Honey do’s
Successfully managing family chores during Covid. Part 1: Cracking it
Managing chores (housework, childcare, car maintenance, etc.) is an area of frequent conflict for the couples and individuals I work with, and that’s no wonder, being the most common area of conflict between couples living together (80%, according to a 2019 survey, with a fifth of them saying they disagree often). Couples most commonly fight about when to do the chores, how to do them, and who should do them.
As the Covid pandemic continues, lockdowns, isolations, and quarantines push more people homeward, changing home dynamics, forcing couples to share more time with each other (and parents with their kids), creating considerably more chores to be done, and more friction points around them. All this — on top of the general Covid-related stress.
As those fights can be very time and energy-consuming, stress-elevating, partnership-eroding, and stir very unpleasant feelings like frustration, loneliness, disappointment, anger, and even despair, recurring weekly or even daily — learning how to manage them efficiently and peacefully can make a huge impact on relationship satisfaction and wellbeing.
Your mission: to create a sense of fairness and teamwork. The first step and the first part of this article, is about - as usual, understanding what’s going on and what are the causes. The second step-part is putting all this insight into practice. Contrary to what many people think, there is more than one cause to almost every recurring issue in a relationship, none of which is “the other partner” (or “me”, for that matter). The most obvious, surface causes are triggers: Most commonly, a chore not done on time (or at all), not done satisfactorily, refused to be done, or done but failed to be acknowledged or appreciated.
It’s important to remember though, that almost always, “it’s not about the dishes”. The chores — like any conflict — usually only symbolize important underlying needs. The person that’s upset about chores not being done on time or satisfactorily, probably needs more order, cooperation, support, respect, and trust. The one who’s upset about their efforts not acknowledged or appreciated probably needs to be seen, acknowledged, appreciated, to trust and be trusted, and perhaps freedom, autonomy, and acceptance. Our needs — understanding them and knowing how to handle them — can be seen as the deep cause at the heart of every conflict. These needs are being unmet by those triggers, which creates pain. When needs are chronically unmet, distress builds up, so they become like hot underground magma, just waiting to erupt at the slightest trigger.
So when couples fight about chores, fighting and fussing is their ineffective way of trying to get their pain heard and their needs seen and met. Like many others, Steve and Mary experienced this very painfully and vividly before they met me to work on their marriage. Tragically, not only would they not get what they wanted, but they would regularly create so much pain together. Very often, when I help couples or individuals speak, hear, and cherish each other’s pain and needs behind the demands and criticism — the frequency, duration, and intensity of those fights decrease dramatically, and instead, they have constructive conversations, chores done and life gets more wonderful. This illustrates the main cause for chore fights — Our communication skills.
Our communication skills are part of a much broader subject: behavioral patterns - our habits and tendencies. If one of you is absentminded, easily distracted, or has a tendency to procrastinate, it is likely to affect this person’s ability to do the chores satisfactorily and on time. If one of you is a perfectionist, has an exceptional need for order, or must have many things done exactly their way, it is likely that this person will feel frustrated with almost any potential partner around chores, and their partner will experience pressure to conform to impossible standards.
Next, we can look at thought patterns — how we interpret our reality, and how those interpretations serve, limit or hurt us. Specifically, when any of the above triggers happen, most of us have learned to label/judge — interpret that in terms of what we or our partner are (“They are lazy / inconsiderate / don’t care / I am inferior/incapable of making my partner happy”). This draws our focus away from our needs and from what we can do about them. A much more constructive alternative is to connect — interpret what’s happening in terms of what’s alive in both of us (what we feel & need, for example, “I feel frustrated because I need more support”) and how we can make life better for both of us: Requests (“Can you please do the laundry now?”) and agreements.
This brings us to the final cause: Agreements. In most cases, there is an implicit agreement that one partner does considerably more chores than the other. Studies and surveys consistently show this partner is usually the woman (in heterosexual relationships). This leads to a lot of frustration, resentment, and loneliness. While this partner overlooks and underestimates much of what their partner is doing, the other partner (typically the man) usually thinks they do more than they actually do and has another idea about the significance or urgency of many chores. They can become defensive or shut down when they feel criticized for not doing enough, and might think they’re not good enough or that their other contributions are not acknowledged.
While understanding why we fight about chores is a crucial first step, change will happen only when we put this insight into practice. In part 2 of this article, “Getting it done”, we will extract some very useful practices from each one of these causes, to help you create a sense of fairness and teamwork, and make life more wonderful.
Here’s one place to start practicing your chore managing skills.
