Fair Play Testimonial

I wanted to share my experience with implementing Fair Play at home, I find these kinds of posts helpful myself. For a little context, my husband and I(female) have been married for about 15 years, and have 3 kids that we adopted when they were early elementary age, now pre teens. We live on the east coast, and are upper middle class. I desperately read the book, and marked sections for my husband to read. We started the new system in September, around the beginning of the school year, already a transitional time. I remember when I was growing up, my mom would get really overwhelmed and cry, a few times a year, saying "she just needs more help", and my dad and us kids would be like, "ok mom, we'll do more dishes" but it would just cycle again, and I saw myself getting into that cycle, too. I had been trying to articulate that I needed/wanted more support from my husband with the kids and household things, but could never really say it in a way he understood, and I love that the book let me finally do that. He likes the idea of stepping up, and actually owning some tasks. He works full time, I work part time. Not only do I not want to lose my mind or resent him forever, but I also want our kids to see fair division of labor between partners, that men can cook and clean and women deserve down time too!

We went over what each card detailed and minimums standards. I said what I really wanted for the first week was for him to take some daily grind things for the weekend. He took that and then some. Previously he had practically none, only did what I asked for help with, plus transportation. I say he might be taking too much; he says he can handle it and he’s worried that even with him taking all this, I won’t be happy. A typical weekend was him sleeping in until 9 or later, I’ve started kid chores, I make lunch, he might help with dishes, I do more kid stuff, I make dinner, have to go out of my way to tell him it’s time for dinner, do the bedtime routine, go out of my way more than once to involve him in bedtime, I’m constantly walking around picking up after the kids while he spends hours on video games, if I get overwhelmed, I ask him to take over for a few hours. He later says he doesn’t like the sudden switching of responsibility.

First day, he let the dog’s water run out for hours, I finally just did it (he had the card for the dog). Dishes and kids bedtime routine really seemed to eat into his usual video game time. Had to remind about dog meds. I tried to explain my usual tidying routine (he took that card) but he said I was micro managing. I had a pretty relaxing afternoon/evening despite still “watching.” I read my book, didn’t help him. Anytime I thought about helping pick something up or remind a kid to do something, I asked myself if he would have done that last weekend, the answer was no, so I didn’t. I feel a little bad for not helping even in little ways, like I would have liked him to do in the past, but he needs to own his cards. I’m also realizing I have all these reminders in my phone that I still have to remind him of.

Second day, had to remind about the dog med, bedtime was 10 minutes late, I had to show him how to do some of the kids homework. Pretty sure he forgot the indoor plants, but he did a lot of work outside. He’s playing video games instead of tidying. I’m this close to saying "it’s not as fun to be me, is it?"

One week in, at check in, I say I think you’re forgetting the indoor plants. “We only have one right?” We have four. “Tell me all the ways I’m failing you as a husband” he says but we're trucking on.

End of third(second?) week: I started to lose my patience about some of the things he’s slipping on, like tidying. It isn’t that I need the house spotless, it’s that the kids will not pick everything up, so when something is left and he doesn’t get it, it sends this message that it must be on me to pick it up. Bedtime routine-he sometimes gets too hard on the kids, and raises his voice, when I wish he wouldn’t. He assumes they know what to do, but they need to be reminded! (He doesn’t know that’s what I’ve been doing? Or did I miss the first reminder so it looks like he’s impatient, because I’ve been there) He mistimed an outing that made dinner and thus soccer late. He was totally checked out of “watching” after school both days he was supposed to.

Around the fourth week-at check in, I said I know I criticize little things sometimes, and don’t point out all the things you do right, I appreciate you. And I really like this system, I like having some “off” time, and not constantly going from one task to the next. And he said “yeah I bet you do” in a snarky way. Then we argued because I said I felt guilty that he had to change his morning routine so much, and he said he “doesn’t begrudge it” which is not what he was saying a month ago, but he’s saying it now, so I’m supposed to believe it. He acknowledged that a year ago I was “exceedingly accommodating” about his gym schedule. (Hell yes) and he hopes to find a way to make it work still. It still kind of feels like he’s only doing it to make me happy, and would really rather go back to how it was. He’s had “tidying” this whole time, and he’s getting frustrated that the kids don’t really tidy well when you ask them to, he says he’s going to start putting things in toy jail or the trash if they don’t tidy well. (I think maybe he’s noticing just how much of the tidying I do, like he thought the kids were actually picking up well before?)

A few days later: I had a day off work and finally caved and did some “tidying,” like picking up pencils on the floor, paper scraps, scissors. End of week is when I typically tidy well, Sunday nights. I had to ask the kids to pick up a bunch of stuff (sort of part of bedtime routine anyway) I wasn’t in the best mood, I asked him if he was going to tidy? He said “this isn’t how it’s supposed to work, you have to trust me to do my card, or I will hate and quit this, etc, and asked if I had done laundry? (Yes)” so I pointed out I’m on top of laundry, but the tidying is not being done. He brought up MSCs, I said right, this is not up to standard. He claims we never set a standard. He has me point out an area, I say there’s trash there, it takes him three tries to “see” it??? I say thats my problem I guess, I see things you’re not seeing! He complains about the dishes, we cool off, get the kids to bed. I ask later if he’ll do it up to standard if I write specific standards, or is he giving up on this card? He says he’ll try again, so I go back to the card, which only said “tidy common areas daily” so I list the common areas, say “daily, but especially Sunday evenings, trash, papers, dishes, toys, books, picked up and put away from the floor and the tables, make the kids bring things upstairs if they belong there.” We’ll see if that’s specific enough.

The next week: He has “tidying” and “bedtime routine” and I watched my Netflix until ten minutes before bed time, came out, some tidying still to do, I gave the kids a few reminders. He got all defensive saying I need to trust him with the card, claiming he was going to get it all done (he was down a google rabbit hole on his phone.) I brought it back up later, that there’s a reason I don’t trust him fully to do bedtime routine, his track record isn’t great, and I thought I was only doing little things that I wouldn’t mind him doing for me if it were swapped. He said he feels undermined and like I swoop in and take over. We agreed that I should offer help or he can ask for help, but don’t just swoop in. He feels we started this on uneven footing.

Later that week: He helped a little with laundry, my card, I said "See, I realize you’re just doing a small thing, you’re obviously willing to help, I’m not making some big deal about you overstepping." He says when it’s this way around, I’m helping, the other way around it’s like you don’t trust me (he doesn’t see the issue is in his mind?) I say Maybe you can think of it differently, like, I’m just doing the same thing, if I’m willing and available, I help a little. (Idk)

He did breakfast and morning routine, I had somewhere to be, left at ten til nine, which is the cut off for kids being ready/teeth brushed and I was pretty sure it hadn’t been done, on my way out I said they might need a reminder to brush, and he gave me this angry look. I said, you could just say "I got it", or "ok," you don’t have to start a fight. It really is like he’s trying to make little things into fights.

Start of month 3: He’s done a little better with tidying, but today I told him that if his mom comes over today, I’ll be the one judged for the house, not him.

The next week: I took back tidying. My current thought is that it would just be nice to not have some cards even like four times a year (like laundry.) I don’t necessarily mind it, but don’t like feeling like it’s always mine. He has “trash” and it sort of needed taking out Friday, def Saturday. He was sitting on the couch on his phone and I asked him to take it out. Fifteen minutes later, I asked again, said I needed to empty the vacuum before the kid uses it before he goes to this party (so he knew it was time sensitive) and he said “this feels a little petty.” I said "no, I asked while you were clearly not busy. Petty would be asking you to do it while you’re trying to sleep in, or telling you when you’re at work that it needed doing." (I have been taking it out at least once a week while he’s at work.) He huffed a little but got over it. (I mean really? He still thinks I ought to be the default when something needs doing? The point of having the card is that you get the job done, not wait for someone else to do it for you!)

He’s had “other kids birthday parties” for a while, and this weekend there were two parties/sleepovers but of course the moms were texting me all weekend. And he acted surprised when I asked him to drive. I get it, I’ve been texting about pickup and drop off. So it’s annoying, I feel like I halfway still have this card. But it would be more annoying to make the neighbors text my husband.

So, here we are, completed 3 months. We plan to continue. The beginning was fairly rough. I still highly recommend it to everyone. At the very least, the invisible work is more visible now. He's in charge of planning his mom's birthday next weekend for the first time, maybe I'll update!