The Atlantic

My Husband Paid Me to Do Housework

We wanted to address a systemic, gendered imbalance. It didn’t really work.
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A couple of years ago, I started invoicing my husband for housework. It made sense to us: While our goal was to divide the work equally, I ended up doing much more because he worked in an office and I worked at home as a freelancer, using my breaks to cook, vacuum, and do laundry.

We split all our bills down the middle, except for rent, which we each paid in proportion to our income. But if we felt financially even, we didn’t when it came to time. It seemed unfair that I was doing most of the housework, even if I found it easy to fit into my day and was more proficient at it. So we came up with a system: He would pay

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