Battles of the household responsibilities: How to change the dynamic of resentment.
Written by Dr. Komal Gupta
Photo by Road Trip with Raj from Unsplash
Do you feel bitter that you have to shoulder a majority of the household responsibilities?
Does your partner micromanage how the house tasks and so you check out?
Are you fed up with having the same conversation over and over again?
Managing household responsibilities is a common source of frustration and stress for couples. I often hear partners blaming each other for not doing enough and feeling taken for granted. Some partners feel exhausted, antagonized, and helpless while others feel disrespected and devalued for their efforts. Why does “who does what” trigger so much resentment and tension between partners? Because the “who does what” discussion is often amplified by expectations, emotional reactions, and personalized meanings.
Understand how your personal history contributes to the conflict.
Our formative years typically inform a lot of what we expect from others, how we interpret situations and how we cope with stress. Based on how we grew up, we learned how to cope with day-to-day anxiety either by overfunctioning or underfunctioning and this pattern of responding often replays itself in our current relationships (Kerr, 2019). When the stress is high, some partners find it more comfortable to be fully in control and in charge (i.e., overfunction) while other partners find it more comfortable to give up responsibility and not make decisions (i.e., underfunction). By identifying your patterned response to stress and managing your emotional reactions differently, it can help create change and shift this dynamic. For example, figuring out an alternative way to manage your anxiety around giving up control with some tasks that does not involve micromanaging and criticism if you are the one who tends to overfunction. To clarify your expectations, your emotional reactions and your response to stress, consider the following questions:
During your formative years:
How did you cope with stress within the family? Did you take control or defer to others?
Were you expected to take control of things and take care of others or defer to others and let things go, or a combination?
How were household tasks shared/distributed? What did you think of the arrangement?
Were you expected to help with household responsibilities or was it deemed someone else’s responsibility?
Did you have to take on parental responsibilities as a child? (e.g., prepare meals for your sibling, being a listening and supportive ear for your parent(s) marital problems etc., manage the family’s emotions). If yes, how did this make you feel?
Were you often treated as a child despite being capable of doing things for yourself? If yes, how did this make you feel?
How did gender, cultural and societal expectations influence who did the housework?
Focus on HOW you communicate
Whether we like it admit it or not, we all engage in criticism when it comes to housework. We might have learned that this was the way of getting people to change or do something differently. Or perhaps, we might justify our use of criticism because communicating in this way might be “for their own good”. Whatever the reason, criticism causes people’s defenses to go up, and we lose the opportunity to work as a team, and to address our concerns. According to relationship expert, Dr. John Gottman, consider the following when providing feedback to your partner:
Use “I” statements instead of “You” statements
Bring up your concerns as soon as you can during a calm moment rather than letting it fester.
Focus on a specific behavior or event (e.g., “I feel upset that you did not do _____ this morning like we discussed” instead of attacking someone’s character “You are always such a slacker and never do anything right”)
Avoid using words like “always” and “never”.
Determine together what feels like a manageable arrangement.
It can be hard to show appreciation and operate as a team when each partner has a misguided idea of how much they take on in the household. Furthermore, there can be a difference of opinion of what is considered a priority and/or particularly burdensome. In these situations, it can be helpful to get down to basics and make things tangible. The focus here is not on doing everything 50/50 or being nitty gritty but rather on having a thoughtful conversation on how to redistribute tasks and be supportive to each other (e.g., taking on a task your partner hates doing but that you do not mind; figuring out how to distribute a task that feels particularly time consuming). The goal is to eventually learn how to appreciate each other for their contributions. Two tangible options of how to do this are:
Dr. Gottman’s Who Does What List (an adaptation by New America can be accessed here)
The Fair Play Deck by Eve Rodsky
In summary, managing household responsibilities can be a challenge and is often about more than just the task at hand. Understand how your personal history plays into your emotional reactions, expectations and coping with household stresses. Find ways to communicate your concerns in a way that your partner will hear them. Work as a team to figure out the balance that works for both of you by making things tangible. And finally, remember that it will likely be a work-in-progress over time.
References
Gottman, J.M., & Silver, N. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage work. Harmony Books.
Kerr, Michael E. (2019). Bowen’s Theory Secrets: Revealing the hidden life of families. W.W. Norton & Company.
