I am so pissed at my husband right now. He is acting like a spoiled baby.
In his defense, he usually does the majority of the house cleaning. Usually I do the kitchen/bathrooms and he does most everything else. His work schedule has allowed him to do it during the week while I’m at work and the kids are at school. We’ve never agreed on a schedule. I’m more of a take a day during the weekend to clean type of girl, whereas he likes to do it throughout the week. I don’t like to have to clean on top of cooking dinner and cleaning up from that once I get home from work. But, whatever, it generally works. I will usually take a weekend day to do stuff like reorganize, clean out closets, refrigerator, cabinets, and that stuff when it is needed. I'm the only one that does that deep down stuff.
DH retired early Nov and has not started his new job yet. He has been mentioning that we need to do a deep cleaning/dusting/etc. of the house. Fine….not a problem, except finding the time to do it with everything else that goes on. Just have to make time. Then I got thinking…why the hell can’t he do most of it right now since he’s not working??? He hasn’t been working for two months, you would think the house would be spotless. He hasn't been taking care of meals either. It’s not that he’s being lazy. He likes to stay busy and does other stuff, albeit stuff that should be last on the list type things.
So, this morning I said something to him about him starting some of it since he has more time as he's not working right now. He immediately got pissed….real pissed. Whatever. He thought I was ragging on him for not working. I told him that wasn’t the issue at all, but the point was that he hasn’t been working so he has more time to do it than I do, especially since he likes to plan things for the weekends, which takes time away from me doing that kind of stuff. He didn’t get what I was saying, just kept getting more mad….where he walked away from me when I was trying to talk to him. Oh well, he can kiss my ass.
I guarantee though, if I weren’t working he would be saying something to me about the house, especially if I kept mentioning that it needs cleaned. And if I didn’t make an effort to cook….that would be a big deal too.
Perfect time for the work
Perfect time for the work time is work time and after work time is mutual responsibility time lecture.
When my DW and I were first married it took us a while to get connected on the housework thing. She was a SAHM and full time college student (in the evenings) when we first married I worked and was in grad school in the evenings. We both detest housework.
So, I devised the work time/joint time method. Work time is from when the first person leaves for work in the AM until the last working person gets home in the evening. That means a SAHM spouse works in the house during work time. Dealing with kids, cleaning, etc.... When both partners are home it is not the responsibility of the one who has been gone at work all day to do the house and family related stuff, it is both partners responsibility. Our balance got easier when SS started school at 5yo and DW took a job. That way there was more of a balance to the housework and she was much happier.
SS "retired" when we moved to an interantion assignemnt for my job 2.5 years ago. The old tensions regarding housework resurfaced not long after that. DW is a CPA and has a successful career of her own but does not work since we are Expats (yet). I had to dust off the wor time/joint responsibility time lecture not long after we went Expat. Things got a bit better but the tensions remained. So now I outsource the housework.
DW still gets grouchy over her eternal disatisfaction with the level of my participation in the household stuff but when things are clean and tidy I can more easily invoke my manly selective hearing and avoid the housework as much as possible. }:)
Good luck.
That is exactly how I think
That is exactly how I think it should be done, as well. If I were home and not working, I would do what needed to be done while DH was at work re: cleaning, dinner prep, etc, but I would expect that we would then share in the cleaning up after dinner, and other stuff that happens in the evenings. That way not one person feels like they are doing "more" than the other. I have a girlfriend who is a SAHM, and her DH works through the day. Of course, her "work day" starts well before his does, and ends well after his does. She gets some "her" time by going to get a coffee a couple nights a week for a half hour, after she puts the kids to bed (this being while her DH is home) :jawdrop:
My grandmother and my mother
My grandmother and my mother often said the Southern ladies mantra of "A man's work is from sun to sun but a woman's work is never done". Sounds like your SAHM friend understands that mantra perfectly.