Split of responsibilities with your partner Post Reply

[chorister]

Oh Lord - as one of the husbands who posted, a bit tongue in cheek, let me give a more serious reply.  It's impossible to see inside anyone else's relationship, especially from a brief anonymous social media comment, but I have to say that I am amazed how transactional some relationships seem to be.  We have staggered on for nearly 50 years now (I'm in my mid 70s) with a bit of 'for poorer' for a few years to start with, and quite a bit of 'for richer' since, for which we feel very lucky and grateful.  But we've also had to cope with periods of 'for worse' and 'in sickness'.  Perhaps I'm kidding myself, but I think it has worked because each of us has always thought the other's wellbeing more important than our own.

[szerma]

What I find staggering is how in so many responses here are about how the man is still the main breadwinner, i.e. even if both partners work full-time, he is the one who earns more, and is therefore entitled to do less with housework and running the house, as his job is more important.

When my husband and I had our first child, I was the main breadwinner - I was earning more and we were only able to buy our house due to my savings and earnings. Since then, I have made career decisions which meant my career hasn't progressed, but his has. As a result, he now earns more than I do (not by a huge amount). I feel that I am not able to dedicate as much time to my career precisely because so much of the "running" of the house - and that includes managing each and every renovation of our house - falls on my shoulders, whether mentally or physically. 

Curious to hear other opinions on this topic?

[goalie]

I think that is the deal, explicit or implicit, in a lot of households - whoever earns more keeps going to earn more, and the other one becomes the primary carer, with all the career impact that involves. Men tend to be a little older and tend to choose higher-paying jobs so there's a definite vicious cycle aspect to it. 

It may make financial sense at face value to allow the higher-earner free rain to push ahead while the other hangs back and becomes the primary carer, but there are all sorts of other considerations and knock on effects that really should be discussed and negotiated (not least, the primary carer's longer term career prospects/fulfillment and earning power). 

I know a couple where one is a partner at a Big 4 firm, and the other reasonably senior in government, part-time. She (the latter) will always defend the value of her work against her partner's, even if it is lower paid. 

In my case, I was just as ambitious and high-achieving as my partner but he ended up in finance and I ended up not, so his earning were always going to beat mine. We did 50/50 for a good long while (maybe even higher than 50 for him, because he's naturally very organised and attentive to domestic detail though of course I took mat leaves and endured the physical toll). But eventually I've had to fully embrace the primary carer role as his earning power and achievement have outpaced mine, which have sort of stalled due to my industry (shrinking), seniority and personal situation. I could have persisted in plowing ahead with my career but it would have caused so much stress and tension on the home front it wouldn't have been tenable. 

Interesting article of relevance in the FT (to which I subscribe so someone should be able to read this link), by a male author no less: "What's driving the rich world's falling fertility"

With a few happy exceptions, maternity is a terrible deal, economically speaking, for working women. Although there is a regrettable paucity of high-quality studies on this, I suspect the pattern we see in the UK data would be even starker if we separated the reproductive choices of women who are the family’s second earner from those who are the first. The rise of so-called “greedy jobs” — where your progress is closely linked to how much of your personal life you are willing to put on hold — is a further disincentive to have children. 

https://on.ft.com/3spO8Lx

[Octoberdad]

I am a dad and both the main breadwinner and the main caregiver. Yet, I don't resent my wife for it.

I am an entrepreneur, which means that I have the curse of being flexible with my time while earning a high income. My wife is a senior public servant, which means she works long hours for (very) low pay. We have 3 children, aged 9-13. We employ someone to clean the house and do the laundry / ironing.

On weekdays, I work full time but still do 95% of the "housework": Sending the kids off to school, emptying dishwasher, clearing breakfast, shopping for dinner, cooking dinner, clearing up afterwards, checking homework, dealing with medical appointments and emergencies, playdates, school clubs, plus ALL the admin, the car and DIY. The works!

But on weekends my wife does everything she can. She takes over a lot of the above tasks and probably takes care of 60% of the load.

There is no resentment about this in our couple. Of course I sometimes wish there was more praise and gratitude, but at the end of the day we both do our best, and we are equally on our knees at bedtime!

I think there are two factors that made this possible for us:

1. We have swapped roles a few times in our lives. There were short period of times when I worked extremely hard while my wife did not, so she took care of most of the housework. Those swaps were sometimes hard, because we had to change a lot of habits and let go/take over the "mental load". But now, because we have been in each other's shoes we have complete empathy for what the other is going through. I don't resent the current situation because I know how hard her job is. I feel so lucky not to be in her position! I don't think I would feel that way if I had not experienced it myself.

2. We are strong believer in gender equality. I consider my wife my equal 100%. I don't feel entitled to a certain position in the family or in society because I am a male. My wife would not have married me if I thought that way. I think this belief system affects how we behave, think about our responsibilities, and talk to each others on a daily basis. We still have progress to make on that front, as we are still the byproducts of our previous generations, but hopefully we set a good example for our kids.

I hope this perspective helps.

[Rsatterthwaite]

My experience from household duties is no one ever believes the spilt is fair because there is so much to do. So both feel hard done by

[NVHusband]

I think there two things here:

Firstly, women’s careers are held back by taking the lead on primary carer role. There is substantial evidence on this as well as my own experience of work colleagues. There will be more equality between sexes at the work place if men did more at home on a daily basis. I find men are supportive of their wives careers as long as it doesn’t impact their own.

Secondly, the OP mentioned the man was a stepdad to her children. She didn’t say if it was a blended family (he has children as well from a previous relationship) or if they now also have children that are biologically his.

If he has no children of his own, I struggle to understand why he should take on the “mental” load of the day to day admin of her children. Whilst he should carry his own weight (cooking, washing, DIY, holidays, passports, cleaning etc), I think the primary carer responsibility of her children is the role of the biological mother…. So she organises the play dates, birthday presents, school activities, uniforms, clothes, homework etc… the non biological dad can be supportive (like drop off/ pick up or help out with homework if mum out) but I don’t see why he takes on this primary responsibility of her children.

If the family is blended, then I think it reverts to more of a 50/50 when it comes to the blended household.

My views might be an outlier (which I doubt but I was brave enough to post) and I assume he has no children himself….. But my main issue with this post is why weren’t these roles & responsibilities agreed before getting married/ moving in together? Why has it come as a surprise?

FYI- I am the primary carer to our kids and so do all the associated roles with that as well as holidays. Wife does the house “admin” like shopping and cooking. We both work full time in demanding roles. It’s a struggle but we do outsource as much as possible and take advantage of WFH when we can.