Men!! Grrr!

Annoyingly I think that is just what a lot of blokes are like! I do the majority of the house work which rarely gets acknowledged, but work the same hours as him, yet on the odd occasion he does something (yesterday he mopped the floor, probably for the first time in this house and we've been here 4 years...) he expects great praise over his achievement and brings it up every time I ask him to do something for about a week after haha.

Unfortunately I agree.

My OH is terrible.

We work the same hours (I bring in half the wage he does) and we pay pretty much the same towards the bills although recently he has been paying maybe £200 a month more.

I do almost if not all the housework, cooking, cleaning etc. my OH doesn't see anything wrong with that & it's been a battle for years to get him to do more. It's all been in vain as he still does nothing & still creates a huge amount of mess.

Ive been cleaning for 4.5 hours today whilst OH has sat on his laptop and watched snooker on sky+.

Does it annoy me?! F*** yes. Is it worth the stress, upset and agro to get him to change?... No.

Ive come to the conclusion that it's just what some (not all) men are like & unfortunately my man is one of them.

I have suffered from clinical depression so I know how sometimes just getting up off the chair can seem like an incredibly difficult prospect. I found that the housework seemed unimportant and so difficult that I couldn't even get started on it. Because you say that on his good days things get done, I would be inclined to think that it is the depression that causes him to behave that way. It isn't always easy to make yourself do things when you're feeling that down.

Bear with him, if he's getting treatment then things will improve with time, but also don't hesitate to let him know when he's being unreasonable!

Mr C is lazy and will freely admit that he is lazy. He will do something (begrudgingly) if I ask him to, but wouldn't think to do it himself.

We have specific blue jobs and pink jobs (he will always put the rubbish out and I mostly cook!) but I find it easier if I do the rest my way!

I don't think you should just accept it as "it's just how men are," but I think there are better ways of tackling the situation than nagging/getting angry.

If he genuinely does have flu and not just a bad cold, then it's entirely understandable that he won't feel up to doing housework, but sitting watching TV/on the PS is less demanding. If he has depression then it can be really hard to find motivation to do anything, especially when he's already doing a demanding job which takes up a lot of energy. Nagging (as he sees it) will just make him dig his heels in and not want to do anything.

I have struggled with my H over this for a long time - he was seriously ill for the best part of a year when we first lived together, and I was working my first year in a very demanding job, so I did what I could and some things we let slide (e.g. dusting!) Then although he got physically better, he struggled with depression/anxiety/fatigue for a long time and I found it very hard to negotiate enough housework to keep the house ticking over. I refuse to do everything just because I'm a woman, but there is a certain amount of stuff that needs doing to keep the house safe and clean, even if it's not spotless or tidy. We work similar hours - if anything I work slightly longer and certainly more antisocial hours - and earn similar amounts so in theory it should all be equal.

What works for us is setting out a plan for the weekend, divide up the tasks and stick to it. If he wants to play League of Sodding Legends for 6 hours, that's fine, as long as his jobs are done eventually and without disturbing me going to bed at a sensible time for work. He will take on jobs he likes more, like cooking and sorting the dishwasher (we would probably have killed each other if we didn't have a dishwasher!), and I'll do some jobs I know he hates so much he won't do at all. It's still not perfectly equal, but he responds better to a more long-term plan than just being sporadically asked to do random jobs.

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It is the same for me. Mr Erin isn't the most motivated or proactive around the house... Like Helenia said l try to get agree a plan and who is going to do what then he knows what has to get done. Not sure why l always have to remind him to mop the floors but anyway! He just doesn't seem to realise everything that needs to be done e.g. washing towels, stripping beds, putting bins out etc.

He was annoying me on Saturday asking me when l was going to be doing my jobs, clearly put out l was not busy. I did what l was meant to do around the house on Friday plus baked a cake, washed his sicky clothes (he got a little worse for wear on Thursday), waited for the food order to be delivered (which l had ordered!) then put away, took the recycling to the recycling bank etc.

absolutely. It's not fair that one person has all the responsibility to keep the home ticking over and is expected to just roll their eyes and sigh "It's not fair, but I have to just accept it because it's the way it is."

I hate nagging, but then I find myself doing it sometimes. I find that bringing something up while it's not an issue on the table and you're not feeling highly emotional about it helps - just a simple, calm "darlin' can I talk you about something that's been upsetting me?" without going on the attack.

I can see it both sides really, 50 hours is a lot to work in a week and when he's home he probably just wants to chill out. That doesn't mean he should do absolutely nothing around the house though. It might help if you both sit down and discuss set jobs that he could have when he's home that you both agree to. If he's feeling ill it's not the best time to be discussing it though so I'd leave it until he's having a good day.

I disagree that 'it's just the way men are', that's a really sexist comment!

I completely agree that it shouldn't be a case of 'he's just like that' but I've found that I'm happier if I just get on and do it rather than battle to get him to help.

My OH came from a household where he and his father did nothing. His mum did everything including making his bed each day & fetching him a snack if he was peckish but too lazy to get off the sofa. I'm now lucky if my OH puts his socks in the laundry basket. I've tried every approach as far as I can see it. I've tried being reasonable but it just didn't work.

So now I live & let live and just try to get him to do the odd thing here & there if I can.

I work the same hours as my H and therefore we split the housework 50/50. This is fair and right surely? I would not put up wit anything less. Having said that, if I worked part time I would expect to do most of, if not all the housework. I still wouldn't pick up after him, or do his ironing though!

At the moment I work about 45-50hrs a week over 5 days plus my uni work and St John stuff and H works an average of 37.5hrs a week over 12 hr shifts. He gets a lot more days off than me, so I feel that he should do more. I get the feeling that he thinks I'm lazy as he does nag me. If I get a spare day off then I will do housework though.

I'm a SAHM, but even I refuse to let my H get away with doing nothing.

At weekends, he'd happily play on his fecking laptop, leaving all housework and childcare to me. He knows he has to help, or face my wrath. If he gets weekends off, I should too.

I don't mind doing the housework, I actually like it, but I'll be damned if I am picking up after a grown man.

H works longer hours than I do, mainly because he has an hour commute either way and tends not to finish until 7/8pm most nights thanks to rubbish sales guys under him, so I tend to do more housework than him. However, I'm pretty lucky in that on his day off he'll tend to blitz the house so it's clean and tidy, and then I'm the one who does the shopping, cooking and washing. His main job is doing the washing up as I do the cooking, but we tend to end up with heaps of dirty washing up slowly getting higher, but I will not give in and wash it - I know if I start doing it then it'll turn into a habit, and I feel I can't let that happen! I do end up doing more than him I think, but I don't mind since I'm at home more often - he works in car sales, so most weekends he's working and only gets the one day off in the week and he needs *some* down time!

I have to say oh is rather good he does 95% of the cooking. He does rubbish and recycling. He will also clean the bathroom as I hate it but were now moving into a big house so well see. I work between 25-39 hours a week and he works 42 plus and had a 40min communte each way. If I ask him to do something doesn't always do it straight away but will do it

Ahh sorry, I would be miffed if I were you.

I tend to do most of the cleaningy type jobs (badly) and H does all of the cooking, the garden, the car, DIY and boring paperwork jobs (wonderfully). He works roughly 40 hours a week and I work part-time (that is due to ill-health in my defence). Golly writing this down has made me realise I need to pull my weight around here a bit more!!! Meh...

ETA: I look after our two nutty dogs

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It sounds far fetched but a saving grace for us is that we have a spare room Which OH keeps all his belongings in. We sleep in the same bed but only I keep clothes etc in that room. Means if a OH leaves stuff lying about I literally just chuck it in 'his' room & close the door - out of site out of mind. I do chuck a mental every so often for him to tidy it & he currently has 3 black bin liners full for dump.

This is probably because I wouldn't care if shoes were temporarily at the bottom of the stairs or coats on the banister rather than in a cupboard. ?