I seriously doubt it. In our house, personal styles collide at the dishwasher. My wife just jams plates and pots and coffee mugs higgledy-piggledy wherever they fit until the whole thing is grossly overloaded and nothing gets clean. I, on the other hand, do it perfectly.

Maybe things work better in your household.

But I think that in order to get any choreplay points at all, dishwashing has to be done solo.

And as long as we're on the subject, do you often do the dishes? What is the essential DW gear in your house? And do you have any techniques you'd care to share?

Keep it clean.

Just like other stuff in our house, we have a plan to keep the peace. If she cooks, I clean, if I cook, she cleans up dinner. We have the unfortunate (joking) problem of actually communicating, so we have had very pointed conversations about all sorts of things like this.

I wanted to let you know that choreplay does not work in my house. Seems I get less affection on the days that I have done more work. Not saying that I will change my ways, just something I have noticed since the DadLabs conversations began a few weeks ago.

DH tends to do better with the unloading and putting away, since he cares where things go and I don't, particularly. I generally will load up the dishwasher and wash whatever won't fit, plus I handwash the baby bottles so they'll be ready to go in the morning.

As far as techniques, I will try to rinse off any large chunks before they go into the dishwasher.

Oh, and anything like the pan from cornbread or rice can't go in the dishwasher, because otherwise little carb-y specks end up on everything. Ask me how I know.

Man, we could NEVER put any pots or serving dishes in our wheezing, old washer. The freakin' dishes have to be practically clean before we put them i, or everything gets flecked with mung. I guess giving my wife a dishwasher for Christmas is probably out of the question, since I do the dishes 90% of the time. Plus I priced those things at Home Depot. Sheesh.

We're in an apartment, so we're pretty much at the mercy of the complex as to if we ever get an upgrade. At any rate, I tend to rinse pans pretty well before they go in, but I figure the dishwasher washes them with much hotter water than I can stand.

Doing the dishes together is a bad idea. It is all about personal style and can only cause problems. If you want to do something together take a walk, go to a movie, hell even fold laundry (which also has it's dangers you ought to see the way my wife folds t-shirts but that's another story) but DO NOT DO THE DISHES!

We do dishes about the same way you would say that Indy played WITH the Patriots on Sunday. You may even get to the very end without a hitch and one misstep ruins it and makes a bazillion Hoosiers happy.

My wife also has a very violent method of doing dishes. You can hear it for blocks. It's best to keep 20 or 30 feet distance at all times.

We have an older roll up dishwasher that rarely gets used, because it just seems more of a hassle to hook it up than do the dishes in the sink. But only glass items go in it anyway. (Plates, glasses, bowls, etc.) All the pots and pans get hand washed. (The DW will NOT clean 'em.)

I was the primary DW for a long time. So, I installed a new deeper double sink and it is awesome. She has since all but taken over the duty. Not because of the sink or she didn't like the way I did them, but because she was not working and felt she needed to do more around the house. Score! She IS working now, AND going to school, yet she still does 'em. Score again!

But NO. We don't do them together. We're both trying to let TheBoy help sometimes. But I don't like how she does them, and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't like the way I wash either. The metal 'scratches' left in the sink by the pans drive me INSANE! (They don't occur when I wash.) But I pick my battles. And I figure, scrubbin'/buffin' on those scratches is better than doin' a sink full o' dishes. So I get irritated when I see them, and let that burn transfer into elbow grease. Then I have a nice perdy sink again, and a rack full o' clean dishes.


OH, a BIG help... PAPER PLATES! (And we drink our soft drinks straight outta the can.) So there are few glasses and plates. Mostly pots and pans, and the plastic kid dishes.

I've also noted, the more dishes you physically have in the cupboard, the bigger the load when you have to do dishes, because you generally speaking will use ALL of the dishes before you clean them. If you only have enough dishes for 2 days of meals, you'll never have to do more than 2 days worth of dishes... This philosophy is lost upon my wife...

We have a fairly small capacity dishwasher, so I never go through all of our dishes. On the other hand, the size of my cloth diaper stash ensures that I will do laundry at least every two days. But that's another discussion.

Craigslist, man!

My wife and I go through the same thing with dishwashing. We don't have a dishwasher, so we have to do everything by hand. And here's where our problem starts. She and I can take an identically sized pile of dishes that we've neglected for a few days (we have a bad habit of doing that), and it'll take her 15 minutes to do what takes me 45. I actually dread coming home and finding that she's done the dishes, because I know a third of them are going to go straight back into the wash pile.

Simple answer.. nope...

I try to get all the dishes done while she puts the little one to sleep. On nights when she's out, I do them after the little one is asleep and while I'm drinking my 'good dad' beer.

In a perfect world? Maybe. Then again, I like how me and the wife handle these things. I do the dishes. She does the laundry.

Though as of late, I have been doing both. I guess she is allowed to rest while she is growing our child.

NO
Sad But True

We've had a broken dishwasher for over a month, now. Our three year old portable went belly up. In researching the problem, I uncovered a recall on it. because it was unrelated to the problem we're having we had two choices. One was to have a repairman come out to fix it and also have the warranty work done. Or we could get a new one with a healthy rebate from the manufacturer. So, we're doing that, but are waiting for some checks to clear. The irony with that is that we paid with this one with gift cards and anniversary checks.

So, we've been doing dishes by hand for a month and then some. What I've learned in this time is that my wife either has to get enraged to do dishes or the very act of doing dishes sends her into a rage that makes the legendary Berserkers look like lap dogs. And it seems to be intensifying.

This morning, she took on a rather small stack. Before she even started running water, she was clanging pots and pans, throwing cups and slamming cabinet doors. When I walked in to make sure everything was all right I got a death stare and an amplification in destruction.

"Since you're banging things even more, I'm just going to ask what I did." I said right off. "There were green beans in the bottom of the sink and I had to clean the sink before I could do dishes." she snarled. This happens to be the side with the garbage disposal, so it's just a matter of running the water and the disposer at the same time. We're also not talking about more than two or three. I apologized and hoped that we could replace anything she broke.

Well, I went in casually after lunch and cleaned up. In putting away what she had "cleaned" (she doesn't do a good job when she's enraged, which is every time she "does dishes") I saw that we had six sippy cups and lids with only two valves in the drainer basket. So I asked her if she'd set them aside anywhere. She had no idea. So I spent the next twenty minutes fishing sippy cup valves out of the garbage disposal.

The irony was lost on her. I finished doing the dishes and kept quiet about the valves, the risk to my limbs and how much nastier sticking a hand into a garbage disposer is than spraying a couple beans into it.

Someone, please send a dishwasher.

@ben

I am laughing at your pain. In a completely cathartic and healthy way, of course. Dude, I hope that dishwasher get there soon.

We have a dishwasher, but typical of all the appliances supplied by the school, it is the cheapest possible unit. Rather than actually clean the dishes, it simply redistributes the food particles more evenly across all items therein. If the dishes aren't pre-rinsed, and if the unit is loaded more than 3/4 full (I know, environmental nightmare), then the stemless wine glasses come out with the insides encrusted with what looks like coarse sand. Dried hard.

A fact that my wife has evidently failed to notice.

If I don't get to the dishwasher, to reorganize and reload, before she turns it on, it has to be run again. I should make a video of the slow motion "Nooooooo" as I dive at the dishwasher trying to get there before she turns it on.

Not in my house. My wife lets the dishes pile up next to the sink, so that when I get home...yup.

Her disclaimer is that that's actually the second load, the first load having been done earlier in the day.

Hmm...

While she packs a better DW than me, I am totally faster. Which would you choose?

Right now we are trying:

One washes dishes, the other plays with the kids.

And if they are playing happily alone, then bonus time for us to talk to each other.

Update:

Lat night I got a full explanation. She and her sister were given a schedule for dishes when they were in their tween years. Every other day Mrs. Ben had to do them. But because her sister was a couple years older and had "activities" she would always skip her day, leaving my wife to do twice as much. So when she sees a sink of dishes she gets mad. Call it Post Tramatic Stress or something.

Dishwasher will be bought sometime this week.

Ben - Congrats on both the new dishwasher and getting a full explanation on your wife's 'dish rage'.

It must be a relief to know it's not something you did.

Chris_f - You could try checking for proof that it's the second load (buy soap tabs instead of powdered soap, then just count the remaining tabs) but I think the consequences of calling her bluff would be worse than doing a load of dishes...

We did some dishes together and enjoyed it tonight.

But the new dishwasher is finally here (ordered three weeks ago) and I spent 10 hours installing it. Since it was brand new into a stand alone cabinet across the kitchen from the sink, that's not too bad. 3 hours were spent waiting on a friend to cut the top of the fixture and 2 hardware store trips. So, not too shabby.

Except that there was an unexpected discovery which I'll save for another time/topic. I have to redo the drainage mechanics tomorrow. And it's not my fault!!!

How did I miss this thread?

Well,
I come from a family that rarely used a DW.
My wife's family almost completely cleaned their dishes before they went in the DW.
Together we have made a good compromise.
If we do it together, one will rinse the other will load. I prefer loading and she prefers rinsing.
Also, she's very happy to do all that if I unload, which I also don't mind doing because I like things getting put away a certain way (nesting bowls are supposed to nest)

Same goes for the other chores.
Just a division of labor that works for us.
As my late FIL would call it...
"A Jack Sprat arrangement"