My husband doesn't help around the house. What to do if your husband doesn't help around the house? Advice from family psychologist Angelina Lazarenko What not to do

Although the days of Stepford wives are long gone, many men still think that household chores are exclusively a woman's responsibility. But they forget that not only they, but also their wives bring the “mammoth” into the family.

You and your husband both work all day, but when you come home, he lies down on the sofa in front of the TV, and you have to do a bunch of different household chores - cook dinner, wash the dishes, throw laundry in the washing machine, help the children with their homework.

To your requests for help with household chores, your spouse replies “I was actually working,” “I’m tired,” “Well, you’re a woman, cook it yourself,” and other “excuses.” In the end, you have to do everything yourself, although you are no less tired than your spouse.

There is no need to tolerate such behavior - in modern families, spouses distribute household responsibilities among themselves. Activities with children, shopping for groceries and household goods, cleaning and cooking - absolutely everything is divided in half. If a man takes out the trash twice a month and sometimes buys groceries on the way home, and all the rest of the housework falls on you, then this cannot be considered a fair distribution of responsibilities.

The only option when you can take on all the worries about the house is that you do not work, and your husband fully provides your family with money. Then household chores are your job.

There may be several reasons why a spouse categorically avoids any housework:

Banal laziness - a man is lazy and tries to evade any activity in all areas of life. Instead of cleaning, he would rather sit in front of the TV, because his wife will eventually not be able to stand it and will do everything herself.
Fatigue - he works hard all day at work and only crawls home to sleep. He has neither the strength nor the time for household chores. In this case, there is some bonus - such workaholics, as a rule, earn good money.
Infantility - a man is simply not used to keeping track of clean clothes and dishes, the presence of food in the refrigerator, he does not even know how to iron correctly. He most likely lived for a long time with his mother, who did everything for him, and then “moved” to his wife and expects the same behavior from her.
Mismanagement - he simply does not notice the disorder in the house, he is fine as is.
Contempt for “women’s work” - he is convinced that the wife should take all the care of the house onto her shoulders - “after all, you are a woman, this is what you do.” He considers household chores primitive and unworthy of a man.
There is no point, because the wife will be unhappy that he did something wrong - he didn’t wash the floors well enough, cooked the borscht tastelessly, and so on. After numerous nagging, the spouse simply does not see the point in doing anything.

Men often hide behind the phrases “I’ll do it later,” “well, I’m helping you,” “yes, my dear, I’ll do it now,” and simply wait for the woman to break down and solve the economic problem herself. At the heart of this lies the usual trick - after all, he knows that the problem can be solved without his participation.

To get your husband’s “doing nothing” off the ground, you need to try:

Explain clearly and in detail to your spouse what you want him to do—for example, for him to fix the faucet or cook dinner on Thursdays while you pick up the kids from school. Get your husband to tell you the exact date and time for completing his task.
Distribute responsibilities equally - for example, you cook and your husband washes the dishes, you take the children to school and he picks them up in the evening, he washes things and you iron them, and so on. Agree on who is more comfortable doing certain chores.
Praise for work done - men, like children, need affection and recognition of their merits. Therefore, praise him even for small chores around the house - and then he will want to do something else.
Explain why the two of you need to participate in economic life - that you don’t have time and are very tired, and who needs a tired, sad wife? That's right, no one. This means that in order to see your smile, he needs to manage a little.
Stimulate with a reward - for each “feat” a man will receive his own reward: for a repaired faucet - a favorite dish, for a cleaned apartment - fishing with friends, and so on.

What not to do

In teaching your husband to do housework, the main thing is not to go too far. Here are some tips on what not to do:

do not shout or swear - always calmly explain your position, preferably with humor or a smile;
do not impose work that he does not like - if you see that he does not like to wash dishes, then replace it with something more pleasant;
do not load it immediately as soon as he comes home from work - give him a little rest after a hard day;
do not blame him for doing something wrong - on the contrary, unobtrusively help him or do something together so that he understands how to do it next time.

Extreme measures

In particularly difficult cases, when your husband continues to ignore your requests for help, you can resort to an ultimatum. If he won't do anything around the house, then neither will you. Stop cooking for him, washing, cleaning, do only what you need: cook for one person, wash only your own things, and so on.

Another option is to tell your husband that if he does not want to help with the housework, then you will have to hire a maid. And you will pay her from your husband’s funds. Material expenses should make a man move.

Family well-being is the fruit of the efforts of two people: both the wife and the husband. Carrying all the everyday problems and responsibilities on yourself means dooming yourself to endless fatigue. You need to not be shy and tell your spouse that it’s hard for you to cope with everything alone, and resolve everyday disagreements together.

Housework is often quite comparable in volume to office work. But it is less honorable and visible, among other things, because it is not paid for. Money is the easiest way to evaluate the significance and quality of what has been done. The reverse logic also works: if some work does not bring in money, it means it is not quoted.

Why is it that when a woman becomes an equal partner with a man in financially providing for the family, he most often still does not take on half of the housework?

Harvard conducted a survey of 6,070 couples living together. They were asked what kind of housework they did, their income, and how they and their partner managed their finances. The results showed that many men used money as an argument to get rid of housework: either they gave their salaries to women, allowing them to manage them completely, or, on the contrary, withheld the money.

When a woman pays bills from her own wallet, it can make a man wash the dishes more often

If women tried to discuss the situation, such negotiations rarely led to anything, even if the partners earned the same.

The picture was strikingly different only in those families where women had their own savings. A study has found that when a woman pays bills from her own wallet, it can make a man do the dishes more often.

Of course, all this may seem too mercantile to many. I would like to believe that a confidential conversation, honest agreements and mutual love can lead to equality and a reasonable distribution of responsibilities in a couple.

Simon Oakes, author of Marrying for Food, Sex and Laundry, offers his ways to motivate your partner to do more housework. To some, life hacks may seem manipulative, but the author is convinced that there are simply no other effective methods.

1. Ask your partner to do “a man’s job”

This includes something that involves risk and danger (climbing a ladder to clean gutters), requires tools (trimming bushes with a chain saw), or produces an obvious, tangible result (nailing up shelves). Let the man do the hard work - literally and figuratively - and you do the rest.

2. Cheat

Have you divided up your responsibilities but are still doing more? Turn routine homework into an intellectual challenge. Ask a man to choose a new vacuum cleaner - with three speeds and five suction levels.

3. If you feel like a man doesn't appreciate your work, show him what you've done.

Oakes says it's not that men underestimate women's work - they often simply don't notice it. "Just point out what you've done around the house in passing," says Oakes, "and over time, he'll start to notice changes."

4. If he still doesn't appreciate your work, fight

“It may take time, but sooner or later he will start to notice that his socks are stuck to the kitchen floor and his underwear drawer is empty,” Oakes explains. (This step is recommended only for those who can stand the sight of dirty dishes and piles of unironed clothes piled up in the sink.)

5. Do a few things together

Oakes suggests working together in the garden, at the dacha. “There will certainly be many tasks that can be solved together, and besides, such work is not stressful.”

These tips, like the entire book by Simon Oakes, are often called chauvinistic by critics and readers. Indeed, the idea that a man needs to be tricked into doing “women’s” work is a bit old-fashioned.

In the book “Manifesto,” human rights activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives her friend advice on how to raise her daughter as a feminist. The author writes: “Recently, there was a discussion on social media in Nigeria that wives are required to cook for their husbands. It's so sad that we still perceive cooking skills as a test of a woman's suitability for marriage."

Perhaps if men recognized the need for equality and understood the feminist agenda, it would generally eliminate the need to argue about who should do housework and how much. And this issue would be resolved in each individual family without regard to traditions, but based on the desires and capabilities of specific people.

Many women complain about the lack of any help around the house from their husbands. And the wife has to do a lot of household chores alone, while her husband finds another reason for refusal. What to do if your husband does not help around the house and is it possible to involve him in housekeeping?

If you turn to your man for help over and over again, but “things are still there,” rest assured that you are being manipulated. Let's look at the three most common types of manipulative husbands and find out how to deal with them:

Men know very well that women are greedy for compliments and shamelessly take advantage of it. Even in childhood, begging their mother for extra candy or a car, many of them understand that the words: “Mommy, you are my best, I love you so much!” - work wonders.
In adulthood, they remain - they do not skimp on compliments about how well their wife cooks, washes the floor, hammers nails...

And damn, it works! Husbands continue to remain aloof from household chores, and women, inspired by compliments and with an even greater sense of pride and inner satisfaction, continue to work alone for the good of the family.

What to do?

your husband doesn’t help around the house - don’t be shy about mastering the role of “switchman.” When he turns the arrows on you, return them back to him. Accept another compliment about your amazing housekeeping, like, thank you, I'm really amazing at frying potatoes, but you do it just as well - please cook them for dinner today, YOU.
Another method is the illusion of choice. Ask what is more convenient and easier for him to do now - go grocery shopping or wash the floor? Freedom of choice, although imaginary, will not hurt his male pride as much.

2. Manipulator - poor student

A common life situation is that a wife asks her husband to vacuum the floors, but after “cleaning” he discovers dust behind the nightstand or under the bed. What does a woman do? Cursing, she redoes everything herself, noticing along the way that she can’t trust him with anything. And the man is just waiting for this: “If you don’t like it, do it yourself!”

Another type of similar behavior is when the husband does not refuse directly, but puts everything off for later. As a result, after a month and a half of constant reminders and waiting, the woman herself takes on the task of repairing the rickety closet door.

What to do?

let your husband understand that you are not obligated to control everything in the world and. Moreover, you may do something wrong. For example, my husband doesn’t get around to repairing the faucet in the bathroom for three weeks. Start repairing the faucet in front of him, not forgetting to ask questions about “what and how” - it’s rare that a man will pass such a test and, in the end, do it himself!
an important point - praise him for all his economic impulses, without focusing on minor shortcomings. He is your knight and savior, and everything else will come with experience.

3. Manipulator – malingerer

A man comes home from work and responds to any request from his wife for help that he is tired and completely powerless - sound familiar? Many women encourage this kind of behavior and take on all the housework: “Poor guy, he’s so tired, let him rest, and I’ll somehow do it myself...”

Of course, we are all human and we all have emergency situations at work, but if “I’m tired, I can’t do anything” wanders from day to day, it’s worth thinking about.

What to do?

Don’t try to become a helpful mommy for your husband. Remember! you build relationships on equal terms, like two responsible adults.
“mirror” your husband’s behavior, because, as you know, you can’t see the beam in your own eye. Husband doesn't help around the house during the week and is going to spend the entire weekend on the couch? Great, then keep him company! Say that you are also tired during the week - rest and rest.
Perhaps this will spur him on and he will invite you, for example, to cook lunch together. Do not refuse his help in anything, because joint activities have a great effect on relationships, and the man feels more needed and significant.

How to teach your husband to do housework? Women's tricks with real life examples

We hope our useful tips will help you and you will finally find a man's help in household chores!