What is my hobby? My hobby is House Work! Part 1

When we take on the role of ‘supportive spouse’ (or is that ‘support spouse’?), a big part of that role is doing the jobs our Ladies don’t really want to do. We do them for them instead. Relieving her from the stress and the drudgery of house hold chores is one of the greatest gifts a man can give his woman.

I am certain that I am preaching to the choir here when I say this but to become a truly ‘Surrendered Husband’ means that you are going to be spending a lot of time sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, washing, scrubbing, doing the laundry and tidying up. Most women find this work boring and degrading at some level. And since they were born into a world that expects this to be their role, they also find it rather odious.

In many traditional homes, housework is seen as a trap for most ladies.

I think that those reasons alone are enough reason for hubby to do the housework from now on. They illustrate just why it is such a great gift to your woman as well!

When I first realized what an important thing this could be, I dove in head first! “I am going to make her house the cleanest best place a woman ever lived and I refuse to allow her to lift ONE FINGER to do any more housework ever again!!!!” I swore to myself.

I took over the regular maintenance cleaning right away and as soon as I had that under control I tried to jump into deep cleaning. One thing that threatened to get in my way of all this was, and it really was my fault, that there was leftover ‘dude work’ to be done. She had wanted me to do several things that are expected of most husbands.  She had been nagging me to get to some of these chores for a long time and had about given up. In her mind even though she was not keen on doing housework herself, she WAS keen on having me do the ‘hubby chores’. So until I could get those all under control I really couldn’t dedicate myself to relieving her of 'her job’. I needed to do my own first .

I shouldn’t use the pejorative ‘nag’ any more.  I should say that she was “encouraging me”? – Our women certainly don’t ‘nag’. They ‘instruct’ and ‘encourage’ us to do things that we ‘should be doing’. Only when we refuse or fail to do them do they ‘correct’ and ‘re-instruct’. Now isn’t that a much better way to think of the time and effort our ladies put in to making us better hubbies? 

Being "Instructed by our Ladies" is something we can either enjoy or endure. Our choice.

One of bigger the ‘Dude Chores’ that she had wanted me to do for a long time was to sand and stain the kitchen cabinets. This was one of those things that ‘hubby will get around to’. Well she had already waited over a year for me to ‘get around to it’ by the time I did so. She had pretty much given up on me ever doing it and this saddened and frustrated her.

Knowing this and seeing it as an opportunity to serve, I jumped right in and got that project under way. At this time I was a ball of energy! I had gotten so much positive feedback about the maintenance housework that I had started doing that I could continue to do that AND get this job done too.

I remember one conversation we had at this time. It had become a pattern for us where she wanted me to do some ‘dude job’ or ‘hubby chore’ and had ‘suggested’ it to me. I dragged my feet knowing that I ‘...probably should...’ do it, but I really didn’t care if I did it or not. It really was not a very mature attitude for me to cop. Either do it, or say why you don’t think that you should! But no I played the role of the useless whiny little boy and simply nodded along “OK, OK, whatever!” and then dragged my feet and did nothing. It was like the following Oh too true joke that we see floating around the internet today :

 

And that's a TRU FACT!

We had had a number of these “conversations” over several years where I was “reminded” about all the things that I should have done already and “asked” when I would do them. She got angry. I got defensive. It was not pretty. Nor was it helpful in any way.

Anyway we were alone one evening and she had decided that it was time for another such “instructive” session. She was all prepared to do battle in the same non-productive fashion as we always had. Only this time was different. She started going down her list of things I had been dragging my heels on for a long time and just stopped herself in the middle. “You have been so good lately that I don’t have anything left to complain about! Everything on my list is either done or in progress. I really like this change that has come over you lately.” it was really kind of funny. But I really had been her ‘good boy’ for months at that point and we have not had a discussion like that one since!

I did it and I pleased her.

OK, sanding the cabinets is really not as much fun as doing the “women’s work” but it had to be done and having it done (especially done by me) would actually please her more than simply relieving her of the housework. And is this REALLY about making her happy, or just some 'fantasy' of ours?

So I set out to do the ‘dude chores’ in such a way that I would STILL have time to do the basic maintenance housework as well.

Sanding the cabinets had you guessed it, made a mess of the kitchen with there was saw dust everywhere. This was the perfect segue into my doing even more housework! After I had cleaned up the room itself and washed the walls and floors, I took EVERYTHING one item at a time out of the cabinets and had it cleaned. Most was easy. I filled the dishwasher with plates and glasses and ran it while I cleaned the shelf and the inside of the cabinet off. 

Sometimes a guy has to do what a guy has to do!

 

When that load was done, I would do the next cabinet. This took a while and I managed to scour every pot and pan and re-arrange all the spices and pantry items and well…. You get the picture. Working nights and the weekend it took me a full week to get the kitchen all ‘Deep Cleaned’.

She said very little during this manic time for me. She probably thought that I had 'gone off the deep end' again (we do that more than they do you know...) but as long as what I was doing wasn't hurting anyone and it was cleaning the kitchen, just leave him alone!

I simply came home from work, changed my clothes, ate and after I did the dishes for that night I stayed out there cleaning. I have to admit that for me it was ‘cathartic’. I felt in some small way that I was making amends for having ignored the jobs I should have done and this was again a token way of atoning for having left it all for her to do for all those years.

Yes, I felt a bit of ‘male atonement’ not just for her but for how we all had been treating women in general since the dawn of time. Cleaning the house, I suppose has a way of cleansing the soul.

When it was ALL done, I presented it to her and I heard the words that have meant more to me than anything. She looked at all my work and said: “This is great. I suddenly feel so ‘Liberated’.” 

Now honestly in all your life is ANYTHING worth more than this look on your Queen's face?

There is just SOMETHING about a woman feeling like a “Liberated Lady” that excites me to my very core. All the visions of women coming to power and overcoming a past where they were confined to second class status and now finally rising into the lead in so many places where they have always belonged is just a fulfilling and exciting one to me. And I think the term was appropriate considering the dynamics of what was going on at the time in our home.

In part 2, I will talk about the more current dynamic of where house work and dude work fit together...