couple of ways. First, I remind myself that I have a choice and that I am helping because I want to help someone. Second, I enlist my guy. So it’s often the three of us, while the rest of the dudes hang out. :)
Oh, and when it was suggested that I make my boyfriend’s sandwich for him, I replied, “No, thank you.”
February 10, 2011 11:30 am
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I know, I know.
There are two of us in this house, but when we had to have it spotless so the landlord could show it to a prospective buyer, he kept thanking ME afterward for how fabulous the house looked!
It was both a compliment and a source of irritation. I am not the only person responsible for how this place looks!
February 10, 2011 10:18 pm
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I struggle with this too! (This discussion is JUST what I needed in Month 5 of Baby Marriage).
I’ve come to terms with it– for now– by reminding myself that I’m a feminist, a wife, a daughter, an employee, a Dog Mom, etc. I wear a lot of different hats but I can’t wear them all at once- whichever one I’m wearing though, I want to be a Good Person. Sometimes this means getting in the kitchen and doing dishes, not because it’s “Women’s Work,” but because I appreciated the dinner and want to express my gratitude by helping. Does this chafe a bit? Yes. But I think we are all here (at APW) because we are struggling to find a feminism that is practical, that works in every day life. A feminism that we can apply in everyday life, not just theory based.
Put another way– I don’t want to be a feminist if it means that I can’t enjoy my kitchen.
Theories are very pat. They are logical. They are black and white. Which is great, except life is messy and hard and full of things I don’t want to do (taxes? get up at 6am?) and is full of grey areas. Strict feminist theory, to me, is no better than strict traditional roles… it doesn’t take me as a person into account, with my various interests and dis/likes; it doesn’t account for individuals. Feminist theory is not a guide to life, it’s just that– a theory, infinitely adaptable. And if I want to go from baking brownies to my boxing match, or do the dishes before APW Book Club, I refuse to see a problem!
February 10, 2011 8:38 am
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LOL.
I’m really good at decorating and some people would find that stereotypical. But I can’t figure out how having an eye for design could be anything but artistic.
February 10, 2011 8:50 am
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I’m in the get-up-and-help camp, but damned if my boyfriend isn’t expected to help out in our kitchen when we’re the ones hosting. If he gets up and starts taking dishes in, the other guys usually take their cue from him and help out too.
February 10, 2011 8:20 pm
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I just gave pretty much all of this advice to a friend a few days ago who is struggling with this issue. She works full time, commutes long distances, has a 18 month year old, and is around 5 month pregnant. She and her husband recently bought a home and he is not holding up his end of the bargain. He is a wonderful man, but he majorly slacks. The problem is she has already gone through most of these steps and still nothing is happening. I think the problem is he can’t see why this is important. His mother did everything for him growing up and he’d rather just live in messy home than do it himself. I wish he would just see that it’s important to her and do it.
She is a smart woman and although he’s being a jerk in this regard, he is generally a loving and supportive spouse so I don’t know what else to suggest – beside making him pay for a cleaning service since he’s the one who can’t come through.
February 10, 2011 8:10 am
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Meg and Mary, Maddie Eisenhart. Maddie Eisenhart said: @Jaystonne http://bit.ly/hp4KKO [...]
February 10, 2011 8:11 am
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