Struggling with housework distribution; need advice!

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Hello, everyone! This is my first post on this forum so please forgive me if I make any missteps. My name is Lauren, and I am a 28-year-old woman married to a 29-year-old man that we both suspect has aspergers. We have been married about 2.5 years and together for about 5 and it has not been very easy.

Dividing up household chores has been an ongoing struggle throughout our marriage, but it is (in my view) reaching a crisis point. We both work full time outside the home, and I have recently started an online schooling program to get further certification in my field of work; this is very important to both of us as my employment opportunities and income will be greatly increased upon my completion of this program in about 3 years, and he swore I would have his full support.

To give a little background, our current divide of chores works roughly like this:

I do: Cooking 100%, Laundry 80%, Kitchen Cleanup 75%, Floors/Sweeping 80%, Cat Litter 90%, Take out garbage 50%, Grocery Shopping 100%

He does what is left over, including putting garbage/recycling by the curb (which he actually does maybe 50% of the time, it tends to build up in huge piles outside) and some summer yardwork if I can nag him into mowing the lawn.

The distribution of labor means that after working 9-6, I come home and make a meal, serve it (he will sometimes refuse to make up or put away his own plate!), clean up after, do dishes, wash clothes, take care of pets, do schoolwork.....I'm fried. Meanwhile he gets to relax, play video games, play guitar, whatever, and if I ask him to help "I had a hard day at work".

When he does do chores, it is usually after much nagging and pestering, and in his own creative ways....to him, "doing laundry" means running it through the machines and leaving it in a pile on the office floor. Whole areas of the office become almost unusable because he will not fold his clothing or put it away, but prefers piles on the floor. After all, we can just close the door if people come over, right? Then the pets lay on the clothes, they are "dirty" again, and he tells me that my laundry is "piling up".

I have screamed, cried, begged, and threatened. My resentment over this issue, and bad times mostly in the past (his angry fits especially, which are better now with medication) has led us to have a sexless marriage as I can't even look at him as anything other than another job to take care of. I hate this feeling, because I want us to have a loving and sexual relationship, but I don't know what to do about it. I'm told if I don't like it, I "know where the door is", but at even the slightest hint that I might leave he is desperate to apologize and make it up to me.....for a day or so.

I really just don't know what to do. I wake up dreading work, and I leave work dreading the work when I get home. We do not have the money for a vacation together, and in fact have not gone anywhere that wasn't camping with his parents since well before we were married.

I do not want to divorce him, but I am running out of options and I do not want to live as his roommate/maid anymore. How do I get through to him? I am desperate.

I typically spend an hour or so with chores in the evening--paying bills, balancing the check books, changing batteries, fixing stuff.. To save money I've fixed the microwave, the range, the washing machine, the drying machine...

My wife does most of the cooking--but I do all the grilling--which we do regularly, even during the winter.

I do the dishes and she dries/puts them away. I carry the clothes down and start the wash every week. We both go grocery shopping every week.

She wanted a cat as a companion, so she does all the feeding and litter box stuff.

I handle anything related to the car--gas, service appointments, insurance....

She mows the lawn--I maintain the gardens.

Seems to work for us.

Thank women's lib for this

I have the same issue but it's gotten better. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I have to take responsibility for everything household. If I am expected to do the "man's" job by bringing home money, then he needs to help with the "women's" work by helping around the house....so, here is what I did. I REFUSE to wash his clothes, and I haven't washed my husbands clothes for 16 years. If he wants to live out of a laundry basket that's his choice. I moved the pile of clothes beside his side of the bed and I told him that's his space. He got tired of it and now it's at the bottom of his closet. As far as dinner, do you really need to make dinner? I don't see that you have kids. Make your own, don't make his, tell him to do it himself, or eat on the way home and avoid it all together. The trick is to make it about his needs. I remember a time when I was complaining about my husbands snoring. I asked him to go to the doctor and just ASK if there is anything they can do to help with that. He told me that his snoring doesn't bother him so he see's no reason to go. What DOES bother him is if I don't sleep with him in bed, so I started sleeping on the couch. I told him when he goes to the doctor I will sleep in bed again. He was at the doctor the next day. Find his weakness...exploit it. If you don't get this under control before having kids, YOU will be a single parent. Trust me on that one!

As for me, I finally broke down and hired a cleaning lady. Working full time and picking up after my husband and my son and taking care of the pets is enough for me. I don't have time for anything else. It's worth it, and every 2 weeks I come home to a clean house. Initially I thought I couldn't afford it, but I decided if I couldn't I would just have them stop coming. It's been over a year and it's the best thing I did for myself.

Good Luck! This is a hard one!

I can relate to this because your husband and I are in the same boat. Choose your battles. My husband drops hits to me that things needs to be done.

Argh. I had a godawful time getting my NT husband to pick any of that stuff up. I finally got lucky-- family stuff forced me to be away from home for weeks/months at a time, and I got very sick, and he found out what a regal b***h housework really is.

He helps more now.

I don't actually expect that to work on an Aspie. Because, frankly, if it's clean enough for them, it's clean enough. Others' opinions and standards just don't matter. And clean enough for someone who's not paying much attention to their surroundings...

...well, all I have to do is think back to the kitchen in my trailer the first year I lived on my own. *shudder*

I eventually learned to see what needed to be done because I had to-- I had a kid and came to the sudden realization that I might not care about others' standards, but others would certainly apply them. Also I kept house for a friend when he got very sick for a year-- learned a lot about what needs doing beyond cooking and washing the dishes that way.

Best thing I can suggest is to talk to him-- not cry, whine, yell, beg, b***h, or anything else, but just talk-- and see if you can get him to realize that this is draining you to the nth degree. I don't know if it will work. It's so damned easy to make us feel threatened, and then everything shuts down, and then all hell breaks loose.

Well, if it helps, you've got my sympathy.

I'd say the most important thing to get your husband to understand that its got to be a 50/50 team effort. both are responsible for the whole household.
What works for myself is a teamwork approach
If one does the cooking, the other does the dishs. I don't mind either
one does the sorting laundry wash & drying the other folds and puts away. I'm not great at folding
one does litterbox the other does garbage. both are quick and easy imo
and sorry but I'll do all the yardwork and vacuuming, Its a power, tool thing. I like doing it.
I don't mind dusting and polishing either, its just like detailing a car. oh and car stuff also.
and I'm not sure but do you really want him doing the grocery shopping? I'd have him carry it all into the house though.
budget...... both , and together. no excuses that way. I didn't know?, you didn't?

I wish my cats would clean their litterbox themselves. oh........ and their food dishs lol

Guess I could also suggest a chores list, or a chart/graph. color code it so its obvious just how much your doing.

And how do you make an autistic partner understand that relationships are team effort. Both partners make small mutual sacrifices for bigger goals. I cooked warm meals seven days a week and all I wanted my partner to do was to put dishes in dish washer and help me carry groceries, he never did anything.

Thank you for the feedback so far! To answer a couple of points, I suppose I don't really need to make dinner every night, but I know it's something that he really enjoys (his mom was not a good cook growing up, and I'm pretty adept; most meals are made mostly from scratch) so I do my best. I've also found that if I don't give him SOMETHING to eat, he's most likely going to eat chips or spoonfuls of peanut butter, or not eat at all! I also don't have a car at the moment (money goes towards school for a little while) so I can't just eat alone after work. We carpool together to work as it is a 10 minte drive apart.

"If It's clean enough for them, it's clean enough!".....this is SO TRUE! I grew up with a mother that, as my teenage years went by, became more and more of a hoarder. She isn't quite at TV show levels yet, but there was always an unspoken understanding that you don't invite people over, and because my husband prefers to have company here as opposed to going out to a restaurant or whatever, we entertain here a couple times a week (yes, I usually cook a nice meal for these evenings!). These two couples are people my husband and I have been close to for a while and so they understand most of the little quirks that make him who he is, but I still have a moment of panic when I look at a dirty bathroom or whatever and remember being told to stay quiet and away from the windows when the doorbell rang.

Lol sorry for the off-topic, even us supposedly NT people can be a little messed up!

I've thought of making a chore chart before, but I've been worried this will be percieved as childish or degrading. Am I looking at it the wrong way?

Last edited by Luftballoons on 27 Jan 2012, 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Buyer Beware: It's exactly like that, wow. Total Lockdown. All hell breaks loose. Some days worse than others. Mornings are not a good time. He also seems to dislike talking right after he is done work.

Zhane: What kind of hints work best for you? I feel like a total b***h every time I bring this up because it is such an old argument.

You don't need to have an autistic husband to have the same issues.
My NT husband and sons are also like that, I gave it up.

Well that is certainly worrisome. A sexless marriage with that much resentment is not healthy. I can't tell you where to start with that because I don't know either of you but it may be time for BOTH of you to forgive and forget. Talk it through, ALL the way through and both of you need to be on guard to avoid the frustration and resentment emotions that derail any open conversation between spouses. A sexless, resentful relationship would be painful to endure. Sex is how I connect with my wife emotionally and without it I would lack most of the emotions that cause me to treat her like the most important person in my life.

As for the chores I can offer some tips about how my wife and I split them. BTW: I am somewhere on the spectrum, likely AS, intensely logical and up until I met my wife completely devoid of emotions and had 0 eq skills. She is NT when it comes to emotions and social skills though chewing noises send her to the moon instantly with intense anxiety she has her ticks too.

For myself I cannot split a chore 50/50 or 75/25 with someone, it seems laughably illogical, unprovable and unfair frankly. Who decides what is 25%, how is it measured, what contract governs this relationship and are we needlessly duplicating work. You see how this can become an exercise in frustration for a NT person? I don't think many NT's put this type of thought into something so simple. Split whole chores, not based on fairness but based on who is better at doing what. For instance I do the trash, dishes, budgeting, auto care, cat boxes (yuk!) etc. I do them because I am good at them, don't mind doing them. She cooks, dusts, vacuums and such. Some things she HAS to do because her "clean" is different than mine and I have been unable to change my perception of clean. If I were to dust I would leave whole rooms dusty because I would perceive them as clean which would drive her up a wall because even if she points out all of the dust I will miss the one she doesn't point out.

Another thing that divides labor is that she does "maintenance" chores like dusting and I do the types of chores that you do all at once and there is a large change in physical appearance after the chore is done. For instance I would have a hard time weekly cleaning a toilet. I must wait for it to get dirty so I can see that the work I am doing is making a difference. This leads to dirty nasty toilets so I have just resigned myself to doing them when I'm told to. This carries over to many other chores as well.

A couple other points. You mentioned that you have screamed, yelled, pleaded and threatened. Try positively responding to his good efforts. Give him a kiss for taking out the trash or something. I know it would be difficult at this point but you MUST "repress" your frustration and start over with your emotions here. Both of you do. Positive reinforcement will work better, I promise you. One other thing, did he go directly from living with his parents to living with you? This can be a huge part of the problem. It took me years of living on my own in squalor to decide to clean, to put things away after using them etc. If someone has always been picking up after him he doesn't understand how much work it takes. This is something my wife and I found, she moved directly in with me. She has no idea how much effort it takes for me to budget, work on the cars etc.

So I feel I'm rambling, I'm ADD too and my meds are at work so sorry if it's all a little disjointed and rambly. Good luck!

Luftballoons,

I relate to your situation, I am the aspie partner in a six year relationship, and we have a similar dynamic around chores, with the same sexless results. I am doing my best to change my ways, trying different things, reading and researching, seeing a counsellor, etc... . The problem is how do we break the now ingrained patterns of distrust, bitterness and resentment? I understand her frustration and she gets my fear, and we talk and talk and talk; trying to understand and find a way out/through.

I don't have answers but I still believe that where there is Love there is Hope.

( I recommend "22 things a woman should know if she loves a man with asperger's syndrome" if you haven't read it yet.)

Hmm although I am a girl, I can relate to your husband. I function like that when I live with others and am extremely stressed. Once the stress goes away, I clean again because I need to and I am able to.

Basically it goes like this: either he is not physically or mentally able to clean at this time OR he does not need to clean because you do everything for him.

I put my money on the second. As long as you are going everything for him he will never see the need to clean because it won't be there because you are always doing the cleaning, hence he can't see the problem.

Even when you stop cleaning for him, he will let things get as dirty as he can stand to ignore them in the hope that you will "remember" and clean them. Basically, in the beginning, he will do everything except clean until he realises he has absolutely no other option but to clean. At this point it becomes a need and he will start cleaning.

You just have to hold out until that point.

If I was you I would make visual wall charts deviding up the chores and colour coded and timetabled for which ones on which days.

I would back this up by useing the 'calendar' feature of his mobile phone to program 'reminders' (I use the 'meetings' function) so that for example his phone rings at 6pm and flashes up 'wash up' and 8pm and flashes up 'put on laundry'.

You could also use a visual wall chart to break down the chores into segments such as (clean bathroom= wash sink, wash bath, sweep floor, empty bin) or (laundry= clothes in washer, clothes hung on line, clothes ironed, clothes hung up), you could print out that visual break down and stick it on the washing machine, and the other places where the chores take place (eg reminder to put away plates stuck on the wall by the sink).

I use my mobile phone everyday for reminders about meal times and chores and find it very useful in keeping me on track.