Are you tired of The Chore War with your husband?
One of the best parts about blogging is that I meet some amazing other bloggers. And Kathi Lipp is one of them. She and her amazing red hair caught my eye at a MOPS convention years ago, and since then we’ve been buddies. I’ve been on her podcast talking about sex; she’s guest posted here.
Kathi and I are each passionate about marriage, but lately Kathi’s been focusing on the basics: How to get your life more organized and how to live clutter free. She and I were talking about how much we’d enjoy guest posting for each other, so we’ve decided that once a month she’ll write for me, and I’ll write for her! So I’ve asked her to write some posts on organizing and clutter with a marriage angle. And here’s her June installment on winning the chore war! (For the record, I relate to #3 all too well):
I went from hurt, to stewing, to fiery mad.
(Trust me, that is not something you want to see on a redhead.)
It was another Saturday and instead of spending the day cleaning house, (which it desperately needed) my husband wanted to head for the mountains. Not to get out of housework, but to take a day off.
My mind raced:
“Great. He’s going to leave me to do all the work when we get back.”
“How selfish. Doesn’t he see everything that needs to be done?”
This was in the first year of our marriage. Since then, I’ve learned some key facts about my husband:
- He doesn’t want me to do all the work. He just doesn’t want to spend his one real day off doing household chores every week.
- No. He honestly doesn’t see all that I see that needs to be done. But when it’s pointed out, he’s usually more than willing to help.
But this took me way too many years to figure out. Too many years and too many fights. As I’ve spent years working with families when it comes to cleaning out the clutter and getting organized, I’ve learned a few key principles to help deal with chores when it comes to couples:
1. Have “The Talk”
For years, after dinner, I would unload and load the dishwasher.
I hate loading and unloading the dishwasher.
I really, really hate it.
I would rather do three loads of laundry than load and unload the dishes just once.
But every night I did them because I was trying to be a nice wife. So Roger would put food away after dinner, clean counter tops, etc. to get our kitchen back into shape and I would silently, and sometimes with a great deal of hostility, do the dishes.
One night, after a really busy day at work packed with meetings and tension, I was just over it. I told Roger, “I will give you a thousand dollars to do the dishes. I will clean the kitchen from top to bottom, but please, please, don’t make me do dishes. I will snap.”
His answer stunned me. Roger said, “Sure, I don’t mind doing dishes. I hate cleaning up the kitchen, but I don’t mind doing dishes at all. In fact, you do them wrong, so I would love to be able to do them correctly every night.”
He was joking… kinda…
For years we were doing jobs we hated, simply because we’d never had a discussion about what we like (or don’t mind) doing.
So have the talk. Ask your spouse what chores they don’t mind, or even enjoy, doing. Turns out, Roger loves a freshly vacuumed carpet enough that he has taken to making sure our living room is “Roomba-ready” (everything is off the floor, no curtain strings etc. will get caught in its path…) every night. One less chore for me.
He also has become an expert at folding a fitted sheet. (He regrets ever watching that Youtube video. He is now in charge of folding all the sheets.) I don’t mind doing the grocery shopping, general cleaning, running errands, cooking or doing laundry. And he doesn’t mind dishes, vacuuming, BBQing, cleaning up our patio or small fix-it jobs around the house.
The rest, we divide and conquer together, to get done as fast as possible.
2. Agree on a level of good enough
I’ve been known to want to renovate the entire house before a couple of friends come over for dinner. Every once in a while, my crazy, perfectionist side flares up and I lose my mind and all sense of reason.
When that happens, I try to remember how it’s coming across to my husband. This scene from Everybody Loves Raymond, always pops into my head:
Debra: “Ray, could you get up and help me, please? We gotta shampoo the rug before they come over tonight.”
Ray: “Shampoo the rug?! It’s Bernie and Linda, I’m not even gonna shampoo myself.”
When I start to get into a “shampoo the carpets before people come over for dinner” frame of mind, I try to identify where that feeling is coming from. Usually, it boils down to shame: I’m not comfortable with __________ (how my house looks, my cooking, etc.) and I’m stressed to impress. When I can start to recognize it for what it is – shame panic – I can share honestly with my husband, “Hey, I’m afraid my cooking isn’t as good as __________ and I’m feeling insecure.” That goes a long way to defusing a potential argument about why he doesn’t want to remodel the bathroom before my parents come over.
3. Timing is everything
The worst time to talk about housework? At the time you actually want it done.
I’ve finally learned to make plans when I want a dedicated amount of time and effort from my husband. Using the phrases below has helped lessen the stress and actually get things done:
“Hey there- can we dedicate four hours on the 24th to getting the garage cleaned up? I need your help in making decisions and moving stuff around.”
“Tomorrow I want to get the kitchen cleaned up before we have everyone come over on Saturday. Can you help me out for 30 minutes so we can knock it out?”
This did a couple of things for us:
- It made me less resentful – I love knowing I have a committed time to get stuff done and will have buy-in from my husband
- It made my husband feel less ambushed – My guy has a little time and space to wrap his head around gutting the garage on his day off. Plus, he makes sure that the weekend before and after are dedicated to fun.
4. Agree on routines so you can both have some time off
One of the most marriage-enhancing things we’ve done is agree that we spend 20 minutes after dinner, as a couple, cleaning up. That’s 40 minutes of housework that is getting done each night. This does two things: First, it makes our mornings less rushed. We are not constantly catching up from yesterday. That twenty minutes really does make a huge difference. (One of my tasks in those 20 minutes is to set up the coffee to brew the next morning. It’s a gift I give to both of us.)
Secondly, it frees up more time on the weekend. We don’t have to spend our whole weekend cleaning because, for the most part, we’ve kept up on much of it during the week. This give me the freedom to go and play a little when Saturday rolls around!
These four suggestions will not eliminate all arguments when it comes to getting household chores done, but it will make the discussions a little less contentious. (And I know it makes me a lot easier to live with.)
Looking to win the war of peace in your home? Join us at the Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group to learn to live with less and increase the peace in your home.
What are some ways you handle The Chore War in your home? Have you used any of these tips? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
These tips are great! I definitely struggle on the “good enough” point. I want to clean the whole house top to bottom every time someone’s coming over. And I’m not a naturally tidy person at all, so there’s a lot of work to do when the time comes haha. The idea of planning in advance is great- my husband definitely feels “ambushed” by my cleaning goals when we’re about to have company. Next time I’ll warn him right after we invite someone over 😉
Whenever we have company I say, “Wow look at how much cleaning we got done so fast! We should set aside 20 min after dinner every night to clean as though we had company coming… or have more company!” Sometimes we start but it always gets dropped and forgotten so soon. At this point I’m patting myself on the back for getting in the habit of washing dishes, picking up the toys and sweeping right after putting my baby to bed! 🙂
Great post, Kathi; thank you for posting it.
My bride and I did have The Talk, and discovered that she’s far better at cooking and has a preternatural love of grocery shopping, while I like doing the dishes and the laundry. Even in these we share—I go grocery shopping with her, if only as a reason to spend more time together, and she helps with the laundry as I like sorting, washing, drying, hanging—but hate folding; she, as it turns out, loves folding—she finds it relaxing.
We have similar Point #2 freak outs from time to time when we’re having folks over, but if they’re close friends, we remind ourselves of Mary & Martha.
I’ll close with this insight I recently discovered personally: I have a giver personality (hence my more-than-willingness to take on dishes, laundry and other tasks). And from this platform I’ve learned to ask my bride, “What do you need? How can I help?” These eight words have not only short-circuited potential arguments over chores, but opened up a conduit to build our partnership and strengthened our bond to each other.
Good comments! I have recently discovered Clutterbug on YouTube, she has a great video about different organising styles and then loads of videos about organising for each type, and some about combining them in the same household. When I’m not on my phone, I’ll try to link to it.
Haha! Thanks for the post! I honestly always thought it was just me that wanted to “remodel the house” before company comes! This is a good reminder to again -commumicate-about everything, even cleaning. A lot of the points here we have finally figured out ourselves in 11 years, but goodness this would have been helpful in those first rough years!
I totally do that, too. Once, before my daughter Katie (who was 17 at the time) had 4 friends down for a week, I decided we needed all new furniture in our rec room. For 17-year-olds! I have a problem.
Great tips!! My husband has really helped me with knowing when things are good enough. Talking and timing are key in my house.
Excellent article!! I really related to the “shame-panic” and realize why I get so crazy whenever I invite people over. Giving a name to my phobia and feelings of inadequacy definitely puts me on the road to overcoming since I really do enjoy entertaining, but hesitate to often.
In all these scenario’s, the woman is the manager, with ultimate responsibility for what gets done and carrying the entire mental load of not only the chores, but also for the emotional labour of negotiating with her husband in a way that is inoffensive to him, even though, his inaction is the root problem.
It is assumed, by her asking for help, that regardless of whether she is also working, spends more time on childcare, or has less time available for other reasons, that chores are her job, and he can be expected to ‘help’ a bit, if all his requirements are met. There is more sympathy for him only having one day off to relax, than to the fact that she will never have a day off to relax, because every single chore and responsibility for their lives is on her to do list the moment she wakes up every single day.
Nor is it mentioned that the responsibility falls on the woman to ensure that everything is ‘just so’ and that only women bear the shaming of society when the house is untidy, or the kids hair isn’t brushed, men don’t bear that either.
We need to rethink this entire scenario. And give women better advice. Especially those who are not stuck in this trap yet. Honestly, if I could go back, I wouldn’t get married, precisely for all these reasons. I’d just job-share child-rearing with the father and live in my own dwelling.
I think you make a good point, Clare. On a personal note, this has been hands-down the main argument my husband and I have: the emotional load of chores/housekeeping. And we’ve done a pretty good job of working through it by dealing with it through “zones” and putting responsibilities clearly on one or the other person. (E.g., we’ve found it easier to say “the bathroom is Connor’s responsibility and needs to be cleaned at least once a week” than “You’ll clean the toilet and I’ll take care of the sink.”)
When one spouse is the stay-at-home-spouse and the other has a full-time job outside the home it definitely makes sense for the stay at home spouse to carry the emotional load of the housekeeping since they’re the ones who are running the home (regardless of whether it’s the husband or the wife). But in dual-income families I do think there needs to be a conversation about sharing the emotional load and recognizing that the woman usually just takes it on by default.
I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad experience in this area, but I encourage you to talk to your husband about this in a way that is less accusatory and more problem-solving oriented if possible. It’s possible to state the facts about how this has been affecting you without vilifying your spouse, and that usually leads to much more fruitful discussion than when we start on the offense.