My husband and I have been married five years, but together for over 10. He’s also been hardworking, ambitious and focused. We both have full-time careers. He is in an upper management role and earns more than double what I do, and it is a high-stress role with some overtime – but I’m paid competitively for my industry and do pretty well (won industry awards etc).
However in the last three years I’ve raised concerns about the amount of housework that seems to be left to me. I do 99% of all chores: from caring for our pets (one of which is a young puppy that he asked for and agreed to help with, and hasn’t), laundry, cooking and cleaning. His argument is that me doing all the chores is my contribution to the household, considering he is the primary income earner. He says he simply does not have time or energy to do more.
If I do presume to ask for some help, or say that I’m struggling, I’m met with a firm refusal. My mental health is suffering quite a bit, and I’m feeling hugely unheard and unappreciated.
How do you manage chore distribution in your household? Am I thinking about this the wrong way?
(just as an FYI – I’m working hard every day on training and enriching the dog’s life; she gets all the time and attention I can possibly give – and is pretty well trained because of me. I love her very much.)
3 comments
In our home, we assume we both have equal value and equal responsibilities. Neither of us is in servitude to the other.
> His argument is that me doing all the chores is my contribution to the household, considering he is the primary income earner.
Hahaha, what? That’s not how things work. You both have careers, you both work probably similar hours, so WHY should you run most of the household by yourself on top of it? That’s not fair, and tbh, a slightly sexist attitude he’s having. It’s no longer the 50s when the average woman was a stay-at-home-wife, maybe working a few hours/volunteering…. Tbh, this sort of attitude would be a dealbreaker for lots of people….
My husband and I both work full-time, I’ve earned more for the first few years, he earns more now, we work similar hours (he works from home, I go into the office), and we do housework pretty much 50/50, although some things clearly don’t get done as often as they should since we simply don’t have the time. However, we only have a 3 room flat (60sqm) and we don’t think we want to get a cleaner just yet….
My brother and his gf also do 50/50 usually… my brother works as a plumber, hard work, long hours….and he still usually cleans the whole flat himself on Saturdays because his gf works in retail.
> If I do presume to ask for some help, or say that I’m struggling, I’m met with a firm refusal. My mental health is suffering quite a bit, and I’m feeling hugely unheard and unappreciated.
That’s not acceptable and extremely disrespectful. Sit down, google the term “mental load”, and look at the famous article “she divorced me because I left the dishes by then sink”. Why is your husband refusing to be a team?
If he doesn’t want to clean….he should simply hire a cleaner….however, even then, he should start out with a spreadsheet to realise how much work doing chores actually is. If he’s arguing with money, why not simply make things easier by using that money?
> (just as an FYI – I’m working hard every day on training and enriching the dog’s life; she gets all the time and attention I can possibly give – and is pretty well trained because of me. I love her very much.)
If he wanted to have a dog too…is he also doing dog school with him? If not….start doing this together. Srsly, pets and kids shouldn’t just automatically be your responsiblity because “you’re earning less”.
You should earn decently. Hire help, eg cleaning?