Going Back to Work: How to Get Husband to Help Out Around the House

I just ask my hubby to help with X and if I need something extra, I just ask if he'd mind helping. He's always willing to help out but hates if I think he can read my mind. "Just ASK" is what he says, lol.

Just sit down with him and work out together what chores you'd both like to do, and then divide evenly the "crappy" chores.

Don't focus on percentages. Getting wrapped up in having everything be equitable never helps things.

First off - don't set yourself up to do 60% of the chores just because you're only bringing in 40% of the money. You guys should split things equally if you're working an equal number of hours. Or, split it based on what chores you like/dislike. The best way to get him to help is to write out every single thing you do: laundry, mowing lawn, picking up toys, making lunches... everything! Then assign each task to one person. That way you both know what you're in charge of and there won't be any confusion. I think some husbands don't help out because they're unsure exactly what they're expected to do.

For what it's worth, my husband and I both work full time and we split all the chores. He gets the kids ready for school/camp in the morning, does breakfast, and packs lunches. I pick them up from school camp and cook dinner, get them ready for bed, and clean up the afternoon's toys. I do the laundry, he folds. He does almost all of the outside work, but I do the weeding. We have a cleaning lady who does the major cleaning; I highly recommend this if you can afford it. With two working parents it's hard to keep up with the mopping, vacuuming and bathrooms.

Is your husband planning to reduce his work hours? If not, I don't see how he will be able to help much, as there are only so many waking hours in a week.

I am biased based on my experience, but I would start with low expectations. You have been doing everything for 8 years, it's not going to change all of a sudden one day.

I would start right now, don't wait for your job to start because there will be enough stress happening then. Ask him which ONE chore he would like to take on and see how that goes. IF that works, then turn one thing over at a time. Don't expect things to be done the way you have been doing them, or up to the level you've done them. Don't get hung up on percentages of work or number of chores, that's just too rigid. Go with what each of you are willing and able to do.

Most working couples have to let their standards slip some, and accept that the house isn't going to be clean always. "My boss doesn't care if your underwear is folded."

Then, hire a cleaning person to come in once a week or even every other week. It is a joy to come home to a clean house!

Since having children - other than my maternity leave - we have both worked. From time to time my husband will pick up the kitchen or pick up after the kids but typically he doesn't do much unless I ask him. So, my weekends are spent doing laundry, vacuuming, etc. etc. etc. I'm a little resentful as we both work the same amount of hours............
So, if you can afford to - get a cleaning lady - or get a list prepared of all of the things that need to be done weekly, daily, etc. and both of you hold each other accountible for what needs to be done.

First, you and he both need to change the mindset that he is 'helping' you around the house. There is a home and it requires a certain time commitment to make it run. You are a family and it is the family's responsibility to run the home. It is NOT your responsibility that he 'helps' with. Any more than it is baby sitting when he cares for his own child. It is being a father.

DH and I share our housework equally. That does NOT mean we each do 1/2 of everything. There are things I hate and he doesn't and vice versa. We both cook, grocery shop and do dishes. I HATE emptying the dishwasher and I don't do it. He doesn't like laundry and I don't mind it. He takes care of the pool. I take care of the vegetable garden. We have a cleaning lady every other week. It makes a BIG difference. If you can swing it, definitely do it.

I like what bethyskids said. I can't read my wife's mind either. All she has to do is ask. With her working and me retired and at home, I do most of everything. But NOT washing clothes. She does that because it makes her feel like she is the "woman of the house".

We more or less do the things around the house that we do best. She washes the clothes. She does the sewing and mending (I'm color blind and invaribly grab the wrong color thread to use to sew/mend clothes.) I do all the shopping and bargain hunting for groceries. I do the gardening and planting and selecting of plants. We both do the weeding. She and I do the vacuuming. She does the cleaning in the kitchen (I can never get it clean enough for her). I try and always take out the trash and when it is that time of the week, I take up the trash to the street so the trash men can empty our trash cans.

Good luck to you and yours.

My hubby and I divided chores by who did what the best or didn't mind doing it. Our list didn't divide jobs 50/50. Instead we each took 100% responsibility for a job. I cooked, he cleaned up the kitchen and did the dishes. He did all the yard work and I did all the laundry. I did all the grocery shopping and shopping for things the kids needed, and he did the home repairs. I did most of the cleaning in the house but he would pitch in and help out if he noticed something that needed to be done. It worked for us.

Just give him the man jobs! :p What I mean is mow the lawn and the like. Jobs you can give up without constantly going on about how he doesn't do them right. No man will ever do a job right because we always feel right is how we do it.

Believe it or not I couldn't stand how Troy mows the lawn. He doesn't rotate directions!! I know, the horror! I told him it drives me nuts, now he rotates. I swear he drags me out there to tell him which direction he did last just to show me how stupid I am being but I can't prove it.

I hired a cleaning lady!! She comes once a week. I told my husband I was not going to be working long hours during the week and clean on the weekends. Not going to happen. He travels and I was at home. I did everything except the yard work.

I will be honest, it was h*** o* him. He was used to me doing all the errands, dinner being on the table, the kids. He had a hard time adjusting to the new dynamic of our household. He still wanted me to do all those things and my job, which I wasn't going to do. He is so much better now and generally cooks dinner for me!!!!

My husband is a work at home dad and he started with "this will be great, I'll be able to keep the house clean"...never once did I think that would happen.

I will say though that he is great around the house, I unload the dishwasher in the mornings before I leave for work and he loads it at lunch time or just before I get home from work.

I wouldn't say either one of us does more "chores" than the other. We each have things that we prefer to have done certain ways (and the other one doesn't have a preference)...so we tend to just divide and conquer the rest.

There are many nights that the house looks as if a tornado has come through...those are nights where we are at soccer or girl scouts or we just say hey "family fun night"...

We don't stress unless the dishes or laundry are not done! Then we stress otherwise everyone in the house knows if we clean on Saturday morning and get it done before noon we can relax!

I would say divide conquer and do what you can.

I'd budget in a cleaning lady every other week and a landscaper. The reality is that if your hubby works 60-90 hours per week, he doesn't have time to do a lot of chores and still have time to spend with you and the kids. And it doesn't make sense to say "I'm 40% of the income, so I'm 60% of the chores." Your husband is still working as many hours as ever. YOU will be working at least 40 hours (I presume), which is also a lot of time away from home and the kids.

You are going to have to accept that things are not going to be perfect, some things are going to let go, some things delegated to the kids, and some things outsourced. Dishes, dusting and trash could easily become the 8 yr old's chores for example. Let someone else do the yard and major cleaning. Laundry can be split according to who is home and has time.

I think its really cool that you are going back to work! :)
The fact that your husband says that he is willing to help around the house should do the trick already. However, I think you cannot make a complete 60-40 kind of plan right off. Start by thinking ahead of how your timings and schedules are likely to be, and therefore both of you make arrangements on how he can relax his schedule slightly.
Make a list of chores around the house, and let him pick initially, those he'd like to do. Start slow, start small. Then once you get into a habit, I think you both would automatically begin to adjust and accommodate mutually.
Good luck to you, and hope everything works out great! :)

What works for us is we do what we *like* to do. My husband doesn't mind doing the laundry, so he does all of it for us, washing and drying, we put our own away. (The kids are starting to learn how to do their own). He also does all of the floors and takes care of everything for the dog. I do all the shopping and cooking and basically all things kitchen. Everything else, we divide up between all of us to do as we can. So if I were you, I would just tell hubs that you think its great he's willing to help out and what is he willing to do? I think it would be easier to do what we do and each of you do the same things all the time so there isn't any confusion. I hope you find something that works for you. Good luck!

I would try to get the split of the chores started sooner than later.

I agree with others that say split it by things each of you like to do and a 50/50 split of things you each don't like to do but must be done.

It is easier to do more work when you are the one home most of the time. Right now my hubby is home. He cooks and does the laundry. I still clean. We hired a lawn guy for the outdoor stuff (neither of us like that stuff).

Find out how much the cost would be to have someone come in and either clean for a few hours or cut the grass every other week. It may be affordable for you. You won't know until you inquire.

I would say that your salary would pay for someone to mow the yard and do some other outside stuff like taking out the trash. I make my hubby do it or it does not get done. Either he mows it himself or he pays someone to do it. It is his chore so I do not have to think about it. If the grass grows so high we get a red tag on the trash can then he better get moving because they'll send someone out to do it for him for a couple of hundred dollars instead of the $20 or $30 someone else would charge.

I'm just not a servant in my home. They either do it (their assigned chores) themselves or it does not get done, natural consequences. They learn to do them eventually.

I think it's very important to sit down with a list and discuss all the chores that need to be done, how often, etc. so there are no surprises down the road. He may be willing to "help" at first but he needs to know exactly what he's getting into and just how many times a day or week these things need to be attended to.
I know if my husband and I did this it would probably look something like this:
me: laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, plant/pet care
him: lawn, floors, dishes
Our kids are older so we don't really have kid related chores other than driving them around.
Let him decide what he wants to do, since this is new for him you want to start out on a positive note :) If he decides he hates a particular chore (or he just does a crappy job) you can always take over and give him something else to do.
I would also consider getting a housekeeper to come in twice a month to do the deep cleaning (toilets, showers, dusting, stovetop, etc.) It is SO worth the money and if you are working full time you deserve it!
Good luck!!!

Will your husband still be working 60-90 hours a week? My husband frequently works weeks like that and he's completely wiped out. Don't expect the nice clean, even 60/40 split based on pay levels though. If you get home at 5:30 and he gets home at 8:30 you're still going to be doing most of the chores.
For me the toughest thing I had to learn was to relax my standards. It's not worth staying up until 1:00 AM to make sure the house was neat. I had to learn that having clean folded laundry in baskets or on the dining room table was not the end of the world. I had to learn to go to bed when I was exhausted, even if there were still dishes in the sink. They will eventually get in the dishwasher, and the laundry will get put away - or worn sooner or later. Your family dynamics & relationships are so much more important than having the dust bunnies under the couch vacuumed. Hopefully you will be able to live with that - some people cannot and they run themselves ragged or become very stressed out.
But as it relates to splitting the chores - make a list, each pick out the ones you don't mind doing. Then you have to figure out how to deal with the ones neither of you wants to do - like scrubbing the bathroom or mopping the kitchen floor. Depending on your kids' ages they can begin to help. Sort socks, fold towels, vacuum the kitchen and hallways, strip the beds, etc. My 16 year old can do most of the household chores now and I'm working on the 13 yr old. They've been phased in to various chores based on their age and the difficulty of the chore (most kids can load or empty the dishwasher - although I often will shift things around in the dishwasher after they load it to fit more stuff in).
Finally consider using a cleaning lady or neighborhood kid for certain chores. Before holidays I will use a cleaning lady so it can all get done at once, if there are any teenage boys in the nieghborhood they may be interested in mowing your yard for $20. I now pay my kids for chores. I set a top dollar amount based on quality - so if the 13 yr old does a really good job mowing the front yard he may get $7 - but it he's missed spots or didn't clean off the walkways it could be $5 (motivates him to go back and fix it, and to do it right the first time). The bathrooms are $10 each - but everything - tub, shower walls, windows, toilet, etc have to be spotless.
Also, at the end of the year check the effect your pay had on your joint adjusted gross income. There are times that a wife's pay will bump the family into a higher tax bracket, and between the added cost related to working (clothes, gas, lunches, take-out dinners, etc.) and the increase in taxes on your joint income, the net income difference for mom to go to work is much smaller than expected and may not be worth it. If your net increase in household income is $500 or $750 a month you both have to really evaluate whether all the time away from the family, the added stress, added chores, etc is worth the money. Maybe it will be - but there are times when it's just not.
Finally, realize that when the kids are teens & pre-teens parenting needs actually increase. They are known to get into trouble between 3 - 6 after school & before parents get home. YIKES! So much to think about.
Best of luck re-entering the workforce!!!

Set aside a time to sit down and discuss all the household chores. Be clear with him how much time is involved with each and then split them up however it makes sense to both of you. Most likely he has no clue what it takes to keep the household running (not his fault, he hasn't had to worry for 8 years). That way he doesn't have to try to figure out what needs to be done on his own and you both have realistic expectations of each other. Good luck, it will be quite the adjustment for everyone!