For some time now, in varying degrees of seriousness (but almost never completely lightheartedly), I have periodically heard things from male friends and acquaintances like “my wife’s just kind of bitchy a lot of the time now,” or, of course, “she’s just not that into sex.” To these troubled men, my first question is always the same.
“When was the last time you unloaded the dishwasher?”
Ah, look! Here is a handy study that validates the question nicely.
The study presents a few other tidbits, like men are only up to 30% of total housework, and women more often handle “emotional labor” like Christmas cards, and blah, blah, blah. Some of these may be interesting some of the time, but they’re all ancillary to the central point.
Men, I promise you: if you take a serious interest in keeping the house in shape, your wife is not going to keep a punch chart noting that you only did 29% this week and 35% the week before, or anything similar. She will simply be delighted that you are helping—really helping. Now if you truly want to try to carry half the weight, then obviously, so much the better. But I promise, she’ll take your sustained commitment, even if it’s less.
Let the mattress polo commence.
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