HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! (I think I was supposed to remind you, wasn't I? Oh well...) Any fun plans?

Very funny that you made that deal, and that it still holds! ;)

I do remember the first weekend we met and spent together (after meeting on the internet) -- I left that morning for work, blissfully happy, handed him a key (which some people thought was nuts, but I knew he was "it"), and when I came home he'd not only cleaned the kitchen, but I found the sweetest little note from him on the dishwasher -- which was loaded and done. ;) Like I said, bliss. :)

We never had any pacts, per se, and were living together 3 years before we married, but we've always "negotiated" and it mostly has to do with our work situation. So, when I was teaching two places and he was in school, and we were commuting, things were very equitably split, and what didn't get done simply didn't get done. Once or twice I did feel I took up too much stuff, and we'd discuss it and make sure things got more balanced. I think it's sometimes too easy for women to take over too much at home, and too easy for men to let them, but we have to realize our own complicity in that, you know?

Since I've been working from home writing, and he works, some days out of town or out of the house, I do take the bulk of work here at home -- I do the shopping and manage most of the household stuff, which seems fair to me. I will make sure the house is clean for this weekend, and we are set for shopping, etc for instance, because he's been out of town all week, and this way we can both relax this weekend.

Mike will help with a large housecleaning on the weekends, yard work, vacuuming, and laundry (he's mostly more fussy about laundry, especially how things are folded, than I am...), so as usual, I don't have complaints. Mopping is the one thing I don't mind him not doing, because he doesn't always ring out the mop before he puts it back, I don't know why, but it drives me crazy. LOL Then again, I fold sheets by twirling them around my hands like spaghetti and stuffing them in the linen closet, which drives him batty, LOL.

We do, however, have a few areas that have developed into "his" and "mine" somewhat naturally -- I only do trash/litter box when he's out of town. Otherwise, that is completely his domain. However, I do all of the cooking, and most of the shopping, errands and I walk the dogs most days -- that is my domain.

While he only has to do trash/litterbox once a week, as opposed to cooking every day I still find that acceptable, since I don't like doing trash/litterbox, and I do like cooking (and, he doesn't care when I don't want to cook -- we go out, and everyone's happy).

So, we've been fortunate enough, I think, to balance out well over time, and I think we do have "understandings" -- so, if I go back to full-time work, even though my work is at home, I know we'd also go back to sharing more of the house stuff... it;s nice, actually, how it works out.

Sam

We agreed to try not to turn the other down for intimacy without a legitimate reason...but the instigator had to sleep in the, uh, wet spot. (sorry)

No the deal isn't still in effect because it's far more pleasant to just wash the extra towels!

Now, I cook, he cleans...I do the laundry, he hauls it upstairs, etc...

He carries out the trash unless I can't stand the pile climbing to the ceiling as he sometimes lets it...

TMI?

I do the laundry, too, LOL.

We didn't make any spoken pacts, but we were barely legal when we married and didn't really think things through well. What has emerged, though, is a partnership that centers around me coming up with the big ideas and him saying yes to them. I'm the English-major-dreamer, he's the business-major-rock, which works out well because he'd never do anything out of the ordinary without me, and I'd be all over the map, literally, and living out of the back of my car without him. I keep him in shirts, he keeps me in books, and fifteen years in, I wouldn't change a thing.

FWIW, I'm four loads of laundry and one load of dishes into the day, and it's not even eleven a.m. yet.

Margaret

Woohoo, Jeannie!

No standing pacts here, but we've mostly divvyed (sp?) up stuff with what we care about more/are better at. I do most of the housework and kid-related stuff (except now he's been putting our youngest back to sleep at night...) He does all the big house-related maintenance and finances and IT kind of stuff. It's working so far for me, but maybe it's time for a check-in to make sure he feels the same way :)

DH and I have a few "pacts". One is that whoever cooks does not have to help clean up. We rotate tuck-ins with the kids. He picks up the laundry load when I'm in book mode and I make sure we have some kind of meal when he's coaching. We refer to this as our "Pirates Code" - really more like guidelines.

The one constant that has survived our nearly thirteen years of marriage has been an unspoken rule - the one that finds the mess has to deal with the mess. This has applied to hairballs, cat puke, doggy accidents and during that horridly long period between birth and potty training, diapers. This meant occasionally our children courted diaper rash. If I could just pretend I hadn't smelt it, I could wait until DH came along and "found it". And I absolutely, positively know he did it too, because there were times I'd walk into a room and the odor of a filled diaper nearly knocked me flat. DH had curiously lost the sense of smell.

I did feel bad, just that one time, when somehow I missed seeing the pile of reconstituted cat food on the kitchen floor. Evidently, it was still warm when DH walked through it...in his bare feet.

-Tasha

Happy Anniversary!
My husband does the wood and takes out the trash. I do the rest.