I'm glad you're managing to see the positives in your new life and enjoy them! :) out of interest (I'm revising - hence a little bored - and naturally curious I'm afraid), how do you and Joey split your chores? I guess there's a certain amount of flexibility depending on if one of you is having a really rough week? :)
Hi! I haven’t posted in nearly 8 months and have no idea how long this has been sitting in my inbox. But I still have answers for you!
Joey and I have talked about how we would split our chores since we were teenagers. We fall into pretty gendered roles sometimes-- he takes out the trash, I do the laundry-- but we’ve always refused to let our division of labor be something that just “happens”. Because of the way we were raised, it would “just happen” that I would do most things(*). He doesn’t even see the dirt sometimes, but I do. So attempts to passive-aggressively wait out the filth to see if he’s gonna take care of it? Nope. Doesn’t work. I tried it once, and it made me feel crappy. We like to talk about things.
When it comes down to it, I’m the thinker in this family. I have lots of things in my head. I know our schedules, whose birthday is coming up, the last time the sheets were washed, and what’s in the fridge almost all the time. I’m the primary planner of our trips and our lives. We’ve recently talked about how this amount of thinking is AN ACTUAL CHORE. Like, knowing off the top of my head that we need a can of black beans and some eggs counts as a chore, even if Joey is the one doing the shopping. Managing a household, no matter how small, is a chore, and it’s one that can be draining. So that brings me to how we actually divide this stuff up:
Joey does almost all of the dishes. I often help unload the dishwasher or put the “easy dishes” in. But he does the scrubbing, keeps the counters clean, etc. He also takes the trash out, cleans the shower and toilet, makes the bed most days after I leave for work, starts the prep work for dinner (chopping, thawing, etc), puts together my lunch in the morning, waters our outdoor plants, and sometimes grocery shops (we prefer to do it together).
I plan the meals, do most of the cooking, do all the laundry (he sometimes helps fold), keep things generally tidy, clean the bathroom sink, write the grocery lists, plan our trips (we are usually planning for our next trip-- we try to take 2 per year), and work at the job that allows us to survive!
Together, we switch off on vacuuming and dusting, depending on who is busier that week. And we try to grocery shop together on the weekends to accommodate our meal plan for the week, which I usually put together on Saturday.
Dividing up chores isn’t a thing we figure out one time, though! Right now, Joey’s in school while I work, so he is a much more natural “House Husband” than he might be in a few years when the roles potentially switch. The important thing for us is that we both feel like we are appreciated and loved and contributing to the nice life we have together. And sometimes one of us takes on more to help the other one through a rough week (he’s doing everything this week, because I’m taking the NCIDQ this week; when he’s got exams, I do the same).
It works well for us! But only because we communicate a lot, I think. And we both know that no one is trying to take advantage of the other. We’re a team!
* I have a few fun resources for y’all on this one: a quick article examining how invisible labor commonly plays out /// a good podcast about it, mostly advice
