Before I got married, I had always heard that marriage was 50/50 and I was planning on living my life by that rule. It didn’t take me very long though to figure out that the 50/50 split is all wrong.
In my 13 years of experience, the split is more like 70/30 or 80/20 but that is only half of the sentence. The rest which is more important is that you have to make sure those percentages flip back and forth.
I can’t think of how many times my wife or I wasted feeling like a complete failure because we didn’t get the house clean or we didn’t feel like running to the store. We felt that if we weren’t keeping up our 50% of the housework or cooking that we were letting the other one down. I think the change in our thinking happened with our string of medical problems.
My wife broke BOTH arms at the elbow when our daughter was 2 months old. During that time, I obviously had to do all of the cooking, bathroom duties and bathing for my 2 month old and my wife. There aren’t many couples that mean WE when they say “we breastfed our children” but we can use that saying literally. I had to get up for every feed and help my daughter breastfeed.
Once we got past that little adventure, I got kidney stones followed by 3 years worth of mysterious pain of unknown origin. My wife was basically responsible for all of our family’s strength and most times the cooking and child care while I fought to make it through.
We realized during those periods that people who try and enforce the 50% rule like we did build up a lot of resentment. They feel like they are doing more than their share and any loafing on the other’s part means they don’t care anymore. We also realized how comforting it is to have your spouse say “Let me handle things for a while” with the trust that you will do the same for them.
1 year ago
Nice take on the whole 50/50 thing. Taken literally it will create a nonstop war in the how. Taken figuratively, and over the long run, it works it's an OK concept. The idea that's is 80/20 and than it flips back and forth is dead on. In our home, financially supporting the family is 100/0..in my favor. However, when it comes to making sure the family runs smooth (appointments are made, presents are bought, thank you cards go out, there is food in the house, bill are paid on time, etc) It's closer to 100/0 in my partners favor. Then there is all the stuff in between which can be 50/50 most of the time isn't. Is one parent doing the dishes evey night while the other makes sure your kid brushes her teeth and gets their pajamas on 50/50? How do you even compare the two? Overall it just needs to "feel right" and everyone will be happy.
ReplyDeleteOn a complete separate note. I suggest moving the Google ads to the bottom and put the archive and latest posts at top. At first I though this was a one page blog. You'll never make enough of Google Ads to make it worth the sacrifice to your blogs readabilty. Also, your email somewhere would be nice so I wouldn't have to make this comment on a post ;)
Anyway, nice work.