This article could have been replaced by three words: Google “emotional labor.” (Oh, wait, for the people who need it, they’re sure not going to do that! Haha.)

This is one solution to the “cleanliness” problem but not the problem of our partners lacking initiative to set standards and get shit done without a long-winded discussion. Also, I find the idea of “different” cleaning standards to be a false equivalency in a real adult home and I think most folks would agree. Don’t…

You are completely missing the point. Who is developing the schedule, updating it, verifying that it is done? Who is determining what goes on it, its frequency, the tools needed to do it? Who is determining who does what? What happens when the person responsible doesn’t do it? All of those management of chore…

Managers in the workplace get paid more, but the manager of the home gets nothing but grief.

If only one partner maintains the calendar it literally does nothing to solve this problem. It’s still one person carrying the mental load.

The day Mr. Misfit learns to anticipate needs is the day I keel over from a heart attack. I honestly don’t know how he manages at work when he is so inept in the home. I’ve taught him to make simple dishes countless times over the years, I’ve stepped back and advised while he did it himself, and yet, he’s still…

I’m glad that’s working for you. It does not work for me. As I said he has 2 jobs: Dishes and Take out the Trash. He used to have more jobs (laundry, mowing the lawn, clean the house), but slowly he stopped doing them and I had to take up the slack. The dishes thing has kind of become a line in the sand for me.

I believe you fell into the trap that I did ;)

Very true. My boyfriend and I used to have very different schedules, so he was never around when I did the deep cleaning and therefore didn’t realize how much effort and work it takes. Like, most of a Sunday, and never understood why I said he never cleaned. Well, he finally was around the other day while I was…

You sound like you would be an awful and gross housemate.

Yep. I cried too. It was a whole thing. I keep second guessing whether there is anything I could be doing better, to get my point across to him, to make him more aware of what’s wrong. I’m seeing therapist next month to help me out with that, maybe help my communication skills.

One important point: Remember that giving the kids chores is also a chore. I’d argue that it’s more of a chore than the chore itself, to be honest. When getting my kids to do chores, there’s several parts to it:

My SO tried to claim that he was shouldering fully half of all of the chores, so I said, “If that’s the case, let’s trade. If they are truly split equally, you shouldn’t care either way”. Easiest argument I ever won.

This is a huge issue in our household; thank you for expressing it so clearly. My refusal to nag means that over the past 11 years of marriage, I’ve picked up more and more of the chores. Now I’m busier with work and some renegotiation needs to take place, but I’m finding that the reality is that my backlog of tasks…

Thank you for writing this- it’s very very necessary and hugely stressful in a partnership (and makes the woman feel like your mother which no one wants)

As a mom of 4, 2 of whom are special needs... oh, boy, do I hear this! Keeping track of doctor/therapist/dentist/play group/food allergies/everything else nearly drove me to tears on occasion. I bless the person who added alarms and a calender to cell phones, because I never would have known what I was doing without…

The more kids the more mental load. Add Drs. appt, dentist, PA days, pizza days, dress up days, birthdays of friends, gift buying, holiday planning, and on and on and on. Who needs shoes, clothes, cookies for the school sale, don’t forget money under the pillow from the tooth fairy. These are the things I found the…

This is possibly one of the best Lifehaker articles of the year.

Yes, this puts into words one of the main problems I’ve got in my marriage: I’m the one who carries 100% of the mental load of everything. It’s fucking exhausting and makes me feel like the classic naggy sitcom wife when I again have to say “Hey, can you please do the dishes?” or “Can you please try to keep the…

I think a lot of people lose track of the fact that emotional labor and mental/management of labor are in many cases just as much work as the more visible physical labor/chores. Putting the onus on one partner to handle all of those things because the physical chores ‘seem’ equally divided not only builds resentment,…