Partner doing chores badly is driving me crazy!

annandale

Bashed, ridiculed and mocked for saying something made me laugh?

OK then. As for my it's not a competition comment. It was a general comment. Not specifically directed at you.

Just incase you felt doubly bashed or mocked or ridiculed by my comments

gfplux

I suppose if you live with an incompetent husband you just have to put up with it.
The OP has had this to live with for only a couple of years. She has to except she chose an incompetent partner. Hopefully she will not regret in 30 years she stayed with the incompetent. She might have to understand he will not get better, probably only worse.
Men think they deserve a free ride and they mostly get one.

Redacted

LannieDuck wrote: »

I agree to a certain extent, but that sort of traditional split has always been rather unfair, for a number of reasons:

1. the housework needs doing day-in, day-out, whereas car repairs are going to be an unusual one-weekend in 6-months sort of job.

2. many DIY tasks are the type you can leave until next weekend if you don't feel like it. But if you don't wash-up, you'll have nothing to eat off.

3. car repairs, DIY etc is much more varied. One week is putting up a shelf, the next is figuring out how to make the engine work again. It's mentally stimulating. Washing the dishes for the 100th time is never interesting.

4. you'd be a very strange person not to say 'thank you' to the man who's just got your car working again. Whereas even with best intentions, most people won't say 'thank you' every time the woman who does the washing up.

5. with DIY you (and others) can see and admire the results of your work for years. With hoovering, you know it'll need doing again next week. One is rewarding, the other interminable.

I'm not sure it is so unfair. Maybe it's because we're doing up our house and have old cars, but my partner spends more of his time doing DIY, repairs and maintenance than I spend on housework, and he helps out with the house work too. I try to help out with the DIY to the extent of my abilities and I do the gardening.

I also don't think he'd agree it's mentally stimulating and if he has a weekend not doing it, it's just as not done as if I leave the dishes. They are jobs that need doing, the list seems never-ending and for him it feels as much like drudgery as hoovering. I suspect it's a case of thinking the grass is greener if you're the one doing the housework.

theoretica

Littlered_81 wrote: »

I cook all our meals (this is definitely NOT his skillset at all!).

Presumably eating is in his skill set. It might be worth asking him to do more of the cooking for that very reason - he is less likely to decide it isn't necessary or not to care much.

C_Mababejive

OP> Who put you in charge?

onlyroz

Person_one wrote: »

I don't doubt it, but it does seem a bit odd that somebody who would spend several hundred pounds on a cleaning gadget would also have stray dog turds lying around to find that out! :rotfl:

Even the best behaved dogs can have accidents.

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/08/12/a-roomba-tried-to-vacuum-dog-poop-and-its-even-worse-than-you-imagine/

Person_one

onlyroz wrote: »

Even the best behaved dogs can have accidents.

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/08/12/a-roomba-tried-to-vacuum-dog-poop-and-its-even-worse-than-you-imagine/

Oh dear! Poor guy, but he tells it well! :rotfl:

seven-day-weekend

Redacted wrote: »

I find whenever this topic comes up, chores are always looked at in isolation rather than as part of all the household jobs that get divided up between couples. No-one ever says "I do the lions share of the housework, but then again my partner does all the DIY, household repairs and maintenance and keeps both our cars running" which I suspect is true for most typically gender stereotype oriented households. (At least it is based on the couples I know - we might be in the 21st century, but this still seems the prevalent split).

I'm lucky, in that my partner and I have similar standards (or maybe that should read my partner is lucky we have similar standards!!) and they are relaxed compared to some posters on here. We're fine leaving our dishes on the side til the next day as we tend to eat late because of working patterns. I have no desire or inclination to hoover or dust or iron. To be honest, we both hate housework.

We've tried to make things easy on ourselves. We have a dishwasher and most stuff we own is dishwasher safe, minimising the need for handwashing. We have a tumble dryer, so we can blitz laundry at the weekends even in winter, and both washing machine and dryer have massive drums.

We bought a handheld vacuum to make that chore easier. We find because it's time-limited we're more likely to use it - instead of trying to hoover the whole house, which neither of us wants to do, you feel ok thinking "I'll just hoover the stairs and tomorrow I'll do the lounge." Ironing is not a regular chore - if something needs ironing, it gets done before wearing by the person wanting to wear it!!

I would feel resentful living with someone who constantly nagged me to do something at their schedule, time and pace rather than my own. However, I think sometimes it's hard to tell if these threads are due to mis-matches in standards or because one person is lazy and happy to let the other carry the load.

On the whole, this is how we organise things too. Hubby does all the cooking, I do all the cleaning up after it. He sees to the DIY, I see to the household money matters. He does the garden, I do thins like making beds and laundry.

We have a dishwasher and washer-dryer to make life easier and doin't have anything that acn't be used in either appliance.

We hoover and dust when necessary (as above, when one of us notices the cat hairs!), although more in the winter because the woodburners generate mess that doesn't occur in the summer.

However, peoples' standards are different, I couldn't be doing with smoeone who hoovered after every meal (I knew someone who did this), or made me take my shoes off in the house. If you and your partner are poles apart on this, it must be quite difficult to reach a compromise.

NBLondon

To be honest - my instinct is to agree with onamatopeia. As a single man, I cleaned when necessary, not as routine. After 20 years of cohabiting - there's still a bit of difference between my standards and m'wife's but not enough to be worried about. She sometimes says to me "Can't you see that's grubby/smell that's starting to go off?" and is frustrated when I say (honestly) "No." So there is an element of The one with the higher standards takes more responsibility. If it needs doing I will do it (or if I am asked in an adult manner). I don't enjoy cooking and don't do it well - but I sous-chef or start the prep if I'm in from work first. I don't enjoy DIY or do it well - but I will have a try or pay an expert when I know it's out of my capability.

When she complains about the kitchen table being buried under unopened post and assorted bags - I walk away rather than point out that it's 95% her debris... I probably do 75-80% of the ironing; because my work clothes require ironing and hers usually don't. I do tasks where a 7" height differential is significant or avoids getting a stepladder out from under the stairs.

I don't expect my other half to... buy presents for my family, phone or write to my parents, remember things for me (even though my father did that to my mother) that's part of being an adult.

ixwood

You're just going to have to accept that you and him have different standards and ideals, as is often the case with men and women. I think it's a bit much to demand/expect someone to do something that to them doesn't need doing to a standard you think is acceptable, but to them is extreme, pointless and OTT.

Constant nagging isn't enjoyable for either person and probably won't have the desired result.

Either you want it doing, so you do it, or relax your standards a bit and agree to something more understandable to him, like hoover once a month or something, or just get him to help you when it needs doing.