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Dear Same Old Problem,
The central issue here is not
just about homemaking, but rather it's about your husband's
attitude and the manner in which he relates to you.
A primary question for you is --
are you willing to continue to tolerate your husband's constant
dissatisfaction with you, and if not, what can you do to change
things?
The mere fact that you may be
reaching your "limit" of tolerance is a good sign.
By setting limits you are making a clear statement to your
husband that some of his behaviors are not acceptable. In
essence, you are telling him that you are a person with feelings
and needs and he must understand that.
Nevertheless, you both are to
be commended for trying to make a pre-marital agreement as
to how the domestic responsibilities would be divided. Unfortunately
due to the demands of home and work these initial marital
agreements are often compromised or forgotten.
Almost all couples tend to settle
into routines, (i.e. she cleans, he handles the finances or
she's aware of the kids needs and he's aware of the needs
of the house), which, before you know, turn from being temporary
solutions into rigid roles.
Furthermore, you are probably correct
in suspecting that your husband wants you to act like his mother
and fulfill many, if not all of the domestic responsibilities.
These expectations we bring in from our family tend to override
any pre-marital agreements that you might have subsequently made.
It is quite natural for many
couples to suddenly find themselves behaving similarly to
their parents despite well-intentioned premarital convictions
to the contrary. Our parent's attitudes and behaviors are
often times "subtly programmed" into us as we were
growing up.
Often because of the increased
stress and demands for our attentions from our children, jobs,
etc., we will inadvertently revert to these "pre-programmed"
mommy / daddy behavioral "routines".
Please do not misunderstand,
I am not trying to excuse your husband from responsibility
for his attitudes and behaviors, but rather to reinforce your
own interpretation about what has likely contributed to him
being this way.
My advice to you is that you
try to engage your husband in a serious dialogue about your
marriage. Tell him how you are feeling, and what you fear
will be the consequences for you and he should this current
situation remain or deteriorate. Without blaming make sure
he understands your desire to renegotiate your shared responsibilities.
Since you already had a basic
"marital division of labor agreement" you ought
to be able to use this as a basis for distributing household
responsibilities more equitably.
Some good examples would be:
- Ask your husband what things
he'd be willing to do: i.e. taking out the garbage, grocery
shopping, walking the dog, cleaning the supper dishes.
- If your children are still
living at home, and they are over the age of 8, assign each
of them regular household responsibilities.
- Ask your husband and family
to dedicate 2 days a month as "Mommy Days", where
the rest of the family picks up the slack.
- Keep a log to show your husband
how you spent your time domestically; you may even wish
to assign some monetary values to it to increase the worth
of what you do in your husband's eyes.
- What about getting some domestic
help, one to two times per week, to assist with the "major
cleaning"?
If you are unable to reach an
agreement, then let this be a signal that you're both still
harboring anger, resentment, and distrust for "past injustices
and indecencies and that these may first need to be resolved.
If so, I would recommend marital therapy to resolve the impasse
between the two of you.
We at WholeFamily, wish you good
luck and patience in your attempt to resolve this matter.
Again, I want to commend you for standing up for yourself.
This is the first step toward achieving a real resolution
of your conflict.
Sincerely,
Marc H. Garson MSW
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