households

[eunicemcgee]

A couple of weeks ago, I was about to get in the shower when I remembered I hadn't transferred a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer. There were some clothes in the load that I wanted dry soon, so I called to Justin and asked him to change out the clothes. A couple minutes later, he came into the bathroom and asked me how to work the

Comments

[benadryllian]

I work 50 - 60 hours per week and pay the bills, so I think it makes John feel best to do the majority of housework. And cooking. But we do our own laundry and tend to our own pets. I don't know what is truly "fair" in domestic arrangements. I feel weird that I really never cook, but when would I (want to)? Clearly both parties need to be happy and to compromise.

[eunicemcgee]

I think part of the issue is that I'm productive in spurts. So when I'm not getting around to writing anything for days on end, and Justin is still plugging away at his normal work days, I don't mind doing everything. I guess I just have this assumption that that should change once I start working again, but if I bring up how I don't have time to make dinner or something, Justin will just start lecturing me on how I shouldn't have been lazy before, and that I need to stop putting myself in situations where I need to do a lot of work at once. But yeah, I guess this compromising business is something to figure out.

[holytoastr]

Marriage doesn't work unless you can work together. Why not have a talk about splitting the chores? It doesn't have to be whiny or nagging.

Ben and I have split up our chores. I frequently have to remind him to do them, but we're a mighty team against entropy so I don't mind it too much.

[eunicemcgee]

Yeah, I'm really not sure why I'm so irrationally afraid of coming across like I'm demanding/needy/helpless/whiny if I try to tell him to do things. I worry that I subconsciously buy into the whole patriarchal "but of course the woman should be doing all the housework!" thing, and that's why I feel guilty when I don't live up to it.

[bgnathaleigh]

What would happen if you started a conversation with the conclusion of your thoughts? "Hey, Justin, I appreciate it when you help around the house, but I do the majority of the housework, and I'm afraid I'm going to start feeling like the resentful nagging wife in this situation. Can we work out an agreement for division of housework

[eunicemcgee]

Yeah, honestly, our present situation really isn't that bad unless I'm working. Since he works from home, he gets to goof off a lot during the day, so the amount of time he actually spends programming usually works out about equal to the time I spend cleaning and cooking, and then we have lots of time to spend together, which is nice. We just don't really have a second system for when I get crazy busy with writing. From my end it seems obvious that he should be stepping up if I'm busy, but he's not really aware of the things that need to be done in the house or clear on how to do them, so he's not really in a good position to help out even if it occurred to him. He also does this thing where, if I'm stressed out, he doesn't try to think of ways to help with the immediate situation, but rather comes up with things I did wrong that led me to getting stressed out. Like, if I'm working late one night, he won't say "oh, then I can make dinner." He'll say "you always leave things to the last minute, you should be better about working