When the household comander in chief calls its quits

[mdurette]

For all the households that split "stuff" 50/50.....awesome! But, for others there seems to be a point person. The person that deals with finances, shops, cooks, cleans, appointments, presents, social engagements, lunch boxes, etc, etc etc.

Recently I have had a few customers mention things like:
Spouse doesn't cook for me anymore
I no longer do spouses laundry, they can do their own.
Spouse can be responsible for making own appointments and running their own errands now

Most of these people have hit retirement and the point person that did it all over the years is done doing it all.

I can see how this could easily make or break retirement and/or marriages.

Have any of you dealt with.....any advice, insight, etc on going from a 90/10 household to a 50/50?

 

[DaveNV]

Can’t really offer much. Mine has been a 60/40 split from the beginning. We each almost do 50/50, but there is a minimum of overlap. I don’t see that changing when I retire.

Dave

 

[MabelP]

As you get older, the more tired you get. I don’t think you get up one day and say, “ I am no longer doing laundry.” I think the 50-50 evolves as you age together. You support one another to make a happy retirement for both people in the household.

 

[SmithOp]

My mother-in-law is 92 and still waits on him hand and foot, she’s old school. We try to tell her its time to retire, you’ve been doing this 75 years. She went from cooking/cleaning for her family to her husband. She still get up at 4am and spends most of the day in the kitchen, the only life she’s known.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[rapmarks]

I do everything and when we were both working, I did most, but my husband took care of the cars and the yard. Now I have to do it all and I am pretty worn out.

 

[Talent312]

Folks sometimes get tired of carrying the load and want to rest.
In retirement, DW and I have settled into our respective roles...
I handle the finances + make most meals. She has little interest.
OTOH, she does most of the laundry (so it's done the "right way").
.

 

[Passepartout]

We both do our share of the 'chores'. I prolly do more shopping/cooking/laundry DW pays more of the bills, we share household & travel expenses. We afford housekeeper & yard care. So far it works, but if(when) one of us can no longer live at home, the other one can't handle it alone either. It will be a difficult decision whether to sell both places and move to a ccrc or try to stay in one house and hire help. Now, it's one year at a time. Then the decision will be seasonal, then we will have to take it day by day.

Jim

 

[clifffaith]

Basically, I keep the household running. I pay the bills, I make sure we get to the grocery store, i make dinner, I keep track when it's trash day or someone has a doctor's appointment, or notice whether one of the cats looks sick.. But face it, I can't stand things getting done at the last minute so I've put myself in this position. He'd happily do some cooking -- but looking up from the computer at 4pm, then spending 30 minutes rummaging through cookbooks, then wanting to go to the grocery store for ingredients, before coming home to start something that takes 2-3 hours to prepare doesn't work for me! I let him prepare stew a couple of times during the winter by making sure he buys his ingredients on our regular shopping day.

 

[clifffaith]

My mother-in-law is 92 and still waits on him hand and foot, she’s old school. We try to tell her its time to retire, you’ve been doing this 75 years. She went from cooking/cleaning for her family to her husband. She still get up at 4am and spends most of the day in the kitchen, the only life she’s known.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

That's my mother, add to that now wiping his butt, changing his pajamas three times a day and the bed twice, and calling the fire department to pick Dad up off the floor. Begging her to get help falls on deaf ears.

 

[jlp879]

This shift just happened in my brother's relationship. My SIL has a diagnosis of MS that makes her unable to walk far or climb steps. Both of them are in their late 50s and retired. They have decided to sell their current home and look for a ranch-style residence with no stairs.

However, retirement is new to my brother. It's been less than a year but he is now a full time caregiver. I don't know how I would manage something like this. You plan all your life for a full, active retirement but are unable to execute your plan.

 

[WinniWoman]

For all the households that split "stuff" 50/50.....awesome! But, for others there seems to be a point person. The person that deals with finances, shops, cooks, cleans, appointments, presents, social engagements, lunch boxes, etc, etc etc.

Recently I have had a few customers mention things like:
Spouse doesn't cook for me anymore
I no longer do spouses laundry, they can do their own.
Spouse can be responsible for making own appointments and running their own errands now

Most of these people have hit retirement and the point person that did it all over the years is done doing it all.

I can see how this could easily make or break retirement and/or marriages.

Have any of you dealt with.....any advice, insight, etc on going from a 90/10 household to a 50/50?

I am at that point right now as I am the commander in chief and with moving and everything I am close to the edge. But I think it’s part of my karma- the lesson I needed to learn in life- responsibility. And I have done a heck of a job- let me tell you that!

And I won’t mess with it. Honestly at this stage of the game, I wouldn’t want my husband handling most of it because he doesn’t have the lifetime experience with it that I have had. And on some level I think I “like” being in control.

Hubby has a more relaxed style and I am more of- well- unrelaxed. Lol!

He does “ help” here and there but sometimes I feel he is just getting in my way. Best for him to do the “ man” stuff in the garage and basement- fixing things and stuff like using the snowblower, dealing with the cars, etc.

 

[pedro47]

The Commander In Chief and I are still 50/50, I feel. Maybe 51/49. LOL
in her favor. She is very smart and a very detailed person. She is a Virgo Lady.

We are both retired and have been married for over fifty years.
I think fifty two (52) years in April 2020. We have been retired almost twenty years each. She has 21years in September and I will have 19 years November 2020.

The Commander In Chief still have that photo memory, she can still tell me what happen on this date twenty years ago. Plus, she want me to be able recalled what happen on this date twenty years ago (this is not happening). LOL.

We both retired to be caregiver to our parents. We had four (4) awesome parents. That is a fact. We missed our parents still to this very hour and second. I missed playing dominoes with my Mother in Law. She would whip me.

The IRS, I feel needs to give me an extra deduction for that many years of marriage.

We both still enjoy working with financial issues and numbers.

She has the indoor of our home and I have the outdoors (cutting grass, planting flowers and maintaining our vehicles. ,( etc.,)

Ok, her biggest complain is that I do not cook.
Plus, I have loss my hearing. Yes, I now wear hearing aids. I now have that selective hearing loss.

The Commander In Chief is the English teacher and grammar expert.
I am the fact finder and the number cruncher.

I enjoy signing on the computer/iPad at 4am everyday.

My job inside the house is too kept my bathroom and the half bathroom clean and my computer room clean, plus organized. LOL.


Finally , we still both enjoy our timeshare vacations and cruising around the world. Together.
Is our marriage perfect. Noway, we still can disagree on everything , but by the end of the day. We can forget, forgive and move on.

 

[rapmarks]

The problem with me doing 100% is that I get sick sometimes. Then there is big trouble. Last October I got super sick. By Saturday, I made my husband some dinner but couldn’t eat it. Only ate a piece of toast that day. Ate and cooked nothing on Sunday and Monday. He made peanut butter toast for himself. I went to Er, ate and cooked nothing on Tuesday. Medicine kicked in enough to eat a little on Wednesday and feed him. Had a slow recovery and my husband went downhill during that time.

 

[geekette]

My sister tried to renegotiate the deal made decades previous, so BIL left her. I guess he detests housework so much that he had to find a younger lady willing to be his maid since the mother of his children was tired and wanted more to life than cleaning up after him. I think there had been a longstanding lack of respect, both ways, in that marriage.

 

[presley]

I could see that happening. My husband does next to nothing other than create what I call "extra work" which is stuff like right after I've cleaned the floor, walk through the house and leave dirt clods everywhere. He says he can't clean it up because he's in too much pain. I guess piles of dishes and the trash overflowing doesn't bother him at all. He's often home a lot more than I am, but that's the stuff I come home to. Overflowing trash bothers me a lot, so I am the one who takes out the trash.

 

[Cornell]

In my house, I'm the pilot and there is no co-pilot.

 

[rapmarks]

I have to look at bright side. I don’t worry about my husband leaving something on the stove and burning down the house. He has never used the stove in his life, why would he start now.
I used to worry about what would happen when I got real old, now I realize silly to worry, I won’t get really old.

 

[Sugarcubesea]

I do everything and when we were both working, I did most, but my husband took care of the cars and the yard. Now I have to do it all and I am pretty worn out.

I really admire you. It has to be so hard for you. I hope at some point you can get a little break.

Hugs

 

[Sugarcubesea]

This shift just happened in my brother's relationship. My SIL has a diagnosis of MS that makes her unable to walk far or climb steps. Both of them are in their late 50s and retired. They have decided to sell their current home and look for a ranch-style residence with no stairs.

However, retirement is new to my brother. It's been less than a year but he is now a full time caregiver. I don't know how I would manage something like this. You plan all your life for a full, active retirement but are unable to execute your plan.

This is so sad. I’ve decided I’m going to use up all 6 weeks of my vacation each year and travel.
I’ve lost two many relatives and good friends in the last year that never got to retirement or had the ability to collect on SS check. Life gives you no promise of tomorrow.

 

[klpca]

For all the households that split "stuff" 50/50.....awesome! But, for others there seems to be a point person. The person that deals with finances, shops, cooks, cleans, appointments, presents, social engagements, lunch boxes, etc, etc etc.

Recently I have had a few customers mention things like:
Spouse doesn't cook for me anymore
I no longer do spouses laundry, they can do their own.
Spouse can be responsible for making own appointments and running their own errands now

Most of these people have hit retirement and the point person that did it all over the years is done doing it all.

I can see how this could easily make or break retirement and/or marriages.

Have any of you dealt with.....any advice, insight, etc on going from a 90/10 household to a 50/50?

I have friends who have been eating out for nearly every meal for about the last 5 years. One day the wife decided that she wasn't cooking any more. They go to places that I wouldn't necessarily go to (all you can eat type of places), use coupons, and split entrees to keep the cost down. Her husband says that they only run the dishwasher once a week and only spend about $200 per month on groceries. It certainly wouldn't be my choice, but it seems to work for them. I think that the key to doing this successfully is to actually listen to what the other person is saying and deal with it without judgement. There are always solutions.

We are close to 50/50 at our house. I like cooking and I definitely prefer home cooked meals but I am also getting tired of doing that every day. My husband has tried cooking and does great when he follows a recipe but them he starts to think that he's a chef and does his own thing and that's when things start to taste odd. So at this point I am back to doing most of the cooking. He's in charge of "outside", cars, his laundry, and vacuuming. I do cleaning, cooking, my laundry, and the money. Over the past few years we've hired a gardener and a pool service because even though those are"outside", he hates doing them so we took them off of his list. He is still working full time so why not?Now the yard and pool always look great so it's no longer a source of tension in our marriage. In thinking ahead, we will do our best to take things off of the list when we need to. There are frozen foods, meal kits, or eating out, so no one really needs to cook for every meal. We have a good sized house but at some point plan to downsize to make housekeeping easier. I don't like having a housekeeper but there may come a day when I hire someone. Of course it's easy for me to say - our marriage has always been close to 50/50. It will be a lot harder to nudge a 10% person to 50%.

 

[Jan M.]

We are retired and have both been making an effort to learn things the other has always done or knows more about. It helps to have a discussion about why this is so important to do as you are both getting older. It can have a huge impact on your quality of life, health and being able to remain independent. For a woman trying to teach her husband how to do things around the house, which she absolutely should do, she will need to give up some control and exercise patience. That can be challenging for most women especially when her spouse may not be thrilled about being asked to change the status quo.

A couple of years ago I read an article that said men are more apt to quickly remarry after their spouse dies than women are. In either case loneliness is a large factor but according to the article men frequently remarry very quickly and too often unwisely. They want/need to have someone to take care of the day to day aspects of life like their spouse did. We've seen this happen a number of times and in most cases the man found himself in a marriage that although he wasn't miserable in he also wasn't truly happy in. Sometimes it's a case of this wife saying I'm x number of years old and have been cooking and cleaning up after a man and children for x number of years and I'm ready to be done with that. That same thing could have happened with the now dead wife but the men went into this marriage with certain expectations only to be disappointed and not entirely happy in the marriage.

My husband was 28 when we got married and had spent 6 years in the Navy living off base whenever possible. He was okay with the basics of shopping, cooking, cleaning and laundry. However we soon discovered the way we were raised came into play and still does sometimes even now at our ages. I was raised with the "any job worth doing is worth doing right the first time" mentality and taught how to do a good job. My husband was the middle child of five kids with a 15 year age difference between the oldest and the youngest so his mother didn't have or make the time to teach and oversight him. He was allowed to get away with putting in the minimal effort and wasn't made to do things over until they were done well. I had to work at not being critical and he had to work on stepping up his game. He will sometimes get irritated when I say he's not doing something the right way and want me to explain why he shouldn't do it his way. In most cases there is probably a good reason why I do things a certain way or in a certain order but I've done them for so long it often takes me some time to think it through to be able to explain the why to him. Often times it is easier and quicker to do it yourself but to quote my mother "you'll never learn if I do."

I have a very bad back so there are some are things my husband does that I can't physically do. However I've been making an effort to watch how he does them so I know what needs done, how often it should be done, how long it takes to do it, etc. If I'm the one left on my own or he would become physically or mentally incapacitated and I'm taking care of everything I know I will have to pay someone to do some of the things he does. I figure that even though I can't do the job myself just having watched and learned what it entails will help in not getting get ripped off and knowing if the job was done correctly. Most recently he showed me how to shut off our water as it's a different set up than we've had in other houses. Two years ago he found out that our water shut off was buried outside, dug it out, had a plumber raise it up and he put in a plastic box around it. Years ago we had a water heater start leaking while we were away on vacation so we learned the hard way to shut the water off when we go away. Some of the things I've learned were little things that I can do and some that I wouldn't have even known to do.

My husband has had more to learn than I have and I'm both impressed with him and proud of him. I have three things I really need to work on for him. I've always handled our finances and need to do better at doing it together instead of just doing it myself. The second thing is my recipes. My husband periodically reminds me that I need to rewrite them to say what I actually do. I have two binders of recipes that are handwritten or typed; some dating back 45 years. Over the years I've tweaked the recipes a little to a lot. One time our son called to ask for a recipe and my husband said he had to wait until I got home. Our son asked why he couldn't just read him the recipe because they both know it's in the blue binder. My husband explained that many of my recipes are more likely at this point just a guideline or starting point and only I know what I actually do. Since it was something they were taking for Thanksgiving with our DIL's family he didn't want to take any chances. He told our son about the time he decided to make brownies while I was at work to surprise me with a treat when I got home. He'd only ever seen me make them in a 9"x13" pan so that's what he used. Nowhere did I write down that the recipe is for an 8" pan so he didn't know to double the recipe. When they came out of the oven he figured it out, chipped those brownies out of the pan and started over. The third thing is to update my book of passwords and miscellaneous info. I don't use the same password for anything and some of them are strange and unique to say the least so nothing in common about them. For some things I have passwords for myself, my husband and our son. Plus some of them have been changed several times so if you didn't know what you were looking for you would be lost. After more than 15 years that book is a mess.

 

[VacationForever]

There were a few rules when my husband and I got together. If I have to share a toilet with a man, I ain't cleaning it. LOL. He was fine with that. He also volunteered to do the laundry. He wanted to pay the bills which was fine by me then. While we had yard and pool services, I would take care of the yard each week as there was always alot more to do beyond what these guys did. We hardly cooked since we worked every day and we were too tired to cook and ate out most meals. We had a housecleaning service on and off and I did the general housecleaning, except toilets, when we did not have one.

After we retired, the first thing I did was take over paying of bills. I also manage cash flow and regularly update projection of retirement income and expenses. It was self-preservation because I am very detail oriented and he is not. Payment of bills were sometimes missed when he was handling them. We now no longer have a yard and pool so that burden has been lifted. I still do general cleaning and almost all cooking and he still does laundry and toilets.

I would say our split is pretty close to 50-50.

 

[Passepartout]

So far, we all seem to have reached some kind of agreement with our spouses/housemates to have an equitable distribution of responsibility. That hasn't given the OP any guidance whatever about prompting the 10% partner to be a 50/50 partner. I don't have an answer, except to hire the work done. If it's housework, hire a housekeeper. If it's cooking, order Uber Eats or go out. If it's yard work, hire a gardener, and have the non-participatory partner pay for it out of their share of the budget. If they squawk about the expense, tell them they can get off their can and pitch in. Or do what you can and leave the rest undone. Don't vacuum. Don't wash the offenders' laundry. Move your stuff- or theirs to a different bedroom.

Some of the above might be considered mean, or selfish, but the partner who doesn't lift a finger is also being self centered and it may take some kind of a wake-up call to open the lines of communication. That's what it boils down to- lack of communication. Nobody can abuse you without you tacitly giving the abuser permission to do so.

I wish the OP good luck and perseverance. Your spouse will not change as long as you keep doing 90% of the care-giving.

Jim

 

[GetawaysRus]

My impression is that most of the unhappiness here is coming from the female side and directed against the male side.

Well, I'm on the male side of the fence, and I'll take a chance and make a comment.

Ladies, be creative. Men can be, shall we say, motivated. For example, think about the cooking chores.

I've got a gas barbecue and a small smoker. I view barbecue as "manly" cooking. It's challenging for me to learn how to improve my barbecue and smoking skills. And I know my wife enjoys what I prepare, which makes it more fun. A nice thing about the smoker is that a 3-ish pound beef or pork roast is going to last us 3-5 meals. Grilling fresh vegetables with some olive oil and garlic is an easy treat. We get our supermarket circulars on Tuesday, so each week I check the ads to see what's on sale and what I can prepare for us.

My point: if you're frustrated with your other half, think about what might be enjoyable for him. It'll be easier to motivate your partner if you can get him doing something that he can view as "manly," challenging, and fun. And then be sure to give him positive feedback. Men like pleasing their wives.

 

[SandyPGravel]

My point: if you're frustrated with your other half, think about what might be enjoyable for him. It'll be easier to motivate your partner if you can get him doing something that he can view as "manly," challenging, and fun. And then be sure to give him positive feedback. Men like pleasing their wives.

Yeah, get him one of those drill attachments with a scrub brush on the end for cleaning toilets...make it manly! (Sorry couldn't resist.)