My (Common law) husband works as a landscaper, long hours in general, sometimes he comes home early but other days he has a packed schedule and has to leave super early in the morning and doesn’t get home till late. I work in an office and mostly just do paperwork all day, my schedule isn’t very grueling, my hours got cut a few weeks back and now i’m part time.
I take on the brunt of the housework, it’s the main thing i do as soon as i get home. My bf though, he just comes in and sits on the couch and naps.
His justification is that i work in an air conditioned office and sit in a comfy chair all day and that he’s out in the sun doing manual labor, since he works harder and makes more money then i, i should have to do the housework and that it’s “My job”. He acts like my job is just a hobby. He complains his knees hurt after all the work he does all day and that “If i worked as hard as he did, i’d be tired too.”
As soon as i got home from work, i had to get everything ready for the kids school the next day and i just asked him to mop the kitchen. He said he was tired from working all day. I kept pushing him on it, to just do this one thing and that he should do his part and that he never helps out. He got mad. He shouted “Well God Damn, when’s the last time you came out and helped me mow lawns or carry 50 pound bags of fertilizer? I do my job and you do yours.”
I didn’t know what to say after that. Is he right?
He said he’ll help out with the housework if i do the work he does “To see how it is”. Should i do it?
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In my opinion, if people aren’t willing to do their part… at least offer to pay someone to do it.
My wife and I had different opinions on cleaning. It became an issue… we negotiated to have someone come out once every other week. That part of “cleaning” never was an issue again.
To be honest though… unless company is coming over or it’s really sticky… asking someone to mop a floor after a day of physical labor sounds cruel. Would he find it more acceptable on a Saturday?
Your husband’s comments are unhelpful. Many jobs are very tiring, including ones that take place in an air conditioned office (I work in one, and I do tons of math, and my brain hurts every single day). I’m sure I’d be tired doing manual labor, and I’m sure he’d also be tired to have to learn how to do my job, or your job.
I think a helpful thing to convey is that our professional lives and our personal lives are not one in the same. Yes, it’s understandable to be tired after working your professional job. Totally understood. But in getting married, you’re committing to your personal life. And that includes having to adapt your life to accommodate responsibilities. There is *no* circumstance where one person should do all of the housework.
In a sarcastic sense, I’d say that you should just stop doing so much housework. Don’t do his laundry, don’t do the dishes, and don’t clean spaces he uses. You can do your own laundry, and clean your own dishes, but let him experience what happens when he doesn’t have clean pants to wear. When he was single, he clearly did laundry and cleaned at some point. So he is, to a degree, taking advantage of you. But he makes a fair point that he’s tired, and I do think you should respect that. That might be a better way to have this conversation; align with him. Let him know you get it, and you can’t even imagine what that manual labor and exhaustion is like. But you didn’t sign up for a marriage where he wouldn’t push himself, and that you’re not comfortable living a life and a future where you take on the housework. You have to work together, as a team, to make each other’s lives better.
So, does your SO have any employees or is he a one man show? I bet he at least hire some help to bigger projects.
I would just hire a cleaning person to come once a week or so, and do the bulk of the work, while you just do the daily upkeep. If he says anything, just say keeping house is your job, and as such you realized your business needed an employee to help you manage everything.
It’s tough because you work part-time and he works overtime. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t do anything at home, but you should definitely be doing the majority.
I’d sit down with him and write out a chore list, together assign hours/minutes to each chore, and then include the hours you each work. Then assign chores so that you each have equal chores + work hours. I’d recommend you take on an hour or two more because his job requires more recovery time, but you don’t need to do too much more than that since I’m guessing you do the majority of the mental workload and are the first parent the kids run to.
“Helping out” sounds like it is not an equal responsibility. If he has a full time job and you not, it is natural that you do a bit more housework. It is not natural that you do all the housework. Sharing is caring. It goes both ways.
It sounds like he doesn’t respect you. And he’s being incredibly selfish. Landscaping is hard work, no doubt. But it doesn’t give him the right to treat you like a slave.
Same answer you’re getting everywhere seemingly
Definitely not at all hell no he’s acting like a baby I wake up at 4am I’m a surveyor in ny so I’m walking up stairs cases walking long blocks with 100lbs of equipment on my back And I’m outside all day sun, cold, rain whatever. I come home I cook clean up do whatever I can to help. I hate cleaning it is what it is but I’ll do laundry straighten up. Make sure my wife doesn’t have extra work to do even though she works from home and I make the money. A household should be 50-50
My husband works a physically demanding job outside almost daily for long hours. The best way for me to love him is to make sure he comes home and is able to decompress in peace. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to come home after a grueling day to someone who has a list of things to nag me about.
With that said, your husband is wrong. Yeah, he deserves to rest but that doesn’t give him the pass to do absolutely nothing. My husband will do the dishes if I don’t get to them or will entertain our children while I cook dinner if I couldn’t get to it earlier. Just because you’re home more (or in my case all day as a sahm) doesn’t mean 100% of the homemaking falls on you.
Household and parental activities are both in of your jobs. You’re not asking him to do your work, you’re asking him to do his share of your joint work. This would be my hill to die on, it’s so disrespectful.
He doesn’t respect you. Leave him. He chose his job. His boss paid him for it. You don’t owe him housework just because he did his job at work. If it’s too hard, he can find a different job. You work full time too. Cleaning the house is just as much his responsibility as yours.
Does he parent at all? You work until the work is done. Sometimes that means when you come home you help with homework or dinner or bedtime routine. Thats part of the job as parent. Was there a spill to mop up or just a normal dirty floor? Get a robot mop. I would not have mopped a dirty floor after a long day unless it was a spill.
Divorce that piece of shit. You’re not a team at all.