Chores, Chores, and more Chores
Apropos of a few seemingly random events over the past few weeks that have turned out to be connected in the form of the following thoughts:
As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I work with all different kinds of couples and individuals. And as a human, I have all sorts of different kinds of friends and family members. What these groups (my professional contacts and my personal contacts) have in common (perhaps one of the few things that very different people have in common) is that they have a space or two that they call “home”.
It may be for now, it may be a work in progress, or it may be fabulous- but all of these people have a place that they spend their downtime- a home of some sort.
As a member of a couple, someone who is currently working with a few couples in therapy, and who has many friends coupled up, married, or living together, I found the following statistic quite interesting:
“The degree to which housework is shared is now one of the two most important predictors of a woman’s marital satisfaction. And husbands benefit too, since studies show that women feel more sexually attracted to partners who pitch in.” Source: Stephanie Coontz. “The M.R.S. and the Ph.D.” NYTimes.com
Whether or not this applies for LGTBQ couples as well as straight couples in a gender neutral, personality specific way- well, you tell me. I think it does- one member of a couple is usually neater, and the other is messier. In fact, it would be extremely weird if two people started dating and found out that they like their home to be EXACTLY as neat/messy as their significant other.
Anyway, this quote is a reminder- sharing a home means sharing housework, and making sure your significant other is happy with the way the housework is shared is IMPORTANT.
Get a house cleaner (Google, house cleaners + Seattle). Have a professional organizer come in and help the messier person get started (I like the local small business HomeKeyOrganization.com). Take WikiHow.com‘s advice and clean quickly with music blasting.
Whatever you do, do it with the awareness that the daily grind takes it’s toll over time.
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