Husband frustrated by irritable wife?

[conuly]

DEAR NATALIE: My wife has a busy life and a hectic work schedule. We have two small children and she works full-time as a lawyer. I am also a lawyer, but she always seems to have more to do than me. Whenever we are home from work, there’s homework to do, dinner to make and clothes to put away. I keep telling her it’ll get done, but then she becomes exasperated with me. “Who’s going to do it?” she says. I have offered to get a cleaning service or a part-time nanny to help her, but she says that there are better things to spend money on. At the end of the day, she’s exhausted and really irritable toward me. I want to do something to make her feel better, like a vacation, but I’m worried she will say that we don’t have time for it. What can I do to make her happier? I don’t want this to hurt our relationship. -- FRUSTRATED HUSBAND

DEAR FRUSTRATED HUSBAND: I want you to look up the term “emotional labor.” I want you to study what you just wrote to me. Reflect. Recognize your role in all of this. Your wife is doing the same job as you, but when she comes home, her role as house manager kicks in and your work appears done. She has every right to be irritable and exasperated — she feels like everything at home is falling on her shoulders. Instead of offering to hire a cleaning service, fold the laundry when you see it in the dryer. (You do know where your dryer is, right?) Instead of asking what you can do to “help,” take a proactive role as a partner: See what needs to be done and just do it. Also, don’t expect a pat on the back for doing dishes, vacuuming, getting the kids ready for bed or cooking a meal. Show that you care instead of asking her why she’s stressed. A vacation is only a band-aid. Equity should be in the home as well as the workplace. The real work begins when you show up for your household like you do at your job. Both of you will be less stressed when you share the load.

https://www.uexpress.com/ask-natalie/2020/2/19/husband-forgot-your-40th-birthday-and

Comments

[ioplokon]

I feel like this is not so much 'emotional labor' as the 'mental load' of running the house. To me it's useful to keep these concepts distinct. This is why studies show that couples who divide household work by task, rather than alternate, have a more equal division of labor between partners. It's not just the nature of the work (and like... Cleaning isn't emotional labor?), it's also that this situation makes one partner the task manager.

This is why I think 'just do it' is bad advice. The wife still has to check what is or isn't done. My opinion is that couples who are serious about sharing the load should take the time to sit down, list the recurring household tasks (and the time they take), and then divide them as seems fair (and decide if there are any they want to alternate on - eg cooking and dishes might change, but one person never does both). Then everyone knows what they should be doing - and the husband understands why his wife seems so busy!

[cynthia1960]

Useful distinction, thanks.

[ioplokon]

For sure. I'm uh, less than thrilled to see that 'emotional labor' has come to be a stand-in for'women's work' it's a bit, shall we say, problématique...

(To push the distinction further, cleaning is not in and of itself emotional labor but the way that maids are expected to manage their boss's emotions in a way that janitors, mostly, are not, that's emotional labor)

[lilysea]

I saw a graphic novel about this recently

The Mental Load : A Feminist Comic by Emma.

"A new voice in comics is incisive, funny, and fiercely feminist. "The mental load. It's incessant, gnawing, exhausting, and disproportionately falls to women. You know the scene--you're making dinner, calling the plumber/doctor/mechanic, checking homework and answering work emails--at the same time. All the while, you are being peppered with questions by your nearest and dearest 'where are my shoes?, 'do we have any cheese?...'" --Australian Broadcasting Corp on Emma's comic In her first book of comic strips, Emma reflects on social and feminist issues by means of simple line drawings, dissecting the mental load, ie all that invisible and unpaid organizing, list-making and planning women do to manage their lives, and the lives of their family members. Most of us carry some form of mental load--about our work, household responsibilities, financial obligations and personal life; but what makes up that burden and how it's distributed within households and understood in offices is not always equal or fair. In her strips Emma deals with themes ranging from maternity leave (it is not a vacation!), domestic violence, the clitoris, the violence of the medical world on women during childbirth, and other feminist issues, and she does so in a straightforward way that is both hilarious and deadly serious.. If you're not laughing, you're probably crying in recognition. Emma's comics also address the everyday outrages and absurdities of immigrant rights, income equality, and police violence.

Emma has over 300,000 followers on Facebook, her comics have been. shared 215,000 times, and have elicited comments from 21,000 internet users. An article about her in the French magazine L'Express drew 1.8 million views--a record since the site was created. And her comic has just been picked up by The Guardian. Many women will recognize themselves in THE MENTAL LOAD, which is sure to stir a wide ranging, important debate on what it really means to be a woman today."

https://www.bookdepository.com/Mental-Load-Emma/9781609809188

[ioplokon]

Ah! It's awesome her stuff is so available in English! Her French comics were always so good; it's great to see she's found an international audience!

[cereta]

Ooh, thank you for the rec!

[purlewe]

ah but I do have a wrench to throw in here. when I tried to divide the chores by task (say you always take out the trash and do the laundry, I will do the vacuuming and the dishes) What I found interesting was the actual making of the list of tasks. suddenly, even tho I was cooking every night it wasn't a task it was "something I liked to do" same with grocery shopping and some other tasks. They are things that take up a large amount of time and mental space, but I was told they couldn't be added to the chore list bc when I did them they were fun. (HUH??!!)

I ended up making a list of all the chores that never made it to the list and suddenly my workload was twice or three times longer. bc my partner never considers them chores. Explaining that they are work didn't seem to reach my partner. And this is why I think that things are generally imbalanced with most relationships. bc one person doesn't see the work involved in the things the other person does to keep the house running.

[conuly]

I like to cook dinner too, but it still eats at least an hour out of my day, every day. Geez.

[purlewe]

After 13 years of cooking (yes I realize that number is pitifully low) for my wife I came home one day from a very hard day, I lay down on the couch and she ordered dinner from me when she had been home all day. We now refer jokingly to that day as Day 0. I gave myself 24 hrs to cool off and then said "look, you are 43 yrs old, can follow directions, and know how to use google. You will start cooking and contributing."

It waxes and wanes. right now it is mostly on me (or at least it has been this month). but there are times when it isn't and that is better than it was. It's better when we both split it more evenly. but I also know it isn't always on me anymore. cos it totally takes an hr to prep and cook, but it also takes the mental space of knowing what is in the fridge, what is going to go bad soon, and figuring out what to make with those items on your shortlist.

back to the LW: dude.. start contributing. ask instead of expect her to ask you. pull your share (start small, but work up to more and bigger thing) and don't expect it to all just happen. bc it doesn't. it never did.

[ioplokon]

I mean. Like I said, for it to work, everyone involved has to be genuinely committed to having an equitable division of household labor. I think you should revisit that second list with your partner and go through the process again. Like, even if you enjoy parts of household chores, it is still work. If you think it's equitable, you could come up with a way to weight dispreferred chores. For example, in the co-op where I lived, we counted cleaning the compost bins as more time than it really took, because it was gross.

But yes, I agree that many (most?) are not in relationships that are wholeheartedly serious about an equitable division of household labor.

(Edit: honestly I regretted this comment as soon as I made it. I think I'm bringing a lot of my own shit into this and being an ass to you. Apologies)

[purlewe]

(please don't regret it. I don't think you are being an ass. And I hope you don't think I am being one either. I genuinely agree with you that it should work.)

we did revisit it when I said "hey.. there is a huge problem with this list." that is how I found out that she thinks those things are "fun" not "tasks" That is how I learned that some people think things are tasks other people think "that must be fun for them" and don't consider them work.

I think that is what makes the blog post by that one guy whose wife left him bc of the dish beside the dishwasher makes some sense. to him it was a non starter. no matter how many times people say "this is work" some people are never going to see that. (cleaning out those compost bins?? that is a ton of work. I totally love that your co-op made that like.. bonus bucks timewise bc it totally feels like forever.) and while they can see it after the fact the truth is.. that guy? and several other like him? are not going to see the other persons side AND when they do they admit they would not change the way the approach it.

What confuses me tho are the times when people say it is gendered. bc I don't see it being that way. I see it as someone states things as rationally and as non confrontationally as they can and someone else hears it and says "they don't really mean it" and to them that is the end of the conversation. How do we get past that point? bc that is what I really want to figure out.

[ioplokon]

I mean. Statistically the division of housework in man-woman couples is pretty far from 50-50 so that tends to be why it's viewed as a gendered thing since 1. Women are usually the ones who benefit from the course correction and 2. Unfortunately a good percentage of men say, when asked, that they expect their wife to do most of the housework. Which.... It's hard enough to get a good system going when every is on board with the premise! I can't imagine doing it otherwise.

However, statistics are only ever good in aggregate. Household dynamics are pretty particular when you get down to the individual situation. What's worked for me in the past is kinda revisiting the housework on a quarterly basis and making adjustments (edit to add: which my then-partner suggested. I realized I made it seem like I'm just running the show but... It's really been more collaborative in ways that are hard to summarize neatly). I also think it's fairer to give more time for dispreferred tasks than to give less (or none!) for preferred ones. Then you can take enjoyment into account without discounting that work is work.

But ultimately it might be that we'll all just be asymptotically approaching the Ideal chore schedule. And anyway, taking the time to hash it out directly is a good comparability test for relationships. Like... If you don't view housework as a dialectic you're not the girl for me! :P

(Also glad I'm coming across okay; I always feel a bit uncomfortable talking about domestic matters with strangers but... Given the nature of this comm, it makes more sense to do it here)