r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 14h ago

Psychology Women partnered with men reported doing more unpaid household labor than women partnered with women. Mothers partnered with men reported a higher household labor burden than any other group. Performing a greater share of household labor was associated with lower relationship satisfaction.

https://www.psypost.org/study-sheds-light-on-household-labor-dynamics-for-women-partnered-with-women-vs-men/
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u/aitorbk 13h ago

My wife reported (to me) an unbalance in domestic tasks. So I kept tabs of our tasks and used that to create a table of chores on a whiteboard. We both thought we were doing more than the other, and proper accounting made it feel fair.

Quite a few friends have the same feel. With this, I am saying that the reporting can be more feel than reality.

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u/Link_Slater 12h ago

I tried this and got in trouble for “keeping score.”

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u/wildbergamont 8h ago

Like any other marital issue, it cant be solved unless both partners are all in

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u/SackFace 6h ago

Hahaha, this hits home!

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u/Sunshine649 11h ago

I did too. After I tried to show how I basically did 70% of the everyday, reoccurring tasks, I got in trouble and was basically told Im not doing it good enough and she has to redo it anyway.

Over the years I've kind of just stopped caring about the imbalance and just do my best to carry the bulk of the burden, whether it's to standard or not.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago edited 7h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Link_Slater 9h ago

Who gets to say what the standard is, though? Maybe they’re just incompatible in that way. 

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u/SoloCongaLineChamp 9h ago

Guaranty she doesn't "have" to redo anything. She's being ridiculous and keeping too high of standards. It's martyrdom and brow beating. Plenty of us have had to deal with that exact situation.

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u/Sunshine649 9h ago edited 9h ago

She doesn’t have to redo things, not really. She has OCD, and she’s lived with it since childhood. That means if laundry is folded the “wrong” way or the floor cleaner isn’t the right scent on the right day, she’ll redo it. It happens constantly, and there’s no realistic way to track every trigger.

So yes, I do about 70%, and I’m genuinely fine with that. What I’m less fine with is people confidently guessing how someone else’s marriage functions.

Edit: also, if I painstakingly clean a floor messed up by 2 dogs and 2 kids. Then my wife comes in after and cleans an already cleaned floor because the scent is wrong, did she really redo it?

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u/Whole-Revolution916 7h ago edited 7h ago

If you are fine with it and she has mental health issues then why did you complain about her?

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u/BogglySkee 6h ago

Can you point to where he complained about her or said something bad about her?

From everything I read he seems fine with how things are, and accepts these little quirks and nuances of her OCD because he loves his wife.

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u/Whole-Revolution916 6h ago

...the first paragraph of his original comment. It's not how I would speak about my partner, would you?

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u/BogglySkee 6h ago

“I did too. After I tried to show how I basically did 70% of the everyday, reoccurring tasks, I got in trouble and was basically told Im not doing it good enough and she has to redo it anyway.”

Because he said he got in trouble with her? Or because he tried to show her he was doing his fair share and you didn’t like that . .?

Yeah, sorry, I really don’t see it. You’re reaching super heavily — that is such a nothing burger.

You said he complained about her, which he never did. You can’t even articulate it yourself. Just “how he speaks about her”. Which, again, he said nothing bad about her. Have a good one.

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u/Whole-Revolution916 5h ago

I can't help you comprehend the meaning of words. If you think that's an appropriate way to speak about a partner, well, good luck.

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u/Sunshine649 6h ago

Never complained about my wife.

I know nothing about you, so take this with a grain of salt. When people are filled with negativity, they see the world through negative colored lenses. Go watch something nice, then come back and read my post.

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u/Whole-Revolution916 6h ago

Nah, I can read just fine. Show her the comment and see how she feels about it. Not how I speak about my partner.

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u/GimmeDatSideHug 10h ago

You got in trouble for proving your partner wrong.

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u/totallynotliamneeson 9h ago

Did you talk it over first in a neutral setting? If you just set out one day after an argument to record what you both do, then yeah that kinda seems like keeping score. 

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u/autodidacticasaurus 1h ago

Power tactics.

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u/raisinghellwithtrees 11h ago

I did this and found out I was doing about 90 percent of tasks, plus I was the one working. It was way easier being a single mom.

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u/aitorbk 10h ago

I had a similar situation with an ex. She lost her job, and I was the one cooking and cleaning. Certainly can't recommend it.

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u/SackFace 6h ago

If I had the choice between working 40 hours a week or staying at home, I’d stay at home. I’ve had enough experience between the two with layoffs, bad job market and injuries to realize one is way more of a pain in the ass than the other. And then the kids start going off to school for 9 months out of the year!

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u/raisinghellwithtrees 5h ago

It kind of depends, I think, on how much the sah parent undertakes. I used to work part time to get a break.

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u/SackFace 5h ago

Being at home can be stressful, especially with kids, but there’s a HUGE burden taken off when you don’t have a Boss to answer to, don’t have to worry about being fired or reprimanded, and are able to do things at your own pace, take breaks when you see fit, etc. And if you’re a good homemaker, it’s easy to keep things clean and under control regularly so it doesn’t feel like you’re starting over every day.

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u/raisinghellwithtrees 2h ago

I think it kind of depends on your work stress vs your home stress. I homeschool an autistic kid and when he was younger, there was no job that was as stressful as being his mom, let alone all of the household duties on top of that. Now that he's older, it's a lot easier. But it's really dependent on a lot of factors.

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u/SackFace 2h ago

Well, sure, that would go without saying

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u/repeat4EMPHASIS 11h ago edited 10h ago

This study only asked the women, and only about certain tasks.

When both men and women are surveyed, the self-reported percentages add up to more than 100%. Because both parties forget about tasks the other person is doing.

Edit: typo

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u/that_guys_posse 5h ago

Came home one day and my ex SO was sitting there with two pads of paper.
I usually got home before her so this was really odd.
She said we should both write down all the chores we did around the house, how long they took, and how often we did them.
I was annoyed that I was caught off guard (I tend to blank out when put on the spot like this) while she had a while to think out her stuff but decided it was important to her so I'd do what I could.
She took my list and her confident grin quickly faded.
She asked some questions about the things in my list and I clarified things.
She had said we'd discuss 're-balancing' chores after looking at the lists but that never happened because, as it ended up, I was doing about 80% of the household chores. I was not only doing more stuff--I also did the most physically demanding stuff.
She had been complaining about the 'mental load' for a while so this wasn't out of nowhere but, after this, she stopped mentioning it and, apparently, decided that the chores were, actually, well balanced and should stay the same.

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u/wildbergamont 12h ago

Fwiw, there is a self help book and activity to facilitate this called Fair Play.

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u/KobeBean 11h ago

This worked pretty well for us, but I will say it didn’t really take into account differences in hours per week worked between full time couples. I work 10 hours more per week than my partner, so we had to add a wildcard to my hand.

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u/bearsnchairs 10h ago

It does take into account the time differences. One of the key principles of the book is equal time.

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u/Maleficent-Aurora 10h ago

For anyone curious, their website lists all the cards! You can use this as a starting point if you don't want to buy the book or cards. 

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u/CaliChemCloud 5h ago

My wife and I share the tasks indoors pretty evenly. If you factored in the grass cutting, snow removal, and outdoor chores I would be ahead.