Blog Short #204: How to Negotiate Roles in a Marriage
Photo by Cunaplus_M.Faba, Courtesy of iStock Photo
When it comes to defining marital roles, who’s responsible for what is a subject of great controversy for many couples.
If you look at couples in the 1950s (watch an episode of I Love Lucy), you’ll see well-defined roles: the husband works and earns the money to pay the bills, and the wife takes care of the home and children. There’s some crossover, but not much.
Now look at today. There are no standardized, accepted patterns. There are many iterations of couple roles. Some still look like the 1950s version, but mostly, there’s a mix.
Many factors have contributed to the shift, but the most momentous change is that many women now work outside the home.
Taking care of the home, children, and finances are often split between both parents, but not necessarily down the middle.
How do you decide? Maybe more to the point, do you choose or just let it happen?
It’s best to tackle this issue consciously and deliberately. Otherwise, conflicts can quickly arise creating resentments and distance.
Here are some strategies to use to help you develop a good plan.
Discuss Expectations
Start at the beginning. Find out what each of you expects of each other and of yourselves. If you don’t do that, you’ll be operating in the dark, which won’t go well.
The questions are:
- What are all the responsibilities and tasks that need to be handled daily?
- Which ones do you expect yourself to do, and which ones are for your partner? (take turns saying)
- How can you divvy it up so you’re both happy?
- How are you going to negotiate changes as you go along?
Writing these down is recommended so you can refer to them later when you need to tweak something. Having them in print also makes things more straightforward and memorable.
Here are some ideas that might help you create expectations.
Play to Each Other’s Strengths
Some couples want each other to be able to do everything.
Both of you cook, clean, work, spend time monitoring the kids, run errands, and so on. Some couples do this well and are happy with it. If that’s the case, you’ve got it under control.
In those cases, it’s likely that each person grew up in a household where everyone had multiple responsibilities and learned how to do all those things.
For example, in my household, my brothers learned to clean as well as the girls and had many of the same chores. All of us could babysit. All of us learned to cook.
So, when we set up a house with our spouses, we were more likely to be similarly involved in all the responsibilities.
But it’s not always that way, is it?
In my husband’s home, the girls did all those home-related chores, and the men worked, made the money, kept up the yard, and did the more stereotyped male chores.
When we got married, significant differences in backgrounds showed up quickly in our household.
In situations like these, you have to negotiate.
In our case, it became clear that an excellent way to do this was to play to each other’s strengths and figure out how to make them complementary.
- Who’s best at managing household problems?
- Who needs more time for career-building?
- Who wants to work more on money and financial concerns?
- How can time be divided to do the chores, and who does what best?
That doesn’t mean that just because one person can clean much better than the other, they should do all the cleaning. It means that you assign duties based on preferences and know-how, yet stay flexible.
You must make it equitable, but it can be an effective solution. It takes some trial and error and a lot of flexibility to get it right.
Reverse Roles Once in a While
There’s nothing like reversing roles to see what your partner’s life is like.
If you’re not the person who usually stays home when the kids are sick, do that next time it happens. And on that day or days, do the same chores your spouse would be doing.
Or, work overtime and then come home to review the budget, pay the bills, take time with the kids, and help with the dishes.
Swap things out to keep yourself aware of the levels of stress you each have.
It’s not always possible to do that, but take those opportunities to change places when possible. And when you can’t, talk about it with interest and understanding for each other.
Stay in Touch Emotionally
This is the big one.
If you aren’t aware of how your partner is feeling on a daily basis and don’t take the time to check in about it, distance can creep in.
When that happens, you lose touch with how stressed your partner may feel or what they’re dealing with.
You lose empathy and can get singularly focused on your load and become resentful because you don’t think you have enough help.
An effective way to ensure you stay on top of this problem is to set aside regular time every day to check in, even if it’s just a half hour or less.
Then, once a week, set aside a more lengthy time to review how you’re both doing, what kinds of things you’re dealing with, and how you’re feeling.
You each need to feel seen and heard.
Any problem a couple has will be exacerbated when the relationship has become distant.
I recently watched a YouTube video by Nick Wignall, a writer and psychotherapist, titled Why Relationships Get Stale. He focused on emotional distance caused by three practices:
- Emotional skimming
- Emotional skirting
- Emotional squashing
Quickly, emotional skimming is giving cursory attention to the other person’s feelings without any real depth. Emotional skirting is avoiding their emotions, and emotional squashing is invalidating them.
All three of these practices shut down the lifeblood of an intimate relationship.
Click on the title to watch the video. It’s worth your time.
Reduce the Overall Load
Take time at least once a month to streamline your routines.
- Is your list of tasks and to-dos bloated?
- Is your system working well?
Ask these questions for each of you individually and then as a couple.
- Can you remove anything from your daily routine?
- Can you operate more effectively together?
Perhaps you can streamline your processes to use your time more wisely and create more space in your days.
When you work together to devise a better process, you’ll make things more efficient and feel connected and on the same side.
Be real partners!
Get Outside Help
You might not have this option, but if you can, do it. Maybe it’s having someone clean the house once a month or once every two weeks.
You could get a babysitter once a week to go out together for some adult downtime.
Use a food service once a week. Get a part-time nanny to help with the kids.
All of these things cost money and may not be options. But, if you can, even one thing could help lift the stress.
Last Note
If you have children, involve them in family chores.
Your chores should be age-appropriate, of course, but the sooner your kids feel that being part of a family is participating in taking care of the home, the better off they’ll be, and so will you.
Some parents do everything for their kids, which has two questionable effects:
- The kids feel entitled and can’t understand when things aren’t done for them.
- You feel more stressed and overworked, which leads to burnout and resentment.
Make chores a family affair so your kids learn to handle responsibility and be part of a team.
That’s all for today.
Have a great week!
All my best,
Barbara