Double Standards

I have the same double standard problem with my boss. I guess we could both quit if we wanted to.

Oh, I can understand how someone could want sympathy, or just a day off from responsibilities. It's okay - if it is an occasional thing, and if it works both ways. Otherwise, yeah, it can turn into a problem. I dunno, Kitkat. Some people call each other various kinds of bitch, in a more or less conversational kind of way. After trying it once, I decided to forgo further experimentation.

Be your own woman.

If you don't want to clean on Sunday, don't clean. If you want to sleep in on Sunday, sleep in. If he starts calling you names, inform him that you will NOT tolerate him flinging insults and abusive names at you.

If he verbally or emotionally abuses you in order to get you to do what he TOLD you to do, then get up . . . get showered . . . pack a bag . . . and leave for three days.

At the three day point, he will understand that he was wrong, that it's not his job as your husband to dominate and control you, and that he can't conduct himself like a screaming THUG.

In other words, your husband can't verbally abuse you and control you unless you allow him to do so. If you don't like the way your husband treats you, it's up to you to tell him how you feel and to establish boundaries that he's not allowed to cross.

Yep yep.... I agree completely with Debra. I know I wouldn't allow anyone to tell me what to do.
Do your cleaning when you feel like doing it and let him do his part when he feels like doing it.
You're both adults and I wouldn't put up with anyone treating me that way.

Good luck.

Write this down on a piece of paper, and log each incident where a double standard was applied. You should then ask for a detailed explanation of how the incidents were different, otherwise you're not cleaning anything other than your own ....

If he's reasonable, he'll realize the problem if you present it to him openly (maybe not to the extreme of writing it all down).

Tell him you've decided you need to hire a house cleaner. Then do it. Housecleaning isn't worth fighting over.

I agree with Debra. I don't allow anyone to call me a bitch for any reason. (And I've been married for over 20 years, btw.)

WELL IVE COOKED EACH EVENING,WALKED THE MUTT,SHOVED WASHING IN THE MACHINE BUT I CANT (BUT MUST LEARN NOW) TO IRON,I VACUME ,I DECORATE ,I DO JOBS THAT NEED DOING......BUT APPARENTLY IM A LAZY SLOB WHO WOULD ...OOOPS IS GONNA LIVE LIKE A PIG.....

Before we hired someone, I would have the EXACT same argument with my wife every few months. The house would get a little on the unkept side, and my wife would decide at the exact wrong time that now was the time to clean, and God help me if I wanted to wait and do it some other time. The same exact situation that you described would play out, she would decide to devote some weekend morning to cleaning, and then If I didn't want to wake up she would yell, run the vacume in the room, blast the radio, or some such tactic to get me out of bed. Or if I was watching TV or playing the computer, turn them off or disconnect them.

On the other hand, when I felt that it was time to clean and she didn't feel like it, I would get a long speech about how she does everything around the house and could relax if she wanted to. If I tried to clean without her help, she would try to make me stop becuase I wasn't doing it right and should wait until I could take direction from her. Does that sound familiar?

I'm sure we both understand our spouses need to live in a clean environment. But if you are anything like me, nothing raises your hackles like having your weekend schedule dictated to you.

Of course the easy solution is to hire someone. Thats what I did, but now I get to bear the blame everytime the housekeepers put one of my wife's pair of pants in the dryer.

If you can't hire someone you've got to divide the work and do it on your own schedules. Having one person designated as the clean king is going to put you in the constant position of being ordered around.

Debra says move out. That won't be productive in my experiance. Your husband, like my wife, sounds extreemly stubborn and will proably not give in to those tactics. You could take the advice she gave me in a similar situation and just give in (her advice, curiously, is very different here). But I'm certainly not an advocate of that. So hire someone, but keep your eyes peeled for the control issues pooping up in other circumstances and realize if your going down the road of complete submission before its too late.

Okay, I admit it. "Hire someone" is the easy way out.

But there's another way that's only a little bit more difficult that's worked for me, too. Here it is: If one partner is clearly more concerned about a certain issue than their mate, then he/she shall be in charge of that.

For example, my husband is one of those skinny types who is always thinking about food. (I am neither.) He used to bug me all the time about what I was going to make for dinner...even to the point of calling me in the middle of the work day every friggin' day to discuss it. So I put him in charge of cooking dinner, and voila! no more interruptions, he doesn't have to worry, and he gets exactly what he wants. And, btw, so do I. No more irritation. As a trade-off, I do the grocery shopping and clean up the kitchen afterward (things he doesn't like to do.)

If he wants the house spotlessly clean, I suggest you put him in charge of that. Let him do it or hire somebody he can oversee. Find something you can do in peace (i.e., something he doesn't care about, but has to be done) as a trade-off.