Doing the majority of the cooking and not having to clean up the mess is definitely a good deal imho.

I like cooking, and I'm pretty good at it. I hate cleaning, and I'm horrible at it.

That was the situation when I first met my partner - she'd cook and I'd clean. I still do a more cleaning than she does (although I get outside help with it these days), so we feel like we split the work pretty well.

We are far too lazy for deals or assignments, we've actually been lucky that we tend to trade off fairly evenly. Sometimes one cooks and the other cleans, sometimes one cooks and cleans, sometimes we both cook and someone cleans, sometimes we both cook and both clean.

Sometimes we let the dishes sit there for a while. It's all good.

It just depends on our energy levels.

Joe and I make deals. Mostly because something needs to be done and one of us (to be honest, usually me) doesn't want to do it. So we barter. Which can sometimes be fun.

It's interesting right now because with Joe in school, I'm taking over a lot of "his" chores and stuff that he did while I was in school. Laundry, cooking, Em. And it's kind of nice. I like doing the house stuff, I just never had the time or energy to do it. But quite often, we have catch as catch can night or take out.

I would actually have no problem with doing most of the cooking, as long as I was not the person doing most of the cleaning. I like cooking, and I'm pretty good at it. I hate cleaning, and I'm horrible at it.

This is how it works in our house. The rule is if you cook you don't do dishes, and 90% of the time that means I cook and DH does the dishes.

Awwww. Congrats on the graduate school! We have an actuary friend who went back and got his MSF--he seemed to enjoy the program.

I rather like the look of it. I mean, given world enough and time, I'd be doing biology or history or Chinese Studies, but this works well enough.

The rule is if you cook you don't do dishes

I seriously think this was the main reason I learned to cook. (The secondary reason was that I was a really picky eater as a kid, and I could only know for sure what was in stuff that I made. Not exactly passion and vocation as motivations go, but it worked out pretty well.)

I think everyone would appreciate coming home to a meal already prepared and waiting, but that doesn't mean it's some sort of entitlement for omnivorous husbands :)

I do most of the cooking, but with 4 people with varied schedules we end up cooking for ourselves most of the time. The boys both cook. Even after more than 20 years, every single time DH comes home and finds that I have made a family dinner he is hugely appreciative. He acts like it is the nicest thing that has ever happened to him. I don't think his mom cooked much.

None of us like to clean up and we all suck at it. I haven't yet found a solution to this problem.

This is how it works in our house. The rule is if you cook you don't do dishes, and 90% of the time that means I cook and DH does the dishes.

Similar in our house. While I was working, and pre-Ryan, Wallybee would cook on weekdays and I'd cook on weekends. Whoever didn't cook would clean up.

Now, her parents cook and I run the dishes. (When we're all healthy.) It's a decent arrangement.

Show of hands -- who else wants a billytea's-inlaws of their very own?