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Fighting
So H and I are fighting right now. He's in the living room at one end of the house and I'm in the bedroom at the other end and no one is speaking. He says when I come home I shoould smile and hug him and be all happy. Yet instead I come home and see a million things I need to do after working 8 hours.
Don't get me wring H works and he works hard but he works 7:30-3:30 sometimes 8-3:30 and sometimes like today he's off early. He works contruction so it just depends on what needs to get done/what can be done. Still he gets home before me and does "his stuff." Today that involved hooking up the trailer with the 4 wheeler on it and getting his stuff together to go hunt in the morning since he's off work.
I walk in the house to see a pile of dishes, a pile of laundry, a dishwasher to be unloaded, and dinner to be cooked. He was sitting down watching t.v. It annoys me because I feel like I do so much house work and work just as hard as him and he gets to have way more fun. Then if I say something about it he just gives me a look.
I know this is probably the most common arguement/fight any couple married or not has but it has really become a pain in my butt. If I could cut him off from huting some days just to get stuff around here done then I so would but I can't be that mean.
Re: Fighting
Chores....ugh. The way we have battled this (although H was independent for a long time before me....him and his roommate were pretty disgustingly dirty) is: We do our own laundry...He is a big boy, he wears his clothes...theres no freaking way I am doing his laundry (I do, however, do the towels etc). We also alternate dishes and/or do the whoever cooks doesnt do dishes. We also clean at the same time on one day a week...usually sunday afternoons...for some reason if I am cleaning too he is more motivated to help out...so I leave everything that doesnt have to be done (bathrooms vaccuuming etc) for that one day and then say something like "ok I am going to clean the 2 bathrooms upstairs, if you can get the floors done". Otherwise even if its the same amount of work, If he doesnt see me working at the same time it will never get done (regardles of how much more housework I might do during the week).
Maybe rather then "cutting him off" be like "hey it would really help me if you did xyz before you go hunting, so you can do it during the week or you can go hunting later in the day, its up to you".
Maybe some of this helps? Maybe not but - hopefully! best of luck!
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If you're in this situation. instead of coming home and instantly getting upset about all of the things that have to be done, try and come up with a plan. Something like you starting dinner while your H empties the dishwasher...then while you fold/do laundry he re-fills the dishwasher with the dirty dishes.
The thing about men (maybe not all, but most) is that you have to tell them what you want. They're not mind readers....and if your H is used to you handling all of this things, maybe he just thinks that you're ok with all of that.
I'm really laid back about all of this type of stuff. I do at least 90% of the housework and I'm fine with that. I actually get really excited when H has vaccumed or done the dishes without having to tell him to and I thank him for doing it. I might be a bit of a control freak so maybe thats why I'm ok with doing most of the housework...lol
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I couldn't agree more. If I don't ask H to do something he doesn't do it.
I'm in a similar situation where H works more than me and his job is more physical than mine, so I try to cut him some slack. When he has a day off I do want him to enjoy it and relax. On the other hand he still need to help out.
I really like the idea of having chores assigned. We sort of do that. H empties the trash, I do the cooking, we each do our own laundry.
I also try to give H some heads up on what I need him to do. That way he knows what needs to be done but it doesn't need to be done that second.
THIS exactly. I couldn't think of how to put that last night... but that was what I wanted to say. I'm exactly the same way. It took me awhile to come to terms with that fact, because my dad always helped with that sort of stuff, but after 30 years of marriage I think they had each other figured out. H won't do much unless I ask. Every once in a while he'll offer to help when i'm making supper. But I have to be like okay, now lets do dishes. He'll wash, I dry. It works for us. He does his gross work clothes, but i'll do his "good" clothes. However, I won't dig through his gross work clothes to find his "good" clothes.
When it comes to house cleaning, like cpm I do most of it. It also took me a while to come to terms with that, but A) I know he appreciates it, and
he doesn't do it like i'd like it done. He'll help tidy, put stuff away, etc. But when it comes down to cleaning bathrooms and vaccumming I usually prefer to do that myself. Once i've vaccummed, lots of times he'll wash floors, but again, I have to ask.
We fought about it A LOT after I moved in, but we've found compromises that work for us!
This thread reminded me of this pin I had lol
This is my biggest fear for when I finally move in with DH. I know it'll blow up sooner or later even though, YES we've talked about it and YES we agree on the house needs to be clean and certain things need to be taken care of. It's just one of those things that even though you know your wife hates dirty clothes all over the floor (in every room of the house) you can't break that 29 year habit. I don't necessarily agree with dividing up every single chore so that if something's not done you know who's fault it is. I still see that blowing up into an argument.
I really like toothpastechica's suggestion in the first post, I think MH would be more likely to help clean if I was also cleaning with him.
Anyway, good luck with figuring it out... if you do, let me know.
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H and I have had this very same conversation, in fact just last week. He comes home at least an hour earlier than I do and does whatever it is that he needs to do and then he's done. I pointed out to him, hey great, glad you got done what you needed to in an hour. Now let's see what is still on my list tonight. Make dinner, cleanup after dinner, feed dogs, walk dogs, 2 loads of laundry (wash, dry & fold), tidy up the house, sweep floors, vaccum floors and pay bills online. So he falls asleep with the dogs on the floor (kid you not!) thinking he's helping by keeping them out of my way. Hmmm....not really what I was thinking. So I use the ol' tactic of ok, you ask what I want you to do, great. I ask him if he could fold one load of laundry. Not 2 minutes later I hear him snoring. Snoring! Thanks honey.... In his defense he does get up at 4am, so I do give him a break, but I agree that sometimes I just want to come home and not start my second job. H and I had a talk about it this weekend and he had yesterday off. To my delight he had paid all the bills, swept, vacumed and made dinner. I almost cried! He said he finally got what I do every single night and decided he needed to step it up. Aww...we'll see how long that one lasts, but it was great to come home last night anyway.
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It's weird. I don't think H and I have ever had a discussion of who should do what, etc. The work just gets done. He gets home usually a few minutes before I do, and he almost always greets me at the door. He opens it and gives me a kiss. I say "almost" because there is an occassion when he was in the bathroom or something or just didn't hear the garage door open. Anyway. I can understand, after working 8 hours and coming home and finding a pile of stuff to do. First, I don't even think about it. My commute is an hour each way, and some times it's longer. There are nights I don't want to cook, so we end up ordering out. But, for the most part, I do all the cooking. Once I have dinner started, I will unload the dishwasher (sometimes if I feel pressed, H will do it) and then load it. Once we have eaten dinner, dinner dishes go into the dw. H tries to make himself useful at dinner time by getting drinks and silverware on the table.
We both share in doing the laundry (it gets back upstairs, but rarely folded), vacumming, and taking out the trash. Since I work on Saturdays, he does all the yard work or fixing something on the house. If anything needs to get done on Sunday, I help him out. But we take things a little at a time so it doesn't get backed up.
Even though we seem to have this unspoken system, if I need or want him to do something, I ask. As pp said, men are not mind readers. If you need help with something, just ask. Talk to him and tell him what you need. I think you just need to have a conversation about it and work out some kind of system so you're not so stressed and you both share the work load.
See...for us...95% of any of our fights are because/involving our families.....he has gotten better about accusing my mom of stuff..and Ive tried to just bear it with MIL but...UGH....why can't our familes love each other??? would make our lives much easierrrrrrr...haha....
Chores...ehhh..we bicker but havent ever gotten into a big fight...he does some stuff while im at work before he goes in...and vice versa...I usually do the animal stuff, dishes, laundry(he does put his stuff on bed though so its easier for me to find ) and vaccuming...but the vaccum is broke right now so that bites
Our last fight was over Footballl...gotta love our men right? lol
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I think this is an important discussion to have with your spouse. When H and I were first living in VT together I was a full-time student going to class on the weekends and had an internship twice a week and H was working full-time. Therefore I was home more and I pretty much did all of the cooking, cleaning and other household chores.
When we moved to MA in January we both had full-time jobs and because H and I are a very 21st century couple (he hyphenated his name) we decided to split the chores. I do most of the cleaning and laundry, but H does some of the cleaning and he does all of the cooking. He gets home earlier than I do so it makes more sense for him to make dinner than for him to wait for me to get home to start dinner. It makes sense to us, however it is a very different arrangement compared to our parents and other family members in which both spouses work yet the woman does all of the cooking and cleaning.
I think it's important to look at the chores as things you do when you live on your own, you are responsible for up-keeping your home. When both people work full-time it seems to make more sense to split the chores and share the duties.
Like PPs said, I think it is a common thing to fight over. Luckily H and I work pretty well together on these things, but like PPs said sometimes you have to let them know how much things bother you. One thing our marriage counselor said is to not let things go - because then your spouse isn't going to realize anything is wrong, and then after the Nth time they've done something you find irritating, it comes out in an explosion. For example, if you HATE how your spouse leaves his shoes out...say something. "Honey, could you try and put your shoes in the closet when you take them off? I would really appreciate it...it gets really annoying tripping over them when I come in the house" is much better than (after the 20th time you trip over his shoes when you are at the breaking point) "WHY THE F#CK DO YOU HAVE TO LEAVE YOUR GODDAMN SHOES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE F#CKING FLOOR?!?!?!"
One day I got kind of huffy and puffy with H - he tends to leave stuff out, I like everything to have it's place and be put away. I kind of snapped a bit and I was like "I can't live like this! I have so much anxiety because all this stuff is out and everything is messy, I can't enjoy myself when I'm here!" Guys don't realize stuff like that can really, really bother a person. Once he realized how much it was driving me insane, he made a better effort to put things in their place.
One thing I might do is make a list of everything you each do. Make a spreadsheet with a line for every day of the year, and 2 columns. Every time you do something that qualifies as a household chore, write it in. At the end of the month, assess. One, this might let you know what he IS doing - it's easy to forget about the stuff that always gets done. Two, if he really is slacking, you show the proof to his face. Its real easy to forget how much work it is to keep up a house when someone does all the work!
I guess IMO, the housework should be divided up based on how much you work. If the woman is a stay at home wife, then she should do pretty much all of it. If you guys work the same amount of hours, it should be 50/50. This is an issue that is going to get worse the longer it is let to go on.
Good luck!