Sharing a household with a partner is not for the faint of heart and one woman is taking a creative approach to make things just a little bit easier.
She calls it the “Allison Solve,” and in a viral TikTok video, Allison Raskin (@allisonraskinbaby) explains the rule she has implemented in her marriage to do certain household tasks her way, without consequences.
She says that if she asks her husband to complete a task that is more aligned with his strengths than hers, and he doesn’t do it on time, she is allowed to do it her way with an “Allison Solve.” Since it was posted, the video has received over 157,000 views and over 1,000 comments.
“If he doesn’t do it in a timely fashion, then I’m allowed to do it the ‘Allison way’ with an ‘Allison Solve,’ which is quick, dirty, and not good,” she said in the video.
Raskin gives viewers the example of a shower caddy she had asked her husband to replace. Defaulting to the “Allison Solve,” she placed a new shower caddy below the old one because she could not get the glue off the old one. This, she said, put a damper on the whole aesthetic of the shower.
“The shower is now…doesn’t look good,” she said. “That’s an Allison solve, baby. He is mad.”
Viewers in the comments were tickled by Raskin’s method and offered effective household rules of their own in return.
“‘Not good and done’ is better than ‘unfinished,'” @lizzaaaakay wrote.
“My husband doesn’t like spending money,” @ladyimbristitches wrote. “So, if I ask him to do something and he puts it off, I hire someone to do it. It’s worked pretty well so far.”
“Whenever my boyfriend couldn’t find something, I used to make him pay me a finder’s fee ($20),” @bigbec wrote. “Now he can always find what he is looking for.”
“My husband doesn’t have to cook if he doesn’t want to,” @notafunnymom wrote. “But the alternative is I eat cookies for dinner, and he still has to feed himself.”
Nattakorn Maneerat/Getty Images
Some in the comments likened Raskin’s method to a “sibling” of weaponized incompetence—the psychological concept in which someone deliberately performs a task poorly to signal their incompetence, shirking responsibility and forcing someone else to do the task.
A recent TikTok video made waves with claims of weaponized incompetence after a man put away food leftovers in a way that made many viewers urge his partner to leave him.
Weaponized incompetence is largely referenced within the domain of the household because it leads to the gendered, unequal division of labor. In Raskin’s example, however, the gender roles are switched. And not everyone is happy about it.
“My husband does not approve this message,” the caption read.
Newsweek reached out to @allisonraskinbaby for comment via TikTok.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.