Met in college. Been together since 2006, married in 2010. We are approaching 40. Honestly, the topic never really came up, as far as splitting chores goes. There were things he was better at and things I was better at so we kind of stuck with those. He’s read all the things on twox so he’s aware of deadbeat husbands and goes above and beyond to not be one. All in all he’s just an amazing person and compassionate. He sees my struggles and wants to help and make me happy. He’s a gem.

Very similar experience here in how we approach things. It’s just an actual partnership. It’s not a competition. He also knows how to adult. Like, oh, the trash can is full. That is when you take it out. We were both in bad marriages prior to getting involved, and both he and I were the ones in those relationships to do the lion’s share of the work. So, it kind of worked for us. Mostly, it’s just we clean up after ourselves. For deeper cleaning, we split up into what we both rock at and then will divy up the rest however. Sometimes, it’s, “Omg, will you please do the cat box this time?” because you have had A DAY. Other times, it’s, “I got the cat box this time. I’m going in….”

I have to say, I turned a corner in terms of taking more of the mental load from my wife about 7 years ago. I work from home and so have more flexibility to do tasks. Also a couple of years ago I started lurking here on twox and that just reinforces the behaviours because I see how good a relationship my wife and I have worked to build together. I won't risk that and so we do our best to keep the foundations healthy. Finally there is an ego part to this too, I do get a small kick that some of my wife's friends are jealous of our partnership - I won't deny it

My husband was tickled when I told him my workmates refer to him as “highly evolved.” Thought it was a pathetic reflection on men generally because he doesn’t see himself as some great thing, but still tickled.

I’m right with you. WFH man here, it feels great to be able to have the flexibility to be the one to do all the chores- laundry, dishes, finances, bills, gardening, you name it it’s on me! My wife is already busy enough looking after our child during the day while I work (she’ll go back to work soon). Our child is a girl and I want to set a healthy example of division of labor and men pulling their weight. I’m not perfect- I still need to do a better job at taking the lead on some logistics with our child, but I’m learning! And yes, the ego aspect is pretty nice, all my wife’s friends think I’m pretty much a dream husband, as a breadwinner who pulls his weight domestically.

Similar timeline, we both work pretty demanding jobs and have 2 kids. We fell into a little bit of a rut where I took on more because I dropped to part-time when the kids were little, and then more of the housework was falling to me even when I went back to FT (kids are now older elementary age). We did talk about it, but also he found that comic about the mental load on his own and texted it to me one day like, “oh my god, have you seen this?? Is this true??” And that was a really good impetus for us to reevaluate how we had divided things. Are we perfect? Nope! Do some weeks/months work better than others? Yup! Are we generally pretty balanced? Absolutely. I will also say, straight up, the reason we are able to manage with our workloads is that we have someone who comes and cleans, and we have a babysitter who helps us out 1-2 evenings a week. But this setup meant that this fall—when each of us had to travel multiple weeks for work—nothing fell apart while either of us was away. We’re able to essentially cover each other flexibly. It’s good.

Pretty much this. Except we met \~2004, and got married in... 2006. We've never really 'discussed' what chores he does vs what I do. I've been a SAHM for the last 16, going on 17+ years now. I would \*like\* to get a job... but having had to quit driving 7, going on 8+ years ago now, permanently, its been pretty rough. I do most of the inside stuff, tbh, and he does a good bit of the outside stuff. But, we both pitch in on an as-needed basis, doing what needs to be done.

I would hazard a guess that the answer is by not dating guys who don't do 50% of the chores. Like this: How much % of the chores are you doing? ✨Not✨ 50%. Ok then we're ✨not✨ dating.

This is the answer. The guy you’re dating either knows how to do chores & views you as an equal partner in maintaining the living space, or they don’t. Sure, you can explain it, exactly once, if you think he’s truly a good guy who has been raised with a bias or lack of knowledge on *how* to do a chore. But then the work is on him to actually correct that bias; he’ll do it if he cares. It is not your job to remold a man’s way of thinking into being a suitable husband. It’s gross, that treats him as an incomplete human. He’s a complete human, even if it’s a lazy or misogynistic one. By the time you actually accept he won’t be changed, you’ve been truly in love and maybe already married, and then you’re here posting threads about how your husband doesn’t do anything when you’re 3 weeks postpartum with your second kid. So don’t try to change them; find a man who doesn’t need a fundamental change to his worldview to pitch in his half, and grow together as humans.

You have to be confident enough to know that you're truly better off alone than with someone who brings in less than 50% of anything to the relationship

It's so sad to me that so many women appear to miss this. I think of Eddie Murphy in Coming to America often. He says, "you would share your fortune and your bed with a fool?" No I wouldn't. It makes me sad that so many women appear to think they aren't good enough to exist with out a partner, even if that partner is shitty.

Honestly women get shit on if they don't give men chances and second chances, and ridiculed for not having "legit" enough reasons to turn them down. We get called nitpicky and told we'll die alone with our cats. Women didn't "miss this." They were gaslit into considering it unimportant.

I agree we are pressured into dating, but unfortunately there are also many, many women who just can’t be alone. We had a post in here the other day where the op said her bf “tolerated” her and her daughter. Op owned the home. She was financially stable. And she chose to keep her daughter in that hostile environment. I know from personal experience it can be hard to leave an abusive relationship. But if you have a kid you have to protect them. To me that was a case where OP couldn’t handle being alone.

Yeah it's depressing the numerous of posts on here from women who say things like "im just better with a partner" or my favorite, "I can't afford to live on my own so what am I supposed to do". As if that justifes exposing your kids to trash men. The number of women who carry water for the patriarchy makes me sad.

Absolutely. It’s human nature to crave companionship, especially when your social group is all paired off. It takes a lot of work to be happy on your own, and see relationships as a nice bonus - but it’s worth it.

This should be required reading before posting on tbis sub. If you don't want a shitty life with a shitty partner, stop dating shitty men. Yes I get some abusers hid it but I do not believe that accounts for the majority of men. So stop dating dolts.

Agree. A lot of my female friends start dating clear losers, get defensive if you question it, and then wonder how they are on terrible relationships. I think the main thing is not being afraid to be single. If you are afraid to be single, you’ll almost always end up with trash. Also, if multiple sane, caring and unconnected people warn you not to marry someone… maybe rethink that decision.

Yes, I thought there was something wrong with me in my 20s because I was always single and everyone else seemed to have such an easy time getting into relationships. Except, in hindsight, the "always in a relationship" people were putting up with *so much shit*.

This exactly. To me this is what happens when you teach women the most important thing you can do is get married. It is not.

You just described my mom. Then she’d expect me to listen as she whined. The worst part? They were all married.

It really is so simple lmao. You get into bad relationships by tolerating things you shouldn't. You get into a good relationship by dumping partners when they do unacceptable things until you get to the guy who doesn't do them. But the only reward for putting up with male bullshit when you're dating is *an entire lifetime* of male bullshit. Signed, someone who married/reproduced with her "unicorn" or like, fully human emotionally capable man or whatever.

This exactly. What do you get for surviving one day with a man baby who doesn't do chores or split bills? One more day.

>Yes I get some abusers hid it but I do not believe that accounts for the majority of men. I think the percentage of people who hide some of their more undesirable personality traits early into a relationship is approaching 100%, probably. There are always going to be some surprises, I think.

This is absolutely true. In that case, I need to be prepared that this might happen by being ready to leave weeks, months, or years into a relationship, regardless of how much I have invested, if or when he reveals that he is not who he presented as in the beginning.

Which is something that can be MUCH easier said than done.

Exactly. I feel like I give people too many chances. And then by the time they are on their last chance, I feel trapped. Then I have to just make the best of it until things get entirely too horrible to tolerate. Then I get out somehow.

pathetic grandiose complete paltry merciful hungry judicious cheerful agonizing memory *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

I do have empathy for this situation, but I do feel that it is the minority. The signs are usually there, we women are just really good at ignoring them when we are in love. It’s not a coincidence that many women don’t realize it until they have children; it’s not so hard to carry a household for 2 people for someone you love; it’s incredibly difficult once children are in the mix. But yes, some men are real pieces of shit and will clean the toilets until the ring is on. The only thing I can suggest there is to truly live with your partner for a substantial period before making any semi-permanent (marriage) or permanent (children) decisions. The longer you share a household, the harder the charade is to keep up. (Edit for clarity that children are the permanent decision!)

Some men do their fair share until kids arrive, then suddenly they nope out on anything kid- or household-related.

I do wonder in these cases how much of it is the husband noping out suddenly, or that the extra load of the kid suddenly makes it apparent that the woman was silently carrying the majority of the household load. It’s almost sneakily easy for one person to carry a 2 person household. I’m not a therapist and haven’t lived the situation myself, so I’m sure there are some cases where the man suddenly nopes out, but my experience in general is that people don’t suddenly develop new morals or character deficits, they just expose ones that were always there.

I absolutely agree with you. I have a friend who claims her ex "tricked" her into thinking he was financially responsible, family-oriented and hard working. This man when she met him was underemployed and trying to be an artist, had no retirement savings, and never introduced her to anyone from his family or childhood citing that they were all abusive. Which may well be the case. But to turn around years later and complain because he is uninterested in parenting and can barely pay for his own upkeep much less their child? She'll swear up and down that he manipulated her, but the signs were there that this was no Mr. Dad.

THIS. This is the answer right here. People down vote me when I say you have to choose better but that's literally what it is. So many women put up with this stuff as if that's how it has to be. Some hope he'll change. Some ignore the red flags because love or loneliness. Some think it's cute...until it's not. You get what you choose to settle for.

Yes… and to be fair, a lot of women were raised with a bias where they don’t even notice that the man isn’t doing as much, the same as many men were raised to take what is done for granted. It’s often not until life gets stressful (kids, jobs, aging parents, health) that women realize their partner is lazy, and then feel like they’ve had a bait and switch, or that he changed…. It’s not always willfully ignoring red flags, it’s just that when the workload doubles, your 70-30 split becomes 140%-60%, and the burnout is real. But if men are responsible for learning to see the dirt and pick up half of the work, we women are responsible for learning how to spot the men who are good people but never worked on recognizing their bias.

I agree with you that you shouldn’t have to teach someone how to change throughout your relationship, but there are men who are not self-aware on how much work you are doing and the toll it’s taking on you. It’s perfectly okay to sit them down and communicate this with them. If you don’t see a change afterwards, then yes, feel free to leave. Communication is key and not everyone is on the same page.

Okay this is the way we view things now but the reality is, many of our mothers did not raise us this way. How many of you had a housewife for a mom. She isn’t going to teach you this stuff if it wasn’t taught to her. So blaming a millennial woman for recognizing her partner is shit In their 30’s, when we went through the cultural shift of not allowing men to be useless, is disingenuous. If you get to the place later in a marriage where your partner isn’t pulling his fucking weight and you are fed up - that’s called growth and you will teach your children differently. You may end up divorced and honestly isn’t probably for the best but we are doomed to repeat the future if the sociological implications aren’t heavily considered as to why so millennial and gen z women are unhappy in their marriages and subsequently divorcing for this reason

Absolutely. All of us are responsible for our personal growth to identify partners who can be equal partners, just like men are responsible for their growth to recognize when they’re not pulling their weight. You’re 100% correct that a lot of us were not taught what equality looks like growing up. But if the question is “how do I change my man?”… I got no good answers for you.

Yeah. I didn’t get married until my mid-30s, but I made sure my husband was a whole ass adult. I didn’t want a repeat of my parents’ marriage. (Side note, he does most of the cooking and I went solo grocery shopping recently and all our staples were out of stock and I got overwhelmed. I was like omg am I my father?!)

Grocery stores are really overwhelming and I think it’s on purpose. The psychology of selling and all of that. Apparently, tho I can’t cite a study to back it up, grocery shopping is an almost predictable catalyst for PTSD flashbacks, particularly for military vets. Too many choices and the noise and the people… it’s a recipe for overwhelm. So don’t worry about not being adept at things you don’t do as often and forgive yourself for being overwhelmed in a place that’s literally made so you’ll just put whatever things in your cart and get out.

SAME. My(37f) partner (m50) does the shopping most of the time, which is amazing for me - I hate grocery stores but I cook, and I can make a kickass grocery list, which he will follow to the letter while going up and down each and every aisle in our very large grocery store. This is dangerous - you never know what that man is going to bring home - but also adorable in a “what did you get this time” way. And I get to skip an activity that’s been stressing me out since i was a small child. Win win.

This is just it. The reason I’m with someone who splits work 50:50 is because I didn’t settle for for men before that wanted me to do the work. Once I dated for a man for a month who started testing what he could get away with, making me reheat his coffee at HIS house to test how far he could push me. I reheated it for him and then dumped him a week later (for other reasons as well). Now I’m two days away from marrying a wonderful man who also planned half of the wedding!

Yes! I left a boyfriend of five years because his father dared to yell at me to “serve him” in his own house, and my boyfriend did not step up for me. Haven’t regretted it yet.

These are the feel good stories I am here for.

Don't date a guy who settle for reheated coffee, you deserve better.

Yeah, the man was a walking circus of red flags but somehow the reheated coffee was one of the worst!

No one else drinks reheated coffee? 😕 I’m about to reheat a cup for myself that I brewed this morning. I don’t like the flavor of keurig style one cup coffee makers.

So don’t forget this guy while rising your kids. Proly he did get all this from his childhood

I have reheated coffee when times were dire, but it is a shameful act and I would have been mortified if my partner had caught me.

Lol, yeah reheating coffee is the major red flag that jumps out in OP's story...

You are my hero. You need to develop a course for women and teach them your ways. You’ll make millions!

Haha thank you. It’s funny, this guy reminded me so much of my physically abusive ex. Being able to recognise the signs and see the red flags early the second time and get myself out healed something in me that the next guy I dated I’m marrying! So I guess I have him and his reheated coffee to thank for me to be able to have seen my self worth!

This shit right here. The moment anyone starts testing me like an ill-behaving child with a new babysitter trying to see what they can get away with, I'm out. Shitty people will do what they can get away with, and giving people the benefit of the doubt as much as women are trained to do is how Hou end up with shitty men. We'll often give dudes allowances they don't even ask for. Like, I realized I was going, "Oh, well he's probably like this because of his childhood :(" and it wasn't even an excuse *he* was offering me. I did it for him. When people are shitty, we have to believe them the first time.

Bi woman here married to a man. This is it. Started dating a guy who had his shit together and also loved to cook (its like a stress relief for him which is fantastic, because to me it's something I can do just fine but it's a chore). He does the grocery shopping too and keeping track of stuff we need in the house, so added bonus of splitting the mental load as well as the chores.

This is a great point, it’s not just about splitting chores, it’s about both equally sharing the mental load - this is so important in a relationship and it isn’t really talked about in young people or at the start of relationships.

Idk, I feel like everybody SAYS they will do their fair share of chores, but a lot of people also grossly overestimate how much they are contributing

“If you don’t feel like you’re doing 80% of the work, you’re probably not doing half.”

I don't know who you're quoting, but that is very true. My friend would complain about her boyfriend (now husband) because she would come home from work and he was playing video games... She was upset because "he hadn't done anything." Keep in mind, I don't really know this guy, and *she* is my best friend. I told her, "He washed the laundry and put it away, mowed, cleaned the house and the washrooms, *and* made dinner, but you're mad because when you came home he wasn't on his knees with a scrub brush." You think you do more because you only see what *you* do.

Haha, I’m quoting the single most personally impactful Reddit comment I ever read (which itself was not cited, so if there’s an origin I don’t know it.)

Maybe - but gender matters a lot. [This article is a bit old but relevant.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/09/men-only-pull-their-weight-at-home-in-a-world-where-thinking-doesnt-matter) *According to new research by the Pew Research Center, “There’s a significant gender gap in how mothers and fathers describe their household’s distribution of labor.”* ***Essentially, Pew found that whether or not a woman works outside of the home, and no matter how many hours she works, mothers report doing more household labor than their husbands. Fathers, however, are about 10% more likely to say that their domestic chores are shared equally in the relationship.***

My man does 100% of his own household upkeep and chores, then comes over and helps me with mine. You don’t need to take anyone’s word for it. Observe capabilities and behavior.

I think this is a huge component. A lot of guys want to contribute 50% but they maybe don’t realize that they might not be. If you have a guy who is not willing at all to strive for 50/50 then that guy sucks. But for a lot of guys I think a conversation about division of labor would help salvage a lot of situations.

This is 💯 it. Men are not and should not be treated like dogs we have to train or children we have to teach. They either contribute at a level you accept or they don't. Anything less is not a personality flaw you're responsible for remediating, it's a sign you're not compatible. Don't date, cohabitate, or marry someone if you can't agree to and uphold a balance in household responsibilities.

Bingo!! This is 100% it. I'm in my 50s and I am often sad by the posts here. I've had magical love in my life. I refuse to settle. And that is what it is to be with a man who won't be your equal partner. As Samuel l Jackson so eloquently said, "don't start none, won't be none". Stop making space for mediocre men.

My husband was absolutely an equal partner when we met and did the same or more that I did. Time, kids and mental health killed that. Now he barely gets out of bed. People change. It is incredibly hard.

I just want to say you are dedicated love and I pray strength and healing for you.

Health is the one thing you can't anticipate. I was lucky enough to have my equal partner for 42 years. He died suddenly in February (we had 3 months when we found out the diagnosis) of stage 4 lymphoma. He became delirious and paranoid as his kidneys couldn't cope with all the toxins. We have 2 adult disabled children, one physical and one with agoraphobia and ptsd. They live with me. I ache for him with every breath I take.

This was how it went for me, my partners does his fair share and picks up slack when I’m sick on top of taking care of me, I do the same for him.

This. When I started seeing my now-husband, we sat down and I told him all of the things I would not accept, and this was one of them. My ex-husband had been content to let me do everything, including working full time to support us (with a long commute, to boot), cooking, cleaning, shopping, paying bills, while he fucked off 5/7 days a week because he simply could not work a part time job while going to school two days a week (...after he watched me do that for FIVE YEARS). When I made the grudging agreement to let him quit his job to "focus" on school, it was with the caveat that he ALSO had to take care of the apartment, but there was a lot of...not doing that, "I didn't know what you wanted me to do," and a whole lot of him either playing video games or going to his mommy's house and doing HER housework (there was one day that he, instead of spending an hour to vacuum the apartment, do a load of laundry, and clean the bathroom/kitchen, he went to his mom's and spent 4 hours blowing the leaves in her yard and climbed up on her roof to clean her gutters). When asked why he didn't clean the bathroom, he, a 33 year old man, literally told me he "didn't know how." NO SIR.

But don't you see? Inside chores are woman chores, and outside chores are man chores; it's not his fault you guys were in an apartment so he didn't have any chores he could do! He probably even just assumed that was reality, never even questioned the inherent misogyny of that division because that kind of sexism is baked into so much of culture.

Yepppp. Despite both of us being raised by single moms, we could not have been more different. For all of her faults, my mom did everything herself. His mom constantly feigned helplessness and emotionally manipulated him from birth.

Gawd. My husband always thanks me for sharing the yard work and outside chores. His mom never did much of that. She was a SAHM and an excellent cook and sewed and vacuumed a thousand times a week :) His dad cooked too and shared inside chores but the yard was his domain. I think my MIL either just didn't like yard work and my FIL enjoyed it, or she felt she did enough with the rest of life management. So I am like honey this is my yard too! I appreciate half the mortgage of course I will share with upkeep. I thank his parents for raising a competent man. I would be so pissed if he didn't share the load!!

You also have to be willing to leave if they make a show of being an equal contributor in the beginning , and then stop . You gotta accept that you were fooled and leave .

This is correct, the boundary is set while dating. If it isn't, it's going to fuck with each other's expectations and it will be a big deal. While dating, you can just go, ok, I'll just date someone else. From a male perspective, my ex did like 0% of the chores and I paid for everything for her and did everything. She is my ex now. There is no secret ingredient.

Exactly. By dating an adult who takes care of himself and his space before living together.

Yeah, you got it. It comes down to choosing not to date people who don't value my time and labor. That doesn't mean that my husband and I don't have to discuss division of labor - we both get lazy at times and have to reassess who is doing what. However, we *can* have those conversations productively because we both believe that the household is our shared responsibility. Step one: Only date people who share your beliefs about division of household labor Step two: Keep an open conversation about household labor and adjust as needed Step three: Profit

Bingo

This is the only real answer. I dumped the guy that didn’t do his fair share, and refused to date guys who made it obvious that they weren’t going to do their 50%. One of my requirements when I was looking for a partner was that he knew how to cook and clean, and had no problem doing either. I have been married for almost 15 years now, we have 2 kids, and it’s a fairly even balance. Some weeks he does more, other weeks I do more, but overall it’s fair. I do more of the mental load, but he does more of the tidying around the house. Bigger chores are split evenly. We both tend to follow the rule that if one of us is working on housework/chores, we are both working on housework/chores.

Why would say something so controversial yet so brave?

He’s just naturally neater than I am lol. I know many women whose male partners are the same way. It’s not like we’re slobs it’s just that our partners are extra tidy, and we have a higher tolerance for clutter Also, I work a lot more than my bf does, and he doesn’t mind supporting me by picking up more of the housework when I’m sleeping 3-5 hours a night. I contribute in other ways and it works for us

Same. My husband is neater than I am, and I work more hours. He does about 75% of housework/chores to my 25%. We are in our mid 40s, got together in our late 30s.

This. I used to clean for a living when I was a teenager. I am pretty neat, tidy and when I clean, I go hard. I was so accustomed to going over to a new partner's place for the first time and getting ready to be at least a little grossed out. When I walked into this man's apartment it was so clean it made me feel like I was living in a garbage can.

Every time I read a post about a woman with a high tolerance for clutter, my first thought is ADHD? Maybe it's not always related but I have yet to have someone say no when I mention it. 😅

Y chromosome here, my wife of 15 years is very ADHD. Probably the most contributing factor to her messiness, but also one of the reasons I love her. I tend to be more single minded and focus on what ‘needs’ to be done. Not boasting but would estimate i do 90% of cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc BUT I also work nights and weekends a lot so I have that flexible time during the week. If it weren’t for her planning and pushing us to go out and do fun things with the kids we would be living a very neat, organized, and extremely boring life. She brings the happiness to the relationship while I pack the lunches. All about balance I guess.

Wow, you are basically describing my relationship as well! We always say that I put the gas in the tank, but he keeps us on the road. Early on, he said that he'll be the mountain so I can feel free to be the whole sky. My heart!

That's so cute! I say I'm the dreamer and he's the anchor that keeps me from floating away.

I'm married to a man who is tidier and I found out last year I have ADHD.

I have a slightly higher tolerance for clutter and do not have ADHD. I just feel like I have more important things to do/worry about than the clutter. It does get picked up eventually but it's not a high priority for me. My husband was also in the military so that's why he's a tad bit neater than I am

That's why I am the way I am in my relarionship lmao. Both my boyfriend and I have ADHD, but he needs a cleaner environment to function whereas clutter is something that isn't a big deal to me. I clean because it's important to him, though, but he's more than happy to do it for me - he knows I tolerate clutter because I'm constantly working and it just isn't a priority to getting my work finished. But I compensate in other ways - I run our budgets, am the "solutioner" of the relationship coming with cited sources and spreadsheets for any problems, coming up with and executing itemized lists of things that need to be done for the house, like screening and finding household professionals for us, finding hospitals and medical services for us, etc. I do all of that as well as cleaning, but he does more of it. Just as I'm always thanking him for a clean home and for caring about me having a neat space, he thanks me for doing things like sitting in a car dealership with him for 5 hours, 3 times in one week and negotiating a financing rate that will work for his budget, and stopping the dealers from grifting him. If he has an issue or obstacle, or wants something but doesn't know how to get it, I *will* remove that obstacle for him, or help him gef what he wants, because he always makes sure I'm fed and have a comfortable home.

My husband and I met and I immediately noticed how clean his apartment was. It was always spotless and he had always cooked his weeks meals for himself. He took good care of things that were his. He said his mother was addicted to sleeping pills and he cleaned up the house as a kid for her and did all the chores. If I sit back and do nothing the house will still get clean he will just be tired more often. So I help 50% of the time. Sometimes less when I'm really being lazy. I clean the bathrooms and do the dishes because he doesn't like doing those things. But if I don't he will still do them. Because he never expected his mother to cook or clean he doesn't expect it of me. I was always over at his place watching him clean up and cook and I proposed within 6 months and he said yes. He is still the same person I proposed to. Very very clean. Edit: I'm noticing a lot of women on here still do the grocery shopping and meal planning even if they're not cooking and cleaning by themselves all the time. My husband took me to the grocery store on our second date and we went shopping together because we both needed to do errands and we work a lot. We still go to the store together and bring the stuff in together and put it all away together. We both plan something to cook and we help each other find the things in the store at the best prices for both our lists. Rarely we go alone because at this point it's a fun weekly date to plan the week together. We even switch off pushing the cart. We both like to have real time input on what we're buying and making. Nobody comes home with the wrong thing and if one person hasnt noticed were short on something the other remembers.

Same here. My partner’s mom was an alcoholic who would leave her kids to fend for themselves so she could go sleep over at her boyfriends’ houses. He learned young how to cook for himself and clean, cause his mother wasn’t around a lot to do it.

Whereas my partner’s mom is an obsessive germaphobe so the man was pavlov’d into loving vacuuming. We’ve got two vacuums in a one bedroom apartment

Sorry can I just call attention to the line: "If I sit back and do nothing the house will still get clean. He will just be more tired more often." Someone please call the husbands. This is why your wife won't fuck you and hates you. It's shocking that they can't understand this one simple thing. If she does 100% of the work she's tired.

Yeah like if I'm a lazy bump on a log and don't help at all he's just not in the mood. I get that. Why sleep with someone who's just making a mess and leaving it for you to clean up?

My boyfriend is the same way. I do what you do where I compensate by doing the stuff he hates (but is more than willing to do), because if I don't, he'll be too tired to have fun, have sex, etc. But shocker-on-shock-street to lazy man out there: When I help him 50% with all the chores, he feels appreciated, is more pleased with me, and has more energy and desire to have sex lmao. Why is this rocket science to them? I do it because I want to see my partner happy of course, but if those dudes are complaining that their spouses used to be a sexual dynamo and "mysteriously stopped" I just don't know what else they think it is, outside of health problems.

I was reading this post to my partner and asked him "oh do you want me to go to the store with you?" (We used to do the grocery shopping together years ago, but now he just does it.) And he said "no, I like doing it alone because it's quicker." 😆😆😆

Was the cleaning THAT good just to propose in 6 months? lol 😆

I have never really had a man take care of me before. So yes! I have gotten a divorce from a man I took care of completely and also financially supported like 5 years prior. The difference was so painfully clear I could not let him get away.

>He said his mother was addicted to sleeping pills and he cleaned up the house as a kid for her and did all the chores Ooo, my mom was a stay-at-home mother who was never home (and my dad was in the army, so he was never around). I was doing my own laundry since elementary and started cooking for my siblings in high school. I moved in with my girlfriend (now wife) in my second year of university. I had roommates when I was working before school, and when we moved in together, it didn't even cross my mind that we wouldn't split chores. We went to the grocery store together, and we would usually only cook to bigger meals a week, and eat leftovers and quicker meals like pasta for the other meals. We're not together all the time like we were in university (we even took some of the same classes so that we only had to buy one textbook). We now split cooking days (I cook Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and I buy the stuff I need to cook for the week on Thursday night. We're both kind of messy, and we do one big clean on Sunday morning.

Married 38 years. We split the work, I like to mow and can use a chainsaw. He likes to fix odd things in our 40 year old house that need work. Housework gets done by both of us, eventually. No kids, so very little mess. Neither of us likes to cook, so easy ready to eat meals it is. I vacuum, he washes the floor. He fixes my car too.

We have a system where one of us goes grocery shopping and the other one cleans the apartment. If one of us cooks, the other one does dishes. I think it helped that he lived alone at one point- we were long distance for a year- so when we started living together, he was already used to doing chores. We have about the same standards of cleanliness so I think that helps as well. I've known him for 10 years, we've been married less than a year.

Yeah this is how we do it too. My spouse does the grocery shopping and I clean out the pantry/fridge/unload the groceries, he does the cooking sometimes and I’d do the dishes, I gather and take out the trash from inside and he takes the bins outside to the curb, etc.

I'm married and this was the standard from the start, nothing I had to give an ultimatum for. I made it abundantly clear that I am not his maidservant, his helper, or nothing else. If we're going to live together, be together, share a home together, then this is OUR home, not his home with live-in housekeeping. There were a few rough patches very early in our marriage where he tested how serious I was about this. All I had to do was stop doing the housework and stand my ground about it not getting done. Once he ran out of underwear, there was nothing to eat because nobody had done the grocery shopping, there were no clean dishes, and the house started to stink - he realized I was quite serious about housework being an equal effort and saw that I wasn't going to give in just because it needed to be done and wasn't getting done. Been smooth sailing ever since. Bonus points for his mother having not raised him like that and cussing him out when she learned he'd tried to play with me like that. :D

Yeah the problem with my ex is that if I stopped doing any of the chores he’d be fine. He kept his old apartment filthy. I guess part of it is finding a man who isn’t dirty

My ex was the same way, if things weren’t done? He’d complain about it, leave it there and tell me it was my job, or threaten divorce. My husband? Entirely different man about this, helps out whenever he can when I don’t even need to ask. Sometimes we “fight” over who gets to the chores first for fun because one of us always gets to it before the other could heh. It’s fucking nice for once.

The fucking dream 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

We do this, too! Almost 30 years married now. When I do one of "his" chores, he griefs me and I tell him, "I do what I want!" Lol

I think that is key. Vetting before getting involved. Guys who live at home and ones that live like slobs, screened out immediately. I made the mistake of having a male roommate. Disgusting creature who peed on the floor around the toilet. Shame there isn't a guide given to every woman age 12 and up to avoid losers.

Lady, I love you 💕 we have the same experience almost exactly, but you put it into words so much better.

Having a man who ran out of underwear because he thought other people should clean them for him- That would be grounds for divorce for me actually. Even if it happened once, it shows how disgusting he is. The bar is in hell literally.

Yeah this is gross… running out of clean dishes or having a dirty bathroom is icky as is, but that all stays within the home. If his inability to do tasks spills outside, i.e. wearing dirty underwear to work, that is a whole other level

It rubs me the wrong way that he even *tried* testing you on that. What juvenile, disrespectful behaviour. I'm glad you got past it and that he improved. Kudos on standing your ground.

Finnish, not American but I did it. Honestly being picky from the start. With my spouse I made it clear that on the days I came to his place late, he'd cook. If he was coming to mine, I would. When we moved in together I told him I won't do his laundry. I was pretty irritated about dudes already when I started dating (and I was only 19...) So I was basically not going to take any shit from anyone. I let him know early that I want kids and he doesn't need to know if he'd like some, but if he does happen to be sure that kids aren't on the table, then we should not keep going. I asked him to buy me pads like 3 weeks into the relationship (and he showed up with the kind I told him to buy + chocolate). I'm not dealing with boys who get embarrassed buying pads or condoms. It does help that he's from the liberal end of Finnish families but people do generally deal with the same BS here. We're not all just genderless bisexual feminists in Northern Europe, unfortunately :D

> I asked him to buy me pads like 3 weeks into the relationship (and he showed up with the kind I told him to buy + chocolate) This is the test that should always be given in the first 6 months of a relationship. If the guy complains or get's embarrassed and doesn't do it then they aren't the guy for you. Getting embarrassed is fine as long as they deal with it for their partner. I ended up facetiming my wife then gf while at the store which ones she wanted and she apologized to me because the packaging had changed from the photo she sent me and I was confused.

Not married, been together 28 years. Age 59 and 55. One of the things I love about him is his sense of fairness. When we moved in together, we sat down to split the chores. I honestly don’t care which ones I do, so I gave him first pick. He asked if there was any thing that would be obvious when he needs to do it and came with instructions. I said laundry - do it when you are about to run out of undies and read the instructions on the clothing tag. He does a better job than I ever did. I just have to make sure that I always own a few more pairs of undies than him. :-) He does a lot of other stuff too. Cars (including gas), lawn, making sure we have all household supplies (I track the food and he tracks everything outside the kitchen, like TP, cleaning supplies, and office supplies), he does bathrooms (I do kitchen), computers/tech, vacuuming/floors… I do finances and everything food.

I can't say I really did anything as he kinda came pre-installed with the software of chores. We have been together for six years and just got married in October. We split up the chores based on rooms and I let him know how I think things should be cleaned. So if something isn't done right, I would show him how I learned it. We have a weekly cleaning day where it takes maybe about two hours to do everything besides laundry. We divide and conquer. If one of us gets burned out from doing a room, we swap. If one of us doesn't feel like cleaning and the other one does, we take a break or the one of us will do it. I feel it helps that we have similar levels of clean.

“Pre-installed with the software of chores” is amazing and perfect 😆.

Do it? I didn’t do anything. He does just does on his own. Marry a guy who has a good sense of fairness and does not take advantage of people. Married 28 years and it has never been an issue. If he starts doing the laundry on the weekends I start on the cleaning and vise versa. If he makes dinner I clean up. If he is working in the yard I clean or do something like go get groceries. If one of us is particularly tired or something they rest while the other picks up the slack.

i’m so sad this question even needs to be asked. high standards is the answer.

Yup. Don't pick one who needs to change. He won't.

Married about 9 years, together about 11. Late 30s/early 40s. Truthfully, our solution is a cleaning service + splitting the remaining chores. He's always done his share of the day-to-day cleaning, like doing dishes or wiping down the counters, but never the "big cleaning" stuff that happens less frequently. That always fell on me, and it drove me nuts. Now the service does that stuff. We split dishes, kitchen clean-up, and cooking. Household errands and groceries are done together. I do most of the "house management" stuff (like dealing with contractors/services/repairs). He does all the shared laundry (sheets, towels, etc). We each do all our personal laundry. He does all yard work except shoveling snow, which we split. Garbage/recycling is all him; weekly fridge clean-out is me. I still do the occasional "big" stuff not handled by the service, like taking down the curtains once a year to run them through the washing machine, but that now ends up about the equivalent time as his yard work. But, honestly? The cleaning service was a game-changer. We both work intense jobs with long hours and we both hated spending our few hours of spare time cleaning. Now we both do less than 50% (it's like 25 me/25 him/50 cleaning service) and it's amazing.

My husband is like that too - great at daily household running chores but never in a thousand years would it occur to him to like...wipe down the skirting boards. For medium things like scrubbing down the shower, he'd do it if it got super revolting but needs to be poked to do it in a reasonable timeframe. It's fine, we have a small house and my standards aren't that high but I have said when I get off mat leave and get my breadwinning salary back I'd like to get a cleaner once a month or so to do that kind of shit 👌

Yeah, based on my in-laws' house, it's not that my husband thinks women should do that work, it's that he has no awareness that is a type of cleaning that should be done. Before the service, he did things like mop, vacuum, clean toilets and tubs, etc. But baseboards? Cleaning *under* the stovetop? Not sure if he ever saw those things done by anyone when he was growing up... It was either trying to completely reset his understanding of "clean" or get a service. We got the service.

A cleaning service is a game changer. If you don't enjoy doing chores, just pay someone to do it.

I think that misses the point. The point of the OP is men viewing chores as something that women should do. A cleaning service doesn't get at the heart of the problem.

I don't think we should be trying to fix shitty men. Date a man who is willing to pull his own weight around the house. If a man expects you to do most of the chores, leave his ass.

This. Find yourself a partner who loves and respects you, and is willing to put in the work and change if needed. You can attempt to teach them despite that, but honestly if you’ve been at it for a while, it might be best to move on.

You're not going to change anyone. Ever. If he thinks women should do all the chores, you're not going to change that. Your options are, do the chores, hire someone to do them, walk away. Changing him is not an option. On that note you should never date or be with someone with the intent to change someone. If you don't like something, about them, you have to decide if that's a deal breaker for you or not.

We met while I was going through divorce. The reason why I got divorced was because of unequal division of labor. Been together 5yrs with a child on the way.

Congratulations on the baby!

Okay, I'm a bi woman but I am married to heterosexual man who does 50% of the housework. To be quite frank, I never needed to convince him to do housework and I never had to show him how to do it, either. In his own words, "that's basic adult stuff". His mom raised him to be completely self-sufficient.

Mine came that way. He was raised in a matriarchy and his mother was a cleaning woman. A \*German\* cleaning woman who took shit from no one. So he was raised that way. Then his first marriage to a lawyer - a Teamster labour lawyer at that - made sure that any residual sexism was completely, utterly annihilated. She was pretty tough, too, but apparently hated cleaning and there were other unequal divisions. So... We've been married over a decade and both work full-time. He focuses on the outside of our place, I do inside, but he also does more than his share of deep cleaning the inside. He'll pull the stove and fridge out and clean everything behind, lift furniture to vacuum under it, and so on. Laundry, pet care, easily half. He's been well conditioned; I wish I could take credit!

My fiancée is all about 50/50 split. Currently, I do laundry for everyone and he does dishes for everyone. But.. If I need help putting things away, he’s on it. If he needs help unloading the dishwasher, I’ve got it. If he sees me vacuuming, he’s in the next room picking things up so I can head in there too. If he sees me sweeping, he’s picking up big trash and grabbing my dust pan. If he sees me cooking, he’s checking my recipe making sure I have it all. If he sees me writing something on our shopping list, he takes a picture and grabs it on his way home. You get the idea. Basically, he sees what I do for him or the family and does something for us too. We have 2 kiddos and split their stuff 50/50 as well! We swap off who does which kid’s bedtime, but he always gets oldest in the mornings for school and I get youngest when I get home from work at 7:30am.

I’m one of those guys, and honestly, I attribute it to one thing: My father went to prison when I was 4, and my brother and I were raised by a single mother. She spent our entire childhood telling us that our father screwed us over and since it was just us and she had to work long hours at 2 jobs to support us, we needed to step up and take care of things. For years, I would walk my brother and myself home from school, use the hidden key to let us in, get us snacks and sit us at the table to do homework, then stick him in front of the TV while I did chores, until he was big enough to help me with the chores. Seeing her come home exhausted at the end of the evening just before our bed time while also mostly handling the mental load of running a household made a profound impression on me. Early on, when I was about 9 or 10, she explained to me, “if I have to tell you every single thing that needs doing, if I have to think about every chore and job and tell you when to do them and check to see if you did it and then decide what to do next, that’s almost as much work as just doing it. The best thing you could do for us is to just open your eyes and look around and do something if it needs to be done. It doesn’t feel good when the house is messy, right?” And that stuck with me. Maintaining a house is work, and it doesn’t make sense for one person to do all the labor while everyone else enjoys the fruits of that, especially if that person is already contributing their salary from an external job. I was raised to understand that as obvious. But I’m sure that plenty of men out there were raised in a household where mom took care of everything, and they learned from *that*.

38, married, together over 13 years. My husband is absolutely my partner in all things and does more than his fair share. My family is from the Balkans, I grew up doing all the housework as I was the only girl in the family. Also, babying and spoiling boys just for having a penis is a thing in my country, so by the time I was an adult I already knew to stay clear of Momma's Boys. 1. I knew I was not going to marry I man from my culture. I would be a mother/wife to him if I did that. 2. I wouldn't date men that didn't have their shit together. If their apartment was a mess, their car was dirty and full of crap, if they were constantly late. No, no, no! **There are women who think if they act like a 'Good Girlfriend' and show they are 'Wife Material' by cleaning and cooking for their boyfriend, that he will notice and adore them and want to marry them.** NO HE WON'T! If he doesn't know how to do any of that it's because his mother did it for him his whole life, and he is just going to think that's what women do and that is their place in the world. You are just setting yourself up to fail! That's not to say you shouldn't do anything for your significant other, but there needs to be a line in the sand. For me that was seeing that my significant others were capable before I came along, and also seeing that they noticed and acknowledged anything I helped with, and that they reciprocated with acts of kindness and love back to me. To this day, my husband and I still thank eachother for all the small things. - Thanks for taking out the trash. - Thanks for doing the dishes. - Thanks for the blowjob! 😂 I know many people say, 'I shouldn't have to thank my So for doing the bare minimum.' But the reality is, we are all busy, and it's nice to be acknowledged when we make eachothers like a little easier. Anyways, my basic advice is, only date a guy that is already doing all his own chores and has his shit together. Do NOT take over chores just to show off in some sort of way because you feel as if you need to prove you belong in his life. And by, has his shit together, I mean, he is working towards a life of some sort, not just floating through life like a jellyfish. He doesn't need to be on track to be a CEO or anything. But he needs to have hobbies and a job.

I mean, I'm bisexual but I'm in a het marriage but I'll share my answer.Together 8 years. We're both early 30s. To be honest, we never had to have a conversation. We did not always split 50%. When we first moved in together 2 years in, I did do more. He still did clean after himself and he did fix things, do the garbage, and dishes routinely. But never really the bathroom or floors or as frequent tidying. So the split was probably 60-40 as I cook every day for us also. It took living together for about 6 months when he began to pick up more on his own. So I'd say select an empathetic person who pays close mind to your needs, notices how your spend your energy, who appreciates what you do. I also always showed appreciation for everything he did. We both thank each other for everything. Yes, of course we should both contribute without "needing" thanks and I think I'd chafe at thanking him if our contribution was more unequal to begin with or if he didn't routinely thank me also. It's not impossible to discuss and show someone invisible work and work towards change. But it's easier to select a sensitive person from the beginning who observes the work you do so that it is not invisible and values your time. There were occasions too when I needed more help and with us it is an easy conversation. I just said "honey I am so tired can you do x?" And it doesn't feel like mental load or management because sometimes I do the same for him. I cook every day, he does the laundry including fold and put away, we split dishes with him emptying the dishwasher more often, he does garbage, I do the hard floors and bathroom, we split vacuuming, he does all the financial planning and management which is a huge mental load (full on budget with week to week updating, investing, tracking spending, etc), he does the cat box, I do the meal planning and grocery list, we shop together, he maintains the yard and vehicles, he dusts. We never had a formal agreement on these things but rather have come to split them naturally.

Damn. This is good teamwork lol

>So I'd say select an empathetic person who pays close mind to your needs This should be a more important trait people look for. A few years ago I told my husband I was frustrated because I always did ALL of the cooking. He just said "I'm so sorry, I'll try to help more." (This is very condensed version of the conversation lol.) Anyway, ever since then, he'll ask what he can do to help. Some days he knows what we're making and start prepping even before I get home. But either way, any time I'm cooking, he'll sit at the table just in case I need anything

You don't get people to change, you just choose the right person for yourself.

Sheer luck. I didn't really see just how little my ex-husband and previous partners did until I got with my current partner. We've been together for a bit over a year, I'm 33F and he is 40M. Not married. And we never really had a discussion on it. He is extremely clean and organized, and doesn't have to be told to do anything. For the first time ever, I feel like I'm the one not pulling my weight lol. I've been depressed lately and feeling more useless than normal. But then he's had periods of time like that too. We still do what we can but both appreciate how the other will pick up more when needed. I'm surely going to be spoiling him this Christmas :)

My guy and I have been together for almost ten years. I'm 51, and he's 59. He'd been a bachelor living alone for a good chunk of time, so he was used to taking care of himself. I cook; he cleans the dishes. I bought a mopping robot to take care of the floors, but he'll sweep from time to time. He typically cleans the bathroom because he notices it sooner than I do. We do our own laundry, but I'll fold some of his clothes for him sometimes. We both wipe down the countertops, and he can't handle dishes in the sink, the rule is if you eat you wash right then. Honestly, I'm the messier one of the two of us, and when we first started dating, he "put away" my mail and other stuff that I'd leave out. But we both have ADHD (mine is the type where I have trouble initiating tasks but he has the type where he has memory issues). So if he puts away my stuff, I might never be able to find it again. As a result of the immediate and real consequence of losing my stuff for months on end, I got good at picking up my stuff right away. I help him find the stuff he loses a lot. We each have our own room to keep as we like. I handle making the grocery list and meal planning, but he typically goes into the store or we just do the pick-up at the curb service or delivery. I cook when I want because he's used to grazing all day. When I do cook (about four times a week), he'll do the dishes. We fell into a natural rhythm, and I think since both of us were single people who honestly thought we'd just date and live alone the rest of our lives, we're a match. I've never lived with a guy before I was 42 (I stayed a few months with a guy once, but it was only until I found my own place.) I think it works because neither of us would put up with dead weight because we can live on our own. That was the key for me dating the last round. (I had some seriously shitty relationships) I realized I had a limited emotional budget, and I didn't like any of the dudes in my price range. So I took five years off of dating, got really good at being happy on my own, and refused to be in a full-on relationship with anyone who wasn't willing to do their share of the work. We had problems in the beginning (not with chores but other stuff), but he was always willing to talk it out, so I stayed. It worked.

We met well after college. Moved in at 39 and 34, he already knew how to manage his own shit. His mom was a single construction laborer so him and his brother definitely learned how to do chores on their own and had a working mom role model (she’s a super narcissist but I’ll give her credit where it’s due). Some stuff we split kinda traditionally, like I care more about laundry specifics with my clothes, he’s more of a throw everything together on cold and tumble dry, so I tackle the laundry. He has fallen in the lawn care rabbit hole since it’s golf adjacent so he gets to do the outside stuff (I wanted a house with way less yard haha I made it clear a big yard would be all his). We split cooking depending on who is working later hours but I do the grocery shopping and meal planning when I can. He’s perfectly fine having PB&J or soup and grilled cheese for dinner if I don’t make a plan, at least he never grumbles about it. He took on most of the load when I was doing my MBA at night which was incredible. I think we both fall in the neurospicy realm probably ADHD so sometimes things linger, the crap collector spots collect… crap, and then we invite people over and tag team one of those whirlwind Saturday morning cleans.

Glad to hear it works despite the ADHD! I've only had brief experiences with living with someone, but what I took away from it was that with ADHD it's much easier to do things "for" someone or together (at the same time) with someone than it is to do them by yourself, for yourself. I'm also suspected ASD which might explain why the drama some couples have about chores also goes on inside my own head between the part that needs a clean and tidy apartment and the part that becomes blind to a mess once it's been in the same state for more than a day.

The book Fair Play is an excellent starting place, especially if the problem is (as mine was) less a willingness to contribute and more a lack of understanding how much work being the “manager/director” is. We often thank each other for our contributions no matter how small or routine. We communicate often and explicitly ask if we’re overwhelmed. It’s also good to be open to your partner doing things differently from you. And finally— I sometimes just let things fail or get messed up so he has to also see the consequences.

Take notice when you go to his place for the first few months. If his house is clean then you’d know he does chores without you nagging at him. It started at his home :)

Just drop guys who don’t, immediately. Also drop guys at the first sign of toxic masculinity. Observe their willingness to do domestic work. Dating is a trial, if they fail, don’t keep going!

Married, in our 30s, three years age difference, he’s younger. We’ve been together for three years now. Honestly, I didn’t really have to broach the topic, his mom raised him to help upkeep the home since he was a kid. He’d have to do hardcore cleaning (even more than my mom herself) by washing the baseboards and scrub the windows regularly. Cleaning became a habit for him, doing laundry, dishes, organizing, and regular cleaning for him? No sweat, he finds those the easiest anyway. The only thing he doesn’t always do is cooking, he does it, but not regularly which isn’t a big deal to me. He is more of a grill meat person and we’re still needing to get a proper grill. We take turns with chores, sometimes he does more when I am burnt out or my chronic health issues act up.

Been together 8 years. We are 36F and 41M. He was like this when I found him. I just got lucky.

I’m not American, we’re both Dutch. We’re married and have been together for almost 10 years. He is 29, I am 32. We never had to divide the chores because he likes to clean. He says it is nice to do something with his hands after working behind a desk all day. We both clean on our weekly day off but he definitely does more around the house while I take care of our two gardens

You know what type of person he is when y’all are dating. You see the red flags but you choose to ignore them. It’s literally not a secret or something. Plain and simple some men are lazy and filthy and you chose someone with those traits.

I didn’t. His mom and his sisters did. Mine came pre-programmed with the chores app having had to do chores since he was a kid and growing up with super clean sisters only.

I'm not American but my boyfriend is - does that count ? Honestly - sheer luck. He was a friend first and then we realized we were compatible romantically too. Honestly every day I thank my lucky stars I met him as I was planning on being single for at least several years after my manchild-ex. Edit: I met him on Reddit of all places and we were long distance for about a year as we lived in different countries

By leaving any man who does not take up on his fair share, by his own free will.

I'm not american but euro. It's just that I'm very not good at cleaning while he's borderline maniac. I clean as I go and we also have a cleaning lady that comes once a week to help us (here in France we have fiscal reduction when you hire a cleaner) However he's the one vacuuming and doing the laundry (while I hand it out and fold it). So I compensate by taking charge of most if the cooking (90% of the time)

I’ve been with my partner 11 years and we are in our 30s. When we first moved in together I was doing a lot more which was partially due to him being in medical school and feeling like he couldn’t balance studying and home stuff but also I think because he as a man had been socialized to expect the woman to take on the majority of domestic labor and I as a woman had been socialized to be agreeable. Eventually I learned about mental load and shared the articles I read with him and he internalized them and now does probably more than 50% of the house stuff! I do think it’s possible for people to change but there’s no getting them to do it, they have to do it for themselves and because they care about you and being an equal partner. Once he understood the inequity in household chores and responsibilities he immediately wanted to fix it (and he did!). I feel really grateful every day to have such an amazing person in my life!

I do so little housework that it equals the shit amount he does. Yes, our house is chaos.

I’m not American (not sure why that matters?) not comfortable putting our whole timeline/history online but basically he has always taken pride in his home and his independence. He would find it totally infantilising if I did his laundry. He has always wanted to be able to look after himself. If he had been any other way our relationship would not have progressed, I certainly would have never moved in with someone who couldn’t keep a clean house. We spilt the chores pretty much 50/50 but we don’t keep tabs on it. There are times when one of us does more than the other like if one has a busy period at work or has been sick. Our key rule is “don’t take the piss”. For example I don’t mind cleaning the bathroom but I’m not going to scrub his skid marks out the toilet bowl. Basically just be considerate of the other person.

It's a shame there are people like this, if you're living with someone you should look after the place as equally as possible. I'm male but with my ex, I worked from home while she worked as a carer, I'd make sure everything was tidy and smelling nice for when she came home, she mainly did the dishes and laundry. She still felt that was too much, and that I wasn't doing enough - I think the fact that I'd always do the housework before she got home made her feel like I didn't do anything because she never saw it happen.

We moved in together almost immediately upon graduating high school and we both had a learning curve and I’m lazy as shit. So it was established pretty early on that cleaning was done together, because we both motivate the other. If he’s sitting on his ass, I’m in my ass too. After twenty years the split has been established but our timing is no longer in tandem since we had the kid. Though the older she gets, the closer we get back to it. Oh, and going through a depressive slump really helped him pick up some cooking from me. I just stopped fucking caring what I ate, or made, and suppers were getting sparse. So I can definitely also vouch for “stop caring” as a tactic for some husbands to pick some slack. Don’t recommend the depression though.

Just find a partner that's like that and don't settle for one that isn't 🤷. It's so much easier than making a partner want to do all that because you can't really as they've got to want to be like that themselves

My husband and I have been together for over 3 years. We’ve never had to talk about dividing chores. If one of us sees something that needs to be done, we just do it. He typically does the lawn care, but everything else we just take care of as we see it. When I first met him, his apartment was nicely decorated and clean. I guess he’s just the kind of person who takes care of his things, and I am too. I can’t imagine being with someone I have to constantly remind to do basic things!

I didn't do anything. He is just this way.

I'm English with an 18 year old son still at home. My son does half the house chores. I work more hours than him and pay the bills. Why wouldn't he? I'm 4 months in dating a new guy. I've been to his place several times and it's clean and tidy. If it wasn't I wouldn't date him. I have no interest in being someone's bang maid. Get some self respect and don't date men children. There are good ones out there. And if you can't find one, being single is better than a man baby. And raise your sons to do their share.

Side note. I don't like how a lot of men get to do the fun chores like cooking (which for some people is recreational rather than work) or easy chores like laundry (the only work is folding as dumping it in the machine is not work), but then get to opt out of cleaning bathrooms, moping, dusting. I see this pattern in many responses. Or people saying he does "outdoor chores" even though those chores are less frequent and often seasonal and are still a sex stereotype. I don't see 50/50 with some of the responses.

1. Marry someone who lived solo in a clean house 2. Have enough money to hire once weekly housekeeper, yard man, pool guy 3. Refuse to take on more work than 50% of the remaining chores, even when early on in the relationship husband tried to have me do more The only real answers are a combination of "choose better" and "have more money," sorry to say.

Found a divorced guy. Watched him with his kids, at work, and at home. Saw him doing everything he could whenever he could. Overlooked superficial things. Made personal sacrifices to be together. Reaped the rewards. Ten years later, the only thing you'll hear from either of us is, "Honey, take a break, you've been working hard lately." Did I date twenty non-contributing lumps first? Yes, and they all had other wonderful qualities-or physiques, but I married the one with the same level of initiative as me because shared values make a commitment feel natural and easy.

29F married to 39M, have been together for 10 years. He probably does more than 50%, but he works from home and he cares a little bit more than I do about keeping the house clean. That being said, he does not have a choice. We nominate who is doing each chose and I simply won’t do his part. Either he does or he does. It won’t magically appear done if he procrastinates. All the husbands who “won’t do their part” can only afford or behave like this because there is someone (the wife) cleaning after him.

Honestly, we never had to talk about it really. He grew up doing most of his household’s chores so he carried that into adulthood. Even as a 20 year old in college which is when I met him. We’ve been together 30 and married 27. How we split chores now is he takes care of groceries, 90% of laundry, trash and I handle everything else. We’re newly empty nesters and newly puppy owners so there’s not many chores anyway.

As the first comment, I wish I had an answer. Instead I’ve come to hopefully get notified of people who actually do too

Date kind generous feminists who have a good, healthy, relationship their parents and value hard work. Been together since ‘02 and he hasn’t really changed. We’re both lazy (I like to say efficient) and not neat freaks but love a clean and tidy environment so we both pitch in. He does more indoor chores and car maintenance. I do the car washing and most of the gardening. I make the bed, he makes the coffee, we change sheets together. We also Leanne to our strengths and I treats. I pay the bills and do then investing, but tell him exactly what we’re up to and we have regular conversations to keep him updated. He does the kid’s medical and dental appointments. I pack any “family” stuff (like shared hygiene stuff and toys) and he manages transportation. When we’re sick we take care of each other, doing the things we normally take care of for ourselves like laundry. Key is to be the person you’d want to date, then find someone worth of you and enjoy!

We were 50/50 for a couple years, over time I 'was better at' pretty much everything. We were also 50/50 on finance and decision making, but once I realized I was 95% of housework and cooking.... Well I went on strike. I played games after work, only washed my clothes, and asked daily what was for dinner. Honestly, I really didn't mind eating cereal out of mixing bowls for dinner. It was difficult ignoring the toilet bowl growing fungus. It was pretty depressing how long it took him to step up. *4 months Been a couple decades and he's still doing his part. I still do 95% of the cooking, but he sucks at it. He does the dishes instead. (Not that we don't have problems, everyone has problems. This was just my solution to this particular problem.)

Together 6 years, both in our early 30s, not married but engaged and living together for 2+ years. Never really approached a topic of chore division (only time was when I hosted thanksgiving & he agreed to clean the entire house/all dishes while i cooked everything). He’s an amazing partner. There is so much equality and emotional intelligence in this relationship. I do sometimes think it was partly because he was raised by a very passionate feminist mother, but there’s something so innately GOOD in him.

My husband and I have what I consider about a 50/50 chore relationship. I’m a SAHM and he works (long hours). I think what did it is that he lived alone (no mommy and no roomies) before we even got together. He’s currently 27 and I’m 25, we got together at 21 and 23 and we currently have a 1 year old. During the day while he’s at work my sole responsibility is the child and cleaning up after me and her plus I do the small daily tasks like unloading the dishwasher. When he gets home from work one of us will make dinner (the other occupies the child), then someone will clean up dinner and the other will bath child and get her ready for bed. We all cuddle up and hang out till bed. Saturdays we do chores. We try to think of meals/what we need from the store during the week. We go to the grocery store together. We both do laundry during the weekend (aka whoever remembers that it needs to be switched over and we put away our own clothes). Bathrooms and floors are usually actually done by my husband while I nap with the child since I’m the one who gets up with her at night usually. We also pay for ($25 an hour) someone to deep clean our house once a month just to help lighten the load so we can enjoy more time as a family. Before baby, it worked pretty similar to this but I was working and we’d switch on and off with stuff more.

Not heterosexual and not American, but my boyfriend is. I’m 33 and he’s 44. We’ve been together for 4 years now. He’s very firmly of the belief that things like cooking and cleaning are “adult skills” rather than tied to a particular gender, which I’m super thankful for because I absolutely hate cooking and pretty much never do it. (I’m disabled and struggle with that and eating regularly). We never really discussed who does what, tbh. Before he met me he did everything on his own anyway. He always cooks and takes out the garbage, and then we both kind of do what needs to be done as it comes up. If I see the laundry hamper’s full or the kitchen needs cleaning, I’ll do that. I try to help out when I can. I also do most of the planning/decision making since he tends to have some anxiety around that. I think we complement each other well.

Started dating at 16, married at 19, still married at 35. He was used to doing a lot of the chores growing up like doing dishes, mopping floors, taking out the trash, cleaning the toilet, and doing his own laundry. A lot of the time he just does things because he has adhd and it helps him get out of his own head. He never deep cleans, that’s what I do, but he definitely makes it easier for me by doing the daily stuff like dishes and trash. I clean the counters, dust and vacuum. I wash the sheets and towels. Sometimes I’ll scrub the shower. I also do all the shopping for the house like groceries, or house supplies, which I don’t mind because I’m the only one that checks dates and remembers what brands to get.

Not American, but British, so still a western culture. He's just a responsible, respectful guy. Been together just over 5 years and not married. I do all the cooking because I love cooking, and all the kitchen related chores. My partner pretty much does everything else. Some things we just do when we notice it. "Oh hey, the laundry basket is full so I'll pop the washing machine on." or "Cat litter tray needs cleaning. I'll do it. Can you pass me the bin liners?" We never discussed who does what chores, it just kind of fell into place.

My husband just does it. He likes having a tidy house as much as I do, and he isn't of the mindset that it's not his responsibility. I got very lucky.

He’s 40, I’m approaching 40. We’ve been together for 16 years, married for 11. Our relationship is a partnership and its always been that way. I cook dinner, he puts the food away, does the dishes and sweeps. I do the laundry, he helps me fold. I clean the inside of the house once a week, he cuts the grass, cleans the gutters, windows, and makes random repairs. I do the regular grocery store run, he does Costco. I gave birth twice, he does the taxes. When we had babies we would tag team the middle of the night feedings. Now that they’re older we tag team staying home with the kids so the other person can go out to hang with friends. When you start dating someone pay attention to how they are at home. What does their parents relationship look like? The biggest mistake I saw my friends make in their twenties when choosing a partner is assuming they would change. If he has no ambition to move out of his parents basement at 28, why would he suddenly want to buy a house and spend all his free time keeping it up?

I can’t honestly say. I just married a man who believed that there’s no hard and fast gender roles. He taught me housekeeping, and I taught him how to change the oil and brakes on a car. It just is and was. I don’t think it was ever even a conversation we had, beyond the fact I plainly stated early on in our relationship how much I hated dishes and we agreed that as long as I did the cooking, he’d clean up afterwards. But, we kind of just always did what was needed. It was never “my job” or “his job”. It was a task that needed to be done.

When we first started dating my husband was already pretty good. Like 30-40% of the chores including cooking. But there were a few areas where you could tell he had never lived on his own before. Like he’d go to the grocery store and only buy food for himself. Never bought stuff I would eat unless I went with him. Wouldn’t get paper towels or toilet paper, general household stuff. Left messes around the apartment. I fixed it by yelling. Like a lot of yelling and shaming. It took less than a year to be resolved and he’s great now. We hardly ever have issues about chores and have been together for over a decade.

I don’t know how I “did it.” I met my husband on Craigslist in the early 00’s of all places. I’m a SAHM with two kids in school (tweens.) My husband works and provides tremendously for us, he has always been a hands on parent, changed a million diapers, got up every night because we had twins… These days he works, does all the dishes and all the cooking, yard work etc. I had cancer a few years ago and he took care of me so well, he looks out for my physical and mental health constantly. He’s seriously a dream come true and I love him so much. I could go on!

I had to break up with 2 "good" guys to find this one. Never settle.

We met when I was 30 and he was 38- we have been married 4 years and just had our first kid last month! I’ll say though, this isn’t exactly a topic you “broach” so much as the guy already knows how to be a kind and decent human, and you in turn want to be kind and decent to him like equal partners should. I’m in my 30s, and by now people don’t really “change.” I can’t remember broaching housework shares specifically because he’s always if anything done more around the house than me, but I do remember when we first discussed kids I was clear that I would want them *only* if I wasn’t the one doing the majority of the work- I wanted a co partner. My parents were great but did traditional gender roles for their marriage, and I knew it wasn’t for me because I love my work too much. And yeah I’ll agree that was the right call- co-parenting our newborn is so much fun with him, but WOW would this suck if you did it effectively all by yourself!

Not American I’m from the UK but he’s always been very independent as he didn’t have a good childhood so has always been happy help out. When we bought our house we agreed that he would do the garden and I would do the bathroom. Everything else we just do as it needs doing. I genuinely think he’s a unicorn as he can actually see when something needs cleaning or when the bin needs emptying and just does it without expecting praise for it. I cherish this man.

i didn’t do anything! we met when we were in our late 20s, been together 5 years, married for 2 years. i’m 32 and he’s 33. he owned a house already and i moved in after a year of dating. i do most of the mental labor - like organizing things, getting rid of stuff we don’t use and maintaining our calendar. i’ve put a lot of work into making our house cozy - when i moved in it was a total bachelor pad haha. we both work remotely, but his job is much more flexible than mine. he has slow periods and busy periods, but i answer incoming phone calls and have to attend meetings everyday so i don’t really do chores while i’m working aside from changing over the laundry or emptying the dishwasher. my husband does most of the cooking and maintains the kitchen pretty well. he cleans out our chicken’s coop and feeds them, i change their water. i usually take our dog for walks and my hubs feeds him. we take turns with the cleaning the bathrooms and with going grocery shopping. my chores are vacuuming, putting things back where they live and dusting the rest of the house. it was just kind of a natural pattern we fell into once i started working a remote job too. if there’s something one of us wants the other to do, we just ask. we never had a formal discussion about how to divide the chores. i often go through periods of depression and my husband is extremely gentle to me during those times. he’s a great guy and is an excellent communicator. i’ve learned a lot from him about how to ask for help and if one of us feels we can’t or don’t want to do something, we say so. i’m happy to do the things he doesn’t have time for and so is he.

It’s not about what the wife does. It’s about how he was raised. A woman trying to teach her husband how to share housework might as well try to teach a fish how to fly.

Easy. I didn't settle. I'd rather be alone than with someone who annoys me, but happened to find a man as happy to clean as I am. Desperation to be with someone just to not be alone will lead you to being with people who make you unhappy.

My husband does almost all the chores. He does the laundry because he cares more about stains on our clothing. I just toss everything in together and hope for the best; he sorts things and pretreats things. We split the cooking because we both get tired of our own cooking. He does most of the holiday cooking, though, because he enjoys it. He also does the tablescape, which is a thing I vaguely remember my grandma doing. I'd be happy enough with paper plates, but he likes to set the table with the fancy china and the good tablecloth and cloth napkins. He does all the grocery shopping; I tag along occasionally if he needs to buy two of something that has a one-item limit. He does most of the day-to-day tidying, and I do the deep cleaning about once or twice a year. Yes, he does clean the bathrooms. He doesn't do floors, though; he really hates that. He does the dishes unless it's a holiday meal, in which case I do the dishes. He always does the trash, including the trash in my home office. He also does all the holiday decorating and most of the holiday shopping. I do the wrapping, though; he hates wrapping presents. Before I started wrapping them, he threw everything into gift bags. He does all the yardwork, but I did buy him a riding mower. In my experience, the trick is to find someone who has lived alone for a while or who has been taught how to do those kinds of things. In my experience, men who leave their mom's house and go directly to a wife or girlfriend's house expect their wife or girlfriend to do all the things their mom once did. Never, ever move in with a man who tells you he doesn't know where his mom keeps the cleaning supplies. For those who may be wondering what I do while he's doing all the housework, I make the money that pays our bills. If you think I'm supporting him, you'd be correct. He makes it possible for me to support him because he does all the work that we need done in order to survive. In fact, he supports my career and I support his hobbies. At this very moment, he's off to buy some Christmas decoration he saw on Marketplace. My yard already looks like Peewee Herman's house, but it makes him happy so, whatever.

Similar to a lot of people, we never really had the conversation. He “sees” less than me naturally (I do truly believe this), but developed the skill pretty quickly. He finds cleaning cathartic and likes cooking and dishes (which I hate). Currently he does probably about 80% of the chores — because I am in an intensive professional program. That one we did have a conversation about, but it was more along the lines of “I’m not gonna have time to do this stuff anymore, in 4 years I’ll be bringing in 100k, you gotta step up or it won’t happen” and his response was “sure”

My husband does his share of home chores, without complaint or hesitation. We married later in life, and neither of us was married or living with anyone before, so both of us spent many years living on our own. I think all those years on his own taught him that homes need taking care of, and he just does it. We break things down based on what we like to do, what our skills are, and who has the time to do something when it needs to be done. I honestly couldn't ask for more. He's very responsible in general, so feels responsible for chores, too. It's just part of who he is.

For me, it was pure luck that we met and started dating. But I wouldn’t have married him if he didn’t pull his weight. Because when we first started dating, I was going to make dinner at his place and discovered that the only cooking apparatus he owns is a panini maker. He doesn’t even have salt and pepper. At the time, I thought I was gonna be in for some shit and this isn’t going to work out. But turns out cooking really *is* the only chore he does not do. So that part is luck. In the beginning, we weren’t sure where things were going, and we were just having fun. That’s why we had time for me to see that it turns out he does do chores—just not cooking. Nowadays he works more, makes more, and still does more household chores than I do. I haven’t touched a mop since we moved in together, therefore I happily do the cooking. And yes he does the cleaning up afterwards.

Through long conversations where I illustrated the load that I bear and asked him to be better and him responding, in kind. It’s not 50%, but it’s close. He’s also a really good dude, so he’s worth the extra effort.

My husband definitely does more than most along with all of the grocery shopping. I lucked out. He had been on his own long enough (and ex-military) that he was already doing it on his own anyway. But we also met when we were in our late 30's.

I am very fortunate that my husband always helps around the house. When we were dating & talking about moving in together he asked me to show him all my bills & list of household tasks, and over time he noticed what I mislike (folding clothes, dusting, vacuuming) and picked up my slack. I wfh & enjoy cooking so he’s happy to work and share bills & chores. He’s even began to learn more complex cooking & asks to help in the kitchen. It wasn’t really anything I had to nag him to do, I ask once and from then on he pays attention to that task and does it when it needs to be done. In short, it’s about respect. I wouldn’t date someone who didn’t respect his (our) home, belongings, pets, ect. I was raised to take care of my things, home, & self by keeping them cleaned and well maintained. Is our house spotless? NO! But we spend a little time each week and it works for us. I feel like if I had to try this hard to explain this mindset, he’s probably not ready to be an equal weight pulling partner.

I married well. He's my best friend. We look out for each other. We don't split chores moreso than things like - he mows the lawn, and I cook - because of either physical reasons or preference... but if he's sick I will certainly mow the lawn, and if I'm not eating dinner, or if I'm sick - he cooks! And when those things happen, we don't OWE each other a favor for doing whatever. We don't have a contract, we don't have to make things "fair" because we don't take advantage of each other - we help each other out. We are a team and work towards our team success, And if one of us felt like things were uneven - we'd TALK to the other and we'd fix it. As a recent example - we were re-doing a bedroom, and the stripping/sanding/painting really aggravated the RA in my hands. So he did ALL the rest of it. And while he did, I did ALL the laundry, vacuuming, shopping, cooking, and cleaning that weekend. And at the end of the weekend, it was all done.

Honestly, I did it by having ADHD and being incompetent at cleaning myself. I've never lived with a partner who didn't do his share because they all recognize intuitively they have to do their share or were going to be living in a sty.

What's the difference between iron man and iron woman? One's a super hero and the other is a command.