How do you work out the "division of labor" in your relationships? Who does what around the house/for the family? Especially if one or both work full time?
My husband works 70 hours a week or so. I work 30 or so. Eli is in daycare from 8 is to 4 ish.
I pretty much do all the dropping off, picking up, doctor appointments, sick days etc. Generally, the minute my husband walks through the door at night (somedays as early as 6:30, some days as late as 8) he has Elias. When he was the world's most colicky baby this was to keep my sanity intact. Now it's largely so Eli and daddy have quality time together. Mark is in charge of feeding Eli dinner (he eats at his own time, but we sit with him) but I'm in charge of making sure there is food ready to be eaten. He gives baths and puts Elias to bed.
I do all the grocery/household shopping and all the meal planning and all the budgeting and bill paying. Mark has two tasks he's SUPPOSED to take care of. Laundry and Dishes. This was decided mostly because he has trouble seeing what needs to be done and doing it, so discrete tasks were the best for him. I do pretty much all the rest of the cleaning (we live in a small and very messy but clean house).
In reality I do the dishes and the laundry most of the time, though he does usually puts it away. When I get fed up with doing the laundry, I stop washing his clothes and we have a talk and he gets back on the horse again for a few days.
I wish our house were neater and that mark did more to that end and I wish our lives were more organized. But I'm happy enough the way things are most of the time. We have a pretty open communication and I'm very good about just telling him when I'm getting aggravated (without actually being mean (most of the time)).
There are areas where I feel really lucky (he WANTS to do whatever needs to be done and take responsibility for Elias etc). And there are areas that frustrate me (I do almost everything and am IN CHARGE of everything, which is really onerous on my psyche). But he works a TON so I know it's hard for him.
Oh... and once, a while back when things were in a bad place as far as my frustration and overwhelmedness goes, I took my typically scientific approach.
We made a list of the things that need to get done in the house. Then we assigned mutually agreed upon weekly time totals to those tasks. (Grocery shopping 1.5 hours, Taking out the trash 20 minutes, etc..) Then we divided them up, with me doing 50% more than him (because of our respective work hours) turns out that he still should have been doing more than the assigned tasks that he WASN'T taking care of.
I pretty much do all the dropping off, picking up, doctor appointments, sick days etc. Generally, the minute my husband walks through the door at night (somedays as early as 6:30, some days as late as 8) he has Elias. When he was the world's most colicky baby this was to keep my sanity intact. Now it's largely so Eli and daddy have quality time together. Mark is in charge of feeding Eli dinner (he eats at his own time, but we sit with him) but I'm in charge of making sure there is food ready to be eaten. He gives baths and puts Elias to bed.
I do all the grocery/household shopping and all the meal planning and all the budgeting and bill paying. Mark has two tasks he's SUPPOSED to take care of. Laundry and Dishes. This was decided mostly because he has trouble seeing what needs to be done and doing it, so discrete tasks were the best for him. I do pretty much all the rest of the cleaning (we live in a small and very messy but clean house).
In reality I do the dishes and the laundry most of the time, though he does usually puts it away. When I get fed up with doing the laundry, I stop washing his clothes and we have a talk and he gets back on the horse again for a few days.
I wish our house were neater and that mark did more to that end and I wish our lives were more organized. But I'm happy enough the way things are most of the time. We have a pretty open communication and I'm very good about just telling him when I'm getting aggravated (without actually being mean (most of the time)).
There are areas where I feel really lucky (he WANTS to do whatever needs to be done and take responsibility for Elias etc). And there are areas that frustrate me (I do almost everything and am IN CHARGE of everything, which is really onerous on my psyche). But he works a TON so I know it's hard for him.
Reply
We made a list of the things that need to get done in the house. Then we assigned mutually agreed upon weekly time totals to those tasks. (Grocery shopping 1.5 hours, Taking out the trash 20 minutes, etc..) Then we divided them up, with me doing 50% more than him (because of our respective work hours) turns out that he still should have been doing more than the assigned tasks that he WASN'T taking care of.
Oh well.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment