I didn’t start out with an even-handed marriage. I had an unrealistic expectation of what I could be as a wife when we first got married. I took care of EVERYTHING, and my husband, of course, let me. I started to feel more than a little overwhelmed. Then, the bottom dropped out.

In one February, the first year of marriage he “forgot” to come home in time for dinner which got ruined, told me Valentine’s wasn’t a “real” holiday anyway to explain the lack of gift or card, and asked me how much weight I was going to gain. Not all on the same night, mind you, but close enough for jazz.

After I put down the chef’s knife…and stopped crying…

I let loose. I’m telling you, I’m shocked no one called the cops I screamed so loud and so long. We had a neighbor run for his car when he saw me coming the next day…and I know I scared the crap out of my husband, LOL!

It’s not like I laid down the law…I just started listing the things I hated to do…and you were right, he was SHOCKED. I hated dishes? I hated laundry? I hated calling his parents every sunday to tell them how he was?? Really? Then why do it?

I had to put down the knife again…

At some point I became irrational enough to demand “WHO do you think cleans the effing toilet…the TOILET FAIRY?? And I don’t even pee down the side of it!!” He went from dreading making a call to the local mental ward, to falling onto the living room floor laughing helplessly, gasping “toilet fairy!” I can’t keep a straight face when he laughs like that…so we ended up talking all night about it.

His little (clean) socks were shocked right off that I hated my life…the life I’d made, the choices I made, and the fact that he LIKED it really pissed me off. Quel suprise.

Look, in 18 years of marriage I’ve had to explain alot of stuff…hormones, how to carve a turkey, foreplay, how to load a car for vacation, why you can’t pour meat grease down the sink, why $50 bucks for MY haircut, why brown socks do NOT go with a blue suit, why black socks become brown and no longer go with said suit… The most productive conversation I’ve ever had with my husband (aside from “I’m ovulating, it’s now or never”) is about what I HATE doing, and why he should do some of it.

We’ve struggled to get it right, or at least good enough. We once had a marriage counselor suggest that we either buy a dishwasher or use paper plates. We came out of there in shock. THAT wasn’t our biggest issue, or even what we’d gone in for. We left in agreement that we needed to buy a dishwasher and fire the counselor, LOL! She wasn’t totally incompetent, we had no idea how much we bickered over chores still.

I suspect that when we’re eighty and in a nursing home, we’ll be bitching about who should push whose wheelchair.

The important part (IMO) is that we’re HAVING THE CONVERSATION. Not who won, or who does more…although that’s how it starts more often than not. Sometimes he’s right. Sometimes I am. But we’re listening. And yelling. But listening, too.

And the toilet fairy still visits.

Sounds like your daughter takes after you! Determined!

I’m in one of those marriages in which I do every.single.thing. I just had a melt-down with the hubby about our 4 year old. I’m trying to write and do about 4 things at once and asked that he just “be dad” for a while and in order to get him (husband) to do anything, I have to get up from my desk to go do it myself, and this is after about 5 minutes of nagging, complaining and screaming.

Will there be equality in my marriage? Probably not. My kids are beginning to realize what I do and how hard I work, and my 11 year old daughter is really realizing it. I’ve been talking about a trip to NYC next year at Christmas, and she asked me today what it would take for it to really happen. I told her I’d let her know. She’s so freaking determined, she’ll do whatever needs to be done for us to take this trip so she can ice skate at Rockefeller Center and see the Rockettes at Radio City. Not to mention go to FAO Schwartz and the Empire State Building!

Obviously your husband felt strongly enough and/or secure enough in his position to take the day off when challenged by his boss. He’d be the first I know of, good for him!

I think we start with our sons and to some extent, our daughters. The hardest of which is to live what we want them to see.

I’ve been married for 18 years to a man whose mom did everything for him and his dad. The poor guy married me, with a dad who did outdoor chores, but also did diapers and bottles, too. PLUS, I watched my parent’s marriage disintegrate when my mother went back to get her PhD…my dad felt too neglected! There was NO WAY I was having a marriage like that. Ever.

Countless times I’ve drawn up chore lists and assigned “ick” or “oh GOD” ratings to them…all in an attempt to ration them equally. We’ve had a million discussions about what is fair and equal, too.

For the most part we do ok, with occasional “come to jesus” moments when I’m feeling put-upon. I fix things because he can’t, he cleans up when the kids are sick because I’m a sympathetic puker. We share the dinners 30/70, do dishes 70/30, and split other chores mostly based on preference…and a LITTLE sexism. It ain’t perfect, but it’s better than our parents.

I’m raising my son to SEE what his dad contributes, and I ask him to go a step further. He does. I raise my daughters to question everything…and as crazy as it’s made us as parents, no guy will ever convince them they don’t have a bigger contribution to make than being a stepford bride.

I’d love to see a lawsuit against an employer for punishing Dads for caring for their kids. Men aren’t wrong that they’ll get in dutch with the boss. At my husband’s last job his manager scolded “you need to decide what’s important to you, and get it straightened out” because my husband took the day off work to be home with my concussed daughter after she’d been blinded for 4 hours the previous night from a fall. Get his priorities straight??? Get REAL. They WERE.

For the most part, hubby dearest DOES have his straight. And a few times a year I’m tempted to straighten them futher with a frying pan upside his head, but we try to work it out respectfully and without too much cussing.

Or I go on strike and no one has dinner, a working sink drain, a clue about calendar events, or lunch money for a month. It works!

It just happened naturally. He knew I worked hard, but didn’t realize how hard I worked until he was at home with me all day long. He saw that I really didn’t have time to clean like I use to and just picked up the slack. Before I knew it, he had taken over all of the household chores so I didn’t have to worry about it.

My husband doesn’t care about what society believes “traditional” roles should be; he just does what needs to be done. He has the time to clean and cook, and I don’t. If the situation changes, I’m sure our roles will change again.

My first husband never did anything; I did it all. He didn’t care if the house was clean or not.

Did this take lots of communication initially or did it happen naturally?

How is it that he is able to do this easily without getting caught up in the idea of what our traditional roles should be?

If this is your 2nd marriage, was your 1st husband as open to equality?