I have moms ask me all the time how to get their husbands more involved with housework. This is a very tricky question, and I’ve always felt that it was more appropriate for a marriage counselor to tackle than me.
I’m excellent at teaching you to manage and motivate your children. But a husband is not a child, he’s a spouse, and an adult. The relationship dynamic is entirely different, or at least it should be.
So, no. I do not have any tips on how to get a husband who has no interest in housework on board. However, I can give you some tips if your husband actually wants to pitch in and help out.
1. Be Very Specific About What You Need Help With
This is usually how this scenario (of getting your husband’s help) goes down, and why both you and your husband may end up feeling frustrated.
Your husband asks what he can do to help. You ask him if he will clean the kitchen and he agrees. An hour later, you come back into the kitchen and the dishes have been done, but there is still stuff out all over the counters, or the counters are cleared off, but they are still sticky or have crumbs all over them, and the floor desperately needs a good sweeping.
What happened? Your husband volunteered to help, and you asked him to clean the kitchen…some progress has been made, but it’s not clean!
This usually ends up with the wife feeling put out, maybe doing some silent treatment, or maybe even being short-tempered towards the husband. The husband is then confused because he thought he was helping, but now his wife is being passive aggressive.
This is obviously not the outcome that the husband or the wife were hoping for.
So how can we all avoid this? It’s actually really simple. Wives need to be more specific.
Be very specific with your husband about what you need done. Instead of just asking your husband to clean the kitchen, make him a checklist.
- Put all the food away.
- Put all of the dirty dishes in the sink.
- Wash the dirty dishes.
- Clear off the counters.
- Wipe the counters.
- Sweep the kitchen floor.
So instead of hoping your husband will read your mind and clean it exactly how you would clean it, be specific and write a list of exactly what you want done.
2. Break A Big Job Up Into Tiny Tasks For Your Husband
Breaking a large job into small jobs (think 3-5 minute jobs) will make it so much easier for your husband to get it done. Getting to check a bunch of small jobs off a list instead of one big job is motivating because it feels like more progress is being made.
***Hint: This works for ALL of us, not just husbands. This works for Mom, and this works for the kids. The more you can break big jobs down, the happier and more motivated everyone will be!
If you have trouble doing this, I have a checklist of 361 Tiny Tasks that are organized by room.
You can find that here: https://shop.freedommoms.com/products/361-tiny-tasks
Just print the checklists off, highlight what you would like your husband to do in the kitchen, and you’ll all be happier.
3. Use SOPs So That Your Husband Fully Understands What You Want
If you know me, you know that I LOVE SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). I love them for myself, I love them for my children, and if my husband has the time and desire to help out, I will hand him an SOP.
An SOP is a step-by-step list of HOW to do a job. So, the bathroom SOP lists out in order how to get the job done, exactly how I want it done. If your husband isn’t used to cleaning a bathroom, or if his idea of clean and yours are different, this will help.
If you don’t have any experience making SOPs, you can grab a pack here:
https://shop.freedommoms.com/products/done-for-you-sops
4. Be Grateful Not Critical
Be grateful and thankful for the work he does, and do not criticize it. Even if he doesn’t do it as thoroughly as you would have liked, don’t criticize. The only time you should give feedback on how well the job was done is if he specifically asks you how he did, and then be as kind as possible.
Remember that your husband is a grown man, he’s not a child. And even children do better with a lot of praise. If you want your husband to continue to want to pitch in around the house, being thankful for the help and praising the things that he did well will get you much further than picking apart the areas that he didn’t do as well.
A grateful heart will always get you farther in life than a critical one…not just in your home and marriage, but your whole life.
5. Give Him The Jobs He Is Good At
Give your husband the kind of jobs that he’s already comfortable doing. So if he’s never cleaned the tub before, don’t give him that job. That’s a good way to start, and then if he expresses an interest in learning other things too, you can teach him.
Here’s a little life tip. We enjoy doing the things that we are good at.
So if you want to get your husband more involved, don’t give him new jobs that he hasn’t yet gained any fluency in. Give him the easy jobs and the tried and true jobs that he already knows how to do. This will help to build his confidence because he knows that he’s doing a good job.
6. Do Not “Mother” Him
It is so important to remember that your husband is not your child. It’s time to completely eradicate all of those disrespectful jokes that are all too common about being the mother of not 4 kids, but 5 (insert the number of kids in your own family).
Your husband is not a child, he is a grown man. If his behavior appears childish to you, the answer is not to then treat him as a child.
1. Do not nag.
2. Do not whine or yell.
3. Do not punish with the cold shoulder.
If your husband is perpetually childish in his behavior, the answer will never be to “mother” him or infantilize him. This will only allow bitterness and resentment to grow both in you and your husband.
Hopefully these tips were helpful. I think one last thing is important to remember. Different things are important to different people.
My husband spends a TON of time working outside, on our vehicles, building and fixing things around our home, and teaching our children to hunt and fish. These are the areas that are important to him.
I almost never offer to help him with any of these things, even though they are all VERY important to keep things running around here.
The things that are important to me are the cleaning, the laundry, the food and homeschooling. It’s what I spend the majority of my time on. A clean and well-run home is important to me.
My husband DOES offer to help and he DOES pitch in with these tasks.
So maybe he’s off asking someone the question: How do I get my wife to pitch in more with the outside chores?
So maybe it’s best to remember that unless we are married to someone who is extremely lazy (and I admit…some are, and that’s not easy), we should be so thankful for all of the things that our husbands do.
It took me a while to let go of the idea that my husband needed to help with the housework. He’s got his own, very demanding job and is only home and awake for a limited amount of time and is often working on developing his home business, playing with the kids, writing, or resting during those hours and it is unreasonable of me to expect him to help with my work during that time. I am a full-time homemaker. Household chores are a big part of my job description. I try (but am often unsuccessful) to have most of my work done before he gets home from his work so I can rest when he rests. That was his idea and I think it was wise. When I do that, it nips feelings of resentment that I might feel for his getting to have fun (if he’s resting) while I’m working or for his not helping with the kids if he has to go out to the forge after dinner. At this point, I recognize that most of my homemaking (and marriage) issues are self inflicted and would largely disappear if I were to complete my tasks quickly early in he day so I have more time to devote to the children and my husband later when they need me more.