The Double-Standard Rant

[Griff]

Originally Posted by limey

Thank you for the advice. I think I tend to always approach this the same way, which is to ask once a day for the task to be done, in a neutral way - I, too, don't want to appear to be a nag.

Maybe you guys need to be more explicit or even negotiate over who does which chores around the house and on what schedule? YMMV every relationship handles these things differently.

[Stormieweather]

I've come to realize that my SO simply doesn't 'see' things that need to be done. I don't think he intentionally ignores them, he is just oblivious. The counter has nothing sitting on it, so it must be clean right? Never mind the crumbs scattered across it or the sticky film of jelly, if it's not the size of a basketball, its just not there. He operates on auto pilot because what is going on in his head is so much more interesting than what his eyes see. He is a musician, artist, reader and writer so his mind is constantly working on something.

He walks into things, forgets where he laid something down, has conversations he is paying zero attention to, loses track of time, and totally forgets the details of just about everything mundane. I make him a list if he's going to the store for 4 things because guaranteed, he'll forget one (or two).

He doesn't notice that the bedspring has slipped off it's support (4 poster bed) and that he's sleeping at an tilt, he doesn't notice that light bulbs have burned out, he forgets to put his wallet out of baby reach, he forgets what time she ate last!, he doesn't notice the cat's water bowl is empty, the milk is almost gone or that the computer is suddenly taking 5 minutes to boot up. I've long since given up asking him to pay attention to these details.

I simply take care of the daily chores and periodically, make a honey-do list and tack it to the fridge. He has a marathon maintenance session and knocks it all out at once, then I throw the list away until there's enough for a new list.

If something is really important to me, I'll make that clear and he does do a decent job of trying to remember it. But in the interest of not being a nag, I don't pick too many things to speak out about. The toilet seat stays down, by the way (babies have drowned in toilets, you know?!).

Works for us

Stormie