How to Get Help With the Chores From Your Partner Now

You do everything at home – laundry, cooking, planning, prepare everything for the kids. On top of doing your full-time job. And in the rare occasion when you go out to catch up with a friend you come back home to a full sink, mess and toys everywhere, food on the floor. And when you moan all he has to say is ‘You should’ve told me to tidy up’.

Unbelievable.

Now imagine if he shared an equal part of the chores and you don’t even need to ask him to do his tasks.

Yes, that’s possible and I’m on a mission to show you how to get your partner to help with chores. Cause in our household we used to be scenario #1. That was before we had a baby and I felt an inner pride to care for the house. But when Dominic (our son) arrived this was no longer an option. So using the steps I describe below we got to scenario #2. It took a few months of adjustment (of both sides) and conversations but we’re proudly here.

For context, 57% of working mothers say that they tend to take on more of the day to day child-caring responsibilities. 51% say they tend to do more of the housework than their partners.

Only 23% share it equally!

So hands up if you ever felt like this:

What we want is that our partners:

• Help with both the organisation (also referred to as mental load) and the execution of household and childcare tasks.
• Take the initiative without the need to be asked and prompted.
• Do equally as much.

The first step in getting your partner to help with the chores is to understand the core of the problem. So …

Why do men never help with chores anyway?

Sometimes it’s pure laziness.

Or he may have been raised by a generation where men were the breadwinners and women the carer of the household and children. Historically, women were more likely to be stay-at-home mothers compared to now when we choose to or have to combine work with motherhood. But perceptions have changed since the last century and these are very rarely the reasons why.

But there’s often more to the story.

On one hand, he may not realise the sheer number of tasks and actions. You’re probably asking now ‘But can’t he see how many things I’m doing?’

I know. It’s irritating.

Biologically, men have a less efficient peripheral vision. So if you do something whilst he’s on the computer, eating, playing with the kids, the chances are he won’t see it.

On the other hand, he may be unmotivated because he doesn’t assign high value to these tasks. Generally speaking, men genuinely don’t care as much as women about a clean and tidy home. Wiping the surfaces every day is nice but not essential. Creating a custom-made costume for the kid’s daycare party is nice but not essential when you can just buy one.

But let’s flip the coin.

There’s 2 in this game and sometimes we, women, shoot ourselves in the foot when in comes to house chores.

You may have been raised to see an impeccable home as a sign of your worth. You place a high value to things such a tidy living room and as such are more involved in maintaining it to a high standard. So you care for it more than your partner who doesn’t see it as an important part of his self-concept.

Also, if you do the lion’s share of the chores in your home, then chances are you have mixed feelings about the idea of your spouse helping with certain chores, even if he were willing. Because you suspect he’d do them wrongly, or to an insufficiently high standard. In one US survey, some women said they were more likely to delegate tasks to their children than their husbands for precisely this reason. And let’s be honest. Men’s ego is vulnerable. If he’s afraid of being told off or corrected, he may not do it at all as it would damage his ego.

How to get your partner to help with chores?

Now let’s do something about this. This is a 4-steps approach and you may need to jump back and front again. That’s totally fine. The important thing is to keep working on this as your life balance and wellbeing will benefit from it. If you keep doing everything on your own, you risk burning out.

1. Take a look inside.

If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.

Michael Jackson

Famously sung by Michael Jackson this is very true here as well. If you want to get your partner to help with the household chores, you need to change something in you as well. Whether that’s your standards, your convincing technique or your way of doing things. Ask yourself:

• What is acceptable and what is exceptional when it comes to house tasks? Maybe some things needn’t be exceptional every time. Good enough, is for the most part, good enough and you better take care of your wellbeing than strive for perfection at everything at home.
• How important is a task on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 being super high)? Put the 4s and 5s on hold when need be.
• Is my way of doing things the only way? Just because you hang the laundry in a particular way doesn’t mean the clothes won’t dry if they’re hung slightly differently, right?

2. Turn detective.

You then need to figure him out. Understand why he is not helping or taking the initiative. Here are some questions to prompt the conversation.

• Do you think you and I share the house tasks and childcare responsibilities equally?
• What would make you take the initiative and help more with the household chores?
• Are there certain tasks you’d happily help with and others you’re reluctant to do?

But make sure you don’t sound judgmental or condescending as he will immediately enter defensive mode. And you’ll get nowhere.

3. Convince him why he should help with the chores.

In an ideal world, we shouldn’t need to convince our partners to do more and as much as we do. We’re in a partnership together. And that’s regardless of who’s the main breadwinner (bringing in cash is not equal to bringing in value). But as outlined above, many factors in play have led to this imbalance.

So you need to figure out the best way to influence him depending on his interests, personality, style. Here are some convincing techniques to choose from:

• Bargain – if there’s something he asks you to do regularly, bargain with him. You do part of the house chores and I’ll do that.
• Sell the benefits – if you shared the house chores equally, you’d have more time for him, you’d be less tired and in a better mood.
• Give the illusion of an option – in sales, even if you have not decided to buy something, the moment you have to pick one, you forget ‘not buying’ is an option. So ask him ‘Do you want to do the dishes or give the baby a bath (or another chore)? This gives him the illusion of an option but you still make him work.
• Empower and reward him- explain to him how to do something instead of doing it yourself. And if he doesn’t do it correctly the first time, be patient. Then reward him for a good job. You can slowly transition away from this encouragement once it’s become his habit.
• Compare – if you know another couple where the man and the woman split chores equally, point this out. Men like to be considered better than other men (that ego again).
• Give him credit where it’s due – there may be certain things your partner may take care of that you never even think about. Like car maintenance (not that women don’t get involved with that). If that’s the case, give him credit for that. This will stroke his ego. But of course, go through step 4 to make sure you’re sharing the chores and mental load equally.
• Give him 100% responsibility for something – make him the master of a domain. If he’s the sole expert in something, he won’t rely on you to help.

4. Create the schedule together.

If you sit down and create a schedule together, you will both appreciate how many things need to be done on a daily/weekly basis and how long they take. You then both become owners of your tasks rather than him waiting for you to ask him to do something.

To make it even easier for you, you can download a comprehensive list of house and childcare tasks HERE. It has everything you need to make sure you split things fairly and equally. Once you’ve downloaded it:

• Allocate important tasks to both of you rather than him doing low-priority tasks only. These are easy to find an excuse for NOT doing it. And you don’t want that.
• Play to your strengths. If your partner is rubbish at cleaning and you know it, he can do the laundry and dishwasher instead.
• Estimate roughly how long each task takes. He may only do 3 things which take very long vs you doing many small things. As long as you both spend a roughly equal amount of time on your tasks you’re cool.
• If he’s really stereotypical, name his tasks the ‘blue tasks’ and yours the ‘pink ones’. It may be easier to do things which are stereotypically labelled as blue, thus for men.
• Set visual reminders. We use this fridge organiser from Amazon {affiliate link} and it’s perfect to see everything that each one of us needs to do, at a glance. It acts as a family organiser, chores scheduler, reminders pad, shopping list, or meal planner. In other words – a sanity saver!

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Conclusion

If we’re unhappy with something our partners do, we gotta take things into our hands instead of waiting for them to miraculously change and start doing more things. And if he keeps saying ‘I’ll do it later” or he forgets, try another tactic. If it doesn’t work, talk about it. Explain how you feel, revisit the schedule and the list of things and talk things through. But listen to his perspective as well and don’t be judgmental. You’re in this together as partners, not as enemies.

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