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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
When one partner starts asking the other to change, the best advice is to run as far and as fast as possible.
Sexism would be neglecting/undervaluing the tasks performed by women relative to the tasks performed by men.
In any case, the household chores negotiation need not begin until they live together. I tidied up after my husband when we were first dating, but cultivating a "not my problem" invisibility shield was much less hassle.
So ask yourself this, is he tidier when he is at your place then when he is at his? If he is, then he'll likely up his tidiness setting to something closer to yours if and when you start to cohabit. You'll still have to establish the baseline and make it easy for him to aid in maintaining it but he'll adjust.
If he is just as sloppy at your place as at his, you'll likely have a harder time of it.
Dan's solution is workable IF one person doesn't mind those kinds of jobs, AND generally if one person is not working outside the home or only working part time (stuff moving and bug killing take up a much smaller percentage of the time out of work than vacuuming, shopping, washing clothes etc). Otherwise, if both of you work and you can afford it, you hire someone to do some of the cleaning. If you can't afford it, you you find an equitable solution that takes into account people's preferences but also is fair to everyone's time, and that probably means taking on at least some tasks that you don't like and learning not to be "bad" at them.
if he starts to wonder why you never go over there, tell him you're too old to hang out in a dorm room.
And I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but there's different schools of cleaning. If you live with someone who prescribes to a different notion of clean than you then prepare for much chaos. I've snapped repeatedly in my teenage years cause my father was a it isn't clean unless it smells like bleach/you can use Windex as air freshener/wet dishes in drawer kind of cleaner. And no, it wasn't laziness. He held firm beliefs on all of these things.
While I take care of more than "my share" of tidying, my house-mates enrich my life in other ways, like affordable living, congenial atmosphere and and all the primo weed I want.
For me the trick is to do or not do, but never do with resentment.
I like a clean house, and so does Mr. Vel-DuRay, so we both tend to be tidy. Even if he wasn't, I'd still be a picker-upper, because it's just not that big of a deal to me.
Plus, when I have a really knotty problem that I need to think on, I head to the broom closet, because for me there's no better way to contemplate something while doing something mindless like dusting, vacuuming, washing windows, etc.
As for people changing at an advanced age, Fnarf dear, I have to disagree. I hooked up with Mr. Vel-DuRay in my late 30's, and prior to that time I never made my bed. Now I make it every day because it's important to him. And I have to agree that it looks much nicer.
This was laugh out loud funny advice, and spot on.
If this is so imporant to the letter writer, she should not live with this guy unless she is willing to do the cleaning without resentment. Yes, he MIGHT change if they share a household. Well, no. He won't.
Don't expect people to change. Decide if you can live with them the way they are, with whatever extra chores that adds to your life, balanced against the chores-you-hate that they're happy to do for you. If that doesn't add up to a happy living situation, then you're not living-together compatible. Doesn't mean that you have to break up, but you might consider dating and not living together.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
@22, @23: In 2006, Terry was Dan's huzzz-band in Canada only. In America, Terry was still Dan's boyfriend, and Dan used to talk up the geographical difference all the time.
@14...hire a housekeeper who comes when you're away (just make sure they're bonded and insured). I see my housekeeper maybe once a year when I'm forced to stay home and work on a cleaning day due to something that can't be done in the office/a coffee shop (very rare for morning hours, which is when my housekeeper usually comes). I write a check, leave it on the fridge, go sip a latte, and my house gets magically cleaned.
Dr. Trophy Boyfriend hurls his laundry in the general direction of the hamper, but never makes it directly in -- and I prefer it that way. Gives me a chance to hang damp things up to dry so they don't molder, and look for stains or needed repairs.
Oddly, it's only when I have a basket of neatly folded clean laundry out that he manages to hit a receptacle.
I once had a girlfriend who was actually more of a slob than I, so I ended up picking shit up and/or nagging her do it. Now that I'm married to Martha Stewart, she's the one who wipes down the counters after every meal with lemon scented unicorn piss and/or nags me to do it.
Slobs are definitely educable, though. After many years and a variety of behavior modification programs (the most effective of which involved blow jobs), many of her wretched cleaning habits have embedded themselves in my brain.
The proper term for "piggy person" is "easy going, laid back person".
A "neat person" is more accurately referred to as "high maintenance, demanding, buzz-killing person."
The solution to this is for the male partner to be *willing* to pitch in when asked, even for tasks he doesn't normally take the responsibility for. "Sure, I don't mind doing the dishes tonight if you want me to" makes it clear he doesn't think the work is beneath him, even if it defaults to the female partner most of the time. Conversely, refusing to do *any* cleaning is a huge red flag, and a good sign he doesn't see his female partner's cleaning contributions as valuable to the relationship.
First of all, Dan brushes off the old, gross dental bridge, which for me, would be the far bigger turn off (I'm not putting my tongue anywhere near someone's clothing-strewn floor, but the inside of his mouth is another matter). But I think he also brushes off the worry about offending slobbo boyfriend, saying that a straight man is oblivious regarding his hygiene and the effect it may have on someone. I think that straight men are used to being considered slobs; in fact it's part of "bro culture." Perhaps he wouldn't be hurt at all by his gf's saying, "all this clutter distracts me and I'd like to focus on you and us, not the pile of stuff on the floor." If he sees it as contributing to more and better sex, he is likely to oblige her. (If they move in together, it's another story altogether: now she either turns into a nag or does the housework herself, or some combination of the two).
But I would worry about offending someone by telling him his teeth gross me out--and yet that would be something I couldn't overlook. I guess she could tell him what she told Dan: that she thinks he'd be even finer if he got that attended to. And then wait and see what happens.
And I won't even comment about the financial arrangement.
But I'm willing to grant killing things. In total, not the best case that could have been made, but something.
Anyway, in this case I think it is too early in the relationship to start nagging him constantly or to start picking up after him. However, I think you can gently mention the issues to him (both with the dental bridge and the cleaning) and see if he is over-sensitive to it or if he reacts like someone who is interested in self-improvement.
Even if Dan's not being sexist, a guy who thinks it is the woman's responsibility to clean up after him is sexist, and if you discover that he falls into that category then I vote DTMFA. Dan's response may be a little over-indulgent of people who are way too sensitive to criticism. I don't think you should silence yourself to spare your partner's feelings and I wouldn't want anyone to spare my feelings if they could help me improve, especially if they were suffering (bearing sole responsibility for housework) as a result of my laziness. If you mutually agree to divide up housework inequitably as a result of an income difference (or any other reason) like what Dan has, that's another story.
@46 over the long term, routine nagging engenders bitterness & resentment on both sides. At least that's my experience.
@49: mmmoahh!
@54: Some nagging in a LTR, yes. Sustained nagging in a LTR, no. Which is why a couple should come up with an agreement regarding the division of labor so all one has to say is "Hey- you agreed to this" rather than launch into a long harangue about the other's personal habits while you get more and more pissed and they get start engaging their internal mute button every time you address them.
This only works nicely if one person is a "stay at home wife". It's nice you personally can afford one, but lots of people can't. If the woman in question has a job, while the hell should she pull a second shift when she gets home (do you realize that cleaning is work, right? And women are entitled to resting at night like everyone else?), while the man puts his feet up?
Pulling a second shift is a reason - empirically established - that woman do not get ahead in the world of work. Household chores prevent them from staying late at work, from working on the weekend. Household chores exhaust them and focus their energy on the house instead of at work. All the while the man is not incurring any of these penalties.
Because of this division of labor that still persists - this is why we see fewer women politicians, lawyers, doctors, and professors, because they cannot find a way to put in the extra hours required for these jobs while picking up after their families.
What would your conversations about housework have looked like if your husband had career aspirations? Or would you only have married him if he didn't, so that he could be around to take care of the house for you.
On the other hand, I can just say that its ok that he doesn't want to do it. And its ok if she dumps him because she doesn't want to live with a child.
But you knew that already, right? You're just posting this to troll all the women of the world that are trying to have jobs and families? By telling them to do the work anyway? Or telling them they have to choose between having babies or families and having a career... while the men of the world - like YOU - get to have both and have to sacrifice nothing?
I know quite a few men who work full time and still do a lot of the household chores even if their partner is a stay-at-home mom or works only part-time. It depends on the relationship and the partners.
You expect her to do the housework?! Did she have a say in that division of labour or was that a uni-lateral decision by you?
The solution would be that one day she does the housework and you the child-care, and the next day you'd do the housework and she did the child-care. You know, alternating the stuff that neither of you likes to do...
PS: That would be true also if she stays at home and you are the sole breadwinner.
I have no solution for these people, but, Dan. I think you know this now, but your experience does not represent the entirety of truth. If you had to write this again today I think you would write it differently.
Now, if he were messy because he expected some woman to marry him and take care of it, that would be different. That would pose a troubling question about how he viewed relationships. But this doesn't sound like that. And picking up things off of the floor is not "primary responsibility for the chores" it is just one thing. He can still do dishes, taxes, maintenance, vacuuming, dusting, yardwork, etc, etc. Dan was pretty clear that his suggestion was in the context of shared responsibility for chores, if you read it again.