Fighting over household chores

What is the one topic that causes more domestic strife than any other? Money? Sex? Disciplining the kids? Nope. It is household chores. Chore wars - arguments over who is going to do what, and when, and how thoroughly, and with what sort of an attitude - probably cause more resentment and pain than all other hassles put together and get the couple so hostile.

When husband and wife could not stop fighting over household chores, they just got the job done as she said: "I am sick of cleaning" and he said: "It is not my job."

Quite often wife works on the chores while husband just sits back and enjoys the TV. After a long-hour workday, wife was tired, hungry and eager to relax. Instead, she threw a load of laundry into the washing machine, emptied the dishwasher and cooked supper. Husband wandered in from his computer just as she set the food on the table. What is more, he went back to his computer after the dinner, leaving the table to be cleared, the food to be put away, and the dishes to be washed. Wife was tired of being the person who does the majority of household chores. She complained that it was not fair that she is stuck doing all the housework and wondered why couldn't he carry his share of the load. In most cases, that fight was a culmination of countless battles over housework - when to vacuum, how soon to wash dishes, who made the bed, and so on. The problem is that she never did enough and he never did anything.

If you are fighting constantly over household chores, it is time to take control of the situation. You can have a cleaner house and fewer fights by establishing a fair division of duties between everyone in the family. The first step to establishing a division of duties for household chores is to make a complete list of the core chores. This does not mean all the little extras, but these chores that must be done daily or weekly for the house to be livable. Then you should get organized about household chores and decide who does what household chores. Sometimes, the program can involve a rotation. The nice part of that is it helps establish empathy so that people who think a particular chore is easy will see otherwise.

For a happy marriage, stop fighting over housework and bring harmony to your home life.