One topic I never tire of reading about is domestic duties. I love hearing how other couples divide up their household chores… I don’t really know WHY I find it so fascinating, but I do.
One blogger… I can’t remember who (damn memory!)… Mentioned a while back that she and her husband sat down and drew up a clear division of Who Does What.
It kind of blew my mind. Because my husband and I have been living together for seven years… And we NEVER did that. We just sort of fell into certain roles. Roles that we pretty much haven’t deviated from in, well, seven years.
Some things, we share. Like dishes. Sometimes I do the dishes, sometimes he does. Most frequently, we do them together.
Same with garbage duty. Whoever gets sick of the stench first takes the trash out. Sometimes, we’ll do that together as well.
Grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry are also typically joint activities, although we do them separately when the other person is crazed by work.
But there are other things that are strictly Mine or Husband’s.
- Bug Duty. My husband is the kindest, most gentle, most compassionate person I’ve ever met. He cannot stand the thought of causing someone pain. Even if that “someone” is a crunchy insect with ten thousand legs. (Actually, can something be an insect if it has more than six legs? Hmmm. Apparently there’s a multi-legged-bug-shaped hole in my middle school biology knowledge.) So we have a largely unspoken deal about bugs. I kill all the small bugs and spiders. If there is ever a cockroach (shudder) or something equally big and scary, my husband kills it.
- Veggie Chopping vs. Meat Prep. I am the unspoken vegetable chopper in our household. My husband is the reigning Meat Prep Dude. This is because a) I require my veggies to be chopped in a specific way – teeny tiny if it’s going into spaghetti or soup, julienned if it’s going into stir fry – and b) because I cannot stand raw meat of any kind. Just thinking about raw chicken makes me queasy.
- Toilet Duty vs. Vacuum/Dusting Duty. My husband, bless his heart, cleans all the toilets (“all” meaning “two”) in the apartment without complaint. In turn, I do the vacuuming and the dusting.
- Counter Cleaning. This task normally falls to me. Either because my husband has special vision that renders crumbs invisible or because I really love my bleach spray.
- Finances. My husband pays all the bills, looks over all our investments, watches our savings, keeps track of our credit card charges, etc. I know this is something I SHOULD be involved in… But I’m not. As far as I can tell, this involves a lot of badgering me to keep my receipts and track down receipts that I’ve stuffed into a dark corner of one of my many purses… And a lot of disappointed head-shaking when I admit that perhaps I actually LOST a receipt or maybe even threw it out.
- Phone calls. My husband HAAAAAAAATES making phone calls. When it comes to restaurant reservations and dentist appointments and scheduling car maintenance and asking our apartment office if we received a package, 99% of the time, I end up making the call. I do not ENJOY this task (and I make my displeasure KNOWN, do I ever!), especially when I ask the wrong questions or say something unclear and my husband tells me so after I get off the phone. (AFTER. When I can’t do anything about it. We are working on this, Internet!)
- Mail. Holy macaroni, Internet. We get a ton of mail. If it were up to me, I’d weed out the White House Black Market coupons and my paychecks, and the rest of the mail would just pile up on the dining room table until the Hoarders producers come knocking on our door. So my husband is unofficially in charge of handling the mail. If I get sick of The Pile, I will sometimes try to thin it out. But I am known for Inadvertently Throwing Out Something Important, so I only do this when I am completely overwhelmed by the Everest-sized mountain of junk. This task does come with perks: My husband gets to do a lot of shredding, which I think he secretly enjoys.
Well, this list makes it clear that I do not do much around here. I mean, bug killing doesn’t take up a huge amount of time. But veggie chopping, on the other hand… I spend a few hours a week slicing and dicing. So that’s got to balance out the mail thing, right?
How do you and your spouse split up the household duties? Is it by design, or did you just fall into those roles?
My husband takes care of any repairs needed around the house (clogged sinks, changing hardware, etc.). Yes, period.
Every once in a while, and I mean once in a while, he does the dishes out of the blue or folds a load of laundry. Mothers Day is the best because he tries to do everything – if it falls on a day that he is home.
I try to maximize his time with our kids – when he is home – so I’d rather do the dishes when he’s gone.
It’s crazy but it works.
Jase can’t seem to grasp cutting vegetables up smaller than HUGE CHUNKS, so I tend to be the chopper. That’s ok, I like it. Cutting up fruit and veg is therapeutic!
We never officially divvied it up, and I do most since he’s working and I’m not right now – but there are a few that we do ourselves. Like: he takes down the garbage (ew) and grocery shops – while I do all the laundry and clean up the cat litter. Hee.
We have not settled into an official routine, but there are some things that are “mine” and “his.”
I do the cooking (most nights, he will cook if I am too overwhelmed with school to cook – generally cooking is an outlet for me), I do the bathrooms, dusting, and vacuuming, I do the grocery shopping, and I do the cat litter.
He does the cleaning of the kitchen, cleaning the mirrors/windows, he waters the plants, feeds the cats (ugh cat food smell!), pays the bills, and deals with our cars.
Sometimes I think we have a fair share of the chores, other times I get crazy and hormonal and go on a rampage and accuse him of doing nothing, and then I come back to reality and apologize and vacuum so the vacuum lines can calm me!
I’m going to check back on this post later today, I am SO curious as to how other couples work! I still canNOT believe you kill bugs! Brave woman!
We started out with a great system set out, but over time more has fallen on my end (mainly due to my own fault) as Rob’s schedule got busier and he couldn’t do the things when I wanted them done 🙂 He helps with laundry (folding) and dinner clean up. Other than that it’s mainly all me during the week: cooking, cleaning, laundry, bug stomping, etc. BUT taking out the trash and recycling is all his! I had to take the trash out once this week because he has been gone – it was the first time in our marriage I’ve done this! Oh, and if I leave the house untidy/cluttered and Rob comes home in a bad mood … he’ll just start throwing things away 🙂
I love that you have to make the phone calls!
My parents have been married 36 years and have been doing the same chores for all my life, if not more. If my mom is going to be late for dinner, my dad won’t cook for her. Instead, he’ll just heat up some soup for his self. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad so something my mom normally does unless of course she’s sick and she asks him. And if she does ask him to do something that’s not his “normal” responsibility, he huffs and puffs about it. I hate that.
When my husband and I got married I said I never wanted to be like that. Granted, with his med school schedule, he can’t always help out when I want him to. Sometimes I have to let the floors go an extra few days or even a week before he can do them. Unless of course, I just do them myself.
I just never want to get into a “rut” (in my opinion) of “he does this” and “I do that.” I like to mix up the responsibilities. However, he’s just so much better at mopping than I am, but I’ll sweep before for him. And I don’t mind dusting, so he’s actually only done it once.
Oh, and I’m the spider-killer of the household LOL
“Actually, can something be an insect if it has more than six legs?”
Not technically, I don’t think (though I’m sure this was a rhetorical question!). I took entomology in college as my non-major biology class 🙂
Splitting of duties is really something we’re still trying to settle into, though we’ve been living together for two years. He used to help me a lot more often with dinner, but now I have to specifically request his help and tell him exactly what to do. The one deal we explicitly made was that I would do the dishes if he scooped the dog poo. Judging by the amount of dog poo in the yard though, I got the short end of the stick.
I am the only one who sweeps or swiffers, and I clean the full bathroom. He will clean the downstairs toilet, he loves to clean the kitchen counters, and he doesn’t mind vacuuming. I am pretty much the only one who dusts, though.
He tracks all finances. He’s better at math, and he cares more. I mean, not that I don’t care, but if he’s already going to be stressing about it all the time, he can be the primary stresser. Oh, and we each do our own laundry (sheets and common-use towels fall to me, though, of course).
When I do the cooking, he does the cleaning and vice versa. I tend to be the one who does the laundry otherwise it ends up sitting the in the washer/dryer for weeks (plus I’m really anal about how my non-hanging clothes are folded).
He cleans off the porch and I’m the one who dusts (although I do it because of my allergies. if it were up to him he would probably only do it 2-3x a year!)
So we kinda “split” our duties. We aren’t very good with doing some chores every day to keep up with the cleaning so we normally just pitch in together on Saturday/Sunday mornings together to get everything cleaned up. Yes it creates a lot more to do at that one moment, but the last thing I want to after I get home at 6, take the dog out, exercise (on a good day), fix dinner, eat and shower is clean up! (pathetic excuse, I know!)
OK. Me and my husband are going to have to have a chat this weekend.
He makes the bed and “tidies up” the apartment when he feels like it…which isn’t regularly. That’s it. I do everything else.Everything. I’m lucky that he pours his own cereal in the morning.
The agreement between us was that I could be a stay at home mom when he became a doctor, and I feel that (mind you I have no kids) if I don’t have to work I should be responsible for everything at home…except maybe large “man projects.” But I think I dove into this role too quickly. Considering I work full-time and commute 45 minutes each way…he is not a doctor yet, and I have no children.
I’ve created a monster. A monster that leaves glasses with protein powder cemented to the sides everywhere and can’t (won’t) make himself a pbj sandwich.
He is either the cleanest roomie in the world or the filthiest, depending on his stress level. But the truth is, I can’t keep up with all this crap on my own anymore. And I refuse to feel guilty about it.
It’s time for an intervention, and since he has a 4 day weekend it’s the perfect time…probably followed by a detailed blog post. Sorry to vent all over your blog, I think I had some pent up issues.
Thanks for the insight…I never knew other people’s husband’s were so helpful.
Like you, we never sat down and decided how to split up housework – it just happened naturally. I cook, he washes the dishes after dinner and I dry them. (I actually enjoy our after dinner dish routine.) If I’m late from work or need help with part of dinner, he’ll jump in but I love to cook so I’m usally happy to take this on. We both do laundry but he probably does it more often. We both take out trash, but again, he probably does it more often. I clean the kitchen, bathrooms, sweep, dust, etc. but sometimes he helps (and always if I ask). He takes care of paying our joint bills and finance related matters. It works out well for us and we almost never argue or disagree about household chores.
I love this 🙂 I’ll have to write a post on it someday.
Mostly, T vacuums (because he loves it. Bizarre.) I clean the bathrooms. I do the finances, he cleans the kitchen. I take the garbage out, but he takes it to the curb. We both cook together most days. 🙂
Since I work parttime I do most of the household duties, except for cleaning. Yeah, I know that accounts for most household duties. If I cook (which I always do) he does the dishes. He also keeps the house tidy by wiping down counters, picking up my towels, and things like that. Actually he does a lot around here. I didn’t quite realize it until he deployed.
My husband works very long hours, so I generally end up doing pretty much everything. I find that when we can afford it, a maid service drastically cuts down on me seething with rage about who cleans the toilet. *I* am not hairy and do not leave gross hairs everywhere. *I* manage to contain my pee within the toilet, unlike the other people in this household (hubby and 3 kids). Why am *I* the only one who has to clean up the grossness??? So the maid does the stuff that I hate doing, like cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors. (If we didn’t have a maid service the floors would never get mopped ever.)
However, the daily grind of picking up after everyone, cooking dinner, paying the bills, doing 20+ loads of laundry a week? That’s all me.
Kyle and I obviously aren’t married yet, but we definitely have our duties. I cook and clean the bathrooms and the kitchen – he takes care of the rest of the apartment and does all the handiwork, because, frankly, I don’t even know what 90 percent of the shit in his toolbox is. I don’t care if that’s stereotypical – it’s TRUE. We sort of switch off the dishes.
In my household?
Well, I’m not married.
So I tend to do everything.
And by that, I mean nothing.
And live in filth.
It’s actually quite sad.
Hubby and I divide up the roles the best we can since we both work full -time and sometimes have meetings in the evenings. The kitchen usually falls to me. I clean, cook, and keep everything in place. The dog duties fall to hubby because I leave first in the morning. However, it is a toss up in the afternoon, whoever returns home first is on dog duty. My husband has been doing the grocery shopping lately, I just make a list and he picks it up. He is very particular with his fruit selection and I can eat anything. He is the trash man, always. I took out the trash once and it leaked all the way down the stairs, I was fired that day. LOL!! Washing clothes, tidying up, that would be me. Hubby is messy.
So that works for now. I am sure once I am home ft I will be able to do more of the housework and run errands. Hubby will be over the moon! I still won’t touch the trash. LOL!
There are certain chores I absolutely despise. I pretty much refuse to do them. This probably comes from them being chores when I was a kid. And they aren’t normal chores that everyone hates. Putting away dishes? Nope. Won’t see me doing it. I don’t mind washing them (we don’t have a dishwasher-how does that happen in 2010??), but i nearly refuse to put them away. But I don’t mind cleaning the bathroom. Doesn’t bother me at all. Mr. A likes to vacuum. I don’t mind washing clothes (which is more of a chore here since I have to take it to our apartment’s laundry room) but I can’t put them away. Probably because I switched houses every week from the age of 6-18. I got used to living out of a duffle bag. Closets? With hangers? What’s that?
Long story short, husband does the chores that i refuse to do. And all bug killing.
And dishes get done by whoever made dinner, the other washes dishes.
He’s a trooper.
oooh, good topic! I tend to take responsibility for the stuff I am a control freak about. Like laundry. My husband is absolutely not allowed to touch the laundry. I also do all the cooking/lunch packing, and he does all the dishes. We kind of share cleaning projects, but I have to delegate tasks to him. He’s not generally the type to notice that the bath tub needs to be scrubbed. We do grocery shopping together, or sometimes I will go alone, but that’s another one I’m a control freak about.
I’m fortunate that my husband is extremely helpful–he just needs guidance for what to do.
We never had a discussion about who does what, but it just has sort of worked itself out.
Like you, we both do dishes, usually together.
Chris handles the meat, I handle the salads.
Chris takes out the garbage, I make the coffee.
As for cleaning, we have a lady who comes in and does that and I credit her in part to helping me be a nicer person. If I had to clean toilets or vacuum, I’d be cranky.
I love this! It is indeed fascinating to take a peak at the inner workings of other marriages. Here’s how things (generally) work in our house:
I sweep and mop the floors, as well as dust the furniture, but he vacuums the carpet in the basement.
I do all of the grocery shopping, but he does all of the Costco runs for things like TP, laundry detergent, and various other cleaning supplies.
I plan almost all of the meals, but he cooks at least 50% of them. We usually fall along the same lines as you and your husband: He handles meat, I handle sides, but sometimes one of us does everything. We seem to split dish-washing duties pretty well, although I’d venture a guess that it’s like 60% him, 40% me.
We have 2 bathrooms, and each of us uses one of them predominantly, so we each clean the bathroom we use the most ourselves. He is MUCH more diligent about cleaning his than I am about cleaning mine.
We do all of our laundry completely separately, with no exceptions, EVER. He is VERY particular about his in terms of separating according to color, temps, drying time, etc, whereas I just throw everything in with everything else, and dry everything on high heat until it’s ready to combust. So I’m not allowed to touch his laundry. Ha!
Most of our bills are on auto-pay these days, but those that require manual payment are handled by him, although I’m the one who tracks our spending and monitors all of our accounts.
I clean the litter boxes, but he handles all of the trash and recycling.
I weed the garden and plant things, but he mows the lawn.
Most home-improvement type things, I take care of, such as painting (he is the WORST painter ever) and changing out door-knobs and locks. I’m just handier than him in general. However, I refuse to change light bulbs, so he does that.
We never officially divided up duties… Rather, my husband is the neater of the two of us. Which is kind of sad to admit but I think I have special vision that allows me to overlook the crumbs on the counter!
Over the years of dating and now marriage, I’ve actually gotten neater and have my areas. For instance, I do most of the cooking and try to keep the kitchen tidy and organized. I despise dishes but we share the duty since if I waited for him to do dishes all the time they would be stacked to the ceiling sometimes!
I love to steam mop, he likes to dust and vacuum (and he’s much more meticulous than me).
I handle our financial planning and stuff for the most part but he physically pays most of the bills. We compete over who gets to open the mail because we’re losers. 🙂
I make the bed more often but we’re pretty laid back about that. He cleans the toilet. I clean the tub and sink.
It’s a give or take depending on whose available and who reaches their tolerance level first!
Sorry, I haven’t commented in awhile! I have been reading though. I love this post, it is hilare…..I pretty much do everything and need to get Jason to do some shit around here. We have maids that come every two weeks to do major cleaning, but I do all the other cleaning-daily crap. He does bug detail, yard work, and dog care. I do kid care and………..yeah, everything else. What the? I need to draw up a list!
We used to have an actual “chore chart” that divided the chores completely evenly, but after awhile we stopped using it because it was clear some chores one of us didn’t mind as much as the other. Like, I hate cleaning the bathtub but DH doesn’t mind it.
I’m in charge of finances and putting away the mail. Probably because I’m so type A. I like to be “in control”.
DH takes the trash out, though I help collect it. He also does all the grocery shopping (woohoo! I *hate* grocery shopping).
My husband and I never really sat down to talk about the chores either.
But since I’m a stay at home mom, I pretty much do all the cleaning and I’m in charge of finances now that he’s in med school. He gets the mail, and we share dealing with it. If phone calls need to be made, I make them (and hate it!).
He is really good about helping out if I need it, though. I plan most of the meals, and he makes over half of them. He really enjoys cooking, I don’t! He hates putting dishes/laundry away, so I do it!
We basically fell into our household roles based on trying to do what the other one really hates doing so that we’re both moderately content with our divided contributions.
We never really discussed it. My husband just automatically got all of the 1. yard duties (I have never mowed a lawn in my life and he had…it was just logical for him to do it). 2. gross things because I just…kind of don’t remember they need to be done. Like cleaning out the drains or messing with the garbage disposal. 3. The financial stuff that I know I should be paying attention to, but cannot find the focus to do.
We each do our own laundry, not so much by plan but by common consent that we didn’t want to have to deal with the special care of the other’s clothes (like bras confuse him and he never knows what of mine should be dried in the dryer or let to dry on its own or what). We both do towels and linens.
I do all of the cooking because…I know how. He helps sometimes if I’m not in a control-y mood. Which is…rarely. I also vacuum and dust (although he does on occasion).
The dogs are on bug duty. Nothing gets past them.
I don’t know if too many of our’s are all or nothing but generally speaking:
Hubs does the majority of the laundry
I do the majority of the day-to-day budgeting and finances
Hubs takes care of the investments and our more long term strategy
I take care of most of the cleaning and organizing but he is always available to help (i just get more enjoyment out of it)
Hubs almost always cleans the bathrooms and takes out the trash
I cook dinner most nights but he makes a fantastic side-kick
Hubs is official bug killer
I take care of the majority of the “phone calls”
Hubs does a great deal of the dishes
I do the majority of the shopping.
But with all of these things, they often end up being joint and I can think of plenty of instances where one person stepped into help the other (except bugs-Hubs does that all on his own).
I love posts like this, too. My husband and I have been married just over a year but have lived together for three. When we moved in together, we both worked full time and both had the exact same careers. Now, I work full time and he’s in law school and has a part-time job. His workload is… intense. So our household duties are pretty different these days. Basically, I do more than I used to.
Stuff he does all the time: Kitty duty (feeding + cleaning the litter box), taking out the garbage/recycling, washing dishes (we have no dishwasher and I tend to abuse this and leave stuff in the sink for him, whoops), generally tidying up after himself and not leaving his books everywhere.
Stuff he does sometimes: Cook if I’m not home (we used to be half and half on this but I am home before he is most nights), making bed if he is the last one out of it (he is usually up before me), helping with laundry (no W/D in apartment and we have to schlep big baskets to the laundry room in another building).
Stuff I do all the time: Dusting, sweeping/mopping floors, cleaning bathroom, cooking, coupon clipping/grocery shopping (he sometimes comes with me), deep cleaning of kitchen, general tidying/organizing.
I often have to nag him about the garbage. He is obsessed with the cat, though, and loves cleaning her litter box. Weirdo.
I LOVE this post! 🙂
Jason and I never talk about it, either… we just naturally do the things we do…
he does most of the yard things, except I take care of my garden and I am in charge of the sprinkler system 🙂
I feed, wash, vet appointment the dog, and he takes him for the night time walks when it’s dark. 🙂
Basil (the dog), is in charge of bugs. 😉 He catches them out of the air!
Okay, so I was reading your post last night and next thing I know, I’m hearing DH chuckling behind me as he’s leaning to read over my shoulder. We have many similarities to your routine, but also many differences.
That’s so nice that you share dishes, trash, laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking! DH does not share any of these tasks with me. I do them all. I will give him credit for doing dishes once in a rare while, but the occassions are few and far between. And the only time he ever goes to the grocery store is when he is out of Dr. Pepper.
I would say the only things that are fairly exclusively duties for DH are the bug killing and meat prep. Both of those things tend to gross me out, so if I squeal enough, he’ll come to my rescue. He’ll also fix things around the house that need attention like a clogged drain or a broken hinge.
Finances, mail, phone calls, cleaning, taking care of the dog … all me. I don’t really mind doing everything, I just wish I had more time to do it. Working full time and taking care of the house pretty much by myself can get tiring.
I thought I was alone in the “making phone calls” area. Husband HATES talking on the phone, so I’m the designated one there, too. 🙂
Bug duty- we share that duty. We both do not like to kill anything. We mostly have spiders and we have mastered the skill of capturing the spider in a plastic cup and taking him outside and letting him go. I take on most of the household duties and my husband helps out sometimes. He is very good at cooking, laundry, cleaning ect. but it is not expected of him since he works and I do not. I am the CEO of our home and that in itself is a full time job. I also manage all the money as well as do all the investing. My husbands first words on every payday is; How much can I spend? I have completely spoiled my husband and he deserves it because he works hard and in turn he spoils me back.
Well I’m not working much now so I do mostly everything. Even when I do work full time my husband still works a million more hours than me so I still do everything. I even unclog the drains and take out the trash. We don’t have a dishwasher so every once in a while my husband will wash the dishes. We go grocery shopping together. He drives everywhere, kills bugs, and makes phone calls when there’s a problem to be solved. He’s great at that but I have to remind him to call. He goes to the doctor with me when I’m really sick. I don’t cook big meals everyday so he fixes his own meals a lot when we eat different things. I pick up after him often. But he works really hard and I don’t mind cleaning because I like things done a certain way. And I have plenty of time for it.
We swap most household chores back and forth using a calendar that we can both alter if warranted. Of course, we didn’t start doing this until well over a year of living together, which had previously left us with a lot of “well I did this, so you have to do that” petty arguments. We came up with similar chore lists on our own, then blended them together to come up with a chore schedule with set deadlines. This way sh*t gets done and I don’t have to feel like a nagging parent.
As for meal prep, we usually take turns with prep and cleanup. There are some days I almost feel as if I have to give him permission to eat if I don’t happen to be hungry at the same time (especially if we’ve been on different schedules due to work).
I’m in charge of everything finances, but keep him in the loop as far as when bills are due and how much fun money we have from week to week. Due to our recent move/job switcheroo, we’ve gone from ample allowances to close to nothing, which has led to less arguments over spending habits. We’ve found that working together has been better than working against each other. Plus, now that we have to plan meal outings, I feel as if we’ve taken more delight in them and our date nights.