BF does the dishwashing (we alternate), he does the laundry, and we both get together on the weekends to do a whole house clean.

I found that I was more cranky at him when I was working full time. Now that I’m part time and home 5 days a week (doing school), we are both pretty happy.

When we first moved in together, we still had a conversation about who would be responsible for what. It takes the pressure off, even though Mr. Red is able to use the Roomba for his biggest chore (which means he pushes a button and cleans it out when it’s done). Since he’s an unemployed student while I work full-time and take the same number of classes as he does, he took over the lawn responsibilities this summer.

It’s all about communication.

Not really! He lived alone for a couple of months before I moved in with him, but even then, I was always there and we were in our “honeymoon” stage of the relationship so everything looked pretty clean. That sounds a lot like him. I think he really needed me to list all of the chores that get done (and not by him!) because some of them he didn’t even know needed to be done.

She is definitely a nut job!

Ahh yes, you guys have a yard, don’t you? I don’t know what we’ll do when we have an actual house. Although I like the exercise raking/mowing gives me so maybe we’ll alternate that too. Sounds like you have a good balance!

If I could give you a piece of advice before you move in? Something I wish I’d done before boyfriend & I decided to co-habitate – sit down together and write down all of the chores that need to get done. Then each of you rate the ones that are the most important to the least important to you – and then rate the ones you hate doing and the ones you don’t mind doing. Compare, and come up with a compromise situation. Then there’s no surprises!

Different things work for different people 🙂 I have a much higher standard than my boyfriend too, but I’m stubborn. He has to bring his standard up to mine, ha! You’re right, nagging does suck.

That’s funny! I did, too. I wanted to be the girl that had it all – a job, a clean house, awesome cooking skills, etc. But that just isn’t real life.

T never lived alone before me, and I don’t think he did much housework growing up – his family are not exactly clean freaks shall we say, so it’s not really a gender thing, just a family thing.

We split cooking pretty evenly (sometimes he does more, as he’s a far better cook). I do all the dishes. I take care of the oven, and I usually do the bathroom, sweep and most of the laundry. He’s on vacuuming, rubbish duties, mopping the floors. Far from equitable.

Why? Because our standards of cleanliness are different. I also do a better job of cleaning, and nagging, quite frankly, sucks. It might sound like I’m giving in, and I suppose in a way I am, but this is finally more or less working for us. Doing the same chores every week is easier for us than rotating (I also like to do all my chores on the weekend, so we have a totally clean house for at least a few days before it all goes downhill during the week).