My Wife Refuses To Do Any of the ‘Hard’ Household Chores & I Finally Lost It on Her

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Division of household labor is probably one of the biggest arguments couples have. When you both work full-time jobs and also take care of your children, the last thing you want to worry about is laundry, dishes, and sweeping, but someone has to do it.

A man on Reddit took to the popular forum to complain about the fact that his wife doesn’t like to do the yardwork at their home. He believes that it should be anyone’s job, but she claims it’s “hard,” and doesn’t want to deal with it. The verdict was split about how the couple should divide the tasks.

The couple has been married for several years and has two children.

He explained in his Reddit AITA post that he and his wife work different schedules; he works a standard M-F, 40-hour workweek, while his wife works on Saturdays.

“When my wife takes a day off during the week, she will get chores done like cleaning, shopping, laundry, etc. Which is great that she can get that stuff done on her off days. But these are things that can also be done on the weekend. She will leave other, more labor-intensive chores for me to do on the weekend. We have a 1-acre yard so there is always yardwork to be done. And it is nearly impossible for me to do that kind of work on Saturdays when she’s at work and I have the kids,” he wrote.

He's tired of doing all the outdoor work.

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“I’ve talked to her numerous times about doing yardwork on her days off when I’m at work and the kids are in daycare. But she refuses because ‘it’s too hard.’ Which, yeah, I know. I’m the only one who does it. It’s even harder when you’re chasing around 2 kids. This means that I have to spend pretty much my entire Sunday doing yardwork. Every single week,” he continued.

“We’ve argued because she gets a work and kid-free day to herself to get things done. But she picks the easiest chores and leaves the hard ones for me to do on my one remaining weekend day. I work M-F, then have the kids by myself all day Saturday. I just want to spend some time on Sunday watching football and relaxing. But I can’t because of the yardwork.”

He blew up at his wife.

After she took the day off to get chores done, she “made some comments that pissed me off,” he wrote. She listed yard work that needed to be done, saying that “we” need to get it done, which angered the OP.

“I snapped at her and asked her which of those things she was going to do, since she kept saying ‘we.’ She got defensive and said that she is going to be watching the kids so that I can get that stuff done. I told her that I think she is using the word ‘we’ incorrectly then, because it sounds like I’m going to be the one doing all of it,” he explained.

His wife didn't like his reaction.

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“She then went off about all the things she got done on her day off. When I told her that I could do all of those things on Saturday, even with the kids, but she refuses to do any of the hard stuff. I then asked her if she could tell me the last day she had the kids by herself when I wasn’t home. She couldn’t answer and called me a jerk,” he explained.

“I told her if I can learn to fold a fitted sheet, then she can learn how to use a rake, a lawnmower, a weed whip, etc. I also told her that I am going to start planning things for myself on weekends so that I have my own time, even if it means hiring a sitter. She thinks I’m overreacting and expecting too much of her because the yard work is hard.”

Reactions to the post were mixed.

“YTA for presenting this as being about equal labor when it’s really about football,” one comment began.  “You seem to think that her midweek child free day to clean the whole entire house entitles you to a child free day to sit on your back side watching TV.  All you are proving here is how little respect you have for the things she does to keep the household running smoothly. You seem to feel like it’s not real work. Get earbuds and stream the game to your phone while you work, if it’s that important to you. Or hire a lawn care service.”

“Esh, none of that is as hard as you’re making it out to be,” another person commented. “Unless you’re using an old timet roller mower, mowing the lawn is walking around your yard. Do you know what I learned when I moved out? How much my dad exaggerated how hard his tasks were.”

Someone else commented: “I can’t make a solid call on who is the AH here but it really sounds like OP thinks that his wife that spending her day off doing a ton of house work (laundry, dishes, shopping and presumably things like vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, meal prep) actually somehow qualifies as her spending her day ‘relaxing’ and ‘having free time’ just because she is not doing the yard work. That really strikes me as not valuing her labour which would make OP an AH. Also why does OP ‘have’ to wait til the weekend to do the ‘hard yard work’ I have worked M-F 40 hour week jobs and I still had time after work to run around with the mower or rake leaves or weed the garden.”