Thanks for this thought-provoking piece. It sounds like you’re undoing the work that she just did, then leaving it to her to do over.

You “pay the bills,” so the equivalent would be if she logged into the bank account and cancelled all the transactions you’d just taken care of. It’s not that you couldn’t re-do them, but that you shouldn’t have to. Neither should she.

Cleaning up after yourself shows appreciation and respect for her labor. Leaving messes does the opposite. To the person who just cleaned, or whose “job” it is, this can feel like a big F.U.

Of course, paying bills is a piece of cake compared to the physically intensity of housework. Yet if she logged in afterwards and cancelled your bill payments, how would that make you feel?

You’re on the right track to consider adult roles in the shared labor of living. It needs to be discussed more, assumptions questioned, habits changed.

Men typically assign themselves the household/yard projects that are satisfying to complete. They use those efforts as cover to leave the boring, repetitive, tedious daily grind of household chores to their wives. These men would have a kitten if we walked around behind them undoing their efforts — yet have no issue with undoing ours.