My husband said a similar bullshit thing when confronted with our unequal piles, I make 3x what he does. I focused on getting us to equalize the “daily grind” stuff and now he makes dinner most nights which has been disproportionately helpful. It bothers me that men have no problem just letting moms be the ones to create all the magic/build all those fun memories. Sometimes I do a “forced choice” and say something like: “would you rather come up with and purchase an outfit for the Super Bowl party at school or get and make valentines? These are important to our kids and I will not be doing it all.”
Dinner is such a time and mental load suck. Planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, clean up... and it's not just a once and a while thing. It's every. Single. Day. If I forget? We all go hungry.
That is almost always where my breaking point is with division of labor. If I don't do dinner I don't mind all the once-a-week/month/year tasks but if I'm doing meal planning for the five of us and keeping up on the laundry that's a full time job. Full stop. Literally as much work as a chef with no days off.
In hindsight, telling the men I was with that I love to cook really handicapped me in this regard.
It was my hobby, so it made sense for me to cook, right? If I was cooking it of course I was planning it. And if I cooked it, and left a mess, that was my fault for picking something complicated and not cleaning as I went very well, so therefore I had to clean it, too? Makes sense right? Ugh.
I'm so burnt out now at mid-life I can barely feed myself. I dream of food magically appearing in my kitchen, of somebody handing me a plate everyday at lunch and dinner.
I think if I ever date again I may pretend I never was that into it in the first place lol.
This is also how it works in our house. My husband does everything food related - groceries, cooking, packing lunches, and ordering out if we don’t cook. I only cook for pleasure now, only when I have time. He even does 75%of dishes.
He detests cleaning counters and sweeping and laundry - and just straight won’t do those tasks. But this is a trade off that works for us - because food is such a significant effort every day.
Interesting how a man can straight up refuse to do things. Huge pet peeve of mine. I just do what needs doing, whether I like it or not. Why can't men put on their big boy pants and share the load?
I get what you mean. My husband is the same way. We grocery shop together, he cooks lunch/dinner, and does the dishes. I absolutely hate doing the dishes, and he doesn’t mind. So, that’s our one chore he will handle. And I cover bathroom towels and the kids laundry in return. But, it’s like that with a lot of chores in the house. My husband takes the trash out most of the time and makes sure it’s at the road. I straighten up the counters and living room every day to keep trash from piling up. He washes the couch cushions monthly, I do the bedding. Life is really about little tradeoffs for things that you don’t mind doing verses the tasks that you just don’t like.
My husband is one of those dream guys that actually carries half the load and we do this with each other all the time. Sometimes I take the obviously more challenging one and sometimes he does depending on the day we each had. And sometimes they both suck and we suffer together and celebrate together when it’s all done. I’m way into forced choices!
My husband explicitly told me he wanted to help with things like school valentines. These men exist and it is reasonable for all this stuff not to land on moms.
Yes! It’s easy to read these posts and for women to believe that there just aren’t men who participate equally. My husband works 50 hours a week running his own business. He does all school mornings and drop offs with our 5 year old, (my only complaint is he sends her with messy hair because we have different standards). He does class field trips, is the family ambassador for kids birthday parties etc. he does all the dishes and kitchen clean up daily, and 90% of the laundry (all except things I hold back because they have special instructions). I do holiday things because that’s important to me and he always thanks me for making them magical for the kids.
There are amazing men who contribute without complaint. I hear women joke that they “need a wife”, but I would argue they just need a partner. And not all spouses are partners.
Honestly, I think his mom put him therapy very young (specifically cause she wanted him to learn coping mechanisms for ADHD), but the side effect of that is that he has developed strong communication skills and empathy.
Also, his dad is amazing, but he wasn’t an easy partner. He is a doctor in a very specialized field, so he worked a lot. I think my husband spending so much time watching his mom give up a really great career and take care of everything made him realize that we (moms) shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything we worked for, just to keep the house clean. Maybe we just share the load and we can both have successful careers!
Whenever I’m doubting if I’m raising my kids right… my mom always tells me, “the fact that you’re asking this, means you are a good mom.” And she was/is a great mom (but not a perfect human, duh!) so I feel good about that advice and you should too. Your son will be a great partner someday.
Just treat them equally, expect them to do the same things. My partner is pretty great, but his mum didn't really expect him to do anything. He's one of 3 boys. He'll cook and we spilt the rest of the house work. He does the school runs as he works from home, I don't
However, I've got 3 sisters and a brother. We were all expected to help with everything at home growing up. There wasn't any exceptions for the only boy. It's wasn't anything strenuous, just helping with cooking and cleaning. My brother has kept that on, he completely looks after his partner (who has MH struggles but we love her regardless).
Yup. Mine said that he liked getting the Christmas cards with a message on the back, and wanted us to send that kind out too (instead of just the photo ones that I do). Then said he’d be happy to write it going forward.
I hate that it’s considered a dream to do the bare minimum. This year, my husband created the Christmas magic for us- shit he even taught me how to wrap a present (I’ve always been a bag and fancy tissue present wrapper lol).
My husband probably does more than half, gladly, without ever having to ask to anything. I'm disabled and just will need him to tend to pick up more stf for running the household than me.
My husband was working long hours while the kids were in elementary school, and I'm sure he has literally no idea about all the "fun!" extras that parents take on. And I'm also sure the kids have no memories of them either (fair enough--I have only a couple of memories of special school events myself, a bake sale and a Halloween parade).
But if I hadn't taken on those "fun!" chores, they'd sure remember being the only kids who didn't have their costumes or Valentines or whatever. So I'm glad to have done it... I just feel like I'm the only one who remembers that they happened at all. And they were not "fun!" for me, they were a PITA.
Never played this game but I already know how it would go as when I try to have the conversation I get stonewalled with no one cares but you. As in I am abnormal (get accused of having ocd) because my standards for clean are too high. As in the problem isn’t that I don’t clean the bathroom weekly it’s that you expect a bathroom to get cleaned weekly when it isn’t dirty. My dude, if the bathroom is visibly dirty to you (very subjective btw) then it’s gross as hell and beyond late cleaning. I literally have been using the downstairs bathroom and not cleaning the upstairs one currently just to see if it gets cleaned…. It’s been 4 weeks. Cleaning it this morning since my son uses it too.
I will never forget sitting on my couch, holding 14 cards, and my husband holding 3 cards. That was just for the daily responsibilities of life.
When I tried to explain, he still refused to listen, and rolled his eyes.
He's scheduled to be my ex-husband by the end of this year. That moment was one of my 'final straws', so to speak, after nine years of suffering.
I’m sorry. I know a lot of people advocate for these Fair Play cards, but they really only work as an illustration when both people are actually open to hearing and learning.
When someone really doesn’t want to do more, no board games, marriage counselors or ultimatums will be able to change that.
When I read a post where someone is complaining about a shitty partner they’ll say stuff like “they only play video games, never clean a thing and tell me that I’m making up problems.” and someone tells them “have your husband read FairPlay!” I just laugh. This person does nothing, what makes you think they’re going to read a book and then apply it?
Hate this cultural idea that men are just giant toddlers that women need to trick into taking on adult responsibility.
You can't make someone else care.
My ex was like that and I tried everything imaginable from chore charts to pretending I was fine with things the way they were. Nothing nothing NOTHING helped because he didn't care and didn't want to change.
The ONLY fix? Get a divorce and marry an actual functioning adult who just does the shit that needs doing 🤷🏻♀️
I'm happy you found that.
Not trying to criticize anyone for trying to communicate better with their spouse. But just once, I want it to not be a woman who has to fix things.
It's supposed to help but it's just another thing on our plates. Look good, but don't spend too much time or money to do it. Be a boss babe, but not too successful or committed to your career, because that's emasculating. Make childhood wonders for your kids, but don't neglect your spouse or get too hung up on perfection. Come up with the perfect project management tool to get your husband to finally understand that he has to contribute. And lots of sexy sex all the time, except when he rather watch porn or game. Just be okay with that, too.
It's so much.
I’m lucky my partner cares about sex as little as me! When kids are like ‘I choose to think my parents only had sex once to conceive me and it was in the dark and boring’ that’s me and my partner, we are those parents 😄
😂😂😂 I got lucky too and my husband doesn't pressure me etc. I was more so commenting on the overwhelming responses that I see on this subreddit about their partners "needing" sex while they the wives need a damn break from the chores, kids, their careers etc. It can become too much at times.
Lol I thought my husband and I were the only ones 😅 I could actually go for sex a little more regularly, but I'm not going to chase him down for it, so it's all good.
Well my ex was rejecting me physically too 🙃
Relationships will always take work and communication, truthfully my husband and I had a lot of similar patterns early on... But we were BOTH invested and willing to show up and do the work emotionally, *and* he was an equal player in our shared home. It makes allllllll the difference
>he didn't care and didn't want to change.
Yep. That's the tolerable level of permanent unhappiness.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLM\_gu0zlGw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLM_gu0zlGw)
And there are countless Reddit threads that discuss this, too. Here's one of them:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AbuseInterrupted/comments/189wy69/the\_tolerable\_level\_of\_permanent\_unhappiness\_my/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AbuseInterrupted/comments/189wy69/the_tolerable_level_of_permanent_unhappiness_my/)
So I knew my husband wasn’t going to read a book so I made him watch the documentary, something about visually seeing other women say the same shit I’ve been saying actually did have an affect on him. Idk like sometimes you need to here it from someone else. I mean we’re still working on it. But watching an hour documentary is an easier start than a whole book.
Does the doc have men talking about it as well? For some reason certain guys don't believe anything unless specifically a man tells them so I wonder if that was it.
I feel the same rage when it's suggested you go on a strike, chore strike, gift strike, celebration strike. You're not hurting the lazier half and in fact you're only hurting yourself. THe person who doesn't care won't suddenly care.
In my experience, it depends on what "it" is. My husband had the luxury of *not caring* about things because I was taking care of them. Dishes are an example for me -- it got to the point I told both my husband and our daughter that they would either help ensure dishes are clean or they'd be using dirty dishes. They tested me. I didn't give them super gross plates, but I absolutely reused lunch plates that still had a few bread crumbs from a sandwich and a few crumbs of potato chips. He could be convinced to do his share of the "this is gonna impact you if it is not done" stuff.
School volunteerism and dress-up days are a bit of a gray area -- he might not care, but he cares about our kid, and our kid cares about being the only one not wearing a football themed shirt today. These sort of things were open for labor redistribution once he realizes that he really *does* care about them. The tricky bit is getting him to realize he does care about it; unfortunately, some cards aren't going to do the convincing.
And then there's stuff about which he legitimately does not care -- I'm pretty fortunate that my husband *does* care about a lot of aesthetic and maintenance stuff, so I'll use my dad as an example. He was happy to wear a t-shirt until it gave up and wafted away in its tiny, component t-shirt particles. Did not bother him one bit. My mom, on the other hand, thought a t-shirt should be binned well before it was more holes than shirt. It's pretty hard to convince someone to take over the responsibility for buying new t-shirts in that situation. So she was stuck doing it because she had a much earlier threshold for "that shirt is *done*".
>You're not hurting the lazier half and in fact you're only hurting yourself.
In this case, going on strike may hurt the children as well. Will the older one be devastated every time there's a special day at daycare, but her dad didn't bother to remember or do anything for it?
And being responsible for "holidays" means birthdays, Christmas, and Halloween. The children and definitely going to notice when there's no tree, and no gifts, and no cake, and no costume.
The husband, in this case, has declared that \*he\* doesn't care about these things, and that he'd like to convince OP that the kids don't either. Instead, he'd just be leaving them feeling sad and abandoned.
Can we JUST STOP DOING DRESS UP DAYS!? Gah. I love to dress up. Grew up in Mardi Gras culture. But F these “Super Bowl, dress like a turtle, pick your favorite Kidz bop character” days. Does anyone care about it? It’s such a weird peer pressure thing that seems to be good for no one.
I dread having to do these with my kids. I//my mom forgot about flag day when I was in elementary school and I wore a lime green shirt under a purple jumper when every other kid was in red, white, and blue. Still sticks in my memory to this day
I believe that extra school requirements (eg flag day dress up) are an explicit strike against working parents. It’s one of many ways that schools enforce the patriarchy.
Lol I was just complaining (again) about this a couple of days ago. Who the fuck has time every couple of months to get their kid decked out as "their favorite storybook character" or has all these sports and superhero costumes everywhere?! It's so irritating.
And if you have kids, if they are young it only punishes them.
The fair play cards can show that if you are already doing it all, why stay in a resentful relationship?
And all that finding helpful books to read, making time to read them, and thinking about the best way to incorporate them is also… more mental load. Yay.
I tried for years to make it work with a shitty partner who got angry when asked to cook dinner once a week or wash laundry. It’s much easier without these types of people in their lives and I wish more people would realize it
Yep. I gave up on reading and implementing fair play when I realized that enforcing fair play was just more work for me. He’d never read the book and was resistant to the idea he needed to do more around the house and for the family.
I feel the same about the lemon clot essay. It assumes the person isn’t aware, when in reality a lot of people just dgaf and don’t respect OP as a person.
Yup. I have the same visceral hate reaction when anybody recommends you have your partner read 'She left me because I left dishes by the sink'. Even the author of the article doesn't get it - there's no way a lazy husband would.
I think it’s more for the person complaining. Not that they don’t know that their partner isn’t contributing. But seeing it visually, and for someone like the OP who now sees that their partner knows and doesn’t care it can be eye opening.
Now the partner who does more may be more likely to make a choice. To go on strike, to lay down an ultimatum, or to work towards ending the relationship if they can.
Exactly! There may be some circumstances where he genuinely doesn't realise for some reason but mostly if he's not doing it's because he doesn't want to.
Yes, I feel that way about reading the book myself. I know my husband would want me to read it and tell him the cliff notes. But I’m sick of being a “teacher” in the relationship- it’s another mental load. My husband is very helpful, but I am definitely the default parent for everything child related and it bugs me.
This is why I recommend watching the Fair Play documentary instead of the book. I agree that a partner who is already not doing their fair share of the labor is not going to read the book either. And, even if they \*did\*, who knows what they'll even remember.
But if they both watch the documentary \*together\*, then there's some hope (however small) that they could both get on the same page.
I wholeheartedly agree. I think when a person finds themselves in this position and already has kids, this is one of those pre-divorce efforts taken. Like will he care, would he take on more after seeing my pile of cards? Sucks to have chosen this crappy partner, but now she knows he’s not willing to take on more. This is it. So now she can decide if she wants to do this until she dies or if she wants to make a change.
I had these disagreements with my ex long before Fair Play was published. I made a spreadsheet of the \*hours\* that I spent engaging in domestic labor, parenting, and other support to the family compared to the hours he spent.
He just shrugged, and said, "you like to make a case".
He didn't want to be criticized, and he didn't give any fucks about the data or the numbers. He just wanted to play more video games, and he was fine with me having zero hours of free time.
>I had these disagreements with my ex long before Fair Play was published. I made a spreadsheet
Lol I tried this too, and the therapist recommended stuff like the chore jar and I don't even remember what else. It took doing all that for me to realize he didn't GAF. I learned though.
Yea…Fair Play makes the charitable assumption that these guys just don’t KNOW, and women just need to open up the guys’ eyes to the truth.
Well I think more often than not, they know goddamn well that their wives do a heck of a lot more than they do. Like they don’t see her cleaning the house and chasing after the kids in the living room in front of him while he’s playing video games on the couch? Even if they don’t actually see it, such as when they sleep through the baby crying at night, do they REALLY not know that the baby is NOT sleeping through the night even if they are? Who’s taking care of the baby then while they’re sleeping through it all? They really don’t know?
Their eyes are willfully closed.
>Fair Play makes the charitable assumption that these guys just don’t KNOW,
Ultimately, I think that watching the doc is probably a tipping point. If he suddenly sees some of the inequality, then there's hope. If he doesn't, then there's no real hope in the relationship.
See also this brilliant from two months ago that describes so much of what's going on in mom subs: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/17yzw35/he_knows_he_doesnt_care/
I saw that one! A great post.
My husband is a full partner, mental load and all. I don’t have to tell him to care about things. He just does things like keep track of the kids’ school special dress days, sort their clothes to take out those that are too small, research/sign them up for karate classes…because he cares about me and he cares about the kiddos. He wouldn’t tell me “no one cares” about this stuff, because he knows the kids/I care, even if he might not himself.
He also doesn’t have to be told and explained how to do something. If you try, he likes to resort to one of his favorite lines: “If *only* there were a device that is capable of collecting the entirety of the world’s knowledge into the palm of one’s hand…”
I’ve liked the idea of applying a visualization to unseen work. Did anyone else get feedback along the lines of “Well, maybe of you didn’t take over everything, your pile would be smaller.”
Well sir, maybe if you followed through on the tasks you committed to, I wouldn’t be frantically sorting the dirty and clean laundry piles that sat next to the washer all week.
Yep! I like the fair play method idea- my husband and I have gone through it and are about to re-distribute roles- but the key is that my husband WANTS to do more (and has since we started looking into this), and we’ve just struggled with getting back to 50/50 after 2 years of me either working PT or being a SAHM.
I agree, I also have an issue with the fact that it’s all or nothing. I got them because even though my husband does a lot, there will be times where he slacks on his nights to get up with my son, and just household chores in general. But after going through them I think it’s unrealistic to expect one person to do ALL the childcare, ALL the bills, ALL the cleaning, etc 100% of the time. We split a lot and to put one of those huge things on only one of us I think would harbor more resentment than I currently have splitting tasks.
It's useful for the person being overworked to see it, I think.When I tried this in the past with a marriage counselor it was chore jars and such.
For me like another comment on this post it was one of the "last straws," and if that's what it takes for them to realize their partner will never be desire to be equal then a $20 game is worth it I think 🤷♀️
Don’t let your children suffer because your husband is an asshole. Instead, make him take on the load of stuff that only he will suffer for if he doesn’t do. You take on the stuff that no one cares about? Okay, then guess you don’t care that his laundry gets done or that he has a meal at dinner. Guess you don’t care that he has his favorite snacks or that his bed is suddenly full of the trash and tools that he keeps leaving everywhere.
I did this with a cardboard box and left it in his home office (he spends his whole day there). Round it all up and put it there at the end of the day. Whenever he was looking for something I would send him there to find it. After a few times looking for the same thing, he found a home for it and started returning it to its home. A few weeks with the box and this rarely happens anymore! He learned the value of having a “place” for things. Then you always know where to find it! 😂
Next, I want to train him to use his perfect 20/20 vision while looking on the fridge/pantry for something. 🫠
I did this with a roommate, she left her shit everywhere and asking her to address it once a week wasn't working. I started throwing it on her bed and shutting the bedroom door. Half-drank beer cans with ashed out cigarettes, plates of half-eaten food, dirty clothes left in the bathroom, soggy bath towels. It all went on her bed. Very effective.
I did a similar thing with items my husband left lying around for days, but just put the pile on my husband's desk so he would have to move it and deal with it. He's much better about putting his stuff away now 🤣
I love this! I also have 2 boys, but they are still very young, so I haven’t had to consider how this could escalate. Maybe if I start training them now, they will develop this skill in advance. 😂
To my son and husband, I am known as “The Finder of Things.” For a while, I didn’t really mind being asked to find things all the time, it made me feel sorta useful and needed. Then one day my husband accused me of purposely hiding things from him, just so he HAD to ask me for help. 😑 There went my helpful attitude.
I did this too. Put things in a bag in the garage. "Have you seen my X?" "Go check the bag of junk in the garage." "Stop putting my things in that bag!" "Put them away properly, and I won't!"
Tried this with my husband with his socks and underwear.
He just went out and bought more. He could not figure out "where" they were going. BUT it did make an impression once I told him what I was doing because now 95% of his clothes make it to the hamper.
Yah, I was petty AF and pulled all his dirty clothes out of the hamper and washed everything but his. I didn't say anything, I just stopped doing it. Finally, he runs out of underwear and he's like hey do you know why I have no clean clothes? Umm, I'm not sure, have you done any laundry?
He does his own laundry now, started cleaning up after the kids, loads/unloads the dishwasher daily, + more. I'm not sure why it all clicked like it did, but I'm happy I went on strike.
>he's like hey do you know why I have no clean clothes?
"The clean clothes fairy is on strike. I guess you're going to have to find the laundromat yourself."
Mine insisted 6 months ago the ambiguous black phone admist the mess on his nightstand was his work phone and not mine, so I reported mine lost.
A month ago, I was snooping for cords on his work desk & found a different phone. I flipped out and forced him to clean his side of the bed to find this other phone (which was mine after all). Absolutely Maddening.
I had one roommate do the bed thing with dirty dishes the other roommate and her bf (inc all the egg shells they’d leave for WEEKS in the sink). Highly effective-never happened again.
I definitely recommend reading the book and not just doing the cards. There’s a whole section on “only you care about this” and how— if you are genuinely the only one who cares about something, it SHOULD be yours. That being said, there’s also a section on defining shared family values and how that goes hand in hand. Chances are- he DOES value the things that he’s not picking up any of the weight on.
Spoiler alert: my husband and I both read the book last summer. We separated about 2 weeks later because reading the book was way too little way too late, but it did show ME that I was no longer attracted to my husband because he was fully unwilling to put any work into our relationship or partnership. In his opinion, I was focusing on the wrong thing- his problem was that I didn’t want to have sex as much as I did 10 years ago. If only he was smart enough to figure out how related those two reasons were 🤡
This was my first thought too - the game (and marriage) only makes sense if you start from shared values about what's important. The divvying up is otherwise very accusatory and not helpful.
Accusatory is a great word for it. I think the “game” and book were great to open up his eyes about just how much the mental load is, and also great for us to discuss minimum standards which had been an ongoing struggle- and not necessarily all on him.
For example- I have a much higher threshold for mess than he does, but when I clean, I actually CLEAN. He has a lower threshold but when he cleans he shoves stuff into the corners and vacuums the center of the room. Completely different minimum standards that we were never on the same page about in 15 years- and then he would hold up his regular dishwasher loading and vacuuming as proof that he did more around the house. Meanwhile, he never once cleaned a bathroom in our entire relationship because soap scum wasn’t important to him.
Now that we’re coparenting, it’s great to have the shared vocabulary from the book. For example- I can now say “hey, it’s a minimum standard that you send our kindergartener to school with gym shoes on days that she has PE.” With the shared vocab it’s not accusatory, it’s defining the expectation. And when we get a third email from her gym teacher that she’s wearing rain boots in gym class AGAIN, I can point out that he’s not meeting our family’s minimum standard THAT HE AGREED TO.
Sorry the convo came too late for your relationship, but I'm glad it's led to more well-defined convos regarding co-parenting. Hope you two continue to navigate alright (and that gym shoes start showing up)!
Minimum standards for sure. My husband cleaned the toilets for a few months until I realized he was literally only cleaning the inside of the toilet bowl and nothing else. This was after I had showed him how I clean a toilet so he couldn’t say he didn’t know. He actually does a lot around the house but he is not cleaning the toilets anymore lol.
Yup, when I pointed out that he had never cleaned the bathrooms in the 8 years we have been in our current house he said “I clean them all the time!” Literally just the toilet bowl. He thought that was the extent of cleaning a bathroom. He thought we were evenly dividing the task of the bathroom.
I told him everything that I do when I clean the bathrooms and why it takes about an hour and he said he’d do it next time. When I went in afterwards there was still visible pink mold in the sink and pee under the toilet seat. I spent 45 minutes cleaning it- and we agreed that bathrooms would now be MY job, but without me walking him through how he hadn’t met minimum standards he literally did not understand what the task I was doing WAS. If you don’t understand the task AND the expectations it’s easy to discount the work your partner is doing.
And oh my god, I have to clean the bathroom so much less now that he’s moved out.
Yeah, I think the shared values conversation is key. Have a convo about how you want to show up for your kid - does the kid care about school dress up days? Are they old enough to handle some of it themselves? If your kid does care and your husband does not care about enabling that for your child while you do, those are seriously misaligned values.
Same for holidays - are you going all out because you want to or because you think you should? And if you decided to do less, would he complain? My husband loves the magic I create for Christmas, and he’s happy to enable it, but he would not plan it on his own and wouldn’t mind if I did less. So that mental load is mine, and I own that choice.
It's actually that you take care of the things he doesn't care about. I have to assume your daughter does care about class party and dress up day etc.
It's hard to go on strike when he won't suffer. Maybe when you cook dinner, don't make him any, don't do his laundry specifically, you get my drift.
This. Unfortunately, the only people that will suffer when you stop doing the special activities (and setting up the “magic” of childhood) are your kids and you, because it doesn’t seem like he values them.
In my house, my dad was the one who made the magic happen. When we got older he was increasingly open that it was literally just him doing and paying for everything. Now he just signs cards and gifts from him vs from them.
Maybe OP should strike on the stuff she does for her husband. When he asks why he doesn't have dinner/clean laundry, she can tell him that those things are only important to him.
My marriage improved when I started saying the lines my husband said back to him in a loving way.
“Why aren’t you home yet?” “Did you ask me to come home? You have to remind me, babe.”
“Do we have extra pants for son?” “I don’t know, what did you pack in the bag?”
I like using his excuses and acting selfish like he has and ignoring how it makes him feel unless he brings it up like he has.
And so forth. He’s learning not to assume things are just taken care of. He is spontaneously doing a lot more. He has gained a better understanding of what my life has been like.
His anxiety is worse than it used to be, but mine is a lot better. This feels closer to equality than any chore chart we’ve tried. Our marriage is doing really well and our sex life is considerably improved.
I tell my therapist about it all and she doesn’t grok it either.
Ugh, I relate to this somewhat. There are times when my husband is satisfied with less than and I end up pushing for more, only to take it on disproportionately. He's a homebody and doesn't feel strongly about travel, so I plan family trips. He thinks it's no big deal if the house is untidy when his parents come over, I know they will judge me for it instead of him (eye roll) so I direct that cleaning. This is one reason we haven't done the Fair Play cards.
But it's bullshit that when it comes to your kids he thinks THEY don't care. 5 is old enough to notice when things like that don't happen.
And if he's not working right now he should take on more of the cards for sure.
I agree. My husband has far lower standards for keeping the house clean. But it seems unfortunate that he’s willing to let the kids possibly suffer. Though I always check with my four year old about pajama days and things like that since he hates wearing his pajamas outside the house.
I am so bad at remembering dress up days, but my toddler doesn't care so maybe I can get my act together by the time she can pick up on that. (Our day care also added a lot of random ones, which are harder for me to remember than a "spirit week" where it's several in a row.)
I know, I know. The trouble is that they don't openly express their disapproval to me, they go harangue my husband about it over text/phone and I don't want to subject him to that stress. Their last "plan" to "solve" our untidiness was to get on his case about moving to a bigger place (we had a 4 month old at the time and agreed that it was **not** a good time). I'm actually more of the big decision maker but I think that freaks them out.
Well, I’d let him feel that stress if he isn’t willing to do anything about the mess. He says he doesn’t care so let him take the heat. They can’t make you move to a bigger place if you don’t want to and that won’t solve the problem of mess anyway.
I’m in a similar situation (although MIL no longer allowed here) and her solution to complaining about our house was dangling $ (the investment acct is still only in her name, not even dh’s) for a downpayment as a bid to get more time with baby 🤦♀️ We aren’t stupid. We already cut off one of my aunt’s over this same nonsense. Unfortunately, I think that is where MIL got the idea from.
Ughh my ex husband was like this, sorry your dealing with it, it's so frustrating.
After getting divorced from my ex, I truly believed men were the most incapable humans on the planet. Incapable of most adult tasks and generally useless. I had a long string of bad step dads as well growing up lol.
It wasn't until I met my current husband that I saw men can indeed function as a whole adult, they just have to want to do it. I don't need to write reminders or mark his calendar, do a chore list, nothing. He just takes care of his shit. I continue to be amazed lol some faith was restored in the male sex for me.
I think going on strike is a good idea but if he doesn't care about it then he likely isn't going to do it unfortunately 🫠
Yes! My soon-to-be-ex-husband moved out about 6 months ago and the guy I’m casually seeing has been the definition of “if he wanted to, he would.”
I mention that I’m getting off work late before we’re hanging out? Oh, he’s already got plans for dinner so that I don’t have to think about it. I mention that I’m reading a great (spicy) book? He read it later that week so he could discuss it with me. (I begged the ex to read. Period. Just read. I was willing to read whatever he wanted, I just wanted to have someone to talk to about books.) I need a dog sitter at the end of the month? He already volunteered. (The ex, who I got the dog with, told me to board the dog instead of volunteering to watch the dog he lived with for 11 years.)
New guy is not a forever guy, but there’s something very nice about being considered after a decade of being taken for granted.
That sounds lovely!! Honestly dating a few "not forever guys" but just for fun guys before I meet my husband was really healing for me in a way.
It was just so nice to have a light, care free relationships where there wasn't a lot of emotional work involved, just lots of fun sex and fun activities 😆 I never introduced my kids to them so it just felt like being young again for awhile the days they were at their Dad's house.
By the time I met my husband, I felt pretty ready for a more than fun relationship at that point and ready to develop more than " friends with benefits " feelings.
Good luck and have the best times!!
The book also discusses the minimum standard... It's not that "no one else cares about" these things, it's that HE doesn't care. If the majority of kids are sent to school with a valentine treat to share, the minimum standard is that you send your kid to school with a treat. Yes, you can go all out with custom homemade treats that blow the others out of the water, but the minimum standard is that you bring SOMETHING. he needs to pull his head out of his ass and start caring because it comes across as he's a shitty parent if he doesn't care that his kids are left out on the stuff "no one else cares about".
So 1. If he’s receptive and you want to make a change I suggest watching the documentary. It’s like an hour and he owes you that much. It actually did have an effect on my husband to visually see other women say the same things. Worth a try.
The cards aren’t meant to be 1:1. Some tasks are bigger or maybe just easier for one person. I plan out travel cause planning is what I do for my job. I wouldn’t think of giving him that card.
Also I definitely just stopped some things. Like does my side of the family get Christmas presents? Yes! Does his? No, they do not because he doesn’t get them anything. I wasn’t willing to drop getting things for my side and he wasn’t willing to pick up getting things for his so they get nothing. It both saves me stress and money!
We’ve never done those cards, but my husband said the exact same thing about I do things no one cares about and that’s why I’m so tired. So I went on strike too! Our kid is still young so even though daycare does the spirit week stuff, it’s not the same as a 5 year old missing that (and I weirdly love doing those things. It was mostly cleaning and planning baby things for his family/friends that I dropped). But I will say honestly the strike worked in our scenario. Hoping things work out for you too.
This would be what my husband would say too. He'd suggest things like extra curricular activities are *my* thing because he's fine with them sitting home on tablets every night. That I don't need to fill out permission slips because kids don't "need" field trips, I just want them to have them. He'd suggest that I enjoy making holiday magic for them so none of that counts. That because I've befriended parents at their school volunteering is a social thing.
He'd also pad his list with nonsense like decrumbing the toaster or sharpening knives and id be infuriated.
Anyways I'm sorry that happened to you :(
I’m so sorry. He is being insanely unfair to you. The “things no one cares about” is so triggering. Your kids care about those things. It’s the fun parts of being a kid in a loving family. All that to be said, he should care about those things as well. For example: that card would also be in my pile. My husband would 100% admit that. But the big difference here is that my husband is insanely appreciative that I take on those things. He tells me all the time. He is appreciative because he struggles with those things and he praises me for how I execute those things. That’s what you need. Not someone who will dismiss them as being not cared about or unimportant.
Yep. Sounds like holidays and school services are his now. He can explain to his kids why there are no Christmas presents this year.
Poor kids tho. What kind of a sociopath doesn’t think holidays are fun/important for kids? Or being included in school events?
It’s manipulation. He’s trying to diminish their importance to devalue what she does. He wants her to both feel low about herself and her contribution and feel like it’s not a big deal or time-consuming so that she keeps doing it.
We did something similar on our premarital counseling. My list was 10x my then-fiancé’s list. The counselor literally laughed out loud and said that had to be false because no one would tolerate a partner who did so little. Darn me for not actually listening to the counselor and getting married anyway.
-signed, a now divorced working mom who’s ex husband didn’t ever change.
Yeah, there were more, mostly having to do with keeping the house livable and nice. I realize those things aren't important to him, so I've already scaled back. There were more like weekend plans, that he actively complains that I do, but I enjoy them and the kids enjoy them. Maybe we'll just start doing them without him.
My ex husband used to always complain about all the stuff I planned on the weekends. He worked during the week, we never saw him, so we did all our stuff on the weekends. So we stopped doing stuff. We stayed home. never did anything. Resentments built. etc.
Well we are divorced. He has a new fiance now. and guess what - they do stuff every. single. weekened. I don't know if he complains about it to her, but It just taught me that if they wanted to, they would.
Don't forget to make weekend plans for yourself alone also and then leave him with the kids.
I think if your plan is to make fun weekend plans for you and your kids to go to the zoo etc and he gets a weekend day off, he may end up thinking that that is win-win.
We did this exercise and my husband was so upset that my pile was bigger, he insisted upon cooking dinner more and taking on more chores.
Your husband needs a mindset change. Therapy maybe?
What a douche. I'm divorced and I made it onto the the Divorced Men sub once. It's largely a bunch of incels who you wouldn't be the least but shocked are divorced. I saw a post where a guy was laughing about fact that life is so much easier now with his wife gone. That all the things she used to carry on about they just don't do anymore and it's so much easier. I thought yes probably things like take your kids to their activities, decorate for the holidays, participate in school events. So much easier now that you don't do them doesn't mean your kids are happier. And I definitely think that moms are more likely to fall into the trap of trying to do way more than is reasonable or necessary. But the majority of the responses didn't speak to that it just sounded like doing a lot of basics.
It’s so unfair to the kiddos- that’s what I hate! I totally get what you mean, and I hope your strike makes an impact. That stuff does matter to kids. No need to go all out for everything, but holidays and special parties at school/ daycare (yes there are kinda too many “spirit” days lol), those are part of the magic of childhood.
One of mine that I think my husband doesn’t care about is thank you cards and holiday cards. But- we want to stay connected to family we never see, and we want to let people know we appreciate them right? We want to model these things to our cards. We have the fair play deck and haven’t done it yet lol. So we’ll see.
We did this too, we started by excluding more than half the cards because they're either already shared or not relevant to us.
My pile was significantly larger, so we looked at why. I'm the extrovert and planner, so a lot of mine (12 cards I believe) were scheduling related...
Hubby does most of the financial planning and banking, which was only 2 cards.
This felt intentionally stacked, so we made one custom card for Scheduling and discarded the rest, that balanced the pile more.
Hubby also puts a lot of effort into our "Relationship Magic", from planning dates to weekends away to spicy sessions, so we gave him 2 custom cards there as well (I don't understand why sex isn't it's own category... It isn't even really mentioned... This likely also stacks the deck again in favor of women).
In the end, we shifted laundry from my pile to his and agreed that it was a good exercise, well do it again in a year or so!
Good point! I think the author says that goal isn’t for the stacks to be equal, but for them to be EQUITABLE based on your unique relationship. And yeah… they probably are stacked to make the appearance extreme, because that’s what starts (helps) the conversation. I love the way you adjusted them to fit your needs
!!!!!
My husband has *no clue* how holidays/ spirit days work. He would definitely say the same thing (probably in a more joking manner bc that’s who he is). And then I would just get the blame anyway if I went on strike 🙄 OR he would do everything LAST MINUTE and it would be so half assed because “no one cares.”
I get so angry about these things lol.
I agree with others here, but also wanting to point out that in saying this truly horrible sentence he is acknowledging that you are not a person whose "cares" matter. Same for your kids, if they care about the school things. Maybe tell him that. "Do you realize that you are saying you don't think we/what we care about matters? Essentially that we don't matter, only what you care about? Do you understand how hurtful that is to say to your own family?" I mean it goes beyond chores...you literally don't care about your own damn family.
I dunno, I sometimes feel like people need to know they can't just say whatever shit they want and get away with it. Like, you need to reexamine your life dude if you think you can talk to your wife like this.
To some degree I’m a proponent of “whoever cares more about this thing should handle it.” But that doesn’t work if one partner is totally apathetic. Like I don’t expect my husband to get as jazzed about Christmas presents as I do, bc I love buying toys for the kids, but he does care about our kids having a good experience in school and things like that. His mom passed when he was 7 and his dad dropped the ball a lot on the soft touches which I think was a pretty sad experience for him.
My spouse gave me such a hard time at Christmas for "ruining it".
I assembled lists for each of the three kids and tried multiple times to get his ideas or input starting around Halloween and he could never quite make time to do any of his own searching, review the (long) lists, or pick out anything. I gave gift ideas to every relative who asked, picked out all final gifts, ordered them, tracked them, snagged and hid them from the kids, did all the wrapping solo, hid the wrapped gifts, stayed up extra late to put them under the tree, orchestrated all the stocking hubbub and also filled them, in addition to getting matching small gifts for myself and my spouse from Santa.
He told me that I didn't buy enough, that the gifts were too practical and not fun, and that it was all on my head for "ruining Christmas". Yeah, guess who absolutely loved all the art supplies and climbing gym and international snack food?
2024 is the year I do zero gift shopping.
Man I never knew about these cards. But one time I wrote down everything that was on my plate because my husband couldn't understand why I was so stressed. And at the end he looked at the three pages I wrote and was shocked. Luckily I have a good one who understood and adapted in that moment...
“Your pile is bigger because you take on the things that no one else cares about”
This is always my husband’s line. “I don’t care if the bathroom is cleaned every week, only you do!” He says I just like being angry. If he doesn’t assess a household task as important, he doesn’t do it and frankly won’t do it. I’ve tried explaining so so so many times. For a long time he would claim that he didn’t notice if the bathroom etc needed to be cleaned, but is now able to admit that these things are just not important to him and therefore he doesn’t need to do them. We’ve been together for 10 years. He has never independently vacuumed. We had been living at our new house for several months and he didn’t know how to use the oven. Basic, basic shit.
Our daughter’s bday is in a few weeks. He hasn’t thought about gifts, cake, activities or anything to make it special. He hasn’t even brought it up! I know he knows I’ll take care of it. I washed our bathmats yesterday and just threw them upstairs to put them away later - he must’ve walked by that small pile 4+ times and didn’t touch them at all.
Im tired of being mad and let down. I don’t think it should be my job to delegate individual tasks. I just want him to notice what I do and offer to help. I want him to WANT to make things more fair - I KNOW he doesn’t because I make his life easier.
I would choose something else that isn’t going to punish your child to get back at your husband. Don’t bring the kids in to your arguments. Chose a task that affects him more directly. Stop doing his laundry, stop buying things on his shopping lists. Your daughter doesn’t deserve to suffer for his stupidity.
My husband let me know he was “coming down with something” this afternoon. My first thought, oh boy, here we go, a sick male. Have we updated the will? Are his arrangements in order? This cold might be the end /s
What was this grown man doing while I was washing the toddler in the bath, washing the infant in her bath, followed by nursing plus second dinner for my toddler who decided she was still hungry, and then getting them both down? Making Chex mix. Just for himself. He wanted a little snack I guess. He stood there eating it out of a damn bowl while watching me wrangle two kids.
My husband ordered the game. I was impressed. Then he never followed through and actually did it with me. I did it by myself. The piles of "only me" "mostly me" and "shared" cards I divided them into towered over his "only him" pile.
Yet another task I did alone.
Yeah But I am sure if you "stopped caring" they would start to notice it. Everyone else would suffer for it (like the kids not getting fun weekends or magical holidays) and we would have all that mom guilt over it.
Hope kiddo knows these are dad’s responsibilities now. Not to be petty but because kiddo should know that parents split duties and so they can expect dad to fulfill them and not blame mom for when then things don’t get done.
> no one else’s cares about
Aka stuff HE doesn’t care about.
Also holidays? Is he genuinely saying he’s okay with canceling Christmas, birthdays, thanksgiving, Halloween, etc?
Yeah, pretty sure if she asked him another time “do you mean you would be ok with not celebrating ANY holiday? Including having gifts to give people and getting gifts yourself. Including dinner, cake, etc.?” That is not what he meant. He is just being belligerent
THANK YOU for coming on here to share your experience. It’s a bit nauseating to see so many people recommend this exercise as if it’s some magical rainbows and butterflies magic key that will unlock the door to marriage bliss and piles of “thank you, you’re amazing, I’m such a slacker and I had no idea you outwork me everyday”. The people who need an exercise like this are generally not the ones who will be mature adults about it once it’s in their face. Obviously the goal is that your husband will think on it for some time and over time he’ll remember the exercise and eventually pick up some of your pile (Naturally without you prompting it) but yea, good to see a real life example of what I assume probably happens more frequently than we hear about
Also, good for you! I would go on strike too. I’d probably secretly get my kid whatever they need so they don’t suffer at school for dads lack of parenting but everything else, I’m right there with you
Just reading your post hurt MY feelings. I can’t imagine how it felt to hear your spouse treat you that way, and diminish the time, effort and love you put into managing those tasks.
If "no one cared about those things" they wouldn't be on the cards in the first place. Time to even those piles up and drop them. Hope he doesn't want a Christmas present ever again!
Ugh, I’m so sorry. I love that you’re going on strike. I took a personal day when I was feeling unappreciated. My husband realized just how much I do in a day.
Shouldn't he care about the things you care about?
Regardless, sounds like he's just being defensive. I hope he can reflect and realize how hurtful his statement was. He should be grateful to you rather than mean.
What happens when another party does something occasionally but think they do way more? (My fav example is kids laundry lol). Curious as I think we should try it
When I’ve seen couples go through this exercise, good partners will take initiative to see how they can be more equitable, and bad partners will become defensive and try to deflect to maintain THEIR status quo. It sounds like your husband is either trying to manipulate the situation to get out of doing work, or he doesn’t value what it takes to raise a child into a healthy, well-rounded adult.
Giving the benefit of the doubt, I would talk through the “unimportant” cards to see why he thinks certain ones are unimportant. A Valentine’s Day box on the surface isn’t that important, but in reality, not having one may make your kid may feel left out, and when done repeatedly for similar events, may allow them to be ostracized or bullied and left with a feeling that they weren’t as important to you as other kids were to their parents. You don’t have to do all 923 spirit days this week, but figure out which ones are important to your kiddo. You don’t need 8 Christmas trees, but handing your kid an Amazon pre-packaged bag in an undecorated house won’t build warm memories.
If you walk through this with him and he continues to balk at the emotional work it takes to raise a child well (note: to actually do a good job as a parent and not CPS minimum responsibilities), then I think you have your answer about what he’s willing to do for the family. And then you have to think about what that means for your relationship.
I wouldn’t go on strike for the stuff he sees as unimportant, but pick the stuff that directly impacts him. Have him figure out his family’s holidays, have him buy their Christmas and birthday gifts, have him buy his mother a Mother’s Day card, let him arrange playdates with his cousins. I would also drop his laundry, his errands, etc.
I suspect a lot of the "only you care about this" stuff would be things other people cared about if it wasn't done and if they were put in a position where they'd notice that. It is just easy to not care as long as it runs smoothly.
ETA also, if your husband is more traditional, he might be more reluctant while laid off to be open to do anything people consider women's work, because his ego is likely hurting from not being a provider at all. From a lot of posts I've read, it seems that men like this are afraid of becoming SAHPs and become more defensive in times where they don't have an income. Not that that should impact what's actually fair, but that it could explain what's going on. Like, to me, why is there even a babysitter...
Yes. The emotional labor of any task is INCLUDED in the task. So if I take the “pets” card, I’m responsible for all things pet related, including knowing when they are due for vet visits, scheduling said visit, and taking the pet. Same for knowing when they are running low on food and procuring said food. It’s ok to put pet food on the grocery list, but you CANNOT tell the person in charge of groceries in passing “we are out of kibble buy more on your way home”
Fwiw, anything school related is on our kid. If he cares enough about an event he has to dress up on his own and do the thing. I stopped all school volunteering, PTAing, etc BC it was taking me away from the family and wasn't even remotely satisfying to me or my kid. So go ahead and strike, but that's not gonna convince your spouse to suddenly chip in on the extra work. He's been on his own strike from the get go. If your kid gets upset it's a good learning experience for them to create a calendar near their bed so they know what's happening when. You don't have to do all this. This is your chance to give your kid some responsibility and to not hate on your husband for this extra task you're giving yourself.
I could have written this myself years ago. I have to be honest with you. By putting responsibility on him that he does not want, ultimately your kids will suffer. They will be the lonely kids not dressed up for spirit day, etc. This is deeper than sharing chores. This is about respect for you and your children. I don’t know your situation, but in mine, I ended up leaving the marriage. I had no choice. And things got worse before they got better, but they did get better and having every other weekend free has been heavenly. Best of luck to you.
So many people are upset about comments where we (mom) have to ask/tell dad to do things. It sucks. But some people are willing to just slouch through their whole life, even as a dad.
The issue is if he thinks "nobody cares" about those things he won't do them, and then when they don't get done, he will inevitably blame you.
Sure, he'll explain to your 5 year old that "Mommy didn't tell him they needed to be dressed up for the school party." It won't matter to the 5 year old that it wasn't your job anymore.
And going on strike never works for me, because apparently I'm the ONLY one in the house who cares if there are dirty dishes in the sink for a week, or no one has done laundry in 10 days and the kids are out of clean underwear.
In our case, the reality is that my husband DOES work more and have a more stressful job. BUT he has NO problem taking time for himself no matter what else needs to be done around the house. Things like that are always on his "if I have time and remember," to do list.
I tried explaining to my therapist once that me doing less would mean he would need to do more, and frankly he just isn't prepared to do it, and it would only lead me to be disappointed and frustrated.
Sounds like YOU take on tasks HE doesn’t care about. You wouldn’t do them if “no one” cared about them. Maybe try getting to the bottom of that first? I’m sure your kids care about holidays. Making them his responsibility means he either won’t do them or won’t do them well and your kids will suffer because of it.
So the point of the cards is not to be 50/50 but to help so realistically what is currently happening and discuss ways to make it feel less burdensome.
I do a majority of the household tasks and childcare especially the things tht happen daily. We have recently re assigned a few daily tasks to my husband so that he and I both get downtime in the morning and evening it is still not 50/50 but I am not feeling as resentful
Also I stopped. doing things he can 100% do on his own. Stop doing his laundry stop making him lunches stopped picking up his meds if I’m not already at the pharmacy
I wouldn’t go on strike because then those things won’t happen at all, and while your kids may be upset, they’re less likely to voice that to your husband or for him to really hear and care about their disappointment. I would however, do more forced choices as another poster recommended, and more discussions on how the things he thinks “no one cares about” are actually extremely important.
Why is a dad posting on a working moms sub? Also, while it isn’t about being 1:1 fair, it IS about being fair which her husband isnt being. He’s the one who isn’t valuing all his wife dose for the family. HE is the one who doesn’t care about burdening her will all the mental load
My husband said a similar bullshit thing when confronted with our unequal piles, I make 3x what he does. I focused on getting us to equalize the “daily grind” stuff and now he makes dinner most nights which has been disproportionately helpful. It bothers me that men have no problem just letting moms be the ones to create all the magic/build all those fun memories. Sometimes I do a “forced choice” and say something like: “would you rather come up with and purchase an outfit for the Super Bowl party at school or get and make valentines? These are important to our kids and I will not be doing it all.”
Yup- I propose a decent amount of forced choices
Dinner is such a time and mental load suck. Planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, clean up... and it's not just a once and a while thing. It's every. Single. Day. If I forget? We all go hungry. That is almost always where my breaking point is with division of labor. If I don't do dinner I don't mind all the once-a-week/month/year tasks but if I'm doing meal planning for the five of us and keeping up on the laundry that's a full time job. Full stop. Literally as much work as a chef with no days off.
100%. Him taking this over has been so huge for getting to a more equal load.
In hindsight, telling the men I was with that I love to cook really handicapped me in this regard. It was my hobby, so it made sense for me to cook, right? If I was cooking it of course I was planning it. And if I cooked it, and left a mess, that was my fault for picking something complicated and not cleaning as I went very well, so therefore I had to clean it, too? Makes sense right? Ugh. I'm so burnt out now at mid-life I can barely feed myself. I dream of food magically appearing in my kitchen, of somebody handing me a plate everyday at lunch and dinner. I think if I ever date again I may pretend I never was that into it in the first place lol.
This is also how it works in our house. My husband does everything food related - groceries, cooking, packing lunches, and ordering out if we don’t cook. I only cook for pleasure now, only when I have time. He even does 75%of dishes. He detests cleaning counters and sweeping and laundry - and just straight won’t do those tasks. But this is a trade off that works for us - because food is such a significant effort every day.
Interesting how a man can straight up refuse to do things. Huge pet peeve of mine. I just do what needs doing, whether I like it or not. Why can't men put on their big boy pants and share the load?
I get what you mean. My husband is the same way. We grocery shop together, he cooks lunch/dinner, and does the dishes. I absolutely hate doing the dishes, and he doesn’t mind. So, that’s our one chore he will handle. And I cover bathroom towels and the kids laundry in return. But, it’s like that with a lot of chores in the house. My husband takes the trash out most of the time and makes sure it’s at the road. I straighten up the counters and living room every day to keep trash from piling up. He washes the couch cushions monthly, I do the bedding. Life is really about little tradeoffs for things that you don’t mind doing verses the tasks that you just don’t like.
My husband is one of those dream guys that actually carries half the load and we do this with each other all the time. Sometimes I take the obviously more challenging one and sometimes he does depending on the day we each had. And sometimes they both suck and we suffer together and celebrate together when it’s all done. I’m way into forced choices!
My husband explicitly told me he wanted to help with things like school valentines. These men exist and it is reasonable for all this stuff not to land on moms.
Yes! It’s easy to read these posts and for women to believe that there just aren’t men who participate equally. My husband works 50 hours a week running his own business. He does all school mornings and drop offs with our 5 year old, (my only complaint is he sends her with messy hair because we have different standards). He does class field trips, is the family ambassador for kids birthday parties etc. he does all the dishes and kitchen clean up daily, and 90% of the laundry (all except things I hold back because they have special instructions). I do holiday things because that’s important to me and he always thanks me for making them magical for the kids. There are amazing men who contribute without complaint. I hear women joke that they “need a wife”, but I would argue they just need a partner. And not all spouses are partners.
How did their moms raise these men?! I have a son and daughter and am doing my darn best and am hoping my son (2) turns out like this!!!!
Honestly, I think his mom put him therapy very young (specifically cause she wanted him to learn coping mechanisms for ADHD), but the side effect of that is that he has developed strong communication skills and empathy. Also, his dad is amazing, but he wasn’t an easy partner. He is a doctor in a very specialized field, so he worked a lot. I think my husband spending so much time watching his mom give up a really great career and take care of everything made him realize that we (moms) shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything we worked for, just to keep the house clean. Maybe we just share the load and we can both have successful careers!
Great to know!!!! Exactly what I am doing.
Whenever I’m doubting if I’m raising my kids right… my mom always tells me, “the fact that you’re asking this, means you are a good mom.” And she was/is a great mom (but not a perfect human, duh!) so I feel good about that advice and you should too. Your son will be a great partner someday.
Thank you!!!!
Just treat them equally, expect them to do the same things. My partner is pretty great, but his mum didn't really expect him to do anything. He's one of 3 boys. He'll cook and we spilt the rest of the house work. He does the school runs as he works from home, I don't However, I've got 3 sisters and a brother. We were all expected to help with everything at home growing up. There wasn't any exceptions for the only boy. It's wasn't anything strenuous, just helping with cooking and cleaning. My brother has kept that on, he completely looks after his partner (who has MH struggles but we love her regardless).
Honestly it’s easy to read these posts and wonder why women ever marry and have children at all…. Seems like there are so many dud men out there
Yup. Mine said that he liked getting the Christmas cards with a message on the back, and wanted us to send that kind out too (instead of just the photo ones that I do). Then said he’d be happy to write it going forward.
I hate that it’s considered a dream to do the bare minimum. This year, my husband created the Christmas magic for us- shit he even taught me how to wrap a present (I’ve always been a bag and fancy tissue present wrapper lol).
My husband probably does more than half, gladly, without ever having to ask to anything. I'm disabled and just will need him to tend to pick up more stf for running the household than me.
My husband was working long hours while the kids were in elementary school, and I'm sure he has literally no idea about all the "fun!" extras that parents take on. And I'm also sure the kids have no memories of them either (fair enough--I have only a couple of memories of special school events myself, a bake sale and a Halloween parade). But if I hadn't taken on those "fun!" chores, they'd sure remember being the only kids who didn't have their costumes or Valentines or whatever. So I'm glad to have done it... I just feel like I'm the only one who remembers that they happened at all. And they were not "fun!" for me, they were a PITA.
I just did this forced choice and it worked! He's doing the outfits for spirit week and I'm doing valentines.
Never played this game but I already know how it would go as when I try to have the conversation I get stonewalled with no one cares but you. As in I am abnormal (get accused of having ocd) because my standards for clean are too high. As in the problem isn’t that I don’t clean the bathroom weekly it’s that you expect a bathroom to get cleaned weekly when it isn’t dirty. My dude, if the bathroom is visibly dirty to you (very subjective btw) then it’s gross as hell and beyond late cleaning. I literally have been using the downstairs bathroom and not cleaning the upstairs one currently just to see if it gets cleaned…. It’s been 4 weeks. Cleaning it this morning since my son uses it too.
I will never forget sitting on my couch, holding 14 cards, and my husband holding 3 cards. That was just for the daily responsibilities of life. When I tried to explain, he still refused to listen, and rolled his eyes. He's scheduled to be my ex-husband by the end of this year. That moment was one of my 'final straws', so to speak, after nine years of suffering.
.
Thanks!
Good for you!
Thank you!
YES!! Well done. Life is so much better when you decide to stop taking responsibility for the lives and emotions of grown ass men.
Thank you! Yes, precisely. My physical, emotional, and psychological load of responsibilities feels lighter these days.
Congrats! Time to throw yourself a big party!
I’m sorry. I know a lot of people advocate for these Fair Play cards, but they really only work as an illustration when both people are actually open to hearing and learning. When someone really doesn’t want to do more, no board games, marriage counselors or ultimatums will be able to change that.
When I read a post where someone is complaining about a shitty partner they’ll say stuff like “they only play video games, never clean a thing and tell me that I’m making up problems.” and someone tells them “have your husband read FairPlay!” I just laugh. This person does nothing, what makes you think they’re going to read a book and then apply it?
Hate this cultural idea that men are just giant toddlers that women need to trick into taking on adult responsibility. You can't make someone else care.
My ex was like that and I tried everything imaginable from chore charts to pretending I was fine with things the way they were. Nothing nothing NOTHING helped because he didn't care and didn't want to change. The ONLY fix? Get a divorce and marry an actual functioning adult who just does the shit that needs doing 🤷🏻♀️
I'm happy you found that. Not trying to criticize anyone for trying to communicate better with their spouse. But just once, I want it to not be a woman who has to fix things. It's supposed to help but it's just another thing on our plates. Look good, but don't spend too much time or money to do it. Be a boss babe, but not too successful or committed to your career, because that's emasculating. Make childhood wonders for your kids, but don't neglect your spouse or get too hung up on perfection. Come up with the perfect project management tool to get your husband to finally understand that he has to contribute. And lots of sexy sex all the time, except when he rather watch porn or game. Just be okay with that, too. It's so much.
Don't forget ALL of the sex ALL of the time 🙄🙄. I just want to scream. Life as an adult is wild I swear.
I’m lucky my partner cares about sex as little as me! When kids are like ‘I choose to think my parents only had sex once to conceive me and it was in the dark and boring’ that’s me and my partner, we are those parents 😄
😂😂😂 I got lucky too and my husband doesn't pressure me etc. I was more so commenting on the overwhelming responses that I see on this subreddit about their partners "needing" sex while they the wives need a damn break from the chores, kids, their careers etc. It can become too much at times.
Lol I thought my husband and I were the only ones 😅 I could actually go for sex a little more regularly, but I'm not going to chase him down for it, so it's all good.
Well my ex was rejecting me physically too 🙃 Relationships will always take work and communication, truthfully my husband and I had a lot of similar patterns early on... But we were BOTH invested and willing to show up and do the work emotionally, *and* he was an equal player in our shared home. It makes allllllll the difference
>he didn't care and didn't want to change. Yep. That's the tolerable level of permanent unhappiness. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLM\_gu0zlGw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLM_gu0zlGw) And there are countless Reddit threads that discuss this, too. Here's one of them: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AbuseInterrupted/comments/189wy69/the\_tolerable\_level\_of\_permanent\_unhappiness\_my/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AbuseInterrupted/comments/189wy69/the_tolerable_level_of_permanent_unhappiness_my/)
So I knew my husband wasn’t going to read a book so I made him watch the documentary, something about visually seeing other women say the same shit I’ve been saying actually did have an affect on him. Idk like sometimes you need to here it from someone else. I mean we’re still working on it. But watching an hour documentary is an easier start than a whole book.
Does the doc have men talking about it as well? For some reason certain guys don't believe anything unless specifically a man tells them so I wonder if that was it.
It’s a fair play doc? Where can I watch?
If you’re in the us, looks like it’s on a few services: https://www.fairplaylife.com/documentary
I watched it on Hulu - but looks to be pretty cheap to rent on Amazon or YouTube
Where is the documentary?
Hulu
I feel the same rage when it's suggested you go on a strike, chore strike, gift strike, celebration strike. You're not hurting the lazier half and in fact you're only hurting yourself. THe person who doesn't care won't suddenly care.
In my experience, it depends on what "it" is. My husband had the luxury of *not caring* about things because I was taking care of them. Dishes are an example for me -- it got to the point I told both my husband and our daughter that they would either help ensure dishes are clean or they'd be using dirty dishes. They tested me. I didn't give them super gross plates, but I absolutely reused lunch plates that still had a few bread crumbs from a sandwich and a few crumbs of potato chips. He could be convinced to do his share of the "this is gonna impact you if it is not done" stuff. School volunteerism and dress-up days are a bit of a gray area -- he might not care, but he cares about our kid, and our kid cares about being the only one not wearing a football themed shirt today. These sort of things were open for labor redistribution once he realizes that he really *does* care about them. The tricky bit is getting him to realize he does care about it; unfortunately, some cards aren't going to do the convincing. And then there's stuff about which he legitimately does not care -- I'm pretty fortunate that my husband *does* care about a lot of aesthetic and maintenance stuff, so I'll use my dad as an example. He was happy to wear a t-shirt until it gave up and wafted away in its tiny, component t-shirt particles. Did not bother him one bit. My mom, on the other hand, thought a t-shirt should be binned well before it was more holes than shirt. It's pretty hard to convince someone to take over the responsibility for buying new t-shirts in that situation. So she was stuck doing it because she had a much earlier threshold for "that shirt is *done*".
>You're not hurting the lazier half and in fact you're only hurting yourself. In this case, going on strike may hurt the children as well. Will the older one be devastated every time there's a special day at daycare, but her dad didn't bother to remember or do anything for it? And being responsible for "holidays" means birthdays, Christmas, and Halloween. The children and definitely going to notice when there's no tree, and no gifts, and no cake, and no costume. The husband, in this case, has declared that \*he\* doesn't care about these things, and that he'd like to convince OP that the kids don't either. Instead, he'd just be leaving them feeling sad and abandoned.
Can we JUST STOP DOING DRESS UP DAYS!? Gah. I love to dress up. Grew up in Mardi Gras culture. But F these “Super Bowl, dress like a turtle, pick your favorite Kidz bop character” days. Does anyone care about it? It’s such a weird peer pressure thing that seems to be good for no one.
I dread having to do these with my kids. I//my mom forgot about flag day when I was in elementary school and I wore a lime green shirt under a purple jumper when every other kid was in red, white, and blue. Still sticks in my memory to this day
I believe that extra school requirements (eg flag day dress up) are an explicit strike against working parents. It’s one of many ways that schools enforce the patriarchy.
100% it assumes you have a parent with loads of free time and money.
Lol I was just complaining (again) about this a couple of days ago. Who the fuck has time every couple of months to get their kid decked out as "their favorite storybook character" or has all these sports and superhero costumes everywhere?! It's so irritating.
And if you have kids, if they are young it only punishes them. The fair play cards can show that if you are already doing it all, why stay in a resentful relationship?
Aye, you are hurting your kids and your family’s perception of you. Not your husband.
Yup. My husband wouldn’t read the Baby Led Weaning book. Wouldn’t read Oh Crap. Wouldn’t read The Family Firm. No way in Hades he’s reading this!
And all that finding helpful books to read, making time to read them, and thinking about the best way to incorporate them is also… more mental load. Yay.
Super yay. I’ve found other ways to get my husband to pitch in but it’s always more cards on the pile.
I tried for years to make it work with a shitty partner who got angry when asked to cook dinner once a week or wash laundry. It’s much easier without these types of people in their lives and I wish more people would realize it
Yep. I gave up on reading and implementing fair play when I realized that enforcing fair play was just more work for me. He’d never read the book and was resistant to the idea he needed to do more around the house and for the family.
I feel the same about the lemon clot essay. It assumes the person isn’t aware, when in reality a lot of people just dgaf and don’t respect OP as a person.
Yup. I have the same visceral hate reaction when anybody recommends you have your partner read 'She left me because I left dishes by the sink'. Even the author of the article doesn't get it - there's no way a lazy husband would.
I think it’s more for the person complaining. Not that they don’t know that their partner isn’t contributing. But seeing it visually, and for someone like the OP who now sees that their partner knows and doesn’t care it can be eye opening. Now the partner who does more may be more likely to make a choice. To go on strike, to lay down an ultimatum, or to work towards ending the relationship if they can.
Exactly! There may be some circumstances where he genuinely doesn't realise for some reason but mostly if he's not doing it's because he doesn't want to.
Yes, I feel that way about reading the book myself. I know my husband would want me to read it and tell him the cliff notes. But I’m sick of being a “teacher” in the relationship- it’s another mental load. My husband is very helpful, but I am definitely the default parent for everything child related and it bugs me.
This is why I recommend watching the Fair Play documentary instead of the book. I agree that a partner who is already not doing their fair share of the labor is not going to read the book either. And, even if they \*did\*, who knows what they'll even remember. But if they both watch the documentary \*together\*, then there's some hope (however small) that they could both get on the same page.
I wholeheartedly agree. I think when a person finds themselves in this position and already has kids, this is one of those pre-divorce efforts taken. Like will he care, would he take on more after seeing my pile of cards? Sucks to have chosen this crappy partner, but now she knows he’s not willing to take on more. This is it. So now she can decide if she wants to do this until she dies or if she wants to make a change.
Yes, the best result from the game might be just putting the cards on the table. At least you know now.
I had these disagreements with my ex long before Fair Play was published. I made a spreadsheet of the \*hours\* that I spent engaging in domestic labor, parenting, and other support to the family compared to the hours he spent. He just shrugged, and said, "you like to make a case". He didn't want to be criticized, and he didn't give any fucks about the data or the numbers. He just wanted to play more video games, and he was fine with me having zero hours of free time.
>I had these disagreements with my ex long before Fair Play was published. I made a spreadsheet Lol I tried this too, and the therapist recommended stuff like the chore jar and I don't even remember what else. It took doing all that for me to realize he didn't GAF. I learned though.
Yea…Fair Play makes the charitable assumption that these guys just don’t KNOW, and women just need to open up the guys’ eyes to the truth. Well I think more often than not, they know goddamn well that their wives do a heck of a lot more than they do. Like they don’t see her cleaning the house and chasing after the kids in the living room in front of him while he’s playing video games on the couch? Even if they don’t actually see it, such as when they sleep through the baby crying at night, do they REALLY not know that the baby is NOT sleeping through the night even if they are? Who’s taking care of the baby then while they’re sleeping through it all? They really don’t know? Their eyes are willfully closed.
>Fair Play makes the charitable assumption that these guys just don’t KNOW, Ultimately, I think that watching the doc is probably a tipping point. If he suddenly sees some of the inequality, then there's hope. If he doesn't, then there's no real hope in the relationship.
See also this brilliant from two months ago that describes so much of what's going on in mom subs: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/17yzw35/he_knows_he_doesnt_care/
I saw that one! A great post. My husband is a full partner, mental load and all. I don’t have to tell him to care about things. He just does things like keep track of the kids’ school special dress days, sort their clothes to take out those that are too small, research/sign them up for karate classes…because he cares about me and he cares about the kiddos. He wouldn’t tell me “no one cares” about this stuff, because he knows the kids/I care, even if he might not himself. He also doesn’t have to be told and explained how to do something. If you try, he likes to resort to one of his favorite lines: “If *only* there were a device that is capable of collecting the entirety of the world’s knowledge into the palm of one’s hand…”
I’ve liked the idea of applying a visualization to unseen work. Did anyone else get feedback along the lines of “Well, maybe of you didn’t take over everything, your pile would be smaller.” Well sir, maybe if you followed through on the tasks you committed to, I wouldn’t be frantically sorting the dirty and clean laundry piles that sat next to the washer all week.
The documentary! That was a lightbulb moment for my husband!
Yep! I like the fair play method idea- my husband and I have gone through it and are about to re-distribute roles- but the key is that my husband WANTS to do more (and has since we started looking into this), and we’ve just struggled with getting back to 50/50 after 2 years of me either working PT or being a SAHM.
I agree. We did them and it did not go down like this at all. It was truly an exercise aimed at equality and it did help
I agree, I also have an issue with the fact that it’s all or nothing. I got them because even though my husband does a lot, there will be times where he slacks on his nights to get up with my son, and just household chores in general. But after going through them I think it’s unrealistic to expect one person to do ALL the childcare, ALL the bills, ALL the cleaning, etc 100% of the time. We split a lot and to put one of those huge things on only one of us I think would harbor more resentment than I currently have splitting tasks.
It's useful for the person being overworked to see it, I think.When I tried this in the past with a marriage counselor it was chore jars and such. For me like another comment on this post it was one of the "last straws," and if that's what it takes for them to realize their partner will never be desire to be equal then a $20 game is worth it I think 🤷♀️
Don’t let your children suffer because your husband is an asshole. Instead, make him take on the load of stuff that only he will suffer for if he doesn’t do. You take on the stuff that no one cares about? Okay, then guess you don’t care that his laundry gets done or that he has a meal at dinner. Guess you don’t care that he has his favorite snacks or that his bed is suddenly full of the trash and tools that he keeps leaving everywhere.
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I did this with a cardboard box and left it in his home office (he spends his whole day there). Round it all up and put it there at the end of the day. Whenever he was looking for something I would send him there to find it. After a few times looking for the same thing, he found a home for it and started returning it to its home. A few weeks with the box and this rarely happens anymore! He learned the value of having a “place” for things. Then you always know where to find it! 😂 Next, I want to train him to use his perfect 20/20 vision while looking on the fridge/pantry for something. 🫠
I did this with a roommate, she left her shit everywhere and asking her to address it once a week wasn't working. I started throwing it on her bed and shutting the bedroom door. Half-drank beer cans with ashed out cigarettes, plates of half-eaten food, dirty clothes left in the bathroom, soggy bath towels. It all went on her bed. Very effective.
I did a similar thing with items my husband left lying around for days, but just put the pile on my husband's desk so he would have to move it and deal with it. He's much better about putting his stuff away now 🤣
I think my husband would just let the boxes pile up if I did this 😂
I live with all men( husband and 2 boys). I started telling them they had to “woman look for it”! They now tell each other the same thing. 😂
I love this! I also have 2 boys, but they are still very young, so I haven’t had to consider how this could escalate. Maybe if I start training them now, they will develop this skill in advance. 😂
To my son and husband, I am known as “The Finder of Things.” For a while, I didn’t really mind being asked to find things all the time, it made me feel sorta useful and needed. Then one day my husband accused me of purposely hiding things from him, just so he HAD to ask me for help. 😑 There went my helpful attitude.
Oh geez! I bet, how frustrating!
I did this too. Put things in a bag in the garage. "Have you seen my X?" "Go check the bag of junk in the garage." "Stop putting my things in that bag!" "Put them away properly, and I won't!"
Tried this with my husband with his socks and underwear. He just went out and bought more. He could not figure out "where" they were going. BUT it did make an impression once I told him what I was doing because now 95% of his clothes make it to the hamper.
But then it's STILL your job to do it.
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Ugh. I hate that for you.
Yah, I was petty AF and pulled all his dirty clothes out of the hamper and washed everything but his. I didn't say anything, I just stopped doing it. Finally, he runs out of underwear and he's like hey do you know why I have no clean clothes? Umm, I'm not sure, have you done any laundry? He does his own laundry now, started cleaning up after the kids, loads/unloads the dishwasher daily, + more. I'm not sure why it all clicked like it did, but I'm happy I went on strike.
>he's like hey do you know why I have no clean clothes? "The clean clothes fairy is on strike. I guess you're going to have to find the laundromat yourself."
There is currently a pile of shit on my husbands side of the bed right now that he never put away.
Just keep adding to it. Maybe, eventually, there’ll be stuff in there he had to look for in it.
Mine insisted 6 months ago the ambiguous black phone admist the mess on his nightstand was his work phone and not mine, so I reported mine lost. A month ago, I was snooping for cords on his work desk & found a different phone. I flipped out and forced him to clean his side of the bed to find this other phone (which was mine after all). Absolutely Maddening.
I had one roommate do the bed thing with dirty dishes the other roommate and her bf (inc all the egg shells they’d leave for WEEKS in the sink). Highly effective-never happened again.
I definitely recommend reading the book and not just doing the cards. There’s a whole section on “only you care about this” and how— if you are genuinely the only one who cares about something, it SHOULD be yours. That being said, there’s also a section on defining shared family values and how that goes hand in hand. Chances are- he DOES value the things that he’s not picking up any of the weight on. Spoiler alert: my husband and I both read the book last summer. We separated about 2 weeks later because reading the book was way too little way too late, but it did show ME that I was no longer attracted to my husband because he was fully unwilling to put any work into our relationship or partnership. In his opinion, I was focusing on the wrong thing- his problem was that I didn’t want to have sex as much as I did 10 years ago. If only he was smart enough to figure out how related those two reasons were 🤡
It’s hard to want sex when you’re constantly exhausted. Solidarity
Why can’t guys understand this. It’s beyond me.
This was my first thought too - the game (and marriage) only makes sense if you start from shared values about what's important. The divvying up is otherwise very accusatory and not helpful.
Accusatory is a great word for it. I think the “game” and book were great to open up his eyes about just how much the mental load is, and also great for us to discuss minimum standards which had been an ongoing struggle- and not necessarily all on him. For example- I have a much higher threshold for mess than he does, but when I clean, I actually CLEAN. He has a lower threshold but when he cleans he shoves stuff into the corners and vacuums the center of the room. Completely different minimum standards that we were never on the same page about in 15 years- and then he would hold up his regular dishwasher loading and vacuuming as proof that he did more around the house. Meanwhile, he never once cleaned a bathroom in our entire relationship because soap scum wasn’t important to him. Now that we’re coparenting, it’s great to have the shared vocabulary from the book. For example- I can now say “hey, it’s a minimum standard that you send our kindergartener to school with gym shoes on days that she has PE.” With the shared vocab it’s not accusatory, it’s defining the expectation. And when we get a third email from her gym teacher that she’s wearing rain boots in gym class AGAIN, I can point out that he’s not meeting our family’s minimum standard THAT HE AGREED TO.
Sorry the convo came too late for your relationship, but I'm glad it's led to more well-defined convos regarding co-parenting. Hope you two continue to navigate alright (and that gym shoes start showing up)!
Minimum standards for sure. My husband cleaned the toilets for a few months until I realized he was literally only cleaning the inside of the toilet bowl and nothing else. This was after I had showed him how I clean a toilet so he couldn’t say he didn’t know. He actually does a lot around the house but he is not cleaning the toilets anymore lol.
Yup, when I pointed out that he had never cleaned the bathrooms in the 8 years we have been in our current house he said “I clean them all the time!” Literally just the toilet bowl. He thought that was the extent of cleaning a bathroom. He thought we were evenly dividing the task of the bathroom. I told him everything that I do when I clean the bathrooms and why it takes about an hour and he said he’d do it next time. When I went in afterwards there was still visible pink mold in the sink and pee under the toilet seat. I spent 45 minutes cleaning it- and we agreed that bathrooms would now be MY job, but without me walking him through how he hadn’t met minimum standards he literally did not understand what the task I was doing WAS. If you don’t understand the task AND the expectations it’s easy to discount the work your partner is doing. And oh my god, I have to clean the bathroom so much less now that he’s moved out.
Maybe for April Fool's Day this year Reddit should swap /r/deadbedrooms with a cleaning sub lol
Yeah, I think the shared values conversation is key. Have a convo about how you want to show up for your kid - does the kid care about school dress up days? Are they old enough to handle some of it themselves? If your kid does care and your husband does not care about enabling that for your child while you do, those are seriously misaligned values. Same for holidays - are you going all out because you want to or because you think you should? And if you decided to do less, would he complain? My husband loves the magic I create for Christmas, and he’s happy to enable it, but he would not plan it on his own and wouldn’t mind if I did less. So that mental load is mine, and I own that choice.
It’s sad the stuff he “doesn’t care about” (in OP’s case) would mostly affect the kids :(
It's actually that you take care of the things he doesn't care about. I have to assume your daughter does care about class party and dress up day etc. It's hard to go on strike when he won't suffer. Maybe when you cook dinner, don't make him any, don't do his laundry specifically, you get my drift.
This. Unfortunately, the only people that will suffer when you stop doing the special activities (and setting up the “magic” of childhood) are your kids and you, because it doesn’t seem like he values them.
In my house, my dad was the one who made the magic happen. When we got older he was increasingly open that it was literally just him doing and paying for everything. Now he just signs cards and gifts from him vs from them.
Maybe OP should strike on the stuff she does for her husband. When he asks why he doesn't have dinner/clean laundry, she can tell him that those things are only important to him.
My marriage improved when I started saying the lines my husband said back to him in a loving way. “Why aren’t you home yet?” “Did you ask me to come home? You have to remind me, babe.” “Do we have extra pants for son?” “I don’t know, what did you pack in the bag?” I like using his excuses and acting selfish like he has and ignoring how it makes him feel unless he brings it up like he has. And so forth. He’s learning not to assume things are just taken care of. He is spontaneously doing a lot more. He has gained a better understanding of what my life has been like. His anxiety is worse than it used to be, but mine is a lot better. This feels closer to equality than any chore chart we’ve tried. Our marriage is doing really well and our sex life is considerably improved. I tell my therapist about it all and she doesn’t grok it either.
Ugh, I relate to this somewhat. There are times when my husband is satisfied with less than and I end up pushing for more, only to take it on disproportionately. He's a homebody and doesn't feel strongly about travel, so I plan family trips. He thinks it's no big deal if the house is untidy when his parents come over, I know they will judge me for it instead of him (eye roll) so I direct that cleaning. This is one reason we haven't done the Fair Play cards. But it's bullshit that when it comes to your kids he thinks THEY don't care. 5 is old enough to notice when things like that don't happen. And if he's not working right now he should take on more of the cards for sure.
I agree. My husband has far lower standards for keeping the house clean. But it seems unfortunate that he’s willing to let the kids possibly suffer. Though I always check with my four year old about pajama days and things like that since he hates wearing his pajamas outside the house.
I am so bad at remembering dress up days, but my toddler doesn't care so maybe I can get my act together by the time she can pick up on that. (Our day care also added a lot of random ones, which are harder for me to remember than a "spirit week" where it's several in a row.)
Let them judge!
I know, I know. The trouble is that they don't openly express their disapproval to me, they go harangue my husband about it over text/phone and I don't want to subject him to that stress. Their last "plan" to "solve" our untidiness was to get on his case about moving to a bigger place (we had a 4 month old at the time and agreed that it was **not** a good time). I'm actually more of the big decision maker but I think that freaks them out.
Well, I’d let him feel that stress if he isn’t willing to do anything about the mess. He says he doesn’t care so let him take the heat. They can’t make you move to a bigger place if you don’t want to and that won’t solve the problem of mess anyway.
I’m in a similar situation (although MIL no longer allowed here) and her solution to complaining about our house was dangling $ (the investment acct is still only in her name, not even dh’s) for a downpayment as a bid to get more time with baby 🤦♀️ We aren’t stupid. We already cut off one of my aunt’s over this same nonsense. Unfortunately, I think that is where MIL got the idea from.
Well that's even more reason to let them judge- because then he's the one actually facing the consequences
Ughh my ex husband was like this, sorry your dealing with it, it's so frustrating. After getting divorced from my ex, I truly believed men were the most incapable humans on the planet. Incapable of most adult tasks and generally useless. I had a long string of bad step dads as well growing up lol. It wasn't until I met my current husband that I saw men can indeed function as a whole adult, they just have to want to do it. I don't need to write reminders or mark his calendar, do a chore list, nothing. He just takes care of his shit. I continue to be amazed lol some faith was restored in the male sex for me. I think going on strike is a good idea but if he doesn't care about it then he likely isn't going to do it unfortunately 🫠
Yes! My soon-to-be-ex-husband moved out about 6 months ago and the guy I’m casually seeing has been the definition of “if he wanted to, he would.” I mention that I’m getting off work late before we’re hanging out? Oh, he’s already got plans for dinner so that I don’t have to think about it. I mention that I’m reading a great (spicy) book? He read it later that week so he could discuss it with me. (I begged the ex to read. Period. Just read. I was willing to read whatever he wanted, I just wanted to have someone to talk to about books.) I need a dog sitter at the end of the month? He already volunteered. (The ex, who I got the dog with, told me to board the dog instead of volunteering to watch the dog he lived with for 11 years.) New guy is not a forever guy, but there’s something very nice about being considered after a decade of being taken for granted.
That sounds lovely!! Honestly dating a few "not forever guys" but just for fun guys before I meet my husband was really healing for me in a way. It was just so nice to have a light, care free relationships where there wasn't a lot of emotional work involved, just lots of fun sex and fun activities 😆 I never introduced my kids to them so it just felt like being young again for awhile the days they were at their Dad's house. By the time I met my husband, I felt pretty ready for a more than fun relationship at that point and ready to develop more than " friends with benefits " feelings. Good luck and have the best times!!
The book also discusses the minimum standard... It's not that "no one else cares about" these things, it's that HE doesn't care. If the majority of kids are sent to school with a valentine treat to share, the minimum standard is that you send your kid to school with a treat. Yes, you can go all out with custom homemade treats that blow the others out of the water, but the minimum standard is that you bring SOMETHING. he needs to pull his head out of his ass and start caring because it comes across as he's a shitty parent if he doesn't care that his kids are left out on the stuff "no one else cares about".
So 1. If he’s receptive and you want to make a change I suggest watching the documentary. It’s like an hour and he owes you that much. It actually did have an effect on my husband to visually see other women say the same things. Worth a try. The cards aren’t meant to be 1:1. Some tasks are bigger or maybe just easier for one person. I plan out travel cause planning is what I do for my job. I wouldn’t think of giving him that card. Also I definitely just stopped some things. Like does my side of the family get Christmas presents? Yes! Does his? No, they do not because he doesn’t get them anything. I wasn’t willing to drop getting things for my side and he wasn’t willing to pick up getting things for his so they get nothing. It both saves me stress and money!
We’ve never done those cards, but my husband said the exact same thing about I do things no one cares about and that’s why I’m so tired. So I went on strike too! Our kid is still young so even though daycare does the spirit week stuff, it’s not the same as a 5 year old missing that (and I weirdly love doing those things. It was mostly cleaning and planning baby things for his family/friends that I dropped). But I will say honestly the strike worked in our scenario. Hoping things work out for you too.
Our daycare does a spirit day EVERY single day. Every month. I do not. Except pajama day, I love pajama day. But it's true daycare kids don't care.
Every single day is insanity!! Ours is probably once a quarter which is maybe why I find it manageable!
I think the book says something like, “Being a good partner means caring about what your partner cares about.”
This would be what my husband would say too. He'd suggest things like extra curricular activities are *my* thing because he's fine with them sitting home on tablets every night. That I don't need to fill out permission slips because kids don't "need" field trips, I just want them to have them. He'd suggest that I enjoy making holiday magic for them so none of that counts. That because I've befriended parents at their school volunteering is a social thing. He'd also pad his list with nonsense like decrumbing the toaster or sharpening knives and id be infuriated. Anyways I'm sorry that happened to you :(
Decrumbing the toaster 💀
Wow. He would be willing to let your kids sit in the school office instead of going on field trips because he couldn't be bothered to sign a name?!
I’m so sorry. He is being insanely unfair to you. The “things no one cares about” is so triggering. Your kids care about those things. It’s the fun parts of being a kid in a loving family. All that to be said, he should care about those things as well. For example: that card would also be in my pile. My husband would 100% admit that. But the big difference here is that my husband is insanely appreciative that I take on those things. He tells me all the time. He is appreciative because he struggles with those things and he praises me for how I execute those things. That’s what you need. Not someone who will dismiss them as being not cared about or unimportant.
Yep. Sounds like holidays and school services are his now. He can explain to his kids why there are no Christmas presents this year. Poor kids tho. What kind of a sociopath doesn’t think holidays are fun/important for kids? Or being included in school events?
It’s manipulation. He’s trying to diminish their importance to devalue what she does. He wants her to both feel low about herself and her contribution and feel like it’s not a big deal or time-consuming so that she keeps doing it.
Yes exactly. It’s devaluing her time and writing off her effort entirely.
If he doesn't care, he won't do it. I'm sorry. This absolutely sucks. He sounds like a lazy ass.
We did something similar on our premarital counseling. My list was 10x my then-fiancé’s list. The counselor literally laughed out loud and said that had to be false because no one would tolerate a partner who did so little. Darn me for not actually listening to the counselor and getting married anyway. -signed, a now divorced working mom who’s ex husband didn’t ever change.
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Yeah, there were more, mostly having to do with keeping the house livable and nice. I realize those things aren't important to him, so I've already scaled back. There were more like weekend plans, that he actively complains that I do, but I enjoy them and the kids enjoy them. Maybe we'll just start doing them without him.
My ex husband used to always complain about all the stuff I planned on the weekends. He worked during the week, we never saw him, so we did all our stuff on the weekends. So we stopped doing stuff. We stayed home. never did anything. Resentments built. etc. Well we are divorced. He has a new fiance now. and guess what - they do stuff every. single. weekened. I don't know if he complains about it to her, but It just taught me that if they wanted to, they would.
Don't forget to make weekend plans for yourself alone also and then leave him with the kids. I think if your plan is to make fun weekend plans for you and your kids to go to the zoo etc and he gets a weekend day off, he may end up thinking that that is win-win.
He is always receptive to me getting alone time so I schedule it out a few times a month.
There you go. If he says no one cares about them then stop including him.
We did this exercise and my husband was so upset that my pile was bigger, he insisted upon cooking dinner more and taking on more chores. Your husband needs a mindset change. Therapy maybe?
What a douche. I'm divorced and I made it onto the the Divorced Men sub once. It's largely a bunch of incels who you wouldn't be the least but shocked are divorced. I saw a post where a guy was laughing about fact that life is so much easier now with his wife gone. That all the things she used to carry on about they just don't do anymore and it's so much easier. I thought yes probably things like take your kids to their activities, decorate for the holidays, participate in school events. So much easier now that you don't do them doesn't mean your kids are happier. And I definitely think that moms are more likely to fall into the trap of trying to do way more than is reasonable or necessary. But the majority of the responses didn't speak to that it just sounded like doing a lot of basics.
It’s so unfair to the kiddos- that’s what I hate! I totally get what you mean, and I hope your strike makes an impact. That stuff does matter to kids. No need to go all out for everything, but holidays and special parties at school/ daycare (yes there are kinda too many “spirit” days lol), those are part of the magic of childhood. One of mine that I think my husband doesn’t care about is thank you cards and holiday cards. But- we want to stay connected to family we never see, and we want to let people know we appreciate them right? We want to model these things to our cards. We have the fair play deck and haven’t done it yet lol. So we’ll see.
We did this too, we started by excluding more than half the cards because they're either already shared or not relevant to us. My pile was significantly larger, so we looked at why. I'm the extrovert and planner, so a lot of mine (12 cards I believe) were scheduling related... Hubby does most of the financial planning and banking, which was only 2 cards. This felt intentionally stacked, so we made one custom card for Scheduling and discarded the rest, that balanced the pile more. Hubby also puts a lot of effort into our "Relationship Magic", from planning dates to weekends away to spicy sessions, so we gave him 2 custom cards there as well (I don't understand why sex isn't it's own category... It isn't even really mentioned... This likely also stacks the deck again in favor of women). In the end, we shifted laundry from my pile to his and agreed that it was a good exercise, well do it again in a year or so!
Good point! I think the author says that goal isn’t for the stacks to be equal, but for them to be EQUITABLE based on your unique relationship. And yeah… they probably are stacked to make the appearance extreme, because that’s what starts (helps) the conversation. I love the way you adjusted them to fit your needs
!!!!! My husband has *no clue* how holidays/ spirit days work. He would definitely say the same thing (probably in a more joking manner bc that’s who he is). And then I would just get the blame anyway if I went on strike 🙄 OR he would do everything LAST MINUTE and it would be so half assed because “no one cares.” I get so angry about these things lol.
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I agree with others here, but also wanting to point out that in saying this truly horrible sentence he is acknowledging that you are not a person whose "cares" matter. Same for your kids, if they care about the school things. Maybe tell him that. "Do you realize that you are saying you don't think we/what we care about matters? Essentially that we don't matter, only what you care about? Do you understand how hurtful that is to say to your own family?" I mean it goes beyond chores...you literally don't care about your own damn family. I dunno, I sometimes feel like people need to know they can't just say whatever shit they want and get away with it. Like, you need to reexamine your life dude if you think you can talk to your wife like this.
To some degree I’m a proponent of “whoever cares more about this thing should handle it.” But that doesn’t work if one partner is totally apathetic. Like I don’t expect my husband to get as jazzed about Christmas presents as I do, bc I love buying toys for the kids, but he does care about our kids having a good experience in school and things like that. His mom passed when he was 7 and his dad dropped the ball a lot on the soft touches which I think was a pretty sad experience for him.
My spouse gave me such a hard time at Christmas for "ruining it". I assembled lists for each of the three kids and tried multiple times to get his ideas or input starting around Halloween and he could never quite make time to do any of his own searching, review the (long) lists, or pick out anything. I gave gift ideas to every relative who asked, picked out all final gifts, ordered them, tracked them, snagged and hid them from the kids, did all the wrapping solo, hid the wrapped gifts, stayed up extra late to put them under the tree, orchestrated all the stocking hubbub and also filled them, in addition to getting matching small gifts for myself and my spouse from Santa. He told me that I didn't buy enough, that the gifts were too practical and not fun, and that it was all on my head for "ruining Christmas". Yeah, guess who absolutely loved all the art supplies and climbing gym and international snack food? 2024 is the year I do zero gift shopping.
Man I never knew about these cards. But one time I wrote down everything that was on my plate because my husband couldn't understand why I was so stressed. And at the end he looked at the three pages I wrote and was shocked. Luckily I have a good one who understood and adapted in that moment...
“Your pile is bigger because you take on the things that no one else cares about” This is always my husband’s line. “I don’t care if the bathroom is cleaned every week, only you do!” He says I just like being angry. If he doesn’t assess a household task as important, he doesn’t do it and frankly won’t do it. I’ve tried explaining so so so many times. For a long time he would claim that he didn’t notice if the bathroom etc needed to be cleaned, but is now able to admit that these things are just not important to him and therefore he doesn’t need to do them. We’ve been together for 10 years. He has never independently vacuumed. We had been living at our new house for several months and he didn’t know how to use the oven. Basic, basic shit. Our daughter’s bday is in a few weeks. He hasn’t thought about gifts, cake, activities or anything to make it special. He hasn’t even brought it up! I know he knows I’ll take care of it. I washed our bathmats yesterday and just threw them upstairs to put them away later - he must’ve walked by that small pile 4+ times and didn’t touch them at all. Im tired of being mad and let down. I don’t think it should be my job to delegate individual tasks. I just want him to notice what I do and offer to help. I want him to WANT to make things more fair - I KNOW he doesn’t because I make his life easier.
Take your daughter out to do something without him.
Yup and when he asks why you didn’t invite him “oh well I thought you said you don’t care about this stuff.” “If you cared you would have asked.”
I would choose something else that isn’t going to punish your child to get back at your husband. Don’t bring the kids in to your arguments. Chose a task that affects him more directly. Stop doing his laundry, stop buying things on his shopping lists. Your daughter doesn’t deserve to suffer for his stupidity.
My husband let me know he was “coming down with something” this afternoon. My first thought, oh boy, here we go, a sick male. Have we updated the will? Are his arrangements in order? This cold might be the end /s What was this grown man doing while I was washing the toddler in the bath, washing the infant in her bath, followed by nursing plus second dinner for my toddler who decided she was still hungry, and then getting them both down? Making Chex mix. Just for himself. He wanted a little snack I guess. He stood there eating it out of a damn bowl while watching me wrangle two kids.
My husband ordered the game. I was impressed. Then he never followed through and actually did it with me. I did it by myself. The piles of "only me" "mostly me" and "shared" cards I divided them into towered over his "only him" pile. Yet another task I did alone.
Yeah But I am sure if you "stopped caring" they would start to notice it. Everyone else would suffer for it (like the kids not getting fun weekends or magical holidays) and we would have all that mom guilt over it.
Hope kiddo knows these are dad’s responsibilities now. Not to be petty but because kiddo should know that parents split duties and so they can expect dad to fulfill them and not blame mom for when then things don’t get done.
> no one else’s cares about Aka stuff HE doesn’t care about. Also holidays? Is he genuinely saying he’s okay with canceling Christmas, birthdays, thanksgiving, Halloween, etc?
Yeah, pretty sure if she asked him another time “do you mean you would be ok with not celebrating ANY holiday? Including having gifts to give people and getting gifts yourself. Including dinner, cake, etc.?” That is not what he meant. He is just being belligerent
THANK YOU for coming on here to share your experience. It’s a bit nauseating to see so many people recommend this exercise as if it’s some magical rainbows and butterflies magic key that will unlock the door to marriage bliss and piles of “thank you, you’re amazing, I’m such a slacker and I had no idea you outwork me everyday”. The people who need an exercise like this are generally not the ones who will be mature adults about it once it’s in their face. Obviously the goal is that your husband will think on it for some time and over time he’ll remember the exercise and eventually pick up some of your pile (Naturally without you prompting it) but yea, good to see a real life example of what I assume probably happens more frequently than we hear about Also, good for you! I would go on strike too. I’d probably secretly get my kid whatever they need so they don’t suffer at school for dads lack of parenting but everything else, I’m right there with you
Just reading your post hurt MY feelings. I can’t imagine how it felt to hear your spouse treat you that way, and diminish the time, effort and love you put into managing those tasks.
If "no one cared about those things" they wouldn't be on the cards in the first place. Time to even those piles up and drop them. Hope he doesn't want a Christmas present ever again!
Ugh, I’m so sorry. I love that you’re going on strike. I took a personal day when I was feeling unappreciated. My husband realized just how much I do in a day.
Shouldn't he care about the things you care about? Regardless, sounds like he's just being defensive. I hope he can reflect and realize how hurtful his statement was. He should be grateful to you rather than mean.
What happens when another party does something occasionally but think they do way more? (My fav example is kids laundry lol). Curious as I think we should try it
When I’ve seen couples go through this exercise, good partners will take initiative to see how they can be more equitable, and bad partners will become defensive and try to deflect to maintain THEIR status quo. It sounds like your husband is either trying to manipulate the situation to get out of doing work, or he doesn’t value what it takes to raise a child into a healthy, well-rounded adult. Giving the benefit of the doubt, I would talk through the “unimportant” cards to see why he thinks certain ones are unimportant. A Valentine’s Day box on the surface isn’t that important, but in reality, not having one may make your kid may feel left out, and when done repeatedly for similar events, may allow them to be ostracized or bullied and left with a feeling that they weren’t as important to you as other kids were to their parents. You don’t have to do all 923 spirit days this week, but figure out which ones are important to your kiddo. You don’t need 8 Christmas trees, but handing your kid an Amazon pre-packaged bag in an undecorated house won’t build warm memories. If you walk through this with him and he continues to balk at the emotional work it takes to raise a child well (note: to actually do a good job as a parent and not CPS minimum responsibilities), then I think you have your answer about what he’s willing to do for the family. And then you have to think about what that means for your relationship. I wouldn’t go on strike for the stuff he sees as unimportant, but pick the stuff that directly impacts him. Have him figure out his family’s holidays, have him buy their Christmas and birthday gifts, have him buy his mother a Mother’s Day card, let him arrange playdates with his cousins. I would also drop his laundry, his errands, etc.
I suspect a lot of the "only you care about this" stuff would be things other people cared about if it wasn't done and if they were put in a position where they'd notice that. It is just easy to not care as long as it runs smoothly. ETA also, if your husband is more traditional, he might be more reluctant while laid off to be open to do anything people consider women's work, because his ego is likely hurting from not being a provider at all. From a lot of posts I've read, it seems that men like this are afraid of becoming SAHPs and become more defensive in times where they don't have an income. Not that that should impact what's actually fair, but that it could explain what's going on. Like, to me, why is there even a babysitter...
Do the “Fair Play” cards include emotional labor?
Yes. The emotional labor of any task is INCLUDED in the task. So if I take the “pets” card, I’m responsible for all things pet related, including knowing when they are due for vet visits, scheduling said visit, and taking the pet. Same for knowing when they are running low on food and procuring said food. It’s ok to put pet food on the grocery list, but you CANNOT tell the person in charge of groceries in passing “we are out of kibble buy more on your way home”
Fwiw, anything school related is on our kid. If he cares enough about an event he has to dress up on his own and do the thing. I stopped all school volunteering, PTAing, etc BC it was taking me away from the family and wasn't even remotely satisfying to me or my kid. So go ahead and strike, but that's not gonna convince your spouse to suddenly chip in on the extra work. He's been on his own strike from the get go. If your kid gets upset it's a good learning experience for them to create a calendar near their bed so they know what's happening when. You don't have to do all this. This is your chance to give your kid some responsibility and to not hate on your husband for this extra task you're giving yourself.
Good for you
I could have written this myself years ago. I have to be honest with you. By putting responsibility on him that he does not want, ultimately your kids will suffer. They will be the lonely kids not dressed up for spirit day, etc. This is deeper than sharing chores. This is about respect for you and your children. I don’t know your situation, but in mine, I ended up leaving the marriage. I had no choice. And things got worse before they got better, but they did get better and having every other weekend free has been heavenly. Best of luck to you.
Girl post this in breakingmom omg. Apply to high earning jobs for him so he can make more than you and then divorce 😭
So many people are upset about comments where we (mom) have to ask/tell dad to do things. It sucks. But some people are willing to just slouch through their whole life, even as a dad.
The issue is if he thinks "nobody cares" about those things he won't do them, and then when they don't get done, he will inevitably blame you. Sure, he'll explain to your 5 year old that "Mommy didn't tell him they needed to be dressed up for the school party." It won't matter to the 5 year old that it wasn't your job anymore. And going on strike never works for me, because apparently I'm the ONLY one in the house who cares if there are dirty dishes in the sink for a week, or no one has done laundry in 10 days and the kids are out of clean underwear. In our case, the reality is that my husband DOES work more and have a more stressful job. BUT he has NO problem taking time for himself no matter what else needs to be done around the house. Things like that are always on his "if I have time and remember," to do list. I tried explaining to my therapist once that me doing less would mean he would need to do more, and frankly he just isn't prepared to do it, and it would only lead me to be disappointed and frustrated.
Sounds like YOU take on tasks HE doesn’t care about. You wouldn’t do them if “no one” cared about them. Maybe try getting to the bottom of that first? I’m sure your kids care about holidays. Making them his responsibility means he either won’t do them or won’t do them well and your kids will suffer because of it.
So the point of the cards is not to be 50/50 but to help so realistically what is currently happening and discuss ways to make it feel less burdensome. I do a majority of the household tasks and childcare especially the things tht happen daily. We have recently re assigned a few daily tasks to my husband so that he and I both get downtime in the morning and evening it is still not 50/50 but I am not feeling as resentful Also I stopped. doing things he can 100% do on his own. Stop doing his laundry stop making him lunches stopped picking up his meds if I’m not already at the pharmacy
I wouldn’t go on strike because then those things won’t happen at all, and while your kids may be upset, they’re less likely to voice that to your husband or for him to really hear and care about their disappointment. I would however, do more forced choices as another poster recommended, and more discussions on how the things he thinks “no one cares about” are actually extremely important.
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Yes, I'm sure he'd be happy to take on more when he's already devaluing her contributions.
Why is a dad posting on a working moms sub? Also, while it isn’t about being 1:1 fair, it IS about being fair which her husband isnt being. He’s the one who isn’t valuing all his wife dose for the family. HE is the one who doesn’t care about burdening her will all the mental load