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How to get husband to be more "responsible" at home? -long and vent-y
Here's the deal. I work full time, but I have an irregular schedule so that I have times I'm home during the weekdays and other times when I work regular hours M-F. My husband is a freelancer in a creative field, works very hard at work and usually has to do work when he gets home. With regards to work duties, he does really well and is pretty responsible. Problem is not being responsible with our household stuff....
Examples:
-he forgets to pay the phone bill until they've cut off the service.
he takes our mugs/glasses from home and leaves them at work and then when I remind him to bring them home, he still "forgets"...no matter how many times and different ways I remind him.
-He doesn't put up the dishes after we're done eating. -
-He throws his clothes in a pile on the floor or stuffs them in his drawers. I've stopped doing his laundry b/c he never puts it away and his drawers are so stuffed and disorganized that I wouldn't even know where to put stuff.
-I have to remind him every.single.week. to take the trash out and usually he doesn't do it until 6:45 am Tuesday morning when we hear the trash guys in our neighborhood and I'm yelling at him to put the trash out.
You guys get the idea. Truth is that I have these tendencies too but I HATE that I'm like that and I'm always trying to work on it. I also want to raise our child to be responsible, clean up after herself, take care of chores, etc but how am I supposed to tell her "put the cup in the dishwasher after you use it" if her own father won't do it?
When I say anything to him, he complains that he's busy all day and he's got more important things to do, that I'm always on his case, so on and so forth. And you know what, I AM always on his case and I'm sick of it. I'm tired of being his mother. It's turning me into a nag and it's the thing we fight about all the freaking time. I'm this close to seeking marital counseling to deal with it because I can see this turning into a much larger issue once the baby is bigger.
So...any advice?
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Re: How to get husband to be more "responsible" at home? -long and vent-y
To be honest, the dishes thing, the laundry thing . . . sounds pretty normal to me. DH NEVER puts his dishes into the dishwasher, even when it's sitting there nice and empty and waiting. And I do all the laundry, so that's a moot point, but when I get behind or need help, his way of "doing the laundry" is to take it out of the drier and leave it in the laundry basket and just take clothes out of that as necessary.
The trash thing is hit or miss with us. Usually he's all over it, but sometimes we hear the truck and are scrambling to get it out.
Does he have clear-cut chores? I think the thing that helps my DH is to have his personal chores and to get into a routine about doing them. Like, every Sunday night is time to round up all the trash and put out the bins. Every Wednesday night is bill pay for anything we have that week, etc. Maybe make a chore chart for him to help him remember and get into a rhythm?
I'd go for the marital counseling. I don't have this same issue with my DH, but I feel like 99% of the issues we all have are about communication. One thing I've realized in our counseling sessions is that I don't hear what he's really saying, and I insert things into what he's saying that are not there. Our counselor is working with me on this, and she's also working with him to be more gentle, less severe (he's a very blunt person), as that's what tends to make me upset.
One thing I have noticed since we've been going is that he helps more. That's not to say that he didn't help me before, but he comes and asks me what he can do to help, instead of just going and watching TV or doing something on the computer. I think talking about how overwhelmed I feel in counseling has helped him to understand me more, so he tries to help more.
Also, not to undermine your concerns, but I grew up with my Dad acting much the way your DH does. My sister and I have still turned out to be responsible adults who put the dishes in the dishwasher/put away the laundry/etc., as we got that example from my mom.
The only thing in that list that I think absolutely needs to change is the first one - bills must be paid, the end.
The rest of the things? Honestly? That's probably just how he is. I think it would be good to focus on big stuff that is seriously impacting your life/finances, and then just let the little things slide. My DH doesn't ever put his clothes away either - I fold them and lay them in nice neat piles in front of his overstuffed dresser. He also leaves piles on the floor, and leaves random things laying around the house. Can't find things sometimes, etc etc.
Now he is good about taking out the trash, and while I put all the dirty dishes in the sink, he washes them every night and puts them away. BUT, it took us awhile to get to that point. I like pps idea about some kind of chore chart, or at least an understanding. DH knows that he needs to do the dishes every night, but once that's done he's done. I feel great because that's a fairly large chore that I don't need to worry about, and he's happy because he has clearly defined responsibilities that he can accomplish in his own time, and doesn't have me nagging at him all the time. Working that out has made our arguments about cleaning go from daily to never.
eta: Also, I moved his dresser in to the closet. So now I don't have to see the nice neat piles of clothes all over the floor. That helped a lot
We found that for us, it makes more sense to have me in charge of paying the bills rather than splitting them up. Everything comes out of the same bank account, so it's just easier to let one person be in charge of it, and that person ended up being me because I couldn't stand it when DH let a bill go overdue.
The other thing that really helps us is to sit down together on a semi-regular basis and discuss our needs, expectations and priorities. We would constantly argue over the house, with Mike saying he wanted it clean, and me saying that I couldn't manage that time-wise since I also work part-time from home. More conversation revealed that I viewed "clean" as everything picked up, put away, organized, dusted, mopped, vacuumed, and otherwise perfect, whereas he viewed "clean" as things put away and minimal clutter. That's it. Well, that's a perfectly reasonable request most days, and once I realized that's what he wanted and needed, it was a much easier goal to meet.
We also realized through these conversations that while he was willing to have a handful of chores as just his - like taking out the trash and mowing the lawn - he felt resentful if, for instance, I always expected him to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen. He wanted me to pitch in on certain things so it felt more like a shared responsibility, and when I did, he was much more willing to do other chores around the house.
If you two haven't sat down together and discussed what you expect from the other, that seems like a good place to start.
As for the laundry, well, if you aren't doing his laundry, then who cares how the inside of his drawers look? Let it go. If they're messy, that's his problem. Pick your battles.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
I can't pay bills regularly to save my life.
https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
A simple solution for the cups is to get plastic ones for him to take to work and just stop by there on the weekend (make it just another errand, not a big nasty deal), then just use the cheapie plastic ones that he can use/ throw away/ whatever.
I agree that communication is the biggest issue, but I'm not sure the bext way for yall to deal with that. Pp's definitely had good suggestions about conversations and/ or counseling.
I just did 3rd party counseling with a coworker (boy, was that fun!) and we did a lot of "When I see you... I draw the conclusion that..." and it worked fairly well.
DH and I had a "come to Jesus" at our anniversary dinner- he's really been slacking too, and now that I work PT I can't do everything and I don't think I should. I told him he HAS GOT to start pulling his weight. I feel like I'm under a lot more stress lately, starting a new job, all this miscarriage/TTC crap, I just can't handle it all anymore.
His jobs before I started back working were always taking out the trash (usually every other night), washing DSs high chair tray after dinner (since I prep dinner), washing dishes when I cook, and giving him a bath. As far as I'm concerned, when DH gets home from work all things DS are split 50/50.
Now that I'm working I told him that him not pulling his weight is NOT an option, or I won't work anymore. He checks/takes out the trash at night if it's more than half full, he folds and puts away his own laundry, makes sure he picks up after himself (trash, pepsi cans), and picks up the living room before he comes to bed. And when he sees me unloading the dishwasher, he comes and helps. I don't care about any other chores like vacuuming, dusting, or the bathrooms because I'd honestly rather do those myself. He's gotten a lot better, and I MADE him say OUT LOUD that he doesn't think I should be 100% responsible since I'm working now. I think it's really helped and we don't snap at each other quite as easily. Basically, we both said we needed to work more as a team and not against each other. he had been bugging me for so long about getting a PT-WFH job, and now that I have one I think he thought duties would just stay the way they were. NOPE.
Sounds like you'e married to my DH. He does/does not do the same things. Seriously, I know it's frustrating. BUT the longer we're married, (it's been five years) the more I have learned to let some things go. I used to be such a stickler about tidiness and order. I agree with pp, it's less stressful to not sweat the small stuff. To be honest, DH was like this before marriage too; It didn't start with "I do". When he lived at home, his mom and sister did everything for him, so I really shouldn't expect him to make the bed, pick up his dirty dishes, etc. when he didn't do it then either. I grew with a mom who nagged at my dad everyday, ALL day and after 35 years of marriage, she's STILL nagging about the same exact things (laundry, dishes, clothes, etc.)
I recommend these books for you and your DH to read--The Secrets of Happily Married Women/Men. Both were helpful for us. Good luck!
By nature my DH is a total slob. I, on the opposite, used to be a fanatic about having a clean house (I have since let this go because I just don't have the time to keep up with that).
For us, we sat down and made a list of who is in charge of what responsibilities and chores. We did this when DS was around 4 months. I was at the peak of my stress level since I was still trying to adjust being back at work and didn't know how to juggle everything. So there definitely were lots of tears involved. Since then, things have gotten MUCH better and the chores that DH has are now just apart of his routine. He spends maybe 10 min a day during the week and a couple hours on the weekend doing them and he doesn't complain about them anymore.
For example, for us, DH is in charge of all the trash, cleaning out the litterboxes, taking care of the yard, paying bills/budgeting, emptying the dishwasher when it's clean, doing the dishes in the morning, and vacuuming on weekends. I pretty much do all the rest, but mainly that's because DH has a crazy schedule so he's doing as much as he possibly can. For laundry, I do all the laundry but we put our own laundry away.
There are still things that DH does that drives me crazy. He still piles up tons of clothes on the side of the bed. I've tried lots of things to get him to change this but the man just won't budge.
We have an iCal / google calendar that we can both access on our laptops and it sends reminders to DH's phone.
I find that paying bills is a million times easier now that we use online banking. We get electronic bills through our bank and pay online. It's so much better than trying to find each bill and the danged envelope they send, locating a stamp, etc.
I found out that a major reason for DH's reluctance to do dishes is that he hates washing pots and pans and anything else that needs to be washed by hand. So now we have the arrangement where he loads and unloads the dishwasher and I hand wash the other stuff. I do pitch in and help him if he is working late, etc. I hate having dirty dishes in my kitchen and I don't like to cook if the kitchen isn't clean. I also try to clean as I cook so there's less to do afterward.
I think pps are right in that it's good to make expectations clear.
I do this too and then I don't deliver. So, he's stockpiled about 347 bj IOUs. His fault for falling for it after all this time.
We had defined duties and it really seems to help. He is in charge of keeping the kitchen clean at all times, I take care of the nursery and DD's clothes and my own clothes, he does his own laundry and I do the grocery shopping. He takes out the trash and does all of the lawn work. Once we had a clear understanding of who does what, it helped a lot so neither of us has to nag the other (much).
My DH can commisserate, poor guy. But like you said, he's the one who keeps falling for it.