I am so fucking sick of arguing with my fully grown (40 yo) husband about household chores. We both work full time and have two young kids. He works from home and before I get home (if he has time), he tidies up the house. This typically entails running the roomba, doing his lunch dishes and the kids breakfast dishes, and maybe putting a shoe or two away. No more than 15 minutes of work. Once I get home from work, I also help with dinner, taking care of the kids, cleaning up dinner, bathing the kids, etc.
Tonight I told him I needed help putting away the giant load of laundry I did yesterday that’s been sitting in the dryer since then. We are both exhausted and just want to sit down when the kids go to bed, I get it, but also- our clothes are sitting there wrinkly in the dryer and sometimes you just suck it up and do it because you need clean fucking clothes. Why is this such a hard concept for a grown ass man? He complained the entire time we were folding and putting clothes away, then afterwards told me he’s “sick of cleaning the house after work and then having to do more housework after dinner.” Like sorry you have to help your wife keep up with your house that you share with two kids and three animals.
I also hate cleaning but I don’t whine like a child every time I have to do it. I’m so over being married to a giant man child when it comes to this. I have an autoimmune disease and I’m exhausted everyday and still don’t complain the entire time.
To be clear- he does his fair share of housework, he takes the kids to school and is very involved with them. He is generally very helpful and does more than a lot of other husbands. But the whining about it is so ridiculous to me. Like just suck it up and do it and stop making it miserable for the both of us the whole time. He’ll say he wants to help with my mental and physical load and be consistently helpful and nice for a bit, but he always reverts back to this immature response to doing housework. It really makes me feel like I’m the parentified spouse and he’s treating me like I’m punishing him by making him clean.
Okay, rant over. Thanks
4 comments
Extremely common. We women take on the majority of emotional labor, running the house, bookkeeping, organizing, paying bills, setting reminders…the last goes on. I get it.
It’s almost like keeping house never ends. Because it doesn’t.
It sounds like he feels safe venting around you, if he’s an all around swell guy in your own words and your only real complaint is that he grumbles *while doing the work*, then maybe it’s a you issue not a him issue.
He might also be venting about that instead of addressing something else that’s bothering him. Ask him why he’s griping and if there’s something else going on.
If you’re not going to communicate with him, don’t be a girly brat and whine about it to strangers. Be a grown ass woman with children, and talk to him.
I wouldnt care that he whines so long as he keeps doing it. Kudos on both of you for achieving that hard to achieve balance in true fifty-fifty.