Shared work load

TheCatWoman said:

Why does it seem that women do the majority of the work in relationships?

I can think of a few reasons:

1 - you are grom Gen-x or borderline Boomer if I recall correctly - this was a social norm when our age groups grew up as the female presence in the workforce was much smaller than it is now.

There imprinted gender roles tend to stay with us unless we conciously work to change them.

2 - the minds of men and women tend to have different ideas about what is acceptable with standards of cleanliness or orgnaisation, so the male will typically only load the dishwasher when he runs out of bowls, wash clothes when he has no socks left etc.

I believe any couple need to take the time to establish ground rules and review them regularly to make sure the workload of day-to-day life is fair. I don't mean equal as there are many cases where some chores are not typically favoured by women.

Men will typically get the heavy or messy jobs - digging the garden, mowing the lawn, taking out the havy. stinky rubbish bag etc. I'm sure most women would be quite capable of this but in every relationship I know of these sort of tasks are delegated to the male or stronger partner in the couple.

In this day and age there is typically not a lot of difference in the working overhead of each sex so this is unlikely to be a factor for working couples.

For couples with young children then the dynamic can be very different. It becomes much more complex with the stay-at-home partner having more time with the kid(s) so they are expected to time manage and do more of the household chores while the other partner is out making money. They have the stress of the commute, the workplace and often the pressure of keeping the job to keep the roof over their head too.

These different pressures leads to some resentment normally of the other partner not appreciating how hard each others role is.

I digress - but that is why I think there is a disparity. Men tend to be slobs and women houseproud is what it boils down to in most cases.

I agree about gender norms Iain, but what when the woman is doing all the caring, childcare and household stuff and is doing a full time job?

It's not been my experience that the men in these relationships do more of the heavy work or the bins, in my experience the women do these things too, all the gardening and decorating etc, whilst the men spend most of their time and money on "toys" like the latest TV or games console, or stuff to service their hobbies, whilst the woman pays for most of the household stuff and all the childrens expenses, like new shoes and school uniforms. What's worse is when you've been working two jobs and doing a college course and he's not working, that everything is still left undone, there's no food in the house, no shopping, cleaning, washing up or gardening has been done and the bins are overflowing. I'm not that houseproud, I just don't want a carpet that crunches underfoot, or a kitchen floor that you're feet stick too, a bathroom that you don't have to clean before  you can clean yourself. Is that really to much to ask?

Good for you Tigernew. One of my dog walking acquaintances has been having to be the "housewife" and carer after his wife had a knee operation and was imobile for a time, he said he'd rather work 12 hours in a coal mine, (his former job). He said he dosen't know how we remember it all and it's relentless and they're elderly and don't have children at home, he said he couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to do all that and look after children and do a full time job. I have known a few guys who have decided to take time out to stay at home with their children.

TheCatWoman said:

Is that really to much to ask?

I fully agree - any partnership should be that - tasks assigned on a fair basis on who has the capacity to do them.

My personal opinion is that if one party is being lazy then they need to be called out on it and pushed into doing what they agreed to do. If there was never an agreement then that is on both parties to sort out.

I think in general men are lazier than women and have different standards which leads to the situations you describe. If you have house "rules" that both signed up to then one side is breaking these and you need to have agreed a way of dealing with this.

What does tend to happen from what I have heard from others is that the women will pick up the slack, nag the partner for a while then move into sullen, resentful mode which contibutes to the breakdown of the relationship. Both sides are to blame then - the man for being lazy and the woman for not standing up to him.

It is a pattern I've seen too many times unfortunately but it has led me to try to be a better partner to avoid it.

My counselling work was with young people, but I saw the fallout of toxic parental relationships, but also how those spill over onto young adult children.

I agree a relationship needs constant updating, people change over time and sometimes you just grow apart, or in some cases revert to a family type. My experiences of this have been that I'm initially seen as fun, different and exciting bcause I don't really conform to social norms, probably due to autism, but also because I question things and I'm not that conventional in the things I enjoy and want to do or not. Later on this difference causes problems, I become less exciting and fun and my differences become obstacles.

At least with your therapist being familiar with how things work in the UK will make something easier, for instance, that a GP is a gatekeeper to other NHS services and you can't just make an appointment with someone higher up the chain, or that some medications they might be familiar with are unavailable here, or a GP won't prescribe the equivalent and may indeed be unable to prescribe them.

For myself I wouldn't use an online therapist, not just because of the technological barrier, but because it wouldn't feel right and nor would I ever be tempted to see someone remotely except for the odd circumstance where a face to face meeting would be difficult.

My counselling work was with young people, but I saw the fallout of toxic parental relationships, but also how those spill over onto young adult children.

I agree a relationship needs constant updating, people change over time and sometimes you just grow apart, or in some cases revert to a family type. My experiences of this have been that I'm initially seen as fun, different and exciting bcause I don't really conform to social norms, probably due to autism, but also because I question things and I'm not that conventional in the things I enjoy and want to do or not. Later on this difference causes problems, I become less exciting and fun and my differences become obstacles.

At least with your therapist being familiar with how things work in the UK will make something easier, for instance, that a GP is a gatekeeper to other NHS services and you can't just make an appointment with someone higher up the chain, or that some medications they might be familiar with are unavailable here, or a GP won't prescribe the equivalent and may indeed be unable to prescribe them.

For myself I wouldn't use an online therapist, not just because of the technological barrier, but because it wouldn't feel right and nor would I ever be tempted to see someone remotely except for the odd circumstance where a face to face meeting would be difficult.