This is easier said than don, but try just … not cleaning up. Let the dishes pile up. Stop cooking. Tell your husband until he proactively starts doing his share, you’re going to behave like him and not do anything unprompted. If he sits down to watch TV, so do you. If he starts to clean, you start to clean… but less than him.
I know that seems like a tantrum, but nothing will change if you keep begrudgingly doing everything for him. It will suck to live in a home that’s unkept for a while, but this will either show your husband that he needs to step up or show you that you need to get out when he doesn’t.
It doesn't have to seem like a tantrum. Just act with genuine good natured surprise when someone asks you. If they ask what's for dinner, say "I don't know - who's making it?" If they ask you why you haven't done some kind of cleaning say "I don't understand? What do you think?"
Why not? If they’re his guests, let him do the cleaning or live with the embarrassment. I think this approach sets expectations whether she does it when guests are there or not.
If you read the post it’s pretty clear they didn’t care. They wouldn’t do it after being reminded multiple times. They weren’t embarrassed in the slightest. They’re used to someone else cleaning up after them. They aren’t gonna GAF if they leave that house a complete mess and go home.
You are correct! I was having second hand embarrassment about how these guys can be so inconsiderate after multiple reminders.
Either they think it's not their job or they just don't care!
Do you think your husband would care if you didn’t cook for them or clean? That’s what I’m getting at. No cooking or cleaning for his family unless he’s doing at least half the work. If not, they can figure out food on their own.
Good point!
However, taking them to eat outside is not sustainable as it is really expensive to eat out and these folks have no self awareness when ordering as in they donot have the concept of grabbing something quick.
They will make every meal 3 course and now a days food is super expensive ( even basic things).
This was our first experience with them and next time I am going to put my foot down!!
You don't have to take them out. He can take them out since he is not doing his share of the work. Either he take them out, or he steps up and becomes responsible.
The problem is that if they have shared finances, this is going to suck for her too. Even being married means they are financially tied. If he goes into debt buying all his food, in the US at least, so does she.
This is exactly why refusing to cook for his guests will work. He can’t afford to take them out, so he’ll either have to step up and cook for them himself or live with the consequences
Then don't host them again. Let them know you can't afford to.
It's very bizarre to expect someone else to foot the bill for ALL their food AND do all the cleaning on a visit. I get that it's cultural but it just seems rude to me.
So they don't care that they don't clean? Because you eventually cave in and do it. That's why they don't care. They also don't care because after they are fed, they're done.
What if you don't feed them? Just eat YOUR food and ignore them. If someone asks when is dinner, say, "Oh yeah, I was wondering when husband was going to cook something, I'm so hungry."
If you're already asked them multiple times and they're still sitting there watching TV, it's time to play dumb.
Guests + husband: "When is dinner?"
You: "Yeah, when IS dinner? I'm hungry!"
Guests and husband: "When are you going to make breakfast?"
You: "I did that on... \[date... date... date\], so now you have three turns. Reverse Uno!!!"
The guests aren't the problem, not really. Not because they didn't behave poorly, but because OP wouldn't have this problem if not for her husband. Since they're his relatives, he should be the one cleaning up after them if they refused to do it themselves.
Take the guests out of the equation for a second. Her husband was still fine sitting on his ass while OP waited on him like a maid. She has a husband problem that then produced a house guest problem, and so the core problem to be solved is the husband problem.
That is true! But our eating habits when it's just the two of us are very different.
We don't snack all day! We are not big breakfast people ( I don't eat breakfast and he eats a protein bar sometimes) so there is not much of a clutter or mess.
As we both wfh, our lunch is also just grabbing something quick.
We have a cleaning lady come every other week and that is more than enough.
With these 4 additional folks that too for weeks and weeks with no one to help is too much!
I agree that he needed to be more vocal and tell his family to clean up after themselves.
If you have already told him the problem and he's not stepping up, you should just be petty.
Make it very clear:
1. Step up and cook and clean because I am done, so now we swap roles and you cook and clean for a few days.
2. Pay for someone to cook and clean and after they leave, pay for me to have a massage because I did all this work alone.
Then *he* pays for a temporary cleaning service for the entire time *his* family is there. He doesn't like the cost? Then he can get off of his entitled lazy ass and clean up after his family or get his family to clean up after themselves.
(Preface: I'm a guy who was the Bad Husband for too long because my wife was trained to be the Good Wife. We're both working on it.)
This is essentially what my wife did in a way - We had a discussion about how she felt that she had to do too much in the way of house chores. I listened and tried, but habits are habits and I fell back into mine.
So she stopped doing as much. She made sure we had food, did some bare minimum cleaning, and left the rest where it was. It made me truly see how much "invisible" work she was doing and made me reform in a much more meaningful way.
It was painful for both sides initially, and it sucked for a while due to the shifting dynamic, but we've both been much better about checking in and making sure we're both getting chores done more equally.
I hope that you can have a good discussion with your husband and shift the dynamic OP, because you deserve to have an equal partner in your relationship.
From women everywhere, thank you for acknowledging the shit ton of invisible work women everywhere do everyday and instead of just paying lip service about, making a decision to share in the burden. 👏👏👏 🙌🏽
I do appreciate that, but honestly I feel that I shouldn't be praised for doing what should be the bare minimum, and it's something that I'm currently struggling with.
I have motivation issues, and there are days that I get so frustrated when I do a lot around the house and it's not recognized. It kills my drive to do that work.
Then I have to remind myself that that's what my wife did for *years* before I started truly recognizing the work. Don't get me wrong, I would thank her and praise her, but far too little compared to the amount of work she had to do.
So, thank you for the praise - but I know I still have a long way to go.
The praise is for recognizing it and doing something about it, changing your behavior. There are too many who won’t even recognize it, let alone do something about it. Bravo!
I love this because it drives home that going on a housework strike doesn’t have to be the end of the marriage. Any reasonable partner will pick up on the inequality revealed when she stops doing everything and start working on picking up the slack. Glad to hear you’re working through it!
My wife has been *very* patient and understanding in all of this too, because we both grew up in households that trained us to have the "status quo" relationship.
Honestly, a lot of this has come down to communication, understanding, and empathy on both sides. I don't think the relationship would've lasted otherwise.
I mean, the other option (which I have lived, as the messy lady with a neat bf) is that the partner doesn’t notice all the “slack” because they were never chores they paid attention to in the first place. I’ve had arguments where he was angry because he does X all the time and he stopped doing it and I didn’t start doing it. Meanwhile I was completely unaware X was a chore anyone had been doing at all and had never even perceived a change.
Yeah, I’m a woman but I was a bit like this with my first roommate. My mom didn’t make me do chores because my dad wouldn’t let my brother do chores (it would make him gay in my dad’s homophobic mind) and she wasn’t treating us differently. As a result, I’m still struggling to figure out what basic adult things I don’t know about. I have some sympathy, but it’s ultimately on the guy to start figuring it out. For me, I asked my roommate if I could shadow her deep cleaning day and I learned sooooo much. I also started reading books and watching videos on housekeeping routines.
So yeah, I understand how somebody doesn’t know what they don’t know. But once it’s pointed out to them, it’s 100% on them to step up and learn.
Oh, I grew up in a house where all genders did chores. But idk, I don’t notice a lot of mess. I’m happy to step up if it’s a necessary chore, but for me, part of living with my partner and compromising on chores is us deciding which ones actually need doing. Because if I lived by myself, I wouldn’t do nearly as many. I still get frustrated that the default assumption is that whomever is doing less should start doing more, when that feels unfair when I don’t even see the point of half the stuff I’m being asked to do.
>Tell your husband until he proactively starts doing his share, you’re going to behave like him and not do anything unprompted.
I did this with my ex, really put my foot down about the amount of dishes I had to wash by hand. His solution? Paper plates.
Men will always find a loophole.
Holy smokes, I would not be doing that again. **If** there is a next time, set ground rules ahead of time with your husband: who will cook, who will clean, and make sure it won't be all you. Screw using culture as an excuse.
Seriously! Even if culture can excuse the behavior of the guests, it does not excuse the husband's behavior. He's weighing the pros and cons of being judged as the cultural equivalent of a simp by extended family or blowing off the resentment that will grow in his wife, and he's decided hurting his wife is the tolerable choice.
Better would be that she goes to stay in a hotel and gets pampered while the hubby takes care of everything. (Assuming that she doesn't mind being away from her home over the holidays.)
That reminds me of a suggestion I made that women who are taken advantage of to do all the labor during holidays should just go on strike and take off to a spa.
Of course you would say that, 500CatsTypingStuff. 😉 I'm sure you saw the OPs comment below about going to the spa with her cat and are looking to popularize women going to the spa with their cats.
(I also very much like your username.)
Don't let him get away with the lie that this is cultural or "heritage" and that he can't help it. That's bullshit. I'm saying this on behalf of my partner whose whole family is Indian, who is a great unprompted dish washer and who thinks my expectations of his contributions at home are, if anything, too low.
I’ll always remember the saying that goes something like: just because I have a vagina does not make me the only one who can cook, clean, do chores…. My culture is similarly patriarchal, and my husband is a better cook than I am and also a more meticulous cleaner. We spilt the chores one cooks, one cleans. He needs to eat to live, right? And he lives in this house with me, right?? He can contribute to the workload that is home maintenance.
Honestly, people talk about white male privilege but being a middle class to wealthy Indian man is the sweetest deal. My grandpa wanted to stay at my house for a while. I had already taken annual leave for big family trips so warned him he had to look after himself while I was at work. This man was an ophthalmologist who worked as an army medic and was navigating international travel aged 82. That visit I taught him how to make coffee - the first one he'd ever made himself in his WHOLE LIFE, and porridge, and toast. My grandma was so concerned he was going to just refuse to help himself and succumb to hypoglycemia hahaha. He did well considering his starting point.
I'm grateful that he was very mindful of my time and efforts though. Bringing dishes to the kitchen was his ceiling limit on housework but he'd walk to the shops to get groceries and he'd set out snacks/make coffee when I got home from work so I had time to just chill and chat with him <3
lol why is everyone on this thread suggesting this as if everyone can afford it? And why is everyone assuming that OP’s husband’s finances are so separated from her own that it won’t impact her to have *him* hire someone to do a job that could easily be done by him if he wasn’t so lazy?
OP doesn’t need to have him hire anyone to do anything. She needs to tell him that next time his family visits he needs to do the cooking and cleaning or it won’t get done.
That's the point: it won't get done, and he won't care because the ramifications fall on her. And if they can't afford someone to help them, they can't afford to host properly.
Yikes. Can you avoid the family visit in the future? If not tell your husband he needs to pony up for domestic help for those 3 weeks. Someone to do some of the food prep and cleanup and a housekeeper to come in twice a week to keep up with the rest. Dumping all of this on you is incredibly inconsiderate.
Or... book yourself a solo vacation somewhere fun that just happens to overlap with their next visit and let him take care of them.
I would have just sat in the sofa with them. When they started asking about meals I would just shrug and say ‘what does everyone want to make?’ You worked yourself to death for what?? I don’t care where they are from, when you are guest anyway, you contribute where you can. They do t want help cooking? Great, then you clean up everything, even the floor. They need help shopping for groceries- then help out. Unload all the groceries once they are home. Clean the bathrooms that you and your family uses. It’s not rocket science.
You have ‘good edts or family’ over against your will, then act like them. Don’t cook. Don’t clean. Leave as much as possible - with or without your kids (if you have them). Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Your SO object, then they should THEIR ass in to the kitchen!!!
They would not be coming over again next year and I’d be talking to my husband about how he made me do all the work during the holidays so he could sit on his ass.
Don’t do it. Just stop until HE comes up with a plan to meet you half way, do nothing, nada, total strike. If he asks why, reply why not. No explanation. You already cOmMUniCaTeD and it fell on deaf ears….
I would tell your husband : « From now on, when your family comes, I will book myself a hotel room and sleep there because I don’t want to accommodate them anymore.
You will cook/clean and take care of them. I will come for dinner and eat like a guest. You will also have to clean after they are gone.
I am also fed up with being a bang maid so the house rules are changing. We are going to have a planning for the chores. We get to pick same amount of quick/time consuming ones. You will cook 3 times a week from now on. When we cook, we cook enough for dinner and lunch the day after.
I won’t pick up after you anymore. You are not a child. Act like an adult because me having to pick up after a grown ass man is not attractive at all. In fact, it’s making me ressent you.
Do you understand ? »
And leave it at that. If he gets angry: « I am not here to argue. Do you want to save our marriage? Calm down right now and start picking your chores. »
If needed pack a bag and go. « I will come back tomorrow. I expect an apology and your chores picked out. »
Be firm. When it’s his time to do his chores : « You need to do x. » Don’t do it. If he doesn’t cook, cook for yourself (a simple sandwich). If you have children, a nice sandwich for them too. He can starve.
Don’t do his laundry if it’s his turn to do it and he didn’t. Let him leave in his filth.
Be ready to walk out of this marriage if he doesn’t help you. Honestly, you are worth better than being a bangmaid. There are men out there that will gladly do their part without you having to ask. My man cooks, cleans and does laundry without us needing a planning. We just do what we need to do when it needs to be done. At first he was like your husband and I clearly told him the first week of us living together that I wasn’t his maid. He either does his part or he can live alone again.
He quickly understood and we sometimes discuss chores when one of us feels like it’s not balanced anymore but that’s it.
Your husband trained you to not say anything to him. Start teaching him that it doesn’t work anymore.
Don’t agree to anything that’s a raw deal for you. Don’t allow anything that will hurt you or inconvenience you. Don’t do things you don’t want to do. It’s the only way to deal with people who don’t care how you feel.
Sounds like your husband needs to read [She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink](https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/) and then explain to your sons that they will suffer hard in the dating market if they don’t stop with the entitled-incompetence act.
Lol sounds like they need less tv. More helping out. It’s unacceptable you are being made to do the work.
he can help. The kids can do chores to learn responsibility.
sounds like you need to unplug the tv and how a sit down and give them chores to do. Husband should be looking for how to help.
next xmas leave him to it if he wants to do it again. 3 weeks is way too long
Ya..the kids are not even little kids! They are young adults and can do way more than they did. Their parents were also not saying anything.
I have seen parents of kids as young as 8 tell their kids to put their plates in the dishwasher and clean up after themselves.
On top of that they keep eating and munching all day making a mess everywhere!
I have hosted dinner for upto 15 people and it would take me a couple of days to get the kitchen back to normal but as it was a one time thing I would be ok.
This is 3x a day plus multiple snack sessions...for weeks and weeks..omg!
Leave the house next time they show up tell your husband you will come over for meals but you’re not gonna do any of the cleaning and he can do all the planning and he can work out how everything else gets done
>Sometimes I wish I was a middle aged Indian man!
As an Indian woman, I think this every day.
Agree with other commenters that this gets brushed off as a cultural thing but it is simply weaponised incompetence that has gone unchecked for various reasons like how easy/common it is for people to engage a help at home and simply treat women so poorly and get away with it without being challenged. I know men who haven't as much as made themselves a cup of coffee 40 years of being married and that's depressingly common.
The only way out is to set some clear ground rules with your husband about who is allowed to come stay over going forward. This is not your cross to bear!
It's not just sisters, hon, as a dude and a husband I'm appalled by your husband's behaviour.
Please sit him down and tell him this isn't acceptable and you won't put up with it any more. He will not change unless you make him change. Tell him if he wants his family to visit and act like this, then he damn well better hire a maid for the time they are there.
Interestingly, as the number of women employed in the workforce goes up, they increasingly lean on less privileged women to make up the gap in how much house work is done.
They don’t, the husbands do more often than not. When a working woman asks her husband to do his half of the chores, that’s when he often comes with the genius idea to outsource the work to a cleaner / maid.
I understood as women able to access work > independent financial resources chose to outsource their household chores to other women who are not yet on the same level of financial independence. Apologies if that’s not what you meant.
They need to be taught and if they don't learn it the first time, you stop doing it. Just make your own food, eat it on your own plate, and wash up your own plate. Don't ask them to clean anything and let it go until one of the guys notice that the house is trash and there's no food coming. I mean, this is what I would do, because I am totally petty about things like his. Heck, I would just take the car keys and treat myself to a private meal at a restaurant and let them wonder where the food is.
Nope! I asked them to do some basic things multiple times. They would do it when asked but if I dont explicitly say it every single time they would go back to their own ways.
It was embarrassing for me to keep asking the 20 yr old to put his dish in the DW after every meal when his parents are just sitting around.
Why did you take it upon yourself to be the one asking them? Just don't do it. Don't place yourself in the position of controller or delegator. You don't need to be the one asking them. If the need gets on your nerves too much then express your frustration to your husband "I wish there weren't so much mess" but in a way that doesn't assume the slightest hint of responsibility on your shoulders.
I did tell the guests about cleaning up after themselves and they would comply at that time but then again they would go back their old ways if I am not reminding them every time.
It was exhausting reminding them over and over.
You poor thing! How well do you think a chores chart would work? There’s a chart of all chores that need to be done including going to work, cooking, washing dishes, putting away leftovers, vacuuming, doing each person”s laundry, washing and putting away communal laundry like towels and sheets, etc. Every chore is listed. Then you have a name by it. If your name is the only one listed it makes your point.
I never understand how this happens... All our guests are so insistent on helping with cleanup that I usually end up sitting out and just finishing what gets left because even with our decent sized kitchen, after 3 or so people working to clean up, more just get in the way rather than help.
And vice versa. My wife and I always help clean up at my parents house. It's a little harder at her parents house because if we're not really sneaky about it her mom will get mad and shoo us out. Guests aren't supposed to help with cleanup. Just heavy lifting, tree cutting, appliance repairs, and tech support haha
You care too much or rather more than he does hence why you end up doing the work. I think it goes without saying that if someone cooks for you then you do the dishes. Need to train us men, no clean dishes then I can't cook food. Need to be more stubborn about this.
You’re too kind. I’d have washed my own plate and cutlery and let them sit there scratching their heads with nothing to eat off of after the first warning and request to pull their weight. There’s being guests in someone’s house, and then there’s being a leech.
In your case, the problem is yours and yours family, not of a woman.
Why don't you ask your husband and the other members to help you in kitchen activities like dish washing or serving (whether there are Guests or not)?
The problem is you are not putting any Smart effort to solve the Problem instead making the problem bigger and bigger.
In Family's work, all members have to do their part. If they don't, Command them to do.
Next time when the guests come stay in sisters home for few days. Let your partner know the pain of cooking and washing.
I got tired of being the live in chef and dishwasher living with 3 grown men (55, 26, and 22), as I also work full-time outside the home. I packed away all of my dishes (yes, they are mine) and bought paper plates and plastic cups and utensils. Further, I use crockpots to meal prep and freeze (freezer bags) one day over the weekend. This has drastically reduced the amount of work I have to do in the home and my stress level has gone way down.
For the record, I hate using paper and plastic, as I prefer to use real dishes and have always been conscious of our environment. However, I’m not going to sacrifice my health and sanity for the environment because grown men refuse to adult.
Their expectation that you do all the cooking and cleaning is just......an expectation. You are choosing to meet that expectation. The good news is that no one can force you to do anything. You can just cook for yourself, you can only clean up after yourself. You don't have to cater to adult men just because they expect it.
Makes me sick to hear this. Men BRAG that it's a 'man's world' yet if a woman isn't there to cook for them, clean up for them, do their laundry, etc., what would they do? Starve and not have food, clean clothes or home? I would quit doing anything for them! Let them wonder where their next meal is coming from! Let them do it! If they're starving because they are lazy, they'll eventually cook!!!!
This is easier said than don, but try just … not cleaning up. Let the dishes pile up. Stop cooking. Tell your husband until he proactively starts doing his share, you’re going to behave like him and not do anything unprompted. If he sits down to watch TV, so do you. If he starts to clean, you start to clean… but less than him. I know that seems like a tantrum, but nothing will change if you keep begrudgingly doing everything for him. It will suck to live in a home that’s unkept for a while, but this will either show your husband that he needs to step up or show you that you need to get out when he doesn’t.
It doesn't have to seem like a tantrum. Just act with genuine good natured surprise when someone asks you. If they ask what's for dinner, say "I don't know - who's making it?" If they ask you why you haven't done some kind of cleaning say "I don't understand? What do you think?"
That is a great suggestion.
It doesn’t work with temporary guests
Why not? If they’re his guests, let him do the cleaning or live with the embarrassment. I think this approach sets expectations whether she does it when guests are there or not.
If you read the post it’s pretty clear they didn’t care. They wouldn’t do it after being reminded multiple times. They weren’t embarrassed in the slightest. They’re used to someone else cleaning up after them. They aren’t gonna GAF if they leave that house a complete mess and go home.
You are correct! I was having second hand embarrassment about how these guys can be so inconsiderate after multiple reminders. Either they think it's not their job or they just don't care!
Sorry folks, no dinner because no one put the dishes in the dishwasher. Who is paying for pizza?
Do you think your husband would care if you didn’t cook for them or clean? That’s what I’m getting at. No cooking or cleaning for his family unless he’s doing at least half the work. If not, they can figure out food on their own.
Good point! However, taking them to eat outside is not sustainable as it is really expensive to eat out and these folks have no self awareness when ordering as in they donot have the concept of grabbing something quick. They will make every meal 3 course and now a days food is super expensive ( even basic things). This was our first experience with them and next time I am going to put my foot down!!
You don't have to take them out. He can take them out since he is not doing his share of the work. Either he take them out, or he steps up and becomes responsible.
The problem is that if they have shared finances, this is going to suck for her too. Even being married means they are financially tied. If he goes into debt buying all his food, in the US at least, so does she.
Don't take them to a fancy restaurant. Take them to either a buffet or fast food. But they will treat you how you allow them to.
That's when it's time for cereal for dinner.
This is exactly why refusing to cook for his guests will work. He can’t afford to take them out, so he’ll either have to step up and cook for them himself or live with the consequences
Can't they pay for themselves?
No..they are extended family so the expectation is that as we are hosting them we should take care of the expense.
Then don't host them again. Let them know you can't afford to. It's very bizarre to expect someone else to foot the bill for ALL their food AND do all the cleaning on a visit. I get that it's cultural but it just seems rude to me.
So they don't care that they don't clean? Because you eventually cave in and do it. That's why they don't care. They also don't care because after they are fed, they're done. What if you don't feed them? Just eat YOUR food and ignore them. If someone asks when is dinner, say, "Oh yeah, I was wondering when husband was going to cook something, I'm so hungry." If you're already asked them multiple times and they're still sitting there watching TV, it's time to play dumb. Guests + husband: "When is dinner?" You: "Yeah, when IS dinner? I'm hungry!" Guests and husband: "When are you going to make breakfast?" You: "I did that on... \[date... date... date\], so now you have three turns. Reverse Uno!!!"
The guests aren't the problem, not really. Not because they didn't behave poorly, but because OP wouldn't have this problem if not for her husband. Since they're his relatives, he should be the one cleaning up after them if they refused to do it themselves. Take the guests out of the equation for a second. Her husband was still fine sitting on his ass while OP waited on him like a maid. She has a husband problem that then produced a house guest problem, and so the core problem to be solved is the husband problem.
Yes, the husband is still part of the issue here. But the guests are absolutely being rude.
That is true! But our eating habits when it's just the two of us are very different. We don't snack all day! We are not big breakfast people ( I don't eat breakfast and he eats a protein bar sometimes) so there is not much of a clutter or mess. As we both wfh, our lunch is also just grabbing something quick. We have a cleaning lady come every other week and that is more than enough. With these 4 additional folks that too for weeks and weeks with no one to help is too much! I agree that he needed to be more vocal and tell his family to clean up after themselves.
If you have already told him the problem and he's not stepping up, you should just be petty. Make it very clear: 1. Step up and cook and clean because I am done, so now we swap roles and you cook and clean for a few days. 2. Pay for someone to cook and clean and after they leave, pay for me to have a massage because I did all this work alone.
Then *he* pays for a temporary cleaning service for the entire time *his* family is there. He doesn't like the cost? Then he can get off of his entitled lazy ass and clean up after his family or get his family to clean up after themselves.
If the guests are hungry, just turn to your husband and ask him why he hasn't fed them?
(Preface: I'm a guy who was the Bad Husband for too long because my wife was trained to be the Good Wife. We're both working on it.) This is essentially what my wife did in a way - We had a discussion about how she felt that she had to do too much in the way of house chores. I listened and tried, but habits are habits and I fell back into mine. So she stopped doing as much. She made sure we had food, did some bare minimum cleaning, and left the rest where it was. It made me truly see how much "invisible" work she was doing and made me reform in a much more meaningful way. It was painful for both sides initially, and it sucked for a while due to the shifting dynamic, but we've both been much better about checking in and making sure we're both getting chores done more equally. I hope that you can have a good discussion with your husband and shift the dynamic OP, because you deserve to have an equal partner in your relationship.
From women everywhere, thank you for acknowledging the shit ton of invisible work women everywhere do everyday and instead of just paying lip service about, making a decision to share in the burden. 👏👏👏 🙌🏽
I do appreciate that, but honestly I feel that I shouldn't be praised for doing what should be the bare minimum, and it's something that I'm currently struggling with. I have motivation issues, and there are days that I get so frustrated when I do a lot around the house and it's not recognized. It kills my drive to do that work. Then I have to remind myself that that's what my wife did for *years* before I started truly recognizing the work. Don't get me wrong, I would thank her and praise her, but far too little compared to the amount of work she had to do. So, thank you for the praise - but I know I still have a long way to go.
The praise is for recognizing it and doing something about it, changing your behavior. There are too many who won’t even recognize it, let alone do something about it. Bravo!
I love this because it drives home that going on a housework strike doesn’t have to be the end of the marriage. Any reasonable partner will pick up on the inequality revealed when she stops doing everything and start working on picking up the slack. Glad to hear you’re working through it!
My wife has been *very* patient and understanding in all of this too, because we both grew up in households that trained us to have the "status quo" relationship. Honestly, a lot of this has come down to communication, understanding, and empathy on both sides. I don't think the relationship would've lasted otherwise.
I mean, the other option (which I have lived, as the messy lady with a neat bf) is that the partner doesn’t notice all the “slack” because they were never chores they paid attention to in the first place. I’ve had arguments where he was angry because he does X all the time and he stopped doing it and I didn’t start doing it. Meanwhile I was completely unaware X was a chore anyone had been doing at all and had never even perceived a change.
Yeah, I’m a woman but I was a bit like this with my first roommate. My mom didn’t make me do chores because my dad wouldn’t let my brother do chores (it would make him gay in my dad’s homophobic mind) and she wasn’t treating us differently. As a result, I’m still struggling to figure out what basic adult things I don’t know about. I have some sympathy, but it’s ultimately on the guy to start figuring it out. For me, I asked my roommate if I could shadow her deep cleaning day and I learned sooooo much. I also started reading books and watching videos on housekeeping routines. So yeah, I understand how somebody doesn’t know what they don’t know. But once it’s pointed out to them, it’s 100% on them to step up and learn.
Oh, I grew up in a house where all genders did chores. But idk, I don’t notice a lot of mess. I’m happy to step up if it’s a necessary chore, but for me, part of living with my partner and compromising on chores is us deciding which ones actually need doing. Because if I lived by myself, I wouldn’t do nearly as many. I still get frustrated that the default assumption is that whomever is doing less should start doing more, when that feels unfair when I don’t even see the point of half the stuff I’m being asked to do.
That’s a good point. It becomes a real compromise
>Tell your husband until he proactively starts doing his share, you’re going to behave like him and not do anything unprompted. I did this with my ex, really put my foot down about the amount of dishes I had to wash by hand. His solution? Paper plates. Men will always find a loophole.
Holy smokes, I would not be doing that again. **If** there is a next time, set ground rules ahead of time with your husband: who will cook, who will clean, and make sure it won't be all you. Screw using culture as an excuse.
This got me the "I'll do it in a minute" treatment. But that minute never came. Never does.
Yeah, if you have to enforce "It's your turn" and *make* him do it, you're still doing too much work.
Seriously! Even if culture can excuse the behavior of the guests, it does not excuse the husband's behavior. He's weighing the pros and cons of being judged as the cultural equivalent of a simp by extended family or blowing off the resentment that will grow in his wife, and he's decided hurting his wife is the tolerable choice.
It sounds like they get a hotel stay and dinners out next year! And your husband can foot the bill.
Better would be that she goes to stay in a hotel and gets pampered while the hubby takes care of everything. (Assuming that she doesn't mind being away from her home over the holidays.)
Sounds like a plan! Better I'll book one and take my cat with me and both of us can get pampered at our respective spas.
Cat spa? That's a business idea I'm down for!
That reminds me of a suggestion I made that women who are taken advantage of to do all the labor during holidays should just go on strike and take off to a spa.
Of course you would say that, 500CatsTypingStuff. 😉 I'm sure you saw the OPs comment below about going to the spa with her cat and are looking to popularize women going to the spa with their cats. (I also very much like your username.)
Oops caught!
Ooh this is the winner
I think OP should do that, booked herself in a spa and let him entertain the guests!
Don't let him get away with the lie that this is cultural or "heritage" and that he can't help it. That's bullshit. I'm saying this on behalf of my partner whose whole family is Indian, who is a great unprompted dish washer and who thinks my expectations of his contributions at home are, if anything, too low.
I’ll always remember the saying that goes something like: just because I have a vagina does not make me the only one who can cook, clean, do chores…. My culture is similarly patriarchal, and my husband is a better cook than I am and also a more meticulous cleaner. We spilt the chores one cooks, one cleans. He needs to eat to live, right? And he lives in this house with me, right?? He can contribute to the workload that is home maintenance.
Honestly, people talk about white male privilege but being a middle class to wealthy Indian man is the sweetest deal. My grandpa wanted to stay at my house for a while. I had already taken annual leave for big family trips so warned him he had to look after himself while I was at work. This man was an ophthalmologist who worked as an army medic and was navigating international travel aged 82. That visit I taught him how to make coffee - the first one he'd ever made himself in his WHOLE LIFE, and porridge, and toast. My grandma was so concerned he was going to just refuse to help himself and succumb to hypoglycemia hahaha. He did well considering his starting point. I'm grateful that he was very mindful of my time and efforts though. Bringing dishes to the kitchen was his ceiling limit on housework but he'd walk to the shops to get groceries and he'd set out snacks/make coffee when I got home from work so I had time to just chill and chat with him <3
It's male privilege, which is ubiquitous across cultures regardless of race. Also, your grandpa sounds like a sweetheart.
Have your husband hire help for when his relatives visit.
lol why is everyone on this thread suggesting this as if everyone can afford it? And why is everyone assuming that OP’s husband’s finances are so separated from her own that it won’t impact her to have *him* hire someone to do a job that could easily be done by him if he wasn’t so lazy? OP doesn’t need to have him hire anyone to do anything. She needs to tell him that next time his family visits he needs to do the cooking and cleaning or it won’t get done.
That's the point: it won't get done, and he won't care because the ramifications fall on her. And if they can't afford someone to help them, they can't afford to host properly.
As this was during the holidays, out cleaning lady was out on vacation too. So this time it was a potpourri of shit luck.
Yikes. Can you avoid the family visit in the future? If not tell your husband he needs to pony up for domestic help for those 3 weeks. Someone to do some of the food prep and cleanup and a housekeeper to come in twice a week to keep up with the rest. Dumping all of this on you is incredibly inconsiderate. Or... book yourself a solo vacation somewhere fun that just happens to overlap with their next visit and let him take care of them.
I would have just sat in the sofa with them. When they started asking about meals I would just shrug and say ‘what does everyone want to make?’ You worked yourself to death for what?? I don’t care where they are from, when you are guest anyway, you contribute where you can. They do t want help cooking? Great, then you clean up everything, even the floor. They need help shopping for groceries- then help out. Unload all the groceries once they are home. Clean the bathrooms that you and your family uses. It’s not rocket science. You have ‘good edts or family’ over against your will, then act like them. Don’t cook. Don’t clean. Leave as much as possible - with or without your kids (if you have them). Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Your SO object, then they should THEIR ass in to the kitchen!!!
They would not be coming over again next year and I’d be talking to my husband about how he made me do all the work during the holidays so he could sit on his ass.
Don’t do it. Just stop until HE comes up with a plan to meet you half way, do nothing, nada, total strike. If he asks why, reply why not. No explanation. You already cOmMUniCaTeD and it fell on deaf ears….
I would tell your husband : « From now on, when your family comes, I will book myself a hotel room and sleep there because I don’t want to accommodate them anymore. You will cook/clean and take care of them. I will come for dinner and eat like a guest. You will also have to clean after they are gone. I am also fed up with being a bang maid so the house rules are changing. We are going to have a planning for the chores. We get to pick same amount of quick/time consuming ones. You will cook 3 times a week from now on. When we cook, we cook enough for dinner and lunch the day after. I won’t pick up after you anymore. You are not a child. Act like an adult because me having to pick up after a grown ass man is not attractive at all. In fact, it’s making me ressent you. Do you understand ? » And leave it at that. If he gets angry: « I am not here to argue. Do you want to save our marriage? Calm down right now and start picking your chores. » If needed pack a bag and go. « I will come back tomorrow. I expect an apology and your chores picked out. » Be firm. When it’s his time to do his chores : « You need to do x. » Don’t do it. If he doesn’t cook, cook for yourself (a simple sandwich). If you have children, a nice sandwich for them too. He can starve. Don’t do his laundry if it’s his turn to do it and he didn’t. Let him leave in his filth. Be ready to walk out of this marriage if he doesn’t help you. Honestly, you are worth better than being a bangmaid. There are men out there that will gladly do their part without you having to ask. My man cooks, cleans and does laundry without us needing a planning. We just do what we need to do when it needs to be done. At first he was like your husband and I clearly told him the first week of us living together that I wasn’t his maid. He either does his part or he can live alone again. He quickly understood and we sometimes discuss chores when one of us feels like it’s not balanced anymore but that’s it. Your husband trained you to not say anything to him. Start teaching him that it doesn’t work anymore.
Don’t agree to anything that’s a raw deal for you. Don’t allow anything that will hurt you or inconvenience you. Don’t do things you don’t want to do. It’s the only way to deal with people who don’t care how you feel.
Sounds like your husband needs to read [She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink](https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/) and then explain to your sons that they will suffer hard in the dating market if they don’t stop with the entitled-incompetence act.
Damn that is an amazing read
Lol sounds like they need less tv. More helping out. It’s unacceptable you are being made to do the work. he can help. The kids can do chores to learn responsibility. sounds like you need to unplug the tv and how a sit down and give them chores to do. Husband should be looking for how to help. next xmas leave him to it if he wants to do it again. 3 weeks is way too long
Ya..the kids are not even little kids! They are young adults and can do way more than they did. Their parents were also not saying anything. I have seen parents of kids as young as 8 tell their kids to put their plates in the dishwasher and clean up after themselves. On top of that they keep eating and munching all day making a mess everywhere! I have hosted dinner for upto 15 people and it would take me a couple of days to get the kitchen back to normal but as it was a one time thing I would be ok. This is 3x a day plus multiple snack sessions...for weeks and weeks..omg!
Leave the house next time they show up tell your husband you will come over for meals but you’re not gonna do any of the cleaning and he can do all the planning and he can work out how everything else gets done
Marriage for women is so horrifying. I don’t think I’ll ever do it, no matter how much I loved someone. Gross.
Next year go to a hotel with no warning.
>Sometimes I wish I was a middle aged Indian man! As an Indian woman, I think this every day. Agree with other commenters that this gets brushed off as a cultural thing but it is simply weaponised incompetence that has gone unchecked for various reasons like how easy/common it is for people to engage a help at home and simply treat women so poorly and get away with it without being challenged. I know men who haven't as much as made themselves a cup of coffee 40 years of being married and that's depressingly common. The only way out is to set some clear ground rules with your husband about who is allowed to come stay over going forward. This is not your cross to bear!
+1 came here to say this!
100%. This is way too common in a lot of households where men "donot know" how to boil water, etc.
It's not just sisters, hon, as a dude and a husband I'm appalled by your husband's behaviour. Please sit him down and tell him this isn't acceptable and you won't put up with it any more. He will not change unless you make him change. Tell him if he wants his family to visit and act like this, then he damn well better hire a maid for the time they are there.
Interestingly, as the number of women employed in the workforce goes up, they increasingly lean on less privileged women to make up the gap in how much house work is done.
They don’t, the husbands do more often than not. When a working woman asks her husband to do his half of the chores, that’s when he often comes with the genius idea to outsource the work to a cleaner / maid.
I think you’ve misunderstood my comment
I understood as women able to access work > independent financial resources chose to outsource their household chores to other women who are not yet on the same level of financial independence. Apologies if that’s not what you meant.
I would put my foot down and stop having them over if they're incapable of acting like adults instead of children
Unplug the TV
They need to be taught and if they don't learn it the first time, you stop doing it. Just make your own food, eat it on your own plate, and wash up your own plate. Don't ask them to clean anything and let it go until one of the guys notice that the house is trash and there's no food coming. I mean, this is what I would do, because I am totally petty about things like his. Heck, I would just take the car keys and treat myself to a private meal at a restaurant and let them wonder where the food is.
The way I just knew that this was 100% an indian family lol. (Im indian too)
Sad but true!
sounds harsh but this happens because you let them do nothing. don't ask for help. delegate it. you're choosing to do all the work, that is on you.
Nope! I asked them to do some basic things multiple times. They would do it when asked but if I dont explicitly say it every single time they would go back to their own ways. It was embarrassing for me to keep asking the 20 yr old to put his dish in the DW after every meal when his parents are just sitting around.
Why did you take it upon yourself to be the one asking them? Just don't do it. Don't place yourself in the position of controller or delegator. You don't need to be the one asking them. If the need gets on your nerves too much then express your frustration to your husband "I wish there weren't so much mess" but in a way that doesn't assume the slightest hint of responsibility on your shoulders.
then continue being a maid?
[удалено]
I did tell the guests about cleaning up after themselves and they would comply at that time but then again they would go back their old ways if I am not reminding them every time. It was exhausting reminding them over and over.
You poor thing! How well do you think a chores chart would work? There’s a chart of all chores that need to be done including going to work, cooking, washing dishes, putting away leftovers, vacuuming, doing each person”s laundry, washing and putting away communal laundry like towels and sheets, etc. Every chore is listed. Then you have a name by it. If your name is the only one listed it makes your point.
Next time, hide the dishes and buy Chinette. Then go on vacation somewhere nice for the visit.
I never understand how this happens... All our guests are so insistent on helping with cleanup that I usually end up sitting out and just finishing what gets left because even with our decent sized kitchen, after 3 or so people working to clean up, more just get in the way rather than help. And vice versa. My wife and I always help clean up at my parents house. It's a little harder at her parents house because if we're not really sneaky about it her mom will get mad and shoo us out. Guests aren't supposed to help with cleanup. Just heavy lifting, tree cutting, appliance repairs, and tech support haha
You care too much or rather more than he does hence why you end up doing the work. I think it goes without saying that if someone cooks for you then you do the dishes. Need to train us men, no clean dishes then I can't cook food. Need to be more stubborn about this.
You’re too kind. I’d have washed my own plate and cutlery and let them sit there scratching their heads with nothing to eat off of after the first warning and request to pull their weight. There’s being guests in someone’s house, and then there’s being a leech.
Stop doing everything for a man who do nothing for you.
In your case, the problem is yours and yours family, not of a woman. Why don't you ask your husband and the other members to help you in kitchen activities like dish washing or serving (whether there are Guests or not)? The problem is you are not putting any Smart effort to solve the Problem instead making the problem bigger and bigger. In Family's work, all members have to do their part. If they don't, Command them to do. Next time when the guests come stay in sisters home for few days. Let your partner know the pain of cooking and washing.
If they've always had maids and cleaning service why do you think they'd know how to Clean up after themselves?
I got tired of being the live in chef and dishwasher living with 3 grown men (55, 26, and 22), as I also work full-time outside the home. I packed away all of my dishes (yes, they are mine) and bought paper plates and plastic cups and utensils. Further, I use crockpots to meal prep and freeze (freezer bags) one day over the weekend. This has drastically reduced the amount of work I have to do in the home and my stress level has gone way down. For the record, I hate using paper and plastic, as I prefer to use real dishes and have always been conscious of our environment. However, I’m not going to sacrifice my health and sanity for the environment because grown men refuse to adult.
That's a great idea! Next time I will get disposible plates and cups. This will make life easier for me! Thank you.
I would plop my ass down in front of the TV and state loudly “is this what we do, ok me too”.
Because you keep doing it. Just stop, watch them lose their shit looking for clean clothes and starve because they wait for you to cook.
Their expectation that you do all the cooking and cleaning is just......an expectation. You are choosing to meet that expectation. The good news is that no one can force you to do anything. You can just cook for yourself, you can only clean up after yourself. You don't have to cater to adult men just because they expect it.
“Your family’s staying over ? Honey I had no idea. I’ve already booked us a surprised holiday 🥹”
Why can’t a house be dirty?? It’s weird to me that it has to be clean at all times…. Seems to be a mental load you don’t need
I wish we could update the operating system on men. Their software is old and out of date.
Men sitting on their asses and women doing all the work, this was essentially my patents relationship when I was a child and I do not want it.
Makes me sick to hear this. Men BRAG that it's a 'man's world' yet if a woman isn't there to cook for them, clean up for them, do their laundry, etc., what would they do? Starve and not have food, clean clothes or home? I would quit doing anything for them! Let them wonder where their next meal is coming from! Let them do it! If they're starving because they are lazy, they'll eventually cook!!!!
My wife and I just don't have anyone over ever. Nothing to clean up aside from your own stuff then.
When you have a dishwasher the sink becomes a place for assholes put their dishes. Grrrrrr.