'AITA for not wanting to split housework 50/50 with my wife when I pay 90% of rent and bills?'

"AITA for feeling it's unfair that my wife expects me to do half the housework when I already pay for almost everything?"

My wife (32F) and I (34M) are both working professionals. We’ve been married for four years. While we both have jobs, I end up contributing around 90% of the household expenses—rent, utilities, groceries, insurance, you name it. She contributes maybe 10%, which she acknowledges, but says it’s because I earn a bit more. Fair enough—I don’t mind paying more, and I’ve never thrown it in her face.

However, where I’m beginning to struggle is the division of household chores. She expects me to contribute at least 50% to the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. She says since we both work, it’s only fair.

But here's the thing: I’m already shouldering almost the entire financial load, and I also have a pretty demanding job with long hours. After a full day, I come home and still end up doing dishes, cooking dinner on alternate days, or doing laundry.

I’ve tried having conversations about this, saying I’m exhausted and feel like I’m carrying the weight of two people—financially and domestically. Her response is always that she’s tired too and that helping out at home is part of being an equal partner. Again, I understand and agree—but why doesn’t that logic apply to the financial part too?

It’s not that I don’t want to help at home. I’ve always been the kind of guy who believes in equal responsibilities. But if one partner is contributing significantly more financially and also doing close to half the housework, isn't that just… too much?

Lately, I’ve been feeling burnt out. I can’t remember the last time I had a full day where I wasn’t either working or doing chores. Meanwhile, she gets time to relax, meet friends, or just unwind. When I bring this up, she gets defensive and says I’m making it sound like she does nothing, which is not my intention at all.

I just feel like the current setup is unsustainable and emotionally draining for me. I don’t want to start resenting her, but I'm getting there. AITA for feeling that this is unfair and asking for a more balanced contribution—either financially or with housework?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

ProfPlumDidIt said:

Maybe try approaching the discussion in terms of labor hours... the number of hours each week that you each put in to support the household (so job hours plus chore hours). Those should be close to equal in a fair split. If they aren't then things should be adjusted. Putting it in those terms can help to highlight any imbalances more clearly.

Dramatic-Ant-9364 said:

How is the salary split? Do you really earn 90% vs 10% for her or is it more of a 70%/30% split? If so the bill split should be adjusted accordingly. Where does "her money" (outside of the 10% financial contribution to your joint finances) go? You said, " Meanwhile, she gets time to relax, meet friends, or just unwind." Do you get time to unwind as well? If not, why not?

dr_lucia said:

You don't tell us your incomes. If it's large, why don't you hire a house cleaning service, send laundry out and order pre-prepared meals. When both partners have full time jobs, it makes sense to hire out the "third" job instead of splitting it.

You can also renegotiate the split in costs-- but once again, that depends a bit on your incomes. It also depends on choices you made. If you've picked living in a ginormous house or very expensive neighborhood, maybe you should move somewhere smaller (with less house keeping required) and especially less expensive.

No idea if you are an AH since costs and other decisions aren't revealed.

MelodicThunderButt said:

I make more than my husband, by a lot. Even on maternity leave, I make more than he does. I bought our house, our cars, pretty much everything.

It has never come up in the context of housework, because that is unrelated. Our hours have come up, because that very much is, but.. I cannot imagine making my husband into my maid because I make more money than him.

I don’t even think of it is “I made this much you made this much”. WE make that much. It’s all a WE, considering we are on the same team.

Saying you are burnt out, and need some downtime, is fair… but saying you make more money so your spouse should have to clean up after you and be a housewife with a full time job is ridiculous.

And Ok_Stable7501 said:

Earning more doesn’t give you a free pass on household chores, but if you work more hours, or bring work home, longer commute, more demanding/mentally or physically demanding job, that should be taken into account. For example, my husband does more chores during during periods when I take more work home. When he has extra hours I do more chores. NAH.

The OP later shared this series of edits:

Edit 1: People are putting a lot of hate on me for wanting equal contribution in my marriage, I want to tell you that she comes home 4-5 hours earlier than me, so I work a lot longer hours than her, I contribute 90% of the expenses, and top of that I also have to do half of the household chores? Am I a servant? How can people be so insensitive towards me?

Edit 2: Salary split is she earns 1/5th of what I earn. She works 6 hours in average per day, I work 10 hours almost, she spends the rest of the salary for herself, or saves it for herself.

Edit 3: We both work in IT field

Final EDIT: People are hating on me tremendously, they expect me to pay 90% of the bills and also do half of the housework, while she brings nothing to the table, even after I mentioned I work longer hours than her and get no rest.

They want me to be a servant to my wife, pay most of the bills, do half of cooking and cleaning, while she does nothing financially or domestically, people hate men when they want equal efforts, or they simply hate men in general, its very evident, if it was a woman, they all would be supporting her, just because I am a man I am being hated upon.

Hmmm... what are your thoughts?