Married Peoples: How do you balance division of chores?

I take care of firewood, which entails a lot of manual labor, slashing, burning hauling splitting. She cooks and cleans. I help with dishes and buy my own beer, guitars and amps. Did I leave anything out :idk
 
I have a feeling that both sides will feel they have the higher work load regardless of what the reality is.

Generally I do the dishes and take out the trash, while my wife does the laundry. Other cleaning chores get divided up as needed. Dishes is something that needs to be done daily and is 30-60 minutes on average. Laundry is once a week and takes most of a full day on and off. I also do all the outdoor work like snow clearing and lawn mowing.

I'm not sure how old your kid(s) are, but with kids under two all bets are off. Nobody gets sleep and everyone's on edge. We would try and trade off who got up with the baby, but it's never fun.

Otherwise, it just depends on what kind of partnership you have. If you are doing 90% of the work and are fine with it, then keep it as is. If you are doing 55% and mad it's not 50/50, probably more of an uphill battle. If your partner is super lazy and doesn't want to do anything, then you need to be honest and talk about it.

Another thought I have is, if you are both dug in and can't align, it's absolutely worth trying some couple's therapy. I'm just a dude on a gear forum, but my ex and I could never get on the same page and everything sucked at home. We split and my wife and I have almost always been on the same page from day one. Not to say we never disagree, but usually we can figure it out if one person is struggling. Because we both really give a shit and want everything to work.

Anyways maybe a place to start, see if you can find some common ground. Can you have 15 minutes of peace and quiet when you get home first, then take over with the kids so she can get a break for a bit? Can you wait until after the kid goes to bed to do some cleaning, that way you can make some time as a couple or family to actually enjoy life for a hot minute? Switching off bed times is a great idea, as is just generally having a schedule. Having one night per week where you can get out of the house, then another where she can, and maybe 1-2 times per month trying to have a date night.
 
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Now now. Don't be judgemental. I'd only just woke up.

My daughter's 2 1/2, and there have absolutely been times when I've been unhappy with how the division of labour has gone. That's natural.

It's really important that both parents get time to be themselves. Not just for the parents: that time maintaining your own life and mental well being pays dividends in helping you be the best parent you can be, and also provides a real life, real time role model for your child demonstrating how to be a well adjusted adult with the skill of balancing their time and responsibilities.

The thing that is a red flag for me in your OP is this idea that you work all day, then do all the childcare when you're at home, including overnight. When my kid was a baby, especially when wife was staying at home, she did the nights so that I didn't fall asleep and crash on the motorway on the morning commute. I'd take the early morning (like, any time after 4am) feed, nappy change, whatever, so wife could get some sleep, and I'd take on some night time burden as the situation demanded - if baby was ill or just unsettled or wife was especially tired, for example.

The situation you described made it sound like she treats parenting like a 9-5 job then gets her old life back the rest of the time. Obviously that isn't fair.
 
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