What do you think of this [details inside]?

Question

A week before there wedding he comes home and gets angry because she hasent cleaned the house. Now they both have full time jobs but he still expects her to clean and cook. She gets really upset and tells him if he wants a clean house to hire a maid. He calls his mother and makes his soon to be wife talk to her. His mother says to her ''theres just things in a marriage you have to do to keep the peace''. So she basically told her to suck it up and stop bitching. This seems messed up to me, what do you think?

Answer 1

The next and last thing he would see would be the back of me.

Answer 2

I think she found the wrong guy! Problems like these need to be dealt with before the words "I do", if they both work full time they both need to help clean, or do what my fiance and I do, if you make the mess the you are the one who cleans it, point blank!

Answer 3

It's very messed up.  If he wanted a June Cleaver, then he should have found one.  With both people working full time, it's only fair to share the household duties.  What a baby to call his mommy and tell on his soon to be wife.  Run for the hills before it's too late.

Answer 4

I'd tell him to go back to his mother.

Answer 5

Do I think she should clean it....yes, but her fiancee should also help out a little. They are both in the wrong there.

They need to work together to clean the house fully. Then when it is tidy, they should take 15 minutes a day and work together to keep the house clean.

Answer 6

They need to work out a fair division of labor, or part ways. And I wouldn't, personally, marry a guy that calls his mommy at the first sign of trouble.

Answer 7

Didn't they discuss all this beforehand? It never ceases to amaze me how blindly some people walk into marriage.

Of course it's ridiculous. They sound incompatible. He is a mummy's boy that wants a mummy replacement. Why doesn't she break it off?

Answer 8

I think it confirms that one of the most important things in a relationship is setting the expectation levels.  You do need, just like in any successful partnership, to define work responsibilities.

I do take care of most of the light cleaning, cooking and household chores but my husband does the outdoor work and makes the majority of the household income.  You have to figure it out and work together.

Answer 9

If he wants a traditional wife that is something that he needs to consider before they get married because if she wants to a be a career women and he wants a stay at home mother then they are going to have huge problems

Answer 10

he called his mommy?! omg! tell her to run and not look back

Answer 11

Well, Betty Friedan thought that housework was so easy nowadays that a woman should be able to knock it off in an hour or so, and have a full-time job as well.  She didn't really approve of men having to help in the house.

So if this person is a real feminist, she should really be working AND doing all the housework as well, because it's not real work, according to feminists.  On the other hand, if she does not wish to embrace the philosophy of feminism, that women should do it all, then she should think about whether she really wants to be married to a man who has embraced the Friedan philosophy and expects her to do absolutely everything.

And if she's earning money, then why can't she hire a maid herself?  What is she, a woman or a mouse?  Either she stands up to this man now, or she lets him walk all over her.  it's really up to her.

Answer 12

Which one mows the yard?

It has to be a partnership, marriage or not (by the way, why in this day and age are they getting married?). If he mows, she should clean. If she cooks, he should do the dishes. They can do the laundry together, I guess.

And if his mama's so great, maybe he should stay with her?

Answer 13

I certainly HOPE she thinks twice about marrying this guy now!  It is obviously a preview of what she can expect after the honeymoon is over - and I suspect it would be over VERY quickly!

That SHE should, in effect, have to work TWO jobs while HE only works ONE is as wrong as wrong can be!  

Most households today require two average middle-class incomes to run happily and smoothly.  This means that other aspects of making and keeping the home a mutually healthy and happy space need to be shared as well.

If he is so thoughtless of her that he cannot see that, I hope she learns the object lesson such a situation presents and moves on - ideally, to find a fair-minded mate in the future who can think of her as more than just a handy-dandy housecleaning device on two legs.

Answer 14

I smell a divorce.  You can't expect a woman to do all the cleaning.  Just like they both have full time jobs, they both should share the load of house chores.  She's not his mother, so she shouldn't have the right to tell his new bride what to do.  Punch the mom-in-law in the face then make him do his own laundry like a big boy.

Answer 15

They definitely seem to have different ideas of the expectations placed on gender roles.

He expects her as woman and wife, to clean the house, and instead of communicating this, get angry about it. As a result, she is defensive, and protects her right to have a career as well. She does not feel obligated to fit into the gendered expectation that she ought to clean the house because she is a woman, especially if they both face the same circumstances of working full-time. She is telling him, I am your wife, not your maid.

What is disturbing here is that instead of talking about these expecations and negotiating them, this man is imposing them on his wife and getting angry when she does not comply. He expects her to obey, and when she doesn't, he uses his mother as a form of surrogate authority to corrobate his traditional beliefs and coerce his soon-to-be wife into obeying him rather than negociating those expectations in a fair and mature way that gives space for both parties to share their needs and participate in a way that feels right to both of them.

If a man behaved that way towards me, the wedding would be off. If we share the role of providing income, we should be sharing domestic tasks equal measure, in my books. If a man wants a woman to cook and clean for him, he ought to  be providing for her, and not marrying a career woman.

This is a gendered double-standard and a classic case of, yes, we have equality, you work, but i still expect you to serve me meals and clean my home as if you were home all day and i wasn't.

While I do believe in doing things to keep the peace, I do not think it should be up to one partner to accomodate the other partner's expectations as their own expense. This is not a one-way road, it's a partnership, and it goes both ways. They should both be discussing this and finding a compromise.

Furthermore, in using his mother to corroborate his position, this man shows complete disrespect for both his wife and his mother, using them as pawns in the debate to get what he wants, rather than having an open discussion with his wife and coming to a compromise they could both life and be happy with.

If they go through with this wedding, it seems like it will be the start of a battle of the sexes where this man will be constantly bullying his wife into providing all the domestic unpaid labour on top of the same full time work that he provides, probably with a striking wage difference to boot.

Answer 16

Yeah, it's messed up. You shouldn't have to "suck up" treatment like that. Why are they getting married again?

Answer 17

They both have full time jobs. It's not fair for one of them to have a full time job AND cook and clean. They should both be helping out. It seems to me the man is too lazy to help out in the house.

Answer 18

It sounds to me as if you invented a story to push your feminist agenda.