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I've also never met a man who was upset about a woman not cleaning the house enough, with the exception of a couple Niles Crane-type obsessives who married the same. Literally the vast majority of straight men I know would rather their wives spent less time cleaning. If pressure from husbands could affect women's cleaning, it'd make them clean less.
It goes with the narrative of all the uncompensated work women do. I get the impression much of this work is not at the behest of men. I like that the house is clean but I don't need it to be as clean as it is. Clutter doesn't bother me, it can completely dysregulate my wife. I like a tasty complicated dinner, but I could go without it. I don't need plants that need to be watered, I don't need decorations that need to be dusted, I don't need a rug with tassels that prevents us from having a robot vacuum, I don't need flower beds that require more work than just grass.
Indeed. A lot of supposed uncompensated labor, emotional or other, women perform is just filling in ditches that they themselves or other women dug up.
Like office birthdays: Left to their own devices, a group of men will cheerfully go without their birthdays being celebrated and a Special Day carved out where it’s all about them. They may even find such unearned and unsolicited attention awkward and annoying. Men are less accustomed to being celebrated for merely existing, rather than for having achieved something.
Plus, female-coded tasks like dishwashing or vacuuming are herculean but demeaning self-sacrificial Acts of Valor when a woman performs them; male-coded tasks like mowing the lawn or fixing the car are glorified hobbies or doing the bare minimum when a man performs them. If anything, men should be grateful for the opportunity to be useful for a change.
Last night had a relationship conversation with my wife. The gist is she is "more motivated than me". The tasks she has hanging over hear head contributing to her anxiety:
Finish the front yard (the flower beds I mentioned)
Paint the cabinets
Organize filing cabinet
Organize the pantry
Organize the Desk
Paint internal walls
Get her tickets and lodging for my work trip that she insists she go on
Always have home made bread, pies, and pizza doughs on hand.
Yeah, she's finding stuff to do to make herself anxious/justify anxiety. Always baking pies and repainting things is anxiety-refocusing behavior, not the cause of the anxiety.
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