Coach
Related Posts
Any advice for 25 yr old like me?
Conversation Starter
More Posts
Coach
Conversation Starter
Bowl Leader
Anyone working in appdynamics??
Conversation Starter
Conversation Starter
Bowl Leader
Additional Posts in Big Law
Coach
Enthusiast
Coach
Worst sweatshop, STB LA or Quinn LA?
Mentor
Coach
Visual Storyteller
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Subject Expert
I am a woman in biglaw, married to a man who works 40 hour weeks in a much less stressful job. Here is how we handle the household lift, my husband does the lion share of the house tasks. He cooks, he cleans, he does the laundry. I clean up after myself (I.e., I am not leaving a trail of dirty dishes around the house, my laundry is in the basket, I spill on the counter I wipe it up). Basically I’m not an animal.
When I’m not actually working 60-80 hour weeks I help out more, but I absolutely am not cooking dinner and cleaning it up when I’m working that much and he isn’t. That would be an insane way to organize our life together.
You said you’re worried about being a misogynist. Don’t be misogynistic and you have nothing to worry about. Don’t treat your wife like a servant, don’t talk down to her, and don’t behave like your contributions mean more than hers do. But none of that means you have to do 100 hours of labor while she does 20-30. Be reasonable.
This always strikes me as so bizarre. Couples discuss money and savings/checking/retirement but don’t discuss domestic responsibilities. It’s a partnership, you divvy up obligations and responsibilities. Some chores rotate, other chores remain the sole responsibility of one person. Deadlines are equally important. Somethings need to be done daily, weekly, monthly, etc. My wife has never taken out the trash cans, picked up my dog’s poop, or mowed the lawn- as those are my sole responsibilities which are completed at set intervals. You build some flex, if someone is going to be very late then the other may help or you outsource (e.g. takeout). It’s not that hard so long as you plan it out ahead of time. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
One last tidbit- it is way way WAY easier to be the breadwinner that goes to work for however long (30,40,60,80 hrs) a week and then comes home and does zero/minimal domestic work than to be a full time homemaker. Homemakers never get to clock out, and it’s a shit job with no pay. So maybe cut it off with the “I work so hard in the office killing myself” stuff.
Subject Expert
Well now that we’re all piling on I’m starting to feel slightly bad for SC1. His heart seems in the right place.
SC1 I think what elicited my original comment is that your ‘moms are the real heros and have it so much tougher’ perspective is just a little dated. The experience of those of us who have actually done both is that home making is not in fact tougher. And so your perspective comes across as a bit condescending. House work is hard work and deserving of respect. But when it starts to go from that to weird overglorification it comes across as fake and out of touch. Like you’re saying what you think you’re supposed to say, but it’s just not reflective of reality. Most of the BigLaw moms I know were extremely relieved to have the maternity leave as a break from BigLaw because the job is that mentally exhausting.
My approach would be to discuss how you're billing 50-60 hours a week (so working 70-80 hours presumably) and it would be unfair for her not to match that level of work. She should by all means do whatever she wants to with her spare time, but spare time should begin after the chores are done.
Things can be rediscussed later once she's working full time, but again if she's working 40 hours and you're working 80 hours you shouldn't be doing much at home. Not wanting to be a home maker is not a good excuse to not pull your weight, and doing chores is way better then working a 60-80 hour work week by any means. Them not by default doing all the chores when they have a bunch of spare time should be a red flag.
@A1 well if you're wife says she doesn't want to pull her weight and you're okay with that on whatever principle, that's for you to decide. In terms of fairness, a 60 hour work week vs. 15 hours of work then 5-10 hours of chores is still not a fair distribution of work.
If I'm working, she's working. If everything is done, fair enough. Eventually a reasonable person is gonna get sick of having a high stress job AND doing a large percentage of work at home while their partner lounges around.
Enthusiast
Ugh. Struggling with this from the opposite gender role. I work way more than my boyfriend, and he seems to think I should do the majority of the household chores as well. I understand that men sometimes just grow up with that expectation from watching their parents and society generally, but it’s really tough to be pulling all nighters and then still somehow the one responsible for laundry and putting dinner on the table.
No advice really, just commiseration that I understand the feeling of jealousy/resentment. And I think the only way out for either of us is some honest conversations about it
Servants cost money. If I want my spouse to be a stay at home I have to cover EVERYTHING- mortgage, utilities, tuition, all bills, on top of cars, gifts, vacations, spending money and control over financial day to days. And I’m still going to have to take out the trash, mow the lawn (or pay a gardener), and maintain the cars
I’m about to potentially do this when I move in with my gf. Is it unreasonably? No. But every relationship is different.
For now why not just do small things. Taking out the trash isn’t a big deal. Turn on the dishwasher if it’s dirty.
Then HAVE A CONVERSATION ABOUT IT. You gotta figure it out or it’ll never change.
Relationships are about equity not equality.
Coach
It’s tough, but unless you’ve set some specific rules/expectations it isn’t fair to assume the other person is going to be your household servant just because your job is hard.
Coach
Inherently nothing. They have to talk about what their needs and expectations are
Not at all unreasonable for you to expect her to work the same hours that you do to support the household, assuming she has equal access to the finances. In my view, she can work full time outside the home or work full time inside of it, to the extent there aren’t extenuating circumstances preventing her from doing so.
I think it’s all about how the 2 of you decide to divide up things, and different things work for different families. I don’t think it is unreasonable for her to expect you to still do basic things around the house even if you are working more. And if she is going to also be full time soon, it sounds like you will need to have a conversation about how that will work with household duties.
Coach
Agreed. If I was to put my thoughts into a formula, I guess the way I’ve always viewed it is that I work X hours to provide for the family and you work Y and we should work so that C and Y are as close as possible. But I think there is something to be said about sharing some certain household things that I’d have to do if I was single anyway
Subject Expert
She watches Netflix while you work and then wants you to do your ‘half’ of the household chores? Ooff. I have no advice for you because honestly she sounds lazy. I’m sorry buddy. With enough conversation maybe she’ll come around?
And for all the haters, Im a man who does 80% of the household chores because my wife brings in 80% of the household money. Everyone in the family is expected to work hard and in roughly equal parts.
Subject Expert
Still doesn’t sound fair to me. bMaybe she just doesn’t fully appreciate how exhausting it is to work BigLaw. It’s hard to understand if you haven’t done it… i left BigLaw which is why she out-earns me by so much now.
There’s a podcast called pillow talks and they do an episode on mental load, a lot of people haven’t heard about that topic and my husband and I found it really helpful. Basically, each task (household, work, personal, etc.) might carry a level of time or physical effort, but also carries a mental load. So a task may happen once a year but be very mentally heavy (ex. Filing the taxes). Breaking down together every couple of months what your mental loads look like helps you guys gain perspective on what each person is dealing with in a more objective way.
Coach
For eg I carry the mental load of meal planning and the shopping list and ordering the food because I am particular about having healthy food, so my husband shops for the food and will cook when I call with instructions. Even tho, he always does the grocery shopping, I genuinely feel that the mental load of keeping track of food and then writing the list is equivalent to the shopping.
Subject Expert
I don’t think this is unreasonable or misogynistic, but it depends on the rest of your relationship dynamics. Gender roles are reversed for me, but I work a lot more than my partner and make 5x or more than he does. We have talked about this quite a bit and come to several compromises that work well for us. In general, my philosophy is that we both should be contributing equally whether those contributions are financial or labor. For chores, he does more because he has more free time. For my contribution, I pay for a maid (and try to help where I can). For food, he cooks more and has control over the menu, so I pay for most of our food. I also pay for delivery once or twice a week to reduce the burden on him. Bigger picture, I try to be very appreciation of his contributions and acknowledge his role in the success of our family. I also try to share my financial success with him in real ways by buying him nice gifts when I get a bonus or taking him (and sometimes his family) on nice trips.
Coach
Thank you for all of the comments, it’s so helpful to hear from people trying to navigate the same situation. I think the main takeaway is that we need to sit down and have a frank discussion about this and how we want to move forward.
A lot of us are in the same position, unfortunately.
We are very progressive but have taken on 1950s gender roles, really just for that reason: who has more free time and availability to shoulder the home work load.
That said, you are inevitably going to still have to take out the trash or do minor things around the house from time to time as she asks, just to maintain the peace…
Yes same. It looks like the old way superficially, but there’s real effort to root division of labor in the idea that if your job is more consuming (note: unrelated to income level) you get a lesser share of home tasks. Plus balancing who likes what (I enjoy time in the kitchen including cleaning it, partner actually enjoys laundering) and making sure the balance maximizes shared quality time and personal time. We also discuss if my career path is something my partner supports— if ever not, that might merit a reevaluation.
work isn't really the same as chores. some people actually love their work, so working more shouldn't really be seen as equivalent to doing chores in all situations
Coach
I can 100% assure you I do not love my work
Enthusiast
I’m with you. I’m a woman and my SO doesn’t work. Things came to a head when he started slacking on the domestic chores he promised would be his responsibility. Same situation with lounging around all day watching Netflix. It made me skeptical of his claims that he would be a full-time stay-at-home dad in the future. I would be more sympathetic to the domestic partner if kids were involved. Without kids, I see no reason to share chores if I’m the breadwinner. If I am sharing chores, then I’m looking for someone with a similar profession/earning level. Then we can just hire help.
How were you asking her? For the small things I found it easier to just do it myself if my husband doesn’t do it after I asked once (such as taking out trash). The cooking part is more complicated — what kind of cooking did you ask her to do? Some people, like me, prefer more specific instructions other than “could you cook me something?” — that requires too much planning for my liking and I’m also a terrible cook.
Coach
There are some very easy healthy foods to make: eg grilled chicken, broccoli and sweet potato fries from a bag. Takes 5 min to slap together, 10-15 min to cook. Make this meal for her. Get good at it. Then you Call her on the way home- saying I’m so hungry. Please will you take the chicken from the Fridge etc, give instructions. She will see it is sooo easy. Next time u won’t have to give instructions. Just call her and say I’m on my way- please will you set up x. My husband literally could not cook a thing. And I would just call him and say please will you? Now he does it. I mean can your spouse say no, when you’re calling with instructions and expressing how tired and hungry you are?
As someone who was previously lazy and unemployed, and hated chores…and now works more than my husband/makes more money than him and STILL hates chores…I think the best approach to your wife would be to ask her to help out more temporarily until she gets a full time job, and then just hire a housekeeper/maid. I would frame it as something that you could afford now, but isn’t logical to do when she’s currently not working that much. But that if and when that changes, that you’d be happy to hire help.
Coach
Lol I didn’t either
Mentor
A couple things to add. How is her mental state. If she’s part time hoping to go full time soon is there an element of depression? Additionally, what’s her love language. Choreplay is real. And then how do y’all feel about gender roles? Just because someone has time to do everything in your eyes doesn’t mean they want to. And you want to make sure you’re not being disproportionately angered. Like did she ask you to take out the trash once but it was an especially busy week for you. Or is it 50%?
Coach
She definitely has some depression, but is on meds. She’s also a new lawyer and trying to break into the field (not big law though) so that adds an entirely different layer of stress
Some rookie mistakes I’ve made:
1- decide who will do a chore
2- DEFINE the scope of work of the chore
3- provide a deadline for it to be completed.
So many fights because we did chores differently than the other wanted them done or timelines. She hated that I didn’t put a new trash bag in the can, I hated that she’d stack dirty dishes (which would make the outside of a dish dirty particularly when dealing with grease!) Also lead to fights where A would be lounging and the B would ask them to do something, and once A sat back down B’d again ask A to do something.
For me it’s the deadline aspect of it. Some people do all chores before all leisure, some mix it up based on needing a break (or if there’s something that can’t be done until a certain time, and then bundling other tasks with that time locked one).
Wow this sparked some serious conversation. Dont have much to add, but communication regarding feelings and expectations is definitely crucial. I'm married with 3 kids. I work in big law and my wife is a teacher. It's mostly understood that she will take care of more household items. Not because of any gender roles (in fact before we got married I said I'd be fine being the home dad if she were the primary bread winner), just because the reality of our different work schedules. When work lightens up, I help out more. We're far from perfect, but open communication is definitely crucial for success.