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What chores does your husband do?

dvhoward

dvhoward

Don't bother me before 10am!
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
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Now that I'm retired, my hubby and I are thinking of dividing up the chores. Up til now he has pretty much done his own laundry, start the dishwasher and unload it, mow the lawn. He does do the bi-yearly job of cleaning the gutters. I'm thinking that he gets away with doing very little. But I'm wondering if I'm being too hard on him. He's been retired for 4 years and I've been retired for 9 months. What does your hubby do around the house?
 
John's retired, I work full time, so he pretty much does everything (he offered!). I still do all the grocery shopping and cooking. And I empty the dishwasher and make the bed (because he hates both those jobs). Other than that, he has stepped up and taken a huge load off me. I try to help with the dusting and various jobs around the house, but overall it's all his!

Now, if we were both retired, it would probably be more of a 50/50 split.
 
Hmmmm....he usually takes out the trash for me and is always in charge of the lawn. He is usually pretty willing to help out when he is home, but sadly he isn't home a ton.
 
My hubs gets off easy. I do all the cooking and load/unload the dishwasher, so I never get a day off unless we get take-out/order in. He does his own laundry though and vacuuming every wkend. I do most of the gardening and he takes out the garbage (although I end up doing it a fair bit b/c he forgets). We're both pretty comfortable with our routines though so no complaints.
 
My husband and I both work from home, so we have a pretty even 50/50 split. He has high schooler duty in the morning and I have elementary schooler duty. We reverse it in the afternoon for carpool and such. He makes us lunch and I make dinner, unless it's on the grill. He washes the sheets and towels, but we remake the beds together. I wash the clothes because...well... he's a guy and does not understand the concept of delicate wash. LOL I do the grocery shopping and he does the pharmacy/household supply kind of stuff, primarily because I hate going to Walmart. I will confess that we have a cleaning service for the house...and that's a great investment in relationship harmony. Ha! I know that I am very blessed to have a husband that's so involved with helping with the kids and the house.
 
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My hubby takes out the garbage and mows the lawn because those are things I refuse to do. I just physically can't do it with my back/neck pain and neurological stuff. I've convinced him to take his work shirts to the dry cleaner instead of me washing/pressing them each week which was a big win. Occasionally he'll go to the store or load the dishwasher if he's used a bunch of things and the sink is piled up. And in a pinch, he'll watch Kennedy if I need to run an errand without him. But I think that in his mind, he does more than he does, and since I'm not working outside of the house he thinks I can just handle it all. But it was even that way when I worked full time outside the house too. He's unfortunately old-fashioned when it comes to domestic life. He also has blinders and doesn't think he makes messes. LOL. And he won't even trim his own beard... which I think is weird. I have to do that for him too. He's an odd one. Especially since I know that when he and his former wife were separated, he had to do everything on his own AND take care of his kids. :p
 
my hubs is amazing to me!! I hate to nag, and so we have a wipe board, it has one side for honey do's, and then shopping list on the other. He does work full time and is pretty amazing helping me with the kids. He always knows when I am about to snap...

Now, my Dad is retired, and he does all the cooking...mom does baking and clean up! They also have separate things..mom goes to arts and crafts classes and Dad golfs..They tell me that is the secret...getting away. I know my Pops does the laundry too...
 
My husband is semi retired and I'm still working full time. We do have a cleaning person, so that's huge. My husband is a mess maker and I refuse to clean up after him... He loads/ unloads the dishwasher, takes care of the lawn, and sometimes cooks - but he makes a mess so I usually do cooking and he cleans up. I do laundry and flower gardens. We generally shop house /food stuff together, unless a fast errand then it depends whose avail. He always participated in carting the kids around and there for kids events, but I supervised homework and stuff back when that was needed. I shop alone for my things, but I have to go with him if he needs some clothes or something. He has terrible taste and would buy everything dark brown, navy blue or dark grey, including underwear... Although we go together, I also make the final decisions on decorating and furniture.
 
Nothing......as I don't have one :) so I do it all, well the boy has some chores but that's a whole other post, lol.
 
I am very lucky in this department. Since we both work full time, we split all the chores. I go to work at 6:30 am so I can get off early and pick the kids up, so he's in charge of the kid duty and school run in the morning and I do the homework stuff and kid pick up in the afternoon. My hubby started doing the laundry in the fall because I just didn't have time with all the school and sports stuff our kids were doing and I love that. I do help out when I have time, but he's mostly done all that for the last 6-8 months. I do all the cooking and cleaning up the kitchen. When it's time to clean the house, we each take a bathroom, he vacuums, I mop and dust. And we both try to pick up around the house daily to keep the clutter at bay. He mows the lawn, but my 11 year is about to inherit that chore. Tee hee!

I will say that for the early years in our marriage it seemed like I was doing all the cooking, cleaning and laundry plus working full time and taking care of most of the kids' needs too. It became apparent after a few years of that, that Momma was going to snap and my hubby thankfully recognized that I need him to help out. :) We have a pretty good system going now.
 
Oh dear... this is a sore spot with me. In our house, DH does the outside and I do the inside. He does iron his own clothes b/c he comes from a military background (West Point, even) so I don't do his shirts well enough (yay for me). But I do all of the wash, ironing for the other 5 of us (as little as possible admittedly), cleaning, cooking, well... everything else.

And he does "yard work" most evenings... mainly b/c it gets him away from the "crazy" in the house, allows him to put in ear buds and ignore us, hehe. He never quite makes it back inside until homework and showers are done. Interesting...

He does the bills and will run to the store for me for small things (milk and ice cream runs usually, LOL), but I do the heavy shopping. And he does indeed have a very stressful job. (I do to, I just handle stress better :giggle )

When we both worked full time, my babysitter helped. A LOT. Now that I'm part time and kids are all in school, I have no more help. So, I cram all of my house stuff in the 2 days I'm home then let it go on the days I work. Well, to be fair, I do at least 2 loads of laundry EVERY SINGLE day. With 4 kids, usually in sports, and I husband who thinks nothing of changing 3 x a day (work out in morning, work, then lounging/yard work in evening), it's just needed.

So there. Sounds like I need to trade him in. But after 20 years, it's just too much trouble :hehe
 
We do not have assigned stuff. We have 5 kids and we both just do what has to be done to keep things running smoothly. Even though I am a stay at home mom I think he and I both realize that I just can't do it all, especially with the smallest still being a baby. So, sometimes he cooks and he helps clean up. I try my best to do the bulk of house work because he works 2 jobs so I can be at home but he really is an amazing guy and he has pulled his load and mine on many occasions. We also have 2 older children that love helping with mowing so they help out in the summer.
 
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I do everything, apart from mowing the lawn, and washing the pots in the evening. OH works full time and I am not working at the minute so it's fair. When I worked part time he used to do the ironing every once in a while, and more of the cooking. When I was pregnant, we both worked full time, and I was sooo tired all the time that he did absolutley everything! He is an early riser, so when I was preggers he started making me breakfast in bed. Which he still does even though DS is now 7. So I love him for that xx
 
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My kiddos do most of the chores around the house. Every day one kid is responsible for wiping down the counter and doing the dishes (which includes loading and unloading the dishes and washing the the pots/pans), one kid is responsible for setting and clearing the table and one kid has to wipe the table and feed the dog. They also have split up the weekly chores of doing the bathroom, and cleaning, mopping and dusting upstairs and downstairs. They do their own laundry (whether or not it gets put away is another thing!!) So all in all, they do a lot around the house. The hubby is in charge of outside stuff except for gardening. And he will definitely cook if I have to stay late to pick up my son from basketball. All in all, I've trained my kiddos really well in helping out around the house to take some of the load off of us after a long day of work.
 
Whilst I was SAHM he did nothing in the house. Since I have gone back to work full time and basically stopped doing most of the stuff in protest (have three teenagers too) he does lots of stuff ... laundry at the weekend, gets tea ready some nights, takes out rubbish, does all yard work, sweeps and mops the hard floors and hoovers, does the dishwasher, everything really. Not everything all of the time, we get the kids to chip in but if I've spent the day at work I just won't let him bully or guilt me into doing chores if he doesn't get the kids to do any too.

I do all the food shopping, get the lunches ready, feed the pets, clean the bathrooms, do the ironing, change our bedding (cos I realised it looked like I was doing nothing lol!) and I also do the household paperwork and any invoices or tenders he does for his work (he is self employed).
 
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My husband is away at medical school 6 hours from our home most of the time (I stayed here for work- med school is expensive, yo!), so I think we both end up doing everything! We have houses in both places, and when I visit him I clean up the bathrooms, sweep and mop the floors, etc. When he's here, he does things like trim the trees in the back yard, some of the heavier lifting in the flower beds, and bigger maintenance tasks. We both have to do our own laundry, wash our own dishes, and take out our own trash, though, when we're apart.

I also have a bi-weekly cleaning service that comes to our main home simply for my sanity- I work full time and started a small business a couple of years ago that has taken over almost all of my free time, so something had to give!
 
Update: Hubs decided that maybe we should have a day when we work together on the house and we could divide up the jobs (my heart skipped many beats at that suggestion). We'll see if it comes off.
 
scrappyjedi said:
My husband is away at medical school 6 hours from our home most of the time (I stayed here for work- med school is expensive, yo!),
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And time consuming!! :)
My DH is in the midst of residency and it is tough. I can't imagine living 6 hours apart as well.
 
Bart says he would be happy to help tidy up the pad. :)

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