Household Responsibilities are Exhausting

I’m tired most of the time...and I think I’ve figured out the reason why.

Both my husband and I work full-time outside of the house. Each of our commutes are a minimum of 35 minutes each way, if traffic is “good”.

We are also parents to two young children, have an active dog and a fluffy cat. We both play one sport each (in opposite seasons) and have various hobbies.

We live in a single family house on our dream property. We’ve been updating and renovating our house since we moved in. We’ve also been working on the yard to be a more enjoyable space.

The above responsibilities were chosen and are tangible. You can easily talk about these responsibilities with other people. You can choose to dial pieces back or hire help for these responsibilities. 

What’s making me most tired is the addition of the household responsibilities. Those “behind the scenes” responsibilities that need to happen to enable the house to run on smoothly.

Household responsibilities drain your energy. Especially when they aren’t shared.

When we were first married, I didn’t notice how the burden of household responsibilities was lopsided, and it wasn’t in my favour. Occasionally I found it odd when we would host company for dinner and I was stuck in the kitchen preparing the meal while my husband was sitting and visiting with our company. I couldn’t quite put this into words at that time unfortunately. 

Once we had children and the traditional gender norms were in full force - me at home with a newborn full-time and my husband at work full-time - I was hit with the realization of just how lopsided the household responsibilities had become. I knew something needed to change. This couldn’t all fall on me much longer as it wasn’t sustainable.

When there are two adults in the household and there is an agreement that you are equal partners, household responsibilities should be equally shared. They shouldn’t be constantly lopsided.

Household responsibilities are exhausted both mentally and physically.

The Mental Exhaustion of Household Responsibilities:

• Meal planning
• Planning a birthday party, celebration event, etc.
• Budgeting
• Coordinating child care
• Coordinating extracurricular activities
• Reading the school emails
• Updating the shared calendar
• Planning dentist, optometrist, doctor, immunization appointments
• Coordinating your work schedule to be available for school events and children’s appointments
• Planning family trips

The Physical Exhaustion of Household Responsibilities:

• Grocery shopping
• Cleaning the house
• Making dinner 
• Making children’s lunches
• Taking children to extracurricular activities
• Taking children to appointments
• Clothes shopping for the family
• Household shopping
• Packing for family trips
• Laundry
• Preparing for the birthday partying, celebration event, etc.

Household responsibilities aren’t often talked about. They’re often complained about though and this isn’t constructive. 

Constructive Conversation about Household Responsibilities includes:

1. Naming the household responsibilities in your home
2. Acknowledge that household responsibilities are work
3. Deciding how the household responsibilities will be completed in your home
4. Holding each other accountable to what’s been decided
5. Communicating regularly to determine if it’s going well for everyone
6. Adjusting your decisions as life evolves, especially as you can start to involve your children

Do you find household responsibilities exhausting? Let me know in the comments.
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