I think experience unloading the dishwasher helps inform the user about what is not going to work.
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I do all of that; but I like all of that. Just my role to play in the happy home.
I think the key is actually liking it. Nothing breeds resentment more than feeling like one is obligated to do something.
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Like making the bed. I think it’s pointless. Mrs. ricepad does not, but I foolishly agreed, early in our relationship, that the last one to get up would make the bed. It was easy for me at the time, because she tended to lounge in bed for a bit after waking, whereas I, as soon as my bladder told me it was time, would get up and stay up. In retirement, though, she’s the early riser and I lounge for a bit. And then have to make the GD bed.
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OMG. My PIC insists on making the bed. I let him, but I don’t get it at all. Seems pointless to me.
I get where Mrs. ricepad is coming from. It’s just me, but I make my bed mostly on weekdays and Saturdays. Sunday? I just let it go. So I’m a combination of made/don’t care if it’s made.
I do like going upstairs at the end of the night and seeing the “neatness” of a made bed.
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Half the time, BF sleeps on top of the sheets and comforter, so, making the bed is mostly straightening out my side and smoothing his. No biggie.
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No biggie at all, especially compared to other housework. Still pointless to me 
I need to have things exactly where I expect them, or I can’t find anything. (Hence, I’m terrifically organized.) This means I’ve taken on unpacking the dishwasher. When my wife does it, invariably something will end up in the wrong place.
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I usually leave ours unmade most of the day under the guise of decreasing allergens - I read somewhere that dust mites hate unmade beds so this works for me
While I’m waiting for the evening weather to start I make the bed. I do like the feeling of getting into a properly organized bed
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It’s been two weeks since I posed the question, and I’ve very much enjoyed reading your diverse responses.
In the meantime, I did some reflecting on my own situation, lest I made it sound like I resented doing the chores I mentioned in my OP, or felt like things weren’t balanced enough in our relationship.
While I consider myself a feminist through & through there are certain realities that just, well, are… like the fact that I have several jobs I enjoy tremendously, but continue to be underemployed and therefore can’t contribute much to the household financially.
My PIC is decidedly the main Bacon Home Bringer @casa lingua. He works his lil tushie off day in day out, and still helps more with household chores than most of my friend’s male partners.
Cooking & preparing food for the people in my life is one of my love languages, and doing it for the most important person in my life makes me happy. And it makes him happy, too.
Win/win 
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who works whose tushie off all/every day is not actually “the” factor when the home-front meets reality.
my DW did the cooking for billions and billions of years . . . because she was - by absolute agreement and ‘usual’ - an at-home-mom, tending to kids . . . etc. we both agreed it was a serious imperceptive that she was a full time mommie for the kids…
thence me, having been (ingloriously) “laid off” . . . and her job becoming the major income source… I took on the cooking duties - because!! I had the time!
ok ok ok - at that point a household of two . . . like yeah, really easier than ‘cooking for kids’ . . .
it’s not a question of bacon provider - it’s a question of who has the time and interest in being the major ‘dang! that’s-good!’ meal maker.
btw, and “oh dang! it cannot be more important” . . . she does like my stuff.
200 grams of kidney bean chili evaporated this PM . . .
whenever she opines ‘this is really good’ my stock answer is ‘it’s just because you’re hungry’ - which could be true, but methinks such stuff turned out pretty dxmn good meself.
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Well, on teaching days my dude tends to be tired, and even on off-days he has a shit-ton more work than I have in a month, so… the arrangement works.
Doesn’t hurt that he loves my cooking, and I love the occasional dish he makes 
I enjoy hearing about these wonderful stories of long term happy partnerships/marriages.
Sunshine and I are coming up on year 15, together. The time has flown by (happily).
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There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved.
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And those who get both are beyond lucky.
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Quatsch (which means nonsense/ baloney)
…
Edit, I say this, because there are many ppl who have mentioned they will be spending Thanksgiving alone.
I am happy for everyone who is in a loving relationship.
I also am aware that there are ways to be happy even if someone was not able to find the right person or vice versa.
…
Linguafood is very lucky. Her spouse is a kind and compassionate man. She is very lucky to have him and vice versa.
…
That said, I hope everyone finds a way to be content this Thanksgiving , no matter what challenges you are facing.
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It may just be my favorite George Sands quote. And obviously her most famous one
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I do nearly all the cooking and all of the grocery shopping, which has been the case since I was a kid: my parents’ divorce coincided with my father’s business’s bankruptcy, and my mother went from being a stay-at-home mom to working four jobs (a patchwork that would be familiar now: one job for the health insurance, one for the flexible hours, etc). So I started doing more and more of the weekday cooking, and in high school I lived alone most of the time, so did the grocery shopping as well.
These days I think our household cooking situation is a lot like the stereotypical family’s but with the genders reversed—instead of the wife doing most of the cooking and the husband having a couple of special “dad dishes” he makes on the grill, I do everything except my wife’s specialties, which tend to be family recipes (her grandmother’s potato salad, her mother’s spaghetti sauce) or holiday baking (she has much more patience and skill for fiddly baking tasks, I’m a seat-of-the-pants cook).
All that said: my wife does the heavy lifting, and makes much more money than I do, and works the job that provides us with health insurance. (We both work in publishing. I’ve been freelancing since grad school, and she’s a department head.) (This is long again. I spent a decade writing encyclopedia entries. You get into habits.)
I do the cooking because I’m the person it’s easiest for, from each according to their ability et cet—this was especially true before COVID, when my brain worked a little better and cooking didn’t really feel like work so much as something that just occurred if I got up and walked through the kitchen once in a while throughout the day. The kitchen is, by design, nearest to my office. Flexible freelancing hours—I have maybe four meetings a year, she has five today and yesterday was worse—mean it makes the most sense for me to do the shopping and any other errands she doesn’t need to be present for, as well as doing the other kitchen chores like washing the dishes. But she does the bulk of the cleaning, spending a few hours every weekend keeping up with the cats and the tracked-in dirt and etc etc. Cooking may take more effort for me than it used to—and we definitely order takeout more often as a result—but ultimately, I’m so used to it, have done it on most days of my life so far, that it’s much less work for me, if only because of the magic mathematics of muscle memory. And it’s much less work for me than all the cleaning would be (though I’m trying to get into a better kitchen cleaning routine; we’re constantly running out of space in there, and clutter leads to grime etc; thank God we got rid of the deep fryer).
I do vacuum the downstairs, and whenever she’s out of town I move the furniture to the side and do a deep carpet clean, but yeah, she absolutely gets the credit for shouldering the greater burden of the housework.
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