Let's talk about chores

azwildcat74 · 2023-05-12T18:33:32+00:00

The fact of the matter is that she watched to see if you'd clean a toilet or whatever and when you didn't without any kind of conversation about it from her she used that as justification to fuck some other guy. How many toilets did that dude clean? This is just rationalization for some super toxic behavior and there's no statistic that justifies acting that way.

Asleep-Ad-7459 · 2023-05-12T18:37:28+00:00

Yes they were a big source of tension. I'll admit I'm not the cleanest person but I'm not a slob either. My ex frequently told me that I was not doing as much housework as she was, that the housework I did never measured up to her standards, and that I didn't do things "her way" like they should be done. This held true when we both worked, when I was a SAHD, and when she was a SAHM and I worked. She would test me by leaving dishes in the sink and towels unfolded in a laundry basket. If I didn't drop everything and take care of it immediately, she would barbecue me. If I felt like she didn't express at least some appreciation, she would belittle me and say I was doing the bare minimum that didn't deserve any recognition. I got paranoid and thought I was losing my mind, then I realized she would never be satisfied with my contributions so I basically gave up.

We tried a chore schedule and that didn't work. She would have all day to do her chores while I was working. I'd come home from work and she would be on me immediately to do my chores. If I didn't do them right away, she would fume and do them in a silent rage...then blow up at me after the kids went to bed. There were things that I would do like laundry and switching from heaters to coolers that she refused to do and that I received zero credit for.

So yeah I feel all of this.

coffeefrog92 · 2023-05-12T20:10:48+00:00

I'll say this: when I was dating my ex she told me how much she loved to clean, and every Saturday she'd send me a picture of herself in sweats and a bandana with a hoover or brush or something.

Alarming how quickly that changed once we actually got married.

whatamoniker1 · 2023-05-12T21:11:03+00:00

My ex was a SAHM while i brought in 6 figures and still did a lot of the chores and cooking. Not to mention all the vehicle and home repairs, and taking care of the kids.

Yet she was "a prisoner in her own home", and I did "nothing to help her".

Her affair partner is much uglier than me, but he owns a catering business and she has a boner for kitchen work. So long as it's not the kitchen in the home, I guess...

AudreyTooTwo · 2023-05-12T21:18:13+00:00

I wonder if your wife is getting her talking points from social media.

I admit, when I'm bored, I lurk over on the 2X subreddit. Perhaps it's confirmation bias, but I often see women there confessing their true feelings about divorce, relationships, child custody and so on. (Spoiler: they always assume mom gets full custody when parents split; it doesn't even occur to them there could be another outcome.)

Anyway, I realize that Feminism has taught generations of women that housework is beneath them, and being a SAHM is a fate worse than death. This is nothing new. But lately, lots of women are focused heavily on chores now. Legions of women are absolutely convinced that relationships should be exactly 50/50 in every single regard. I find this idea bizarre; I always thought that relationships were more like Ying and Yang; a useful entanglement of dissimilar people. E.g.: one person earns more, one person plans more; one person is grounded; one person is a dreamer, and so on. I am perplexed why any relationship should be exactly 50/50 in every little detail.

So, if a man spends 37 minutes a day on domestic chores, and the woman spends an hour, it's pretty much domestic abuse worthy of "leaving his lazy ass!". The cause must be "the Patriarchy!"... "He thinks he's entitled", they'll moan. "He wants a bangmaid!".

Christ, the number of times I've seen the word "bangmaid" on Reddit. Seriously, no one used that word 10 years ago. Now, it's in every thread to describe the desire of every man. See for yourself.

And cleaning a toilet! Oh my God in Heaven! For whatever reason, cleaning a toilet has become the worst punishment imaginable, worse that torture. She's definitely divorcing him for that!

These women get so damn spun-up.

I say, hire a maid and shut the fuck up.

But nope. They'd rather have something to bitch and moan about.

Anyway, OP, when I read your post, I thought to myself, there's some 2X talking points right there ("Stop playing mind games!"... I'm surprised she didn't accuse you of "gaslighting").

"I wish he would let me mow the lawn or shovel the snow" -- said no woman ever.

No_Analyst_5235 · 2023-05-12T19:39:05+00:00

It only became a complaint after the marriage was over because I worked 60 to 70 hours a week. 12-14 hour days and she worked 30 hours a week so naturally she did more .

This is just a general justification women could use . If we’re truly an issue that compromised the marriage , it should have been communicated. My ex didn’t complain until after things were over and then it was “ I never did this “ … to put it in scientific terms .. it’s bullshit

meltdownthetown · 2023-05-12T18:11:56+00:00

When women bitch about housework division, the bulk of the time that is really not the main issue. It is a substitute for other unmet needs. Unfortunately, the woman herself might not even be aware of what the true underlying issue is. That makes it doubly unfortunate for us rational men who like to take what's being said at face value. Here's a fairly balanced article by a couples therapist that speaks to the issue. https://www.drpsychmom.com/2022/03/04/my-male-clients-are-doing-much-more-housework-and-childcare-than-a-decade-ago-and-their-wives-are-not-happier/

EnvironmentalAd3558 · 2023-05-12T19:18:43+00:00

Your problem with her is not about chores.

CaliDude75 · 2023-05-12T20:41:56+00:00

This was actually a big reason for my divorce. At one point, when she made the claim she was "doing more than I thought" I actually downloaded a chore-tracking app, and logged every time she or I did something. Guess who came out ahead? 😏

I'm not looking for a submissive domestic diva, just someone willing to pitch in and pull their share of the weight of household responsibilities. Not even necessarily 50/50, but at least putting in an effort.

tragicaddiction · 2023-05-12T21:09:08+00:00

I was deeply unhappy about housework division too.

I did vast majority of cooking and cleaned a lot on top of the typical "manly duties" like cutting grass, car maintenance, garbage recycling and any other "typical guy" things. i felt like those duties didn't count and she never saw it.

i suggested we wrote down all the different tasks there is to do around the house on cards and take a look at it all spread out and then divide the tasks between us.

she refused.

i think she realized that there is a lot more than just "tidying up" and my space was always used as the dumping ground so she used it to shame me in terms of not being messy. she couldn't accept if i'm cutting the grass and doing yard work that counted as household responsibilities.

but if it had worked it can be a good way to show and share the responsibilities of a house because often there are things we do for our partners that they either don't see or acknowledge.

this often leads to resentment which then very easily leads to wandering eyes for appreciation elsewhere.

1Cobbler · 2023-05-12T23:05:28+00:00

"A) women on average do more chores than men. This isn't fair to women in most circumstances (exceptions for part time work or SAHM's)"

Or they earn significantly less by virtue of the value of their work. I think this is touted as fact more than it actually being fact by feminists that read some stats from the 80s. In my experience, women wear blinkers when it comes to effort at home, often discounting work like maintenance, yardwork, gutter cleaning, etc as not work at all and then go "OMG, I'm doing 60% of the washing etc. Time to go fuck some other dude I won't care about any of that with for a couple of years" Then the cycle repeats.

"B) it's hard to figure out to what extent there is inequity in housework and most people want to go off gut feelings/perceptions rather than record keeping or scheduling"

The main thing for me was what I considered dirty. Men have a higher threshold for dirt and so half the problem is that the wife sees something as ready for cleaning while you wouldn't think so for a while longer. If the communicated it, there would be no issue.

"C) everyone is much quicker to embrace the stereotype of the "slob husband" than anything else. No one considers that the wife has too high expectations or that the partnership is failing to address the problem in a healthy way."

Well women who complain a lot (feminists) are embracing that. The problem is that we're all being conditioned to believe we need to do better when I think generally, men are over contributing to relationships, and have been for decades.

Relevant statistics:

https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/dirtiness-perceived-cleanliness-sustained-women-study-reveals/

Men perceive messes as frequently as women but average clean 10 min a day relative to women's 40 min

I think there's probably significant bias in how these surveys are conducted and the a difference in how men (pragmatic) and women (emotional) evaluate their answers.

"https://millichronicle.com/2019/10/divorce-rate-high-among-couples-where-husband-does-more-house-work-norwegian-study-claims.html

Oddly enough, the more housework a man does the more likely the relationship ends in divorce."

This is the same effect of her seeing you get your arse kicked. Logically, she shouldn't care, but biologically she does. Most of them want a man to be sigma, but society has conditioned us to be betas, which is supposedly what women want. They don't.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/charting-genders-incomplete-revolution

Bizarrely enough, men are happier when they have an equal split of household chores. I'm not entirely sure I have a great explanation how these last two statements are both true.

I think it would be more accurate to say that men are happiest when both are contributing equally to the relationship across all categories.

The most optimistic idea I have is that conservative ideas about gender roles and marriage correlate. Chore inequality just doesn't override concepts the negative perception of divorce. Meanwhile progressive ideas correspond with higher acceptance of divorce and while the progressive husband is doing more chores, the wife is more likely to divorce on some other grounds as women initiate divorce in 70% of cases. All pretty speculative though.

What do you guys think? Were chores a big issue in your house too?

I often wonder these days "Maybe the Muslims were right after all".

grunt63 · 2023-05-14T00:59:31+00:00

Chores were a huge issue with my ex. A lot of the same talking points as others have already said. Unrealistic expectations, nothing you do is ever good enough. I carried a LOT of load, especially for the stuff she didn't want to do. I did probably 90% of the domestic duties including cooking. She would say "that's the man's job" for the stuff she was too lazy to or didn't want to do. She would also constantly shift the goalposts. She would be at home all day while I was working a 12 on a Saturday, and the trash can would get loosely filled up throughout the day while I was gone. I get home from work and before I can even kick my shoes off she's fuming at me for the trash being full and how I "never" take it out. I'd go over and press down on the trash and compact it down to about half full, that would send her into orbit. I told her I would take it out when the can got full, but her perception of full changed depending on her mood.. if there was one day where the can was 3/4 full and I saw her fuming around in the kitchen, I knew that 3/4 full was 100% full to her that day and she was pissed because I wasn't taking it out. When I would cook dinner, she would be laying in bed death scrolling on her phone and come into the kitchen when she started to smell something good, stand there and stir a pot for 20 seconds, and go back to bed.. but in her mind, that was us cooking together. That was the meal "we made", she would register that in her brain as her helping me cook. She'd always pick fights about how much I didn't do, ignoring all the stuff I did do. She would say "You have to know what needs to be done, and do it without me having to ask". This went on for years.

There was one time where I took the day off work without telling her (she would have thrown a conniption fit if I had told her I wanted to take a day off when she still had to go to work); she left for her job before me that morning and I spent the entire day doing an operating room level surgical cleaning on every square inch of the house. Inside and outside. Every single thing you could ever think of.. done, and done her way. It looked like a model home. I thought it would be a pleasant surprise for her. But all it did was piss her off when she got home. First was her issue that I stayed home while she was at work. Then, she lost her shit saying "clearly you are capable, why don't do you do this regularly?". Like others here, I suggested for her to just make me a list of the chores she wants me to do and I will make a chart to make sure they get done. Nope. She hit the ceiling at that suggestion. She didn't want to have to tell me what she wanted me to do, she expected me to read her mind. Whenever she couldn't come up with some chore I didn't do to bitch at me about, she would just start making stuff up out of nowhere. Like it's dead of winter and there is a foot of snow on the yard and she is bitching at me about not giving the lawn mower a tuneup from the end of summer when it started running bad.

It even went beyond chores; she couldn't STAND seeing me relax. Any time I'd sit down, within 5 minutes she was calling for me and telling me something to do. The only time she wouldn't get mad at me sitting around was when she wanted me to watch her TV shows with her. Then she expected me to be her lap dog. In her mind, I always had to be doing something. She'd lay around in bed all day, and as soon as I would go into the kitchen she would start hollering at me from the bedroom to bring her something. I always felt like either her employee or like her service animal. The only time I could ever chill and get some peaceful alone time was when she was sleeping. And even then, that time was limited because if she woke up and didn't feel me next to her in bed she would flip out and come find me and tell me to get to bed.

Like a few have mentioned, I think it's not actually about the chores but about having control. That type of woman has to be 100% in control of every part of your life, and anything you do that shows independence or sets boundaries takes that control away from her. And that's the main reason why they get so upset, using chores as a scapegoat. My therapist explained it to me that this type of women want all of your MEAT. Money, Energy, Attention, and Time. He would tell me to Protect my MEAT.

Fellas, there is NO winning with this type of woman. Protect your MEAT.

pk2at · 2023-05-12T19:36:02+00:00

Chores are usually an excuse. Fifty years ago, women were doing most of the chores and many were working as well. In those times, we didn't have many of the gadgets making things easier. Yet divorce rates were less than 5%.

Doing chores is perfectly fair to women. Like it or not, traditional roles have barely changed, the government and courts see men as the breadwinners

BurnDownTheMission68 · 2023-05-12T20:21:52+00:00

“I did anything she asked”

That right there is the problem.

Women don’t want a lapdog, no matter what they say.

This is counter-intuitive to most men.

somethingsimple89535 · 2023-05-12T19:55:32+00:00

Women are emotional beings. Logic and reasoning have no place in their vocabulary. 😔

NotACoomerAnymore · 2023-05-12T22:31:34+00:00

Men do majority of the house maintenance. Like Cars and DIY work

upvotersfortruth · 2023-05-13T01:15:46+00:00

I embraced the slob for a good three or four years. My bad.

fewdo · 2023-05-13T12:55:47+00:00

Did that one study say that men get the cleaning done in ten minutes and it took the women forty? :D

northdakotact · 2023-05-13T22:38:08+00:00

All married woman are quite frankly looking for a domestic slave. If you were doing 95% of the chores they would still complain.

Acceptable_Photo6956 · 2023-05-14T15:42:57+00:00

Yeah we kind of agreed to the do it as it needs to be done principle.. except laundry shed pick fights over laundry. Because I'd do something in a way she didn't like... I'm being very specific here. It was not wrong the clothes were clean and hung and pressed and fabric softened and smelled good. But for whatever reason, she did not like the way I did it. First it was not enough fabric softener, then too much, then no I don't want fabric refresher with my unmentionables.. then why didn't you use fabric refresher.. I even proposed because it got so problematic that we each do our own laundry.. got told that was divisive and she would just do it since I was unteachable. Yeah that hurt.

Title	Let's talk about chores
Author	Throwawaysi1234
Upvotes	15
Comments	35
Date	May 12, 2023 5:27 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/13fri21/lets_talk_about_chores/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/lets-talk-about-chores.1219095 https://theredarchive.com/post/1219095

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