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Thursday, March 10, 2011

After I Do: Household Chores

How do you divide up the household chores?  Did it change, once you were married?  Do you divide your chores along gender lines/traditional stereotypes?  If so, was it intentional?

I can say that I pull a lot of weight in the household chores.  It's my natural tendency to want to clean and not be a slob.  That being said, H is more of the laid back type.  He usually makes the mess, and I'm there to clean up after him.  I wash the dishes, sweep the floors, do laundry, and all the basic stuff to keep the house tidy.  H does the manly stuff of sorts -- works on the car, cuts the grass, repairs what is broken, and occasionally listens to me when I ask him to help me.  We share cooking duty, and we both have our own special dishes that we individually make.  I will not clean toilets, and H will get to them after I ask him about a dozen times.  Hehe.

H hard at work replacing the broken garage opener

Marriage didn't change our roles, but my pregnancy did toss it up a bit.  Since I stayed at home, it made more sense for me to carry an extra load.  Before H would occasionally be in charge of dish washing duty, and now I am the only one who gets messy with the kitchen sink.  I cook more often as well, and he loves coming home to dinner on the table.  Wait, go back a bit.  Does it actually make sense for me to do more work now that I'm at home and pregnant?  I think the pregnant part probably gives me a special reward to stay off my feet, relax, and eat all day long.  Unfortunately, I do not have that life.

you'll often find me in the kitchen washing dishes

Our chores are somewhat divided among gender lines, except I tend to cross my line pretty often.  I want to be the one outside cutting the grass, but he won't let me!  He feels embarrassed if our neighbors see me doing the man's job around the house.  I also love to shovel the snow in the winter, but I was laid off shoveling duty this year due to the little Ninja.  Boo.  Often I would be the one getting the trash ready and taking it outside on trash day.  This winter I have been hibernating and leaving that task to H, which can be risky.  There are more than a few times when he forgets, and then we hear the trash truck drive right by our house the next morning. D'oh!

putting up the Christmas lights

I'll admit that there are days when I feel unappreciated.  I do a lot of chores around the house, and it's all become the norm.  I know he appreciates my hard work, but it would be nice to get more help.  I often ask him to bring stuff down to the basement or assist in heavy lifting (he won't let me since I'm carrying a Ninja).  There will be other chores that I'm incapable of doing, and I often remind him.  It can take weeks for him to get around to it, and boy does that bug me.  Actually, I'm lucky if it only takes a few weeks.  It usually takes months.

There are times when I'm constantly cleaning, and he is sitting in front of the laptop.  Oh boy does that irk me!  Luckily I can usually ask him to do a specific task, and he'll be right on it.  Maybe that makes up for him not doing anything in the first place?  I guess he can't read my mind when I glare at the back of his head.

scrubbing down the countertops

Oooh... story time!  We ran out of toothpaste in the main bathroom, and he leaves me with the empty tube.  Later that evening, he noticed that I replaced the empty tube with a new one.  He told me that he was going to remind me to replace it, but I had gotten to it before he had a chance to inform me.  Umm... he was already upstairs, and he planned on coming down to tell me that the toothpaste needed to be replaced.  Toothpaste is located in the hallway closet.  It's not that far from the bathroom, but he would have preferred to tell me to replace it.  Reminder -- I am pregnant!  Oye.

Check out other responses from the famous bees themselves over here!

After I Do:
Finances
Changes
Children
Wedding Regrets
Name-Change Decisions
Other Relationships

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