Household chores divided?

Hello!
My MS1 and have an apartment together and I find I am often the one to fulfill the majority of the household responsibilities. When he has time, he will usually help out, but I'm kind of tr Betty home-maker at the moment, which is not a role I am satisfied to embrace. I don't mind doing it, but often feel it's a duty that is "below" him and his efforts to pursue a career in medicine. I realize a lot of you have spouses who are further along in this process and have even less time than we does now, so I'm wondering how you balance it all without feeling like you're his mother or house cleaner. I fear I will have to take on more responsibility as time goes on so I'm wondering how you all manage.. Thanks!

[Michele]

How do we all manage? We come here and vent!

For us, we did med school and vet school together and whoever had the time, did the chores. When I was an intern, he did everything and even came here to vent! Once residency hit, I did most of it, but he retained some of the responsibilities....though many of his chores didn't get done. Now in fellowship, I run the house and he pays the bills. Sometimes I get frustrated because I went to school to be a doctor too ya know? But it's his turn now, I get to stay home with the kids and when we settle into post training, we'll have a housekeeper and send out the laundry.

[Urowife]

I met my DH at the end of MS3, and we didn't start living together until residency. He lived with two of his classmates, and they had to take care of themselves. Granted - their apartment wasn't always the cleanest, but they fed themselves and did their own laundry.

When we started living together, he still helped out with some chores. But when he was on difficult rotations or had lots of call, I knew I would have to pick up some of the slack. I also had a busy job, so we lowered our expectations for a kept house. Then, when we had our baby, we got a cleaning lady to come once a month because I found it impossible to keep up and DH was chief and really busy.

I guess my point is that perhaps you and your SO can change your expectations about what needs to be done. I would feel upset if my DH was placing high expectations of a clean house, warm dinner on the table, etc. and then said, "ok, good luck with that, I have to go study."

Anyway, not sure that helped any --- it's hard for me to type out thoughtful posts on my iPod. Good luck and welcome! Post often!

Thanks a lot!
I wouldn't say either of us has high expectations.. Just the basic clean the dishes, do laundry, clean the toilet bowl every once in awhile, grocery shopping/errands etc. Basic everyday stuff and sometimes I just feel like a mom but I don't have any kids! I know a lot of his time would be better spent studying instea of folding laundry, but then I look at his other friends who are living on their own and still manage to do all of these things without the help of someone else, so obviously it's possible, but I just wonder am I spoiling to the point where he might take me for granted?

[Auspicious]

I try to make the goal not equal amounts of housework, but equal amounts of free time for the two of us. If I'm doing more of the housework then sometimes (usually) that's just the way it is because of the amount of work he has to do. If he has more free time/personal time than I do, though, that's unacceptable and he needs to get up and help with whatever. Not equal amounts of free time each day, but over the course of, say, a week.

[MrsK]

This is a day-to-day negotiation in our house. DrK knows that MrsK gets very grumpy when he doesn't pitch in. Let's just say his life is a lot easier if he helps out. We discuss chores throughout the day and whomever is available gets them done. Typical dinner conversation will include a discussion of how the dishes, baby's bath, bedtime, and getting ready for the following day will get done.

[Urowife]

In your situation, if my SO acknowledged and thanked me for folding his laundry, I wouldn't feel taken advantage of. If he didn't, I think it would be worth having a chat about it. I'd definitely try to talk about things now before they get built up inside and it turns into a huge thing. Especially because he'll have less time the further you get into training. It's not easy! That's why we medical spouses get so irked when people say we have it made being a dawkter's spouse. They have no idea how difficult it can be.

[L.Jane]

I try to make the goal not equal amounts of housework, but equal amounts of free time for the two of us.

This.

For example, I was out of town all weekend, but he was post call Saturday and had Sunday off. I had cleaned the bathroom the past three times at least so I asked him that at some point during the weekend the bathroom was cleaned. J is actually pretty good at trying to do his share. When I cook dinner for the two of us, I cook and clean what I can as I go along, but he cleans up after the meals. If its a weekend he has a golden or a day off, we try and do a clean up of the apt together. We live in an itty bitty apt so it gets messy easily. I usually am the one to do the laundry, but that is because I have the time. He offered to do it this weekend but I had already done it because I needed the clothes for my trip. It really depends on time and availability. BUT I don't let him off the hook. If I need something cleaned due to guests or what not, I give him a time line of when I need something done. (ie: please clean up your papers and books by friday morning.)

[Urowife]

Auspicious - that's a great way of looking at it! There's nothing worse than a spouse playing XBOX360 while you are slaving away scrubbing toilets

[Pollyanna]

Hmmm, household tasks divided.

Okay, in all fairness, dh does help as much as he can when he has time but honestly there just is not a lot of time and when dh is home we would rather have family or couple time. Lots of stuff goes undone around here.

I guess I learned to embrace it. I spent a lot of time being bitter about being subjugated to DH's outdated notions of gender roles, but it's just not a battle worth fighting in our relationship. I honestly don't mind housekeeping. I love the tangible results, and it's great exercise. DH actually started helping out a lot more when I stopped fussing about it. I do most of the big cleaning tasks on Saturdays and he has learned that I won't play with him until the house is in order. If he has the day off and wants to go out, he can speed the process by chipping in, but if he needs to take that time to study, that's fine. He's generally not cheeky enough to play games or sleep in while I clean.

Positive reinforcement helps too. DH expects a freaking gold medal for vacuuming his own living room. "Oh thank you so much. That is such a huge help. How did you get it so clean? You are so good at getting those corners."

[migirl]

I do all of the household chores. All of it. Laundry, vacuuming, mopping, bathrooms, grocery-shopping, taking trash/recycling out, bill-paying, cooking, ... Oh, and taking care of our 3 children. DH does most of the yardwork, but other than that ... It pretty much falls to me.

We've kind of always held more "traditional" roles in our marriage, which is fine with me. I don't mind running and keeping a clean home. Plus I'm the one who's physically home more, so it's just easier for me to complete various chores over the course of the day. I guess I look at it this way: his free time outside the hospital is so limited, I'd rather he play with the kids and hang out with me when he gets home than scrub toilets.

I was in law school while my husband was in med school but even then I still did more of the chores. Now I pretty much do everything. I work from home so I'm here more and he works god awful hours so it's not really feasible for him to help much. I have him pick up dog poop and do some yardwork, wash the cars etc. but when it comes to dishes and laundry and all the other mundane everyday household chores I'm stuck with them. I don't mind unless he becomes ungrateful. He has learned that a sincere, heartfelt "thank you" that the house is clean, dogs walked, laundry folded goes a looooong way. Particularly when I have spent the day working as well.

I grew up with a very liberated mother who worked outside the home and who still cooks all my dad's meals and irons his shirts so "traditional" gender roles in marriage never really bothered me. But they have been able to afford a house cleaner for decades. That may be the saving grace of their relationship! I think the most important thing is to talk about it. I tell my husband when I start to feel resentful that I do everything around the house and he tells me when he's feeling jealous that I am home all day with the dogs. It's not ideal to have one partner do everything but medicine changes things up a bit. I will have to say that residency is A LOT more difficult when it comes to this sort of thing so I would figure out some sort of routine while you're still in med school!

[poky]

I think that "roughly equal amounts of free time" is a great goal to have. My DH has been *wonderful* though this whole process so far (he's currently in his first year of rotations), but we also had 10 years of being together before this started, during which we worked exactly the same hours, and he didn't get away with slacking then; he knew going to med school wasn't a free pass to not doing any housework. He still owns cleaning the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher in our rental), and I think I've only had to take the garbage out to the curb once or twice in 3.5 years, when he happened to be on call overnight on garbage night. I put away the clean dishes, and do laundry and bills, and the rest pretty much gets split up according to who has time, etc. It did take several years and a couple tough conversations and a lot of resentment and passive-aggressive avoiding of chores before we got to this point; if we'd just gotten together and were working through all that NOW, when his schedule changes week to week, I'm not sure what I'd do.

I don't mind unless he becomes ungrateful.

This. As long as he doesn't complain about the things around here that don't get done, I don't mind being responsible for the household chores. DH takes care of the finances and anything outdoor. Lately he's been washing his scrubs, too. He's a great dad - very involved with the kids when he's home. He's just never home enough!