My wife and I have been married a year now. Been together for over 6 before. We have been in our house for 2 years now. At first we shared everything equal. 50/50. She had the dishes, I did the vacuuming and dog waste, and got the mail while she did the laundry. Etc, etc.
Now, 2 years later I’m doing EVERYTHING. Dishes, the grocery shopping, car maintenance, feeding dogs, laundry, I mean everything a household needs.
The only things she does is help fold the laundry once I’ve washed and dried it. And OCCASIONALLY will put a dish away here and there. Most of the time I have to give a verbal request.
We have 2 dogs and a cat. No kids. Not really settling down quite yet we have been doing a lot of traveling the past 2 years.
I have great patience with her, she is germ phobic and a lot of cleaning and duties scare her. But she did them all in the beginning of moving in here so I don’t understand why they couldn’t be done now.
But I know doing everything around the house gives me dominance. I get stuff the way I want it, and the shopping means anything in the house I get to pick out and I love that.
But it gets overwhelming sometimes and I find myself silently resenting her at times because I’m literally doing everything day in and day out.
Is this all normal? I feel it’s usually the opposite way when the wife does everything and the husband is lazy af. I feel like the wife.
Please help, I’ve wanted non biased opinions on this for a while now. Don’t know why I didn’t ask here sooner.
11 comments
Not normal. You didn’t mention if you both have full time jobs but I’ll assume so so I would expect chores split 50/50 though of course there is a range and probably many couples put an unfair amount of burden on the wife for no reason.
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Your wife became a hypochondriac about two years ago. Many such cases.
Therapy can help.
She not a germ phobic, she lazy and lying to you. Every germ phobia person i know and extremely excessive with cleaning. Basically they clean everything and are perfectionist. She got complacent and realized you will do everything if she stopped. My advice stand up for yourself and place boundaries. If this dont work stop doing her chores or everything all together and see what she does. Stand up for self man
Every household requires a certain amount of labor in order to function. This includes work that earns money to provide for the home, yard work, cooking, cleaning, childcare when there are children.
The goal should be that between the 2 adults in the house (and children when they get older) those required hours of labor are as equitable as it can be.
You need to have a conversation and actually set expectations. If she cannot do “germy” work, you can do dishes and bathrooms, she can do laundry, sweeping mopping etc.
Life is almost never perfectly 50/50, but if you can strive for 60/40 or even 70/30 it would be a great improvement on what sounds like a 98/2 split you currently have.
I saw in the comments that you’re both working so this is absolutely unacceptable. There can be reasons why the split isn’t exactly 50-50, but one person essentially doing everything is absolutely wrong.
Maybe that’s your answer:
“I get stuff the way I want it, and the shopping means anything in the house I get to pick out and I love that.”
And she noticed. And it got tiring watching you “fix” what she did.
I can only speculate.
And germ phobic clean more not less
Or spend a week doing nothing: maybe she’ll have an idea what it looks like when nothing gets done
I read this in a book and it stuck with me. A woman who’s career was taking off had a conversation with her husband about him doing more around the house. He told he he’d take on the laundry for them and their kids. At first she micromanaged how he did the laundry, trying to specify what products to use, how to air dry things, etc. He told her that if she wanted to be so specific she could do it herself. Or she could lay off and just enjoy the final product. The woman realized once she just let the method of cleaning go she was much happier because she wasn’t holding that mental space anymore for her husbands tasks.
My husband and I have taken this approach in our marriage. Coincidentally with laundry he’s taken over doing it for the house. I do almost all the shopping as I track the sales and know where to buy things. He’s asked me to buy a specific kind of detergent because it likes it better. It’s 100% not the one I’d buy because it’s a bit (like $3) more expensive. It’s so not worth even bringing up though, because he does the laundry consistently and I really enjoy not being the one in charge of that task or even having to mentally ensure laundry will get done.
Ps: calling yourself “the wife” is sexist and outdated. You’re a partner in a marriage and maybe if you start treating your wife like a partner it will end up becoming a partnership.
I work part time, my husband works full time. We split the house chores probably 70/30. It works for us, and we pick up the slack for each other when needed.
Not all chores need to be 50/50.
This is a terrible and false message. Some chores can be 70-30 some chores can be 60-40 some chores can be 90-10.
But overall adding everything together you both should do close to an equal amount.
>Now, 2 years later I’m doing EVERYTHING. Dishes, the grocery shopping, car maintenance, feeding dogs, laundry, I mean everything a household needs.
It sounds like you are the one that allowed this to happen. You can’t expect someone to read your mind.
I hate to say it buddy, but I’m hearing this complaint fairly commonly these days. If not given a reason by society or environment to hold that half of responsibility, they simply won’t do it.
My wife was like this a year into our marriage too. It took many years to understand and realize just how deep her narcissistic traits went. I was blinded by love and played the fool. And the more time passed, the more toxic she has become. Things I might have dismissed as a mere mood, or an exception, turned out to be serious character deficiencies caused by a childhood of terrible abuse from her parents. And in turn she began to verbally and physically abuse me regularly.
All that to say, the apparent laziness might not be the main problem, but a symptom of a much bigger one. Your decision to push back will not fix her if she is truly broken – she’s likely to just make halfhearted and temporary attempts at change. But most importantly, your challenges to her will reveal who she is over time.
I hope the best for your marriage. There’s nothing more beautiful than two people thriving together. But I’ve seen a lot of ugliness out there. Hopefully your situation has a happy ending, man!