Domestic Issues within a Relationship

aka79

Myself & My Boyfriend have been living together for a few years now, we both work and the last thing we both want to do is bicker over household chores when we get home from work. Been honest no one likes doing them but yet they have to be done, and since we both pay equal amount on rent & utility bills we both should be doing them. For along time, I was doing most , actually all of them and In my mind I would hope that he would just offer to do them without asking. The reality is different. It aint gonna be done without asking. They have to be told to do them , not once or twice, but several times. I was even doing his clothes washing. Then one day, enough was enough, and after a flaming row, we both decided to write up a rota. It was going all so well at first then after a few weeks, the duties started to slip.And within the rota was time for each of us to do our clothes washing, except, when he washed his clothes, they were still left in a wet heap in the spare bedroom...nearly a month to two months after washed!! When I mention the slip of duties or the clothes issue them to him, he flips out, like a 15 year old teenager, saying that I was going on at him the whole time!!
Then i get pissed off and go into bad humour, and when he asks why Im pissed off he cannot understand why! I love the man to bits but when it comes to domestic duties its so annoying and all I want to do is walk away. But the thing is, Im imagining that this goes on alot in households between relationships. Anyone any suggestions on how the issue can be resolved,before I loose the rag!!

Ickle Magoo

Tell him how you feel - tell him that you want a man and not to be a mammy to him and you are serious about walking away if he continues to treat you like his mammy and to top it off act the stroppy teenager when you dare to suggest he acts like a grown up and does his own share.

You have to set a boundary and be clear in your own head where you want this to go. Are you happy to do all the domestic drudgery just to be in a relationship with this man or are you willing to draw a line and if it's crossed move on? There is no point telling him you are fed up or that you won't do his share if that's not the case. I doubt he's going to change now if he can rely on you shutting up or at least puting up.

If this is a deal breaker for you then tell him that and if he break the deal, walk. For the record, no, there are lots of people who are happy to do their share of household duties, thought that sometimes falls into a split of categories that they prefer or are better at rather than taking turns.

All the best.

aka79

I have had several rows about this and Ive threatened to leave him , and when I do that he pulls up his socks and does all the stuff. It lasts for a few weeks and then it all slacks off again. I think living at home with his own parents before living with me is not helping the situation either.

LegacyUser

Hey OP, that is a pain for you and I would get fed up too.
I would get rid of the rota, as I had one in a shared house before and it caused more fights than the chores
My advice would be to suggest a cleaner to him . It isn't fair that you do all the cleaning up....some people (male and female) just seem to pretend housework does itself.
I don't mind cleaning for myself but I make my kids do some chores too, because I think it is is basic hygiene.
Sounds like he is used to someone (his mother?) doing it for him.
I am fairly fussy about cleanliness so I hate to see housework slip...so for me I would get a cleaner. If you marry and have kids and work outside the home then unless he is going to do his share of housework then a cleaner would be essential as babies crawl on the floor etc.

Ickle Magoo

aka79 wrote: »

I have had several rows about this and Ive threatened to leave him , and when I do that he pulls up his socks and does all the stuff. It lasts for a few weeks and then it all slacks off again. I think living at home with his own parents before living with me is not helping the situation either.

How strongly do you feel about this? Is that pattern something you can live with? If not, point out the pattern and if he slips, that's it; end of. You set the boundaries here, if it's not the kind of life you want to be leading then get out of there. I don't see how constantly hounding a grown man to do his own share of domestic duties is any more fun than doing them for a man that's too lazy to do them himself and quite happy to take advantage of you...your call, though.

coolcat63

A - get a cleaner and he pays for it

B - do the cleaning yourself but he pays you via increasing his proportion of the rent or utility bills

To be honest if it was me I'd go with the petty childish response. It's the lesser of two evils IMO. Wash your clothes. Don't touch his. When you want a glass/plate whatever, wash it there and then. Don't do anything that will benefit him. It will probably take a few weeks, but at some stage he'll run out of old clothes to wear and paper towels to eat off. It wont be very pleasant for you, but by the end of it you'll see whether he's hopeless for good, or whether seeing that there's no one willing to baby him might give him a kick up the backside. If you've threatened to leave him and it hasn't made a lasting impression, maybe sheer necessity will.

I'd say his laziness is most likely the illusion that once he's not doing the dishes, they just do themselves. Probably too used to being nagged by mammy and then let off. He's a big boy now. He needs to adapt to it or find someone else to wipe his ar*e.

Raminahobbin

Oooooh how I can relate, OP!

I had the exact same stuff happening with housework when I was living with my ex. We have since broken up, and although there were other issues, housework was definitely pretty high on my list of reasons for ending it.

I handled it all very badly- did everything myself until I began to resent his non-participation more and more, exploding at him every so often. We tried the rota, didn't work. I tried reasoning- saying if he did the dishes daily, I would clean the bathroom/floors etc, and once a week (saturday morning) we could clean the whole house together.

HOWEVER- dishes were never done on time for me to be able to cook dinner (from the previous night), breakfast was more important on a saturday morning (usually involved going to the shops first and then watching a few episodes of something along with the breakfast) and when he did clean, we disagreed about how clean things had to be. Under the couch wasn't hoovered/dusting was stupid etc.

It became an epic battle of wills- him refusing to do things 'on my timescale' and 'because I am bossing him around' and me getting more and more frustrated and upset, crying into the sink as I did the dishes.

So...I've no answers I'm afraid. I couldn't live with it, so I didn't. Unfortunatley with some guys, they just don't clean.

If you haven't broken the pattern by now, it just might be a loosing battle.

ABajaninCork

When I moved in with my husband I told him:

When you've finished with your clothes, put them in the basket. Otherwise I'll assume they're clean, and they won't be washed.

Socks to be paired

Towels on the rack, NOT the floor!:D

If I cook, he does the washing-up. I'm NOT doing both!!

We clean the house together. He does the upstairs, I do the downstairs, clean the bathroom, and wash the dog things. He does all the vacuuming, and washes the floors.

So far, it's working out well with the occasional reminder. He's vacuuming the bedroom at the time of writing!:D

Attol

I agree with the posters who suggested splitting the tasks, not by a rota but by duties. It tends to be me doing more of the laundry but my OH washes most of the dishes (he sucks at folding stuff, I hate dishes). He looks after the plants and our ickle garden and I clean the countertops and things (I can't even keep a cactus alive, he doesn't notice things like the counters that much). We both split the shopping (gives us a nice excuse to go for a walk as well).

At first I was a bit miffed because I felt like I was always doing the laundry but then it dawned on me that I never do the dishes. Have you maybe overlooked the duties that he does do? You guys may have already split up the tasks without realising.

Neyite

We dont have a set rota - but the unspoken rule is that if one of us is cleaning, the other will find something to clean too - usually our routine is that we do an hour or so of straightening up in the evening when we come home from work. He would tend to go for the more obvious ones - dishwasher stack/empty, bins etc, I generally tackle the bi-weekly ones, such as floors, bathrooms etc.

So set a rule that you both clean for an hour when you come home, and nobody gets to sit down until the hour is up.

failing that, either start charging him for your time spent cleaning after him, or hire a cleaner.

thecookingapple

your quite right to question your relationship and i would tell him you are, be up front, living with a grown up with child like tendencies is a recipe for disaster.

LegacyUser

Get a cleaner.....and split the cost...

Only answer. That is what myself and the OH have done and it has saved so much hassle....i sometimes resent the cost but for peace in the relationship it is worth it....we have one 3 hours a week but that is far too much and i am just too embarrassed to drop her hours!

She does all the hovering, mopping and dusting we still have to do the dishes but my mum bought us a dishwasher when we bought the house as she did for all her children ....great mum....

foodaholic

Thats exatly how it was in our house. I was given one piece of advice when we moved in together was to have seperate washing baskets, and thank god I stuck to it

He has his and I have mine. His is constently full, but thats not my problem

We had a huge row about a year ago about chores and we decided to get a cleaner. It was the single best thing we have ever done. And because someone is coming to clean you find that you both are tidier as you dont want to leave it in a complete mess.

TGQ

OP.

Firstly I'm Male and i've cooked, done my washing etc for myself since i moved to Dublin in 1999. now i dont really like doing the cleaning but when you live in a house on your own, you've no other choice.

The Advice i would give you is dont wash his clothes at all. after a week or two he'll run out of clean clothes, socks etc and will have no other choice but to go washing.

I would also do the same in regards to the dishes. when he wants a cup of tea etc, he will have no other choice but to fill the dish washer or wash them by hand.

Now i know OP the above suggestions will cause the house to be a bit of a mess for a few weeks, but the penny will drop and he'll realise mammy is no longer there to do everything for him.

shellyboo

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

How strongly do you feel about this? Is that pattern something you can live with? If not, point out the pattern and if he slips, that's it; end of. You set the boundaries here, if it's not the kind of life you want to be leading then get out of there. I don't see how constantly hounding a grown man to do his own share of domestic duties is any more fun than doing them for a man that's too lazy to do them himself and quite happy to take advantage of you...your call, though.

This. Pretend for a minute that as of tomorrow, he'll never do another tap of housework. That you'll have to do all of it. Would you break up with him? If not, his lax attitude to the chores may just be his 'price of admission', to steal a Dan Savage-ism.

My own fella is great at helping with housework, but me being the perfectionist I am, he never does it *right*. And that nearly annoys me more than not doing it at all! But he tries, even if his standards aren't as high as mine. And if I had to pick his socks up off the bathroom floor 20 times a day for the rest of my life, I'd still love him to pieces -- after all, I'm not with him for his cleaning skills. So I try my best to bite my tongue and let it go.

Attol wrote: »

I agree with the posters who suggested splitting the tasks, not by a rota but by duties. It tends to be me doing more of the laundry but my OH washes most of the dishes (he sucks at folding stuff, I hate dishes). He looks after the plants and our ickle garden and I clean the countertops and things (I can't even keep a cactus alive, he doesn't notice things like the counters that much). We both split the shopping (gives us a nice excuse to go for a walk as well).

At first I was a bit miffed because I felt like I was always doing the laundry but then it dawned on me that I never do the dishes. Have you maybe overlooked the duties that he does do? You guys may have already split up the tasks without realising.

This is also a great method. I HATE hoovering, so that's his job, as are the bins. I do pretty much everything else - cooking (though he does the dishes), cleaning, clothes washing (for both of us), grocery shoppping (I work part-time, he works full-time).

Of course, if I'm scrubbing the bathroom he won't be sitting on his bum watching me, he does help!

cocokay

i put up with the same sh!t from my bloke too...drives me up the walls sometimes! "oh that was a lovely dinner thanks i'll wash up" and 3 days later the dishes are there, stacked up in the sink getting smelly. i've exploded so many times. i don't do his washing anymore and like ur bloke, he lets his clothes build up till he literally has NOTHING clean to wear, then goes and sits in his mammys for a whole day where he washes and dries them all while drinking tea/watching dvds/surfing the net/playing guitar. i think irish mammies are to blame, they treat their sons like kings and do everything for them then the boys expect the same whether they're 20 or 50. drives me mad, do women not realise they're setting other women up for a life of frustration?! what kills me is that he'll go over and help his mother with house stuff, or give out to his younger brother for leaving a bowl in the living room or something but its ok to be a slob in our place?
we are living in our current house almost 18 months now. he has never cleaned the toilet or changed the bedding. dishes and mopping the floor is the max he will do. my poor dad does my diy for me. he complained he didn't have enough wardrobe space so i threw out 2 black sacks of my clothes and left an empty wardrobe for him in the spare room 4 wks ago...his surplus clothes are still in a pile on our bedroom floor. but like other posters say, in the grand scheme of things would i kick him out over it, i dunno. when i'm tired/having a bad day i've often cried over the dishes too in frustration, other days i come in from work feeling energetic & just get stuck in. the only time i get ULTRA MAD is when people are coming over and the place is a state, its really embarrassing. a friend stayed over the other wk after a session and it took 2 days to clean the place to a decent standard before she came. and the next day i watched him search 3 presses in the kitchen for a glass...as i said above, we've lived her for nearly 18 months...
oh yeah and told him we had to buy a dishwasher and get a cleaner if he didn't cop on and he said we couldn't afford it!

prinz

aka79 wrote: »

But the thing is, Im imagining that this goes on alot in households between relationships.

Perhaps it does if the people involved are self-obsessed, immature and lacking in common sense. I don't even see the need for rotas etc. It's very simple, do what needs doing. Pull your weight it's as easy as that. If the place needs hoovering I'm not going to sit around and get into a debate with the mrs about whether it's my turn or hers, I'll just do it, or a simpe request if I have something on etc. As will she if there's clothes that need to be washed etc. It's a simple rule, do what needs to be done. Anything else is pure laziness and making a mountain out of a molehill.

I'd hazard a guess that this guy had a mammy who took care of everything when he was a kid, and the sad cycle is repeating itself.