When you’re in a marriage, trying to divide the housework and other chores is never easy. Often, one person feels like they handle more of those unwanted tasks than the other, and it can lead to many arguments. One wife thought up a brilliant plan to encourage her husband to do chores with a point system. She wanted to help motivate him and keep him sane, as he works hard during the week as an essential worker. She thought it all out figured out and was pleased it was working. That is, until it blew up in her face.
A woman took to Reddit to share the story of her good idea that turned bad, and it’s worth a laugh.
She posted a story to Reddit’s TIFU group about an idea she had to solve the common marital issue of chore division. She wrote, “Yesterday I had this brilliant idea to make a list of activities he could do to keep busy that would earn him ‘points’ and a list of rewards he could redeem the points for.”
She shared some examples of what was on the list of things to do to earn chores, wanting to mix up fun ones with the more daunting tasks. “The things to earn points consisted of a blend of fun things like ‘Invent a new dish using items we have in the pantry,’ ‘Walk the dog’ and ‘Find your new favorite TV show.’ These were combined with more practical things like ‘Do a batch of laundry’ or Clean out your dresser,’” she explained.
Each of these points could be tallied up so her husband could trade those in for some perks or rewards, as she called them.
“On the rewards part I put some small things like ‘I’ll watch a movie of your choosing’ or ‘I’ll cook any dish you’d like,’” she explained. She said she assigned “arbitrary point values” to the activities so some had higher or lower point levels.
She said she had to think on her toes with enough ideas that kept them in the house because of the stay-at-home orders. And she said that in trying to stay within those guidelines, that’s where she goofed.
“I decided that one of the rewards is that he could have me do anything on the activities list if he redeemed double the points value,” she explained. “I made this little game in less than 15 minutes when he was taking a shower and didn’t really put much thought into how it might be exploited.”
She handed the list to her husband, and he took a look and got started.
The woman thought this plan of hers was working because he quickly got to work. “By the end of the day the dog has had five walks, and I’ve eaten four small gourmet meals, and everything easy or fun is checked off once or more,” she shared. “He’s earned enough ‘points’ to redeem everything on the rewards list and hasn’t used anything. I’m thinking I’m pretty smart and that this was hugely successful.”
It backfired when her husband found a loophole.
“I wake up and he immediately starts redeeming his points to have me do all the hard stuff,” she explained. “It’s been six hours and I’ve already cleaned out his dresser, done all the laundry, and walked the dog in the rain….twice. I’ve just now taken a break to write this. He still hasn’t used all his points.”
Her husband used her point system against her, and she had to play by her own rules, which she set.
The hilarious story had people in the comments giggling and throwing in their two cents.
One person wrote, “Should have made it a “daily quest” system, where you can only earn points for the specific activity once per day.”
Another commented, “Lol good job keeping up with your end of the deal!”
Plenty of people gave due props to the husband who took advantage of the loophole. “That is amazing. He played the system,” someone commented.
Really, it comes down to one winner — the dog. “The dog is having the time of his life,” one commenter wrote.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
