Marriage Mondays: Division of Labor

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before how I nannied kids in order to pay my way through grad school. Towards the end of grad school, I worked for a family friend who had a little boy. One day, I got to work only to find the couple fighting. It was soooo awkward. The dad tried to stop fighting, but the mom was so angry she couldn't stop. The father left for work pretty quickly, leaving me, the mother, and the baby boy. I took him to the front of the apartment to keep him occupied. As I heard the back door slam behind the father, the mother blurted out, "Asshole." I remember feeling so uncomfortable. The tension was palpable, and unfortunately the mother was working from home all day. I have known the father for years, longer than the wife. I know he can be frustrating, but for the most part, he was the most accommodating guy ever! I couldn't understand what had happened that could get the mother so riled up she would flip out in front of me. Later, I found out that the argument was about cleaning. And then, I understood.

More than anything else, A.P. and I fight about cleaning. We fight about what needs to be cleaned, who is doing more cleaning than the other, and who cleaned what last. The thing is, we hate cleaning. Actually, I don't hate cleaning. I just hate cleaning this apartment. We are outgrowing this space, and there's crap everywhere, and it gets harder and harder to find space for stuff, despite my large purging of things last summer. And A.P., who used to not mind cleaning the kitchen after I cooked, has fallen onto hard times. He loathes keeping that kitchen clean. The layout sucks, we barely have any counter space, our sink is small, and we don't have a lot of cupboard space, which means we're constantly stacking and rearranging to make things fit.

Part of being married is figuring out a division of labor that keeps things running smoothly. A.P. and I are, sometimes, supremely lazy. Despite the fact that we've lived together for over three years, this is still something we are working on. Part of the issue is that our roles have changed a lot over the past three years. I used to do a lot more cleaning than him, and now that I work so much, I barely do any. This drives him crazy. I do a lot other things, though. I am the one who does the shopping, cooking, and pays the bills. I manage our joint finances, and I take care of 2 out of 3 of our pets. The point is, we may fight about cleaning, but truth be told, we both contribute to the households in different ways. And yet still, we fight. (When I say fight, btw, I mean that we get annoyed with each other or yell at each other for like 5 minutes every day, and then move on. These are not permanent, damaging, hurtful fights. These are more like nagging arguments that won't go away.)

The fighting drives me crazy, and makes me wish for peace. I have no idea how to achieve that. I'm one of those people who sweats the small stuff, and I'm not good at picking and choosing my arguments. Not on a daily basis, anyway. My only solution is to keep figuring out the division of labor and getting better about routines. I am also a big believer in outsourcing things. I no longer do laundry, for instance. We do not have an in-unit machine, and there is no machine in our building. In order to do laundry, we have to walk a block to the laundromat. It began to take up so much time to go to the laundromat and wait for the clothes and go back and forth all the time. So I started dropping off our clothes and having them washed. It costs a little more, but saves me the stress of trying to find time in my smidgen of a weekend to do laundry.

It's said that married couples often fight about the same things over and over again. They, in essence, keep having the same argument, though the context might be different. I used to think this was a myth. Now, I know it's the truth. If A.P. and I had an argument that defined our marriage, it would be cleaning. I know, I know, it could be worse. But it is so frustrating to have *that* argument over and over again. You almost wish for something meatier instead of something so mind numbingly boring. But I'll take cleaning over other things, and in the mean time, I'll keep trying to figure out how to, as Tim Gunn would say, make it work.

What argument "defines" your relationship? How do you divide labor in your household?

Getting Organized

It's amazing how when you get some areas of your life organized, others follow. Even though I'm at a new company this year, this is technically my second year doing the job, and it is like night and day. Last year, on top of all my personal drama, I ran around work like a chicken with my head cut off. It was insane. Plus the long commute, and the stress and anxiety towards the end, when I got laid off made for a less than pleasant work environment. I hated staying late, because that meant getting home at an ungodly hour, and so my desk was always a gigantic mess, with paperwork everywhere, and stuff just strewn about. My life was also unorganized. Between the stress of work and the stress of life, it was all I could do to pass out in front of the TV when I got home. Laundry piled up, there was crap everywhere for the wedding. It was like a tornado hit. I didn't even like having people over to visit, it was such a mess.

This year is a complete 180! It started with my summer project of hardcore cleaning and redecorating this place. Our place is still not 100% perfect, but it's so much better than it was. There is actual living space, well, when A.P.'s clothes are not strewn about...but even that is manageable. The mess from before was borderline Hoarders-like behavior. I mean that's an exaggeration, but it was bad. And, it gets better! My workspace is immaculate! Every first day of my work week, I stay late and file/organize. It's awesome. I'm also insane when I come home from work every day. I switch into my home clothes (or play clothes, as I call them), and immediately put away my work clothes, and work stuff. So far, these routines are awesome.

The point is it seems like one area of my life being organized had led to my whole life slowly, but surely getting more and more organized. I am finally starting to feel grown up. It's crazy, but it's happening. I'm beginning to understand people who are on top of shit, and have every little part of their lives organized. It's happening to me! Scary!

My goal to getting my life completely organized is to get all of my work (personal and business) done in 5 days so that I can have two true days of relaxation. As of now, I am almost meeting that goal, but it is hard! In addition to the little routines, like putting things away right away (which may be easy for some, but it's hard for me...and really hard for A.P.), I also decided to put in 1.5 hours of work every day after I get home from work (and even if I get home from work hours later than normal). That really sucks a lot, but it sucks a lot less than working on Sundays, which ruins my whole day and puts me in a terrible mood. It's also work I see paying off in the future. I'd hate to have to work so hard when we have kids one day, but it's nice to know that I won't be working six days a week, and that I'm really working towards having a personal life again.

So that being said...Any organizational tips??

Bickering

My pets, what do you and your significant other bicker about the most? I would say hands down, A.P. and I bicker the most over cleaning. We bicker a lot. Note I'm using the word bicker, and not fight, because I feel like fighting is feelings getting hurt and saying things you can't take back, whereas nagging at each other in one minute spurts about something mundane, and then in the next breath kissing and eating dinner together and talking as if two minutes ago never happened falls more under the heading of bickering. That being said, we bicker all the time about housework. Two years of living together and it's still an issue.

Lately, I've been hardcore cleaning and redecorating the place and everything's a hot jumble of a mess, but it's coming together slowly. I pitch in some effort a bit at a time, so really the place has been a hot mess all summer, but is improving over time. Still, the place looking like this has led to some serious bickering. I keep waiting for the bickering to end, and the cleaning to be equally divided, and all these problems to stop so that we can just be, but it seems they never do. So I ask, do you all bicker about cleaning? How did you all figure it out?