When the household comander in chief calls its quits

[GetawaysRus]

Look on the bright side. You'll be done cleaning those toilets way before I'm done smoking that 3 pound roast!

 

[amycurl]

Because there is a difference between household labor and household management. Even when labor is equally split, management usually isn't. And, like all management jobs, one should have the right to retire after doing it for 20-40 years.

 

[slip]

Ours changed a little bit since my wife retired. She pretty much handles everything at home now. Our place is much smaller and we don’t have many bills so it works for now. She has plenty of time and always kids, that she will have to work it into her schedule, when I ask her to do something,

I handle all the car stuff and anything heavy she can’t lift. We have always went shopping together every week since we’ve been married.

We’ll see what changes when I retire. Probably not much, I may get laundry duty once in a while but I usually carry the laundry around when we are on Molokai anyway so probably not much will change.

 

[amycurl]

Again, it's less about who does the work--that, as has been pointed out--can be hired out, it's about who organizes the work--makes the decision that grocery shopping and laundry need to be done, the repair or lawn people hired and scheduled, etc., etc. That "mental load" still tends to fall on women, and it takes a pretty hefty toll.

For example, I'm an intuitive cook (i.e. look in the cabinets, fridge, figure out what we have, make a meal,) and cooking is usually enjoyable and easy for me. But what I *don't* want to do is make the decision about what we are eating every night. I didn't mind making whatever it was--the labor part--it was just as someone with a high-level job, I didn't need to manage dinner every night. And since dinner needs to happen every day--spoiler alert!--I told my spouse that he needed to start putting some thought into dinner before he became hangry; that making the decision wasn't going to fall solely to me. But I still tend to initiate the conversation, because, somehow, dinner still seems like a bit of a surprise EVERY SINGLE DAY, LOL!

We need to talk about the mental load

Feeling exhausted? This is why.

businesschicks.com

 

[needvaca]

I summarily reject that “housework” is women’s work. That’s a BS social construct. However, I recognize that a stay at home spouse should assume the majority of these duties while the other works.
When both are retired, all deals are off and up for renegotiation

I detest cooking and cleaning, and so does my husband unfortunately. Luckily, we can outsource much of it. I’ve had a cleaning lady since i was 25 and my income could justify it.

However, we learned with having kids that there’s so much that just can’t be outsourced. So we divide and conquer. Luckily we have different complementary skills.

When we both retire, I assume we’ll eat out a lot and still have household help.

 

[isisdave]

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.)

I have those, but they're most useful for the shower floor ... Wow!

DW and I are married 30+, retired 4 years, and it must be working because we both think the other does 70%.

Our attitude toward cooking has changed. Now it's mostly to not be hungry, and we don't eat as much, so there are lots of easy quick things.

The Kid finally left home, so it's lots easier to keep clean.

We got rid of all the grass, and have a pool service weekly and a housecleaner just once a month.

One thing that worries me some is that she's never paid attention to finances and has no interest in it. "No problem," says she, "I'm dying first. Couldn't stand the paperwork."

=Oh, when my dad retired, the only new task Mom assigned him was cooking dinner Tuesday nights. I think he got off easy!

 

[klpca]

But I still tend to initiate the conversation, because, somehow, dinner still seems like a bit of a surprise EVERY SINGLE DAY, LOL!

This. I am so, so tired of figuring out what to eat every single meal, every single day for (in our case) nearly 4 decades.

 

[Firepath]

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

My step mother did that, until she got Alzheimers, then my dad didn't even know how to "cook" a can of soup!

 

[easyrider]

I am not allowed to do any house hold cleaning. Now that I'm retired I do try to help out once in a while but my wife doesn't really like it and she has been happy with my lackadaisical effort. I don't like my wife helping me with repairs of any kind and I am happy doing these without her help. Today is our 40th anniversary so our system does work for us.

Bill

 

[rapmarks]

Again, it's less about who does the work--that, as has been pointed out--can be hired out, it's about who organizes the work--makes the decision that grocery shopping and laundry need to be done, the repair or lawn people hired and scheduled, etc., etc. That "mental load" still tends to fall on women, and it takes a pretty hefty toll.

For example, I'm an intuitive cook (i.e. look in the cabinets, fridge, figure out what we have, make a meal,) and cooking is usually enjoyable and easy for me. But what I *don't* want to do is make the decision about what we are eating every night. I didn't mind making whatever it was--the labor part--it was just as someone with a high-level job, I didn't need to manage dinner every night. And since dinner needs to happen every day--spoiler alert!--I told my spouse that he needed to start putting some thought into dinner before he became hangry; that making the decision wasn't going to fall solely to me. But I still tend to initiate the conversation, because, somehow, dinner still seems like a bit of a surprise EVERY SINGLE DAY, LOL!

We need to talk about the mental load

Feeling exhausted? This is why.

businesschicks.com

The mental load is what is doing me in

 

[WalnutBaron]

DW and I will celebrate 40 years of marriage next month. She has been retired for about six years, but I am still working and--since I own my own business--I can kind of call my shot on when I retire. I'd love to keep working until I'm 70 because I enjoy my work, so that's still several years away.

As for household chores, it's about 70/30 with her doing most of it. My jobs are maintaining the yard and garden, taking out the trash, doing the laundry (which isn't that much since there are just two of us), and cleaning the bathrooms. In terms of household management, she pays the bills, I handle the investments, and we both discuss and agree on making any major purchases like furniture, appliances, or vacations.

With regard to the last item, owning timeshares has really simplified the whole vacation process for us. Fortunately, we're pretty good at planning ahead, so about mid-year of the current year, we take a look at our calendar for the following year and start planning where we'd like to go on vacation and--once that's determined--I go to work trying to land reservations. We usually take three trips each year--one to our home resort in Carmel, one through a trade to a destination we haven't been to before, and one that's what we call a "give-cation". Last year, for example, we traveled to Columbia to visit one of the children we support through a Christian organization called Compassion International. After many years of providing monthly support to her and her family, we had the chance to actually meet her and her family. It was both an honor and a great encouragement.

Finally, with regard to division of tasks, I'm really fortunate: DW and I never have discussions about who's doing what, who did more than whom, why one doesn't do more for the other, or anything of that sort. In other words, no one is keeping score. She does all the cooking, for example, and when she calls me at work and says, "I'm stumped: what would you like for dinner tonight?", I usually reply, "Any good leftovers? No? Okay, let me take you out to dinner."

I married above my station, and I'm a lucky man.

 

[WalnutBaron]

I am not allowed to do any house hold cleaning. Now that I'm retired I do try to help out once in a while but my wife doesn't really like it and she has been happy with my lackadaisical effort. I don't like my wife helping me with repairs of any kind and I am happy doing these without her help. Today is our 40th anniversary so our system does work for us.

Bill

Congratulations on 40 years! I think you two might make it.

 

[WinniWoman]

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.

So funny! I am not a Virgo but a home body Cancer. BUT- I am also a hobby astrologer and my destiny involves living my life in the house of Virgo. Not to get into it as it takes a lot of explanation- but I am a lot like a Virgo!

 

[mdurette]

I have been reading the replies to this thread and have been letting it sink in. All valid replies. But, i think I am still searching for how do you from 90/10 to 50/50...or heck 70/30m 60/40?

What I have realized after a lot of thought is we create our own monsters.....but how is that fixed?

It takes 2.....the 90% person needs to give up control the 10% person needs to be ok with the control.

 

[VacationForever]

I have no issue with the "management" piece but maybe it has to do with being a super A type and a control freak. I didn't use to cook and really only picked up a pan 20 years ago. I now love to cook and the more complex the recipe the better. When I don't feel like cooking, we just head out for dinner. Regarding smoking and bbq, I am the smoking and bbq master at home too. My husband tells me he is a lucky man because he gets to enjoy delicious food at home. My husband does steaks in the air fryer and that is the extent that he cooks at home. We are very happy as to how we have naturally divided up our chores at home.

 

[VacationForever]

I have been reading the replies to this thread and have been letting it sink in. All valid replies. But, i think I am still searching for how do you from 90/10 to 50/50...or heck 70/30m 60/40?

What I have realized after a lot of thought is we create our own monsters.....but how is that fixed?

It takes 2.....the 90% person needs to give up control the 10% person needs to be ok with the control.

Sit both halves down and put on paper what each does and draw a line roughly down the middle. If it does not work, outsource as much as possible what the 90% person has been doing. The rest will just not get done until the 10% picks up the slack.

 

[WinniWoman]

I am not allowed to do any house hold cleaning. Now that I'm retired I do try to help out once in a while but my wife doesn't really like it and she has been happy with my lackadaisical effort. I don't like my wife helping me with repairs of any kind and I am happy doing these without her help. Today is our 40th anniversary so our system does work for us.

Bill

Happy Anniversary!

 

[Jan M.]

I had to help a lot after my mother went back to work when I was 10. She died of cancer when I was 14 and the cooking and cleaning fell to me. So I've been cooking and cleaning what seems like all my life. We had been married for a few years and one day my husband came home from work asking what's for dinner. I looked him in the eye and said whatever you're cooking. He got this deer in the headlights look in his eyes and before he could start I told him I didn't care if it was Kraft macaroni and cheese and hot dogs or tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. If I didn't have to cook it then it would be nectar from the gods to me. He wasn't believing that because I always put a full meal on the table with either two vegetables or a vegetable and some kind of salad or fruit. I knew his look of panic wasn't because he didn't know how to cook although I hadn't had him do much more than lend a hand in the kitchen at times since we'd been married. It was that he didn't know what was in the refrigerator and cupboards that he knew how to cook and could get on the table fairly soon as it was close to when we usually ate dinner. When we were done eating he asked if I was really okay with what he'd fixed. I was and he was happy to have made me so happy. After that several times a year he would come home to hear the same thing.

We had been married nine years when I was pregnant with a high risk, third time's the charm pregnancy. I had to be very careful right from the start with no lifting and no exertion. By the end he was doing a lot of the cleaning and cooking too. At times I had to learn to look the other way when the cleaning wasn't up to my standards. The man who didn't mind eating leftovers as long as he didn't have to eat the same thing two nights in a row was now serving the same thing three nights in a row because it meant he didn't have to actually cook just heat up leftovers. I like leftovers but by the third night even I was tired of eating the same thing. He didn't have the time or know how to make a lot of the meals I made but he did better than just okay. I had a C-section and while I was in the hospital picked up a flu bug that was going around. Between the vacation time he'd saved up for when the baby came and the time off for Christmas and New Years he didn't go back to work until our son was almost three weeks old. I was just getting back on my feet at that point. Thank heavens he could cook without my help and clean because I don't know what we would have done. He not only had to do those things but also take care of a baby and a sick wife. Not many men could have and some wouldn't have done what he did.

He gradually took over the kitchen when I went back to work in 2003 because I worked 50-70 hours a week, evenings and most weekends. When we moved to Florida for him to take a new job he was here on his own for 6.5 months before I got our house in Pennsylvania sold and moved to join him. Since then I've never gotten the kitchen back and am mostly relegated to now being his helper and adviser. He tends to get in a rut with making the same things if I don't I step in and suggest something we haven't had in a while or a new recipe. When it comes to trying new recipes he gets a little frustrated because I will sometimes look at a recipe and immediately know that I'm going to tweak certain things when we make it. He will ask me how I know it will not only be okay but even better. He grew up with a mother who wasn't a good cook and would cut down or cut out something in a recipe because it saved money. If she didn't have something she needed on hand she would make substitutions that she decided were just fine. Not so much, lol.

My husband I are chuckling about the women saying they are tired of figuring out what to eat every meal. My husband now knows how that feels. Because I know how that feels I try to offer suggestions and options which he appreciates. We kid that when you're asked what you want for dinner saying I don't care just might get you a big empty plate full of a dish we call I don't care.

 

[louisianab]

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

This! You accept how you are treated or what your partner does. "they just don't do it" is ridiculous. Speak up or walk out. Everyone is an adult and capable. (This does not apply to when a person is genuinely incapable or incapacitated)

 

[DancingWaters]

When we had semi retired.....a male friend of ours finally totally retired at 70. His wife was telling me that one day he came into the room and asked her what time lunch was: she said “I don’t do lunch.” He replied Oh, I’ll go look in the cupboards and see what I can find to cook. She repeated “I don’t do lunch!? He got the message she wasn’t going into the kitchen at lunchtime, so now they just make sure there are leftovers for him or he’s eating a lunch eat sandwich prepared by him. She laid it right out there. LOL

 

[amycurl]

I think it's about being honest and being intentional, and recognizing each other's skill sets. And being completely transparent about both the labor and the management that has to happen to keep the household running.

And, of course, the gender-based way that household labor has traditionally been dished out is totally a social construct. And one that all the research points out we have in no way really made any dent in changing in a systemic way.

 

[MrockStar]

DW and I will celebrate 40 years of marriage next month. She has been retired for about six years, but I am still working and--since I own my own business--I can kind of call my shot on when I retire. I'd love to keep working until I'm 70 because I enjoy my work, so that's still several years away.

As for household chores, it's about 70/30 with her doing most of it. My jobs are maintaining the yard and garden, taking out the trash, doing the laundry (which isn't that much since there are just two of us), and cleaning the bathrooms. In terms of household management, she pays the bills, I handle the investments, and we both discuss and agree on making any major purchases like furniture, appliances, or vacations.

With regard to the last item, owning timeshares has really simplified the whole vacation process for us. Fortunately, we're pretty good at planning ahead, so about mid-year of the current year, we take a look at our calendar for the following year and start planning where we'd like to go on vacation and--once that's determined--I go to work trying to land reservations. We usually take three trips each year--one to our home resort in Carmel, one through a trade to a destination we haven't been to before, and one that's what we call a "give-cation". Last year, for example, we traveled to Columbia to visit one of the children we support through a Christian organization called Compassion International. After many years of providing monthly support to her and her family, we had the chance to actually meet her and her family. It was both an honor and a great encouragement.

Finally, with regard to division of tasks, I'm really fortunate: DW and I never have discussions about who's doing what, who did more than whom, why one doesn't do more for the other, or anything of that sort. In other words, no one is keeping score. She does all the cooking, for example, and when she calls me at work and says, "I'm stumped: what would you like for dinner tonight?", I usually reply, "Any good leftovers? No? Okay, let me take you out to dinner."

I married above my station, and I'm a lucky man.

Me too.

 

[MrockStar]

We have been happily married 33 years kids grown and out we both work full time.She's an amazing cook and likes cooking. I love grilling so i do it any time i can especially at our time share's. Most have nice grills. I like a lot of men commenting here do all the yard work fixing cars and anything else that needs Maint/breaks. I do MY laundry she's banned me from touching her's. I can/will vacuum and clean higher up stuff. I do all financial/bills, she shops and meal plans. we discuss vacations and i reserve/search for the units. Over all its around 50/50 but we each work on our strengths and dont bug/nag the other person out of respect/love and sometimes work together when necessary or for fun. I plan to try to learn more cooking skills when we retire and she now mows our cottage lawn (electric mower) because she a teacher and has the summer off. This has worked out very well and i dont see it changing much in retirement.

 

[jehb2]

We’re not near retirement but 2 vacations ago I was exhausted from making meals x3 a day in addition to everything else. Last vacation I told my kids they were responsible for their own breakfast and lunch and I would do dinner. My wonderful husband made sure everyone was fed and also told the kids they had to figure out what they all could do so that mommy could have a fun vacation too.

 

[Jan M.]

It's going to be more difficult if your spouse has never had to adapt to changes in your lives that meant taking on jobs either temporarily or permanently that you have always done. Finding the right counselor or coach can be a godsend for some people. Good communication between you and your husband is crucial. Rather than allowing resentment to take hold and fester you are better off not delaying opening up this conversation.

Ask yourself these questions and be honest. Can you give up control or live with a task that isn't done to your standards? Can you be patient and supportive with your spouse's baby steps? Without things getting heated or confrontational can you make it very clear that you aren't faulting him for the way things have been; it's just that going forward you need the dynamic to change? Can you make your spouse understand that this is an if you really love me you will work with me to find a way to change things situation? Can you make him understand that it's not unusual for people to feel like they've become locked into a life sentence with the role they play in the relationship and need things to change?

Be creative in suggesting ways that might work for him. Teach him to make his favorite simple dish. Maybe he would enjoy a cooking class for couples or men. The two of you could figure out one new thing he can learn to do each week. It doesn't have to be something huge; just smaller or easier things that you can continue to build on so he isn't overwhelmed. You may mutually decide to spend the money to have someone come in to clean like other people mentioned they do. Maybe there is a task you particularly dislike that he could learn to do. Knowing that he is doing something that you really, really appreciate not having to do might make him feel good. If you don't want him to read this entire thread you could copy and paste into an email the posts in this thread that you think might be helpful for him to read to see that there are a lot of different ways couples do things and why.