My wife and I have a similar setup as to what hooker described earlier in this thread. I'm in charge of the finances, yard work, outdoor cooking (grilling/smoking/frying), and I will help with the laundry on occasion. My wife does most of the house work, all indoor cooking, and we split Treestand hanging responsibilities. I set em, she hands me cold beer and tells me I'm doing great!
Ok I will be serious since I wasn't in my first post. Fletch's post is spot on. My brother and his wife worked with him putting in more hours. They split everything right down the middle when it came to household chores, cooking and their kids. She still wasn't happy so he did more. She divorced him. Now take my wife and I. Barb raised the kids when they were little and still does most of it in their regard. She does all household chores with the kid's help, all the cooking and 90% of the yard work. Probably more like 95% of the yard work cause she is out there helping me. Hell... she is even pretty handy at fixing things. We have a great marriage. I know I was blessed with a great wife but there is more to it. This difference with my brother and I... I communicate with my wife. I let her know every day how important she is to me. He didn't. He thought she divorced him because he wasn't doing enough. That wasn't the problem. There was no affection nor much appreciation shown to each other. They were too busy being the perfect family they overlooked being a couple. Barb and I both know how hard the other one works. My day starts early and ends when ever I get home from work. I can have 40 hours in by the end of Tuesday night and work for weeks to a month straight 7 days a week. Thank God for winter... I actually get normal hours. Well anyways from 5 to 7 PM for a quitting time. Close enough to normal !! Barb's day starts early and doesn't end until I get home. She might take a little nap while she waits for me to get home at 3, 4 or 5 in the morning... but I always get to see her smiling face when I walk through the door. Always !!! I don't expect it but she thinks it is important. I very much appreciate it. She will get up to make my lunch as I walk back out the door a couple hours later to go back to work. I leave seeing a smiling face and a kiss good bye... every morning. Our 25th is coming up in November. Our new plan now that two of the kids are gone and Brit is getting older... is to have a date night at least once a month. I must be getting soft or old... I said it sounded like a great idea. I am looking forward to it. Sadly she said it can't involve looking at deer, hunting deer, watching me hunt deer, looking for sheds or dragging out deer for me. It is a good thing I appreciate her !! Bottom line through all this rambling... it doesn't mean squat what other couples are doing. You need to sit down with her and find out what works for you two. You need to communicate. You need to show affection. You need to let her know everyday how much you appreciate her. Something as simple as a kiss goodbye as you leave to work, hunt or what ever. A call during lunch to see how her day is going. She needs to know you are thinking about her. She needs to know she is important to you. Sadly we tend to get so caught up with our hectic lives we over look it. Don't !!!!!!!!!!! It is really quite that simple. Tim
im satisfied with what you do. Its what I do but my wife says its not enough. I used to take care of the money and then she forced me to let her, been alot of mistakes since then but oh well.
In regards to household chores, if it needed done, whoever was free at the moment did it. She didn't let me do laundry, but I'd have jumped all over that, laundry is easy. She took care of the shared finances. I cut grass & weed wacked but she loved doing all the other yard work stuff, so I only helped when needed there. I hate yard work. There was a long stretch when I cooked dinner almost nightly as I got home first. Sometimes I'd get everything started and she'd take over. Hooker's statement about not waiting until she asked to do something is the smartest thing ever stated in regards to getting along. I never really did catch on to that despite it being harped on constantly.
