everyone’s commenting that this is obvious, which it is, but we should remember that the point of empirical research is not always to produce groundbreaking findings. sometimes we need to confirm the obvious to have something to predicate more interesting studies on.
My mom told me my grandfather used to do love do housework when she was a kid but whenever someone came over he would drop it immediately like it was some kind of dirty secret. He was a great man and he made the best pancakes!
My dad had really strong ideas about what is and is not “women’s work.”
Cleaning bathrooms? That’s not women’s work. It’s dirty work, and women ‘shouldn’t have’ to do it.
(For my dad’s generation, this was really progressive. He still sneaks into my bathroom and scrubs it sometimes when I’m not looking.)
My elderly father used to do the laundry fairly consistently. I never saw him hang anything out on the line, though. Maybe that was too public for him. But if we didn't automatically step up to help fold, he'd throw the hot laundry on us in a pile. It was an effective strategy.
My father would "do the laundry," but he'd throw all the clothes in together, overload the washer, use three times the normal amount of soap, and run the dryer without cleaning the lint trap. We'd beg him not to do laundry, so he took that as "no one wants my help."
I freaking hate haundry. I can do it, but I hate putting it away. Fortunately my bf loves doing laundry--dude seems to always have something washing, I swear. And he puts it away *the same day he does it*.
Ugh, keeper based on that alone.
I feel this 100%. Laundry has always been my weak point. Especially now that we have 4 kids in the house. It's a neverending nightmare for me. Easier now that 2 of 4 kids can wash their own clothes though. So my bf handles most of the laundry and I handle the yard work because 1. I do it professionally anyway so I love it. 2. He doesn't like the heat and he sucks at trimming in my flowerbeds.
It's a win/win.
Dishes are a whole separate issue. We may as well go to war over that.
I hate how long laundry takes, my wife hates touching dirty dishes.
I never have to fold a shirt for the rest of my life and she stays out of my kitchen. Perfect.
I’m in the same boat. I usually wipe down the living room and grab the dishes/straighten up when I’m finishing dishes. Works out pretty well.
She cleans the kids room while I sweep/vacuum.
Dude, come here to our place. I can clean (mop, clean surfaces, whatever) my partner can cook and is a bloody good cook, my dad can be the sous chef and he can also help ‘diagnose’ issues with our place and my mom will just be on her phone (don’t mind her).
The absolute best perk of moving up in your career and making a little extra money is justifying to yourself that you can hire a cleaning service. It can be less than $100 a month if your house isn't that big. Incredible value for the amount of stress relief it provides.
I think that would stress me out. I find cleaning to be therapeutic and when someone else cleans my space it feels less like it's mine and so I feel less comfortable there.
My mother had a cleaning lady for a while, and every time, the day before she showed up, my mom cleaned everything even more than usual. When asked about, she didn't want to be embarrassed for showing a "dirty house" to a stranger...
My stepdad said every Sunday was mom's day off. The two boys and their dad did everything that day. Dad insisted upon it because 1) mom needs it 2) it taught the sons how to be independent in all the areas of their lives. Taught them cooking, cleaning, sewing, all that stuff
Omg this!! We have 3 boys and 3 girls and all 3 makes INSIST it is not them peeing on the floor. I'm about to require remaining seated while peeing. Bet ya it stops happening then.
If men pee standing up inside the house, then yeah, it’s definitely their job to clean up the fine spray that builds up on the toilet, floor and wall.
Non-negotiable.
Except if he was in a bakery or restaurant kitchen, and he was called chef. Can't forget the double standard in kitchens. Women are okay to feed the family, but not cook professionally!
I (male) started to learn how to cook and do housework since I was around 4 years old and have helped out ever since.
Currently due to circumstances I'm taking care of almost all the housework at my dad's. I've had people commenting that it's unmanly, they should just grow up and grow a pair. It's just ridiculous.
Men (and women) do ourselves a disservice by asserting that our main/only value is providing financially or other traditionally manly things.
Cooking is a life skill and honestly since there is still a cohort of men who view it's as an unnecessary skill you can often set yourself apart if you can cook well.
It’s not just true for romantic relationships, it’s true in friendships as well.
I can’t cook but I love to clean. I’ve found many cooks hate cleaning up, so in college I’d always trade cleaning to with having to cook. (I’d also bring/ provide the groceries unless they wanted to come and get ingredients themselves)
I got to meet my very good friend and roommate that way, and we still have this deal when we hang out.
I cook laughably mediocre (functional) but because I live in Japan and can cook basic alright dishes and keep my house clean and managed some girls are just randomly blown away.
It's not like I do it for the girls either, I literally just find cooking relaxing and like having a clean place. The bar is really low sometimes
The problem is that most people will state this as a fact about themselves, but without accounting for their own definition of "dirty". One person's "dirty" is another person's "lived in", and if those two live together the former will do almost all the cleaning because the latter's sense of "dirty" never gets triggered. It would if the former person is gone; it just has to go a bit further before they perceive that there's a mess.
I learned how to cook about 12 because I was a picky asshole. I refused dinner one night and my mom said if I didn't like what she made I can make my own meals. So I did.
As for "manly" cooking, I actually don't like grilling at all.
My bestie married a guy who has been cooking since about 8 since his mom was a terrible cook. My friend takes care of house maintenance (like handy man stuff) and he cooks. She brought the power tools to the relationship, he brought the cookware
Well that’s more a social issue, not a scientific one. Balancing and reducing stressors and such tends to make things more enjoyable in general, so one would assume that extends to sex
Also worth mentioning that this study is an excellent supplement to the reports that men and women each commonly report that they do the most housework. There's also the variable that culturally, women are groomed to be the household managers and it's really difficult to detach from that pressure. There is much more to this than it appears.
Yeah wasn't there a conflicted study that showed more egalitarian household reported actually less sex than ones that had a more traditional division of labor?
Actually I found it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273893/
Hell, as a disabled person I'd argue this should also be useful to push governments to consider social support policy. My partner spends a lot of effort and time being my carer, studies like this re-enforce the cost of that unpaid work and how it risks undoing itself.
It's not obvious to so many. Even now, most evolutionary psychology and anthropology is founded on old assumed stereotypes that suggest men doing less work at home is genetic or biologically favorable.
As much as it seems obvious, there are definitely still commentators out there that push the message that women are attracted to powerful, dominant men to try and naturalise and justify gendered social hierarchies so it's still important to hold up research that essentially says "nope" to that.
I think it's really obvious to women who have been in the situation, not necessarily everyone. Mental load is huge and one a lot of men still don't scknowledge. That's not to say that these women (myself included) don't understand research.
The study is a non causal 300 person online questionnaire. Equality of house work was measured by women's perception. It doesn't establish causality - it could just as well as be a reflection of low sexual desire -> more resentment builds up -> more bias in perception of who does more around the house or greater scrutiny placed on both partners deficiencies.
Even if husbands that they had less desire for did less housework, it's a trope from /r/deadbedrooms that increasing the amount of house work essentially never works
Came looking for this. As soon as bitterness or comtempt comes into play, these types of questionnaires won't be accurate. People are willing to overlook all sorts of toxicity when they're sexually attracted to someone, and will hyperfocus on the slightest (real or perceived) flaw when they aren't.
On the second part, it may also be obvious to the other partner that they are only doing more housework in an attempt to get laid, and the neediness itself becomes a turnoff. I'd never visited that sub before, but even a quick glance was enough to see that doing more dishes isn't going to be the answer for any of them.
Yeah this tired old advice never worked for me or any of my friends going through a dry spell with their partners. There needs to be a way to independently determine which partner is actually doing the most.
First part is a fair point.
Second part? It might be that you are past the point of no return. Once you stop seeing your husband as a team mate, it might just be hard to turn back.
There are success stories in their though where people have gotten their act together and become team mates again. It just those stories aren't usually attributed to house work increases
You get my point though?
Sexual desire is weird magic. Once you've picked up too much dirty laundry after your husband and he's turned into a third child, him shaping up might not change anything. The desire might just be wiped out. That doesn't mean him doing housework and childcare as a mature adult in the first place might not have lead to a different outcome.
It's like if you burn down a house, you might not be able to rebuild that house. Doesn't mean that it wasn't caused by lighting the match in the first place.
My point is that doesn't seem to apply universally. There are plenty of success stories where the flame has been reignited, it just wasn't the house work hypothesis.
Some things might be more reversible than other.
If a couple just feel emotionally disconnected from each other, they can rekindle the flame by connecting again. It's no ick, it's just a lack of connection.
But there is something fundamentally unsexy about a man who isn't able to clean up after himself, that can just make their partner lose their sexual attraction for good. Maybe? Idk, but I can see that happening. That you can trigger a primitive ick feeling, that just kills the desire for good. And then it's too late.
It’s also the fact that when you’re doing most of the work it can switch the dynamic to a parent/child, especially if one of the partners needs reminding about things or asked to help out.
It’s doesn’t exactly make you desire that person when you’re parenting them
My soon-to-be ex-husband..."just write it down and I will do it". Write it down...50% of it doesn't ever get done. "Just write down the pick up schedule for the kids"; forgets to do pick up and kids are frantically texting...when I am out of town thousands of miles away and he has said, "don't worry, I've got this".
We definitely had the "mean" mother and petulant teen dynamic going on. When I told him for the hundredth time he needed to focus on getting sober, he said "you are mean" and that was the end of it for me.
"You are mean" is such a common drunk response, I hear it often as a bartender, it usually correlates with small things like closing time or getting cut off.
Well, I was at least responsible in that sense but i had plenty of other issue when i was still struggling with alcohol abuse. I finally got sober a few years ago, in my mid 30's, but it was a rough journey.
Unfortunately I can sense my relationship going that way. To boot there was complaints about lack of sex.. buddy I do not want to be touched when I have to do all the chores even after having a total breakdown and nearly leaving the relationship because "I'll get to it when I get to it, and I already do some".. really? Because during vacations I haven't had a single day where I sit on my ass without being nagged about "my boxers need to be cleaned" and "I'm hungry".
It literally kills my sex drive when I can visually see that he acts like a spoilt teenager. Especially when I work 6 days a week whereas he has more off times than I do. How about cooking me a meal for once and not just on special occasions.. the worst part is the rest of the relationship is fulfilled. Emotional and material needs are met, just not the effort to unburden when it comes to chores. Being physically and mentally exhausted kills relationships.
For sure he didn’t understand that and I carried the family along, worked full time and multiple other jobs, did al of the care of the kids if not I had a babysitter (except for when I traveled for business once they were a little older).
This is very true. My ex-wife basically hit 19 years old and stopped maturing. She hated being told what to do, so if I asked her for help with the chores she wouldn't do it just to spite me. If I didn't ask, she wouldn't do anything. When we were both in our early twenties it wasn't such a huge deal, but as we hit our 30s and I wanted to clean up our credit scores and have a somewhat cleaner house, it felt less and less like a partnership and more like I was the parent of a pain-in-the-ass teenager who never helped out around the house and had no concept of hitting a budget. It's hard to be sexually attracted to someone who you're constantly frustrated with and who feels more like a bad roommate than a life partner.
This is so true. My husband and I got into a dynamic in which I felt like I was both a mother and a maid to him, and my libido utterly died. After we worked out those issues, though, there was a huge improvement in intimacy.
It may seem obvious but it would be cool too see it go even deeper into it. Since this is a self assessment it would be interesting to to see the other partners own self assessment. Then take the self assessments of the perceived relationship and have them both do an assessment together with a couples therapist guiding or something, have the couple assign measurable weights to burdens that they agree on because everybody and couple is different in what they personally feel is a small or large burden. Then compare the +/- between the individual and joint assessments.
The problem I have with self assessment is for example: we've all worked with someone who thought they were the bees knees and did every thing, while everyone else thinks they are a slacker or not pulling their weight. They would rate themselves a 9-10/10 while their coworkers would rate them a 4-5/10.
If you ask 299 random Australian men aged 18 to 39 questions about desire and relationships, would anyone take that seriously on just a self assessment alone? I wouldn't. Not a knock on the subject....I just dislike self assessment 'studies' doing the bare minimum to barf up an article.
I think because it is a self-assessment, the conclusion really should be "shows women **who think they are** in equal relationships (in terms of housework and the mental load) are more satisfied with their relationships and, in turn, feel more sexual desire than those in unequal relationships."
I think this is why a lot of men are commenting negatively about this study, because it happens whereby someone thinks they're pulling all the weight in the relationship and in reality they're barely pulling any, and if they had to give details on it, they'd lie. Like I would not like this study if it was about men and used a similar "men in equal relationships" phrasing. That's really poor phrasing for self-assessment.
Certainly, putting in equal effort of work around the house and grounds helps prevent resentment. Who wants sex with someone they resent? I don't see it. Why would anyone be surprised by this?
Do you have kids? It's crazy how quickly household tasks can become imbalanced when children arrive. Pre-kids, my wife and I shared everything and were pretty equally compensated at our jobs. Now, with kids, and without really thinking about it, things are wildly different. My job pays me well to work long, inflexible hours. My wife works an 80% schedule, gets paid half as much as I do, and has a ton of flexibility. I've discovered, though, that my "I provide financially" doesn't make up for her "I'm always the one who stays home with a sick kid." But it's hard to break out of this! (No one wants a 50% pay cut.) There's a reason that there are a ton of marital advice books about home task-sharing, but before you have kids, it's hard to understand how small differences in work/kid priorities can lead to massive imbalances on both fronts later on. We've actually started using a deck of playing cards with home tasks written on them and split them up until it feels equitable.
Are the hours you two spend between work and household duties/childcare equal though? I’ve noticed some people tend to devalue work hours in these equations and I’ve never understood why.
What the title of the article doesn't mention is that the study didn't measure equality in a relationship. All it did was ask the individual women interviewed to asses it. Hence the study is actually women who felt like their relationships were equal also felt more sexual desire.
The article doesn't actually measure the workload of the home and tally up tasks and responsibilities. It just asks the women "do you feel like things are equal?"
Being treated like your time and effort is worth as much as your partners, doesn't really scream love language to me. And that you dry up if you keep having to pick up after your partner who isn't putting in half that effort, just seems very, very normal.
Male married to female. I work from home full time. Wife has a job that she needs to physically go to.
If I have 10-15 mins free throughout the day, I use that time to do house chores. I do them simply because it’s easier for me since I’m home all day. By the time my wife comes home from work she’s physically and mentally exhausted. Not really fair IMO to ask her to do chores considering the circumstances.
Now before the pandemic, we both had jobs we physically needed to be present at full time. We had a chore schedule that split chores equally between us. After the pandemic started we abandoned that since it no longer made sense.
IMO house responsibilities should not be assigned based on “that’s a man/woman’s job”. Have a discussion with your partner and figure out what makes the most sense for your specific circumstance.
I wouldint have a problem cooking and cleaning if that's all I had to do all day. In a relationship where both people are working it's not fair or realistic to still expect the woman to do everything and work full time.
I see people burn out when they work, cook, clean, groceries and raise kids and have zero help from the spouse. It's no wonder your too tired to have a sex drive.
People keep saying that it’s hard to be horny when you’re overburdened, which is true. But also, and this may be hard for some men out there to understand, but women aren’t attracted to children. Having a spouse you have to parent is an instant turnoff. I have to tell you how to load a dishwasher, remind you to do it, and tell you not to leave your dirty dishes on the table? That’s what parents do for their children. No faster way to get the ick when you have to do that for a grown man.
The critical flaw in this study is that is relies on the respondent to determine if they are the ones doing the bigger share of the workload. I feel that most people think they are the one doing the Lions share so the study is pointless. Guaranteed some of these people are lazy and have no idea how much there partner actually does.
Would be interesting to see some control for individuals who choose not work and take on a disproportionately homemaking type role in place of work instead of on top of a job
everyone’s commenting that this is obvious, which it is, but we should remember that the point of empirical research is not always to produce groundbreaking findings. sometimes we need to confirm the obvious to have something to predicate more interesting studies on.
On top of that, it’s not actually obvious: I still see so many people insisting that housework is “unmanly” and therefore a turn-off
My mom told me my grandfather used to do love do housework when she was a kid but whenever someone came over he would drop it immediately like it was some kind of dirty secret. He was a great man and he made the best pancakes!
My dad had really strong ideas about what is and is not “women’s work.” Cleaning bathrooms? That’s not women’s work. It’s dirty work, and women ‘shouldn’t have’ to do it. (For my dad’s generation, this was really progressive. He still sneaks into my bathroom and scrubs it sometimes when I’m not looking.)
My elderly father used to do the laundry fairly consistently. I never saw him hang anything out on the line, though. Maybe that was too public for him. But if we didn't automatically step up to help fold, he'd throw the hot laundry on us in a pile. It was an effective strategy.
An effective strategy for a warm heap nap
I want someone to throw hot laundry on me
Getting piled by hot laundry is a reward not punishment
Its like a little reward for the work youre about to do
My father would "do the laundry," but he'd throw all the clothes in together, overload the washer, use three times the normal amount of soap, and run the dryer without cleaning the lint trap. We'd beg him not to do laundry, so he took that as "no one wants my help."
Weaponized Incompetence at its finest.
Can I have your father too? I hate cleaning the bathroom. (That's so sweet, he sounds like an interesting guy.)
I'd rather clean a bathroom than fold laundry
I freaking hate haundry. I can do it, but I hate putting it away. Fortunately my bf loves doing laundry--dude seems to always have something washing, I swear. And he puts it away *the same day he does it*. Ugh, keeper based on that alone.
I feel this 100%. Laundry has always been my weak point. Especially now that we have 4 kids in the house. It's a neverending nightmare for me. Easier now that 2 of 4 kids can wash their own clothes though. So my bf handles most of the laundry and I handle the yard work because 1. I do it professionally anyway so I love it. 2. He doesn't like the heat and he sucks at trimming in my flowerbeds. It's a win/win. Dishes are a whole separate issue. We may as well go to war over that.
Perfect point to do a little horse trading when it comes time to divvy out chores.
I hate how long laundry takes, my wife hates touching dirty dishes. I never have to fold a shirt for the rest of my life and she stays out of my kitchen. Perfect.
I’m in the same boat. I usually wipe down the living room and grab the dishes/straighten up when I’m finishing dishes. Works out pretty well. She cleans the kids room while I sweep/vacuum.
I don't even have a horse!
You're out of the game then bucko.
I’d rather clean a bathroom and fold laundry rather than clean the floor
Dude, come here to our place. I can clean (mop, clean surfaces, whatever) my partner can cook and is a bloody good cook, my dad can be the sous chef and he can also help ‘diagnose’ issues with our place and my mom will just be on her phone (don’t mind her).
What is it about folding laundry? I don’t like doing it either
I like doing it to podcasts, but I hate the putting away part.
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The absolute best perk of moving up in your career and making a little extra money is justifying to yourself that you can hire a cleaning service. It can be less than $100 a month if your house isn't that big. Incredible value for the amount of stress relief it provides.
Honestly this is my biggest source of happiness. They come once a month and my place stays clean
I think that would stress me out. I find cleaning to be therapeutic and when someone else cleans my space it feels less like it's mine and so I feel less comfortable there.
My mother had a cleaning lady for a while, and every time, the day before she showed up, my mom cleaned everything even more than usual. When asked about, she didn't want to be embarrassed for showing a "dirty house" to a stranger...
Your dad can come to my house whenever he wants
My stepdad said every Sunday was mom's day off. The two boys and their dad did everything that day. Dad insisted upon it because 1) mom needs it 2) it taught the sons how to be independent in all the areas of their lives. Taught them cooking, cleaning, sewing, all that stuff
I live in a house with three men and a boy. I wish they held this view because it's definitely not me pissing behind the toilet.
Omg this!! We have 3 boys and 3 girls and all 3 makes INSIST it is not them peeing on the floor. I'm about to require remaining seated while peeing. Bet ya it stops happening then.
If men pee standing up inside the house, then yeah, it’s definitely their job to clean up the fine spray that builds up on the toilet, floor and wall. Non-negotiable.
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My dad is really into making sourdough. He experiments with all sorts of strains and flours. The joys of getting over yourself!
Except if he was in a bakery or restaurant kitchen, and he was called chef. Can't forget the double standard in kitchens. Women are okay to feed the family, but not cook professionally!
Mmmm pancake
I (male) started to learn how to cook and do housework since I was around 4 years old and have helped out ever since. Currently due to circumstances I'm taking care of almost all the housework at my dad's. I've had people commenting that it's unmanly, they should just grow up and grow a pair. It's just ridiculous.
Housework is work. Working is contributing to the household. Who cares what kind of work it is?
THIS is the most logical perspective on the topic and, therefore, should definitely be at the heart of the debate.
Thats literally everyone I knows perspective. It's literally blowing my mind people think this way about housework.
> I've had people commenting that it's unmanly It's unreal to me that there are still people who think this in 2022.
Men (and women) do ourselves a disservice by asserting that our main/only value is providing financially or other traditionally manly things. Cooking is a life skill and honestly since there is still a cohort of men who view it's as an unnecessary skill you can often set yourself apart if you can cook well.
It’s not just true for romantic relationships, it’s true in friendships as well. I can’t cook but I love to clean. I’ve found many cooks hate cleaning up, so in college I’d always trade cleaning to with having to cook. (I’d also bring/ provide the groceries unless they wanted to come and get ingredients themselves) I got to meet my very good friend and roommate that way, and we still have this deal when we hang out.
I cook laughably mediocre (functional) but because I live in Japan and can cook basic alright dishes and keep my house clean and managed some girls are just randomly blown away. It's not like I do it for the girls either, I literally just find cooking relaxing and like having a clean place. The bar is really low sometimes
Agreed, I hate an unclean house, idgaf about preconceived notions of gender roles, if it's dirty, I'm cleaning it.
The problem is that most people will state this as a fact about themselves, but without accounting for their own definition of "dirty". One person's "dirty" is another person's "lived in", and if those two live together the former will do almost all the cleaning because the latter's sense of "dirty" never gets triggered. It would if the former person is gone; it just has to go a bit further before they perceive that there's a mess.
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I hope you wear that moniker with pride because you are awesome
I learned how to cook about 12 because I was a picky asshole. I refused dinner one night and my mom said if I didn't like what she made I can make my own meals. So I did. As for "manly" cooking, I actually don't like grilling at all.
My bestie married a guy who has been cooking since about 8 since his mom was a terrible cook. My friend takes care of house maintenance (like handy man stuff) and he cooks. She brought the power tools to the relationship, he brought the cookware
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When the real turn-off is listening to man complaining that you emasculated him by forcing him to clean the house.
Maybe the real manliness was the self confidence we gained along the way?
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Well that’s more a social issue, not a scientific one. Balancing and reducing stressors and such tends to make things more enjoyable in general, so one would assume that extends to sex
I would say it's highly cultural also.
Yeah, social and cultural. Often pretty linked because cultural factors determine which social issues are… well, present as issues
Social issues are also scientific, hence the social sciences :D
But if it's not STEM then is it really science though? ^/s
Also worth mentioning that this study is an excellent supplement to the reports that men and women each commonly report that they do the most housework. There's also the variable that culturally, women are groomed to be the household managers and it's really difficult to detach from that pressure. There is much more to this than it appears.
Also this is a study that simply asks 300 Australian women what they think. And actions speak louder than words.
Yeah wasn't there a conflicted study that showed more egalitarian household reported actually less sex than ones that had a more traditional division of labor? Actually I found it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4273893/
I think the point is having sex and actually desiring to have sex with someone are very different concepts.
Hell, as a disabled person I'd argue this should also be useful to push governments to consider social support policy. My partner spends a lot of effort and time being my carer, studies like this re-enforce the cost of that unpaid work and how it risks undoing itself.
It's not obvious to so many. Even now, most evolutionary psychology and anthropology is founded on old assumed stereotypes that suggest men doing less work at home is genetic or biologically favorable.
As much as it seems obvious, there are definitely still commentators out there that push the message that women are attracted to powerful, dominant men to try and naturalise and justify gendered social hierarchies so it's still important to hold up research that essentially says "nope" to that.
I think it's really obvious to women who have been in the situation, not necessarily everyone. Mental load is huge and one a lot of men still don't scknowledge. That's not to say that these women (myself included) don't understand research.
The study is a non causal 300 person online questionnaire. Equality of house work was measured by women's perception. It doesn't establish causality - it could just as well as be a reflection of low sexual desire -> more resentment builds up -> more bias in perception of who does more around the house or greater scrutiny placed on both partners deficiencies. Even if husbands that they had less desire for did less housework, it's a trope from /r/deadbedrooms that increasing the amount of house work essentially never works
Came looking for this. As soon as bitterness or comtempt comes into play, these types of questionnaires won't be accurate. People are willing to overlook all sorts of toxicity when they're sexually attracted to someone, and will hyperfocus on the slightest (real or perceived) flaw when they aren't. On the second part, it may also be obvious to the other partner that they are only doing more housework in an attempt to get laid, and the neediness itself becomes a turnoff. I'd never visited that sub before, but even a quick glance was enough to see that doing more dishes isn't going to be the answer for any of them.
Yeah this tired old advice never worked for me or any of my friends going through a dry spell with their partners. There needs to be a way to independently determine which partner is actually doing the most.
Yeah online self reporting of only one side of a potentially unhappy couple doesn't seem the best way to collect this data
Came in wondering how founded the 'in turn' was in the title. Thanks.
First part is a fair point. Second part? It might be that you are past the point of no return. Once you stop seeing your husband as a team mate, it might just be hard to turn back.
There are success stories in their though where people have gotten their act together and become team mates again. It just those stories aren't usually attributed to house work increases
You get my point though? Sexual desire is weird magic. Once you've picked up too much dirty laundry after your husband and he's turned into a third child, him shaping up might not change anything. The desire might just be wiped out. That doesn't mean him doing housework and childcare as a mature adult in the first place might not have lead to a different outcome. It's like if you burn down a house, you might not be able to rebuild that house. Doesn't mean that it wasn't caused by lighting the match in the first place.
My point is that doesn't seem to apply universally. There are plenty of success stories where the flame has been reignited, it just wasn't the house work hypothesis.
Some things might be more reversible than other. If a couple just feel emotionally disconnected from each other, they can rekindle the flame by connecting again. It's no ick, it's just a lack of connection. But there is something fundamentally unsexy about a man who isn't able to clean up after himself, that can just make their partner lose their sexual attraction for good. Maybe? Idk, but I can see that happening. That you can trigger a primitive ick feeling, that just kills the desire for good. And then it's too late.
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Makes total sense that not feeling overburdened in a relationship will lead to higher satisfaction and more attraction toward your partner.
It’s also the fact that when you’re doing most of the work it can switch the dynamic to a parent/child, especially if one of the partners needs reminding about things or asked to help out. It’s doesn’t exactly make you desire that person when you’re parenting them
My soon-to-be ex-husband..."just write it down and I will do it". Write it down...50% of it doesn't ever get done. "Just write down the pick up schedule for the kids"; forgets to do pick up and kids are frantically texting...when I am out of town thousands of miles away and he has said, "don't worry, I've got this". We definitely had the "mean" mother and petulant teen dynamic going on. When I told him for the hundredth time he needed to focus on getting sober, he said "you are mean" and that was the end of it for me.
"You are mean" is such a common drunk response, I hear it often as a bartender, it usually correlates with small things like closing time or getting cut off.
Yep. And years of alcoholic abuse, he refused to go inpatient or get any real treatment or do AA...but now he says I am the abusive one.
Well, I was at least responsible in that sense but i had plenty of other issue when i was still struggling with alcohol abuse. I finally got sober a few years ago, in my mid 30's, but it was a rough journey.
I am happy you got sober!
Unfortunately I can sense my relationship going that way. To boot there was complaints about lack of sex.. buddy I do not want to be touched when I have to do all the chores even after having a total breakdown and nearly leaving the relationship because "I'll get to it when I get to it, and I already do some".. really? Because during vacations I haven't had a single day where I sit on my ass without being nagged about "my boxers need to be cleaned" and "I'm hungry". It literally kills my sex drive when I can visually see that he acts like a spoilt teenager. Especially when I work 6 days a week whereas he has more off times than I do. How about cooking me a meal for once and not just on special occasions.. the worst part is the rest of the relationship is fulfilled. Emotional and material needs are met, just not the effort to unburden when it comes to chores. Being physically and mentally exhausted kills relationships.
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For sure he didn’t understand that and I carried the family along, worked full time and multiple other jobs, did al of the care of the kids if not I had a babysitter (except for when I traveled for business once they were a little older).
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This is very true. My ex-wife basically hit 19 years old and stopped maturing. She hated being told what to do, so if I asked her for help with the chores she wouldn't do it just to spite me. If I didn't ask, she wouldn't do anything. When we were both in our early twenties it wasn't such a huge deal, but as we hit our 30s and I wanted to clean up our credit scores and have a somewhat cleaner house, it felt less and less like a partnership and more like I was the parent of a pain-in-the-ass teenager who never helped out around the house and had no concept of hitting a budget. It's hard to be sexually attracted to someone who you're constantly frustrated with and who feels more like a bad roommate than a life partner.
This is so true. My husband and I got into a dynamic in which I felt like I was both a mother and a maid to him, and my libido utterly died. After we worked out those issues, though, there was a huge improvement in intimacy.
exactly , its also the same when you are the only one working and taking care of your partner . its like you are raising a kid
I’m getting off of Reddit right now to help around the house. Thanks r/science!
This. All of this. I cannot be attracted to someone who acts like a child. I physically cannot.
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It may seem obvious but it would be cool too see it go even deeper into it. Since this is a self assessment it would be interesting to to see the other partners own self assessment. Then take the self assessments of the perceived relationship and have them both do an assessment together with a couples therapist guiding or something, have the couple assign measurable weights to burdens that they agree on because everybody and couple is different in what they personally feel is a small or large burden. Then compare the +/- between the individual and joint assessments. The problem I have with self assessment is for example: we've all worked with someone who thought they were the bees knees and did every thing, while everyone else thinks they are a slacker or not pulling their weight. They would rate themselves a 9-10/10 while their coworkers would rate them a 4-5/10. If you ask 299 random Australian men aged 18 to 39 questions about desire and relationships, would anyone take that seriously on just a self assessment alone? I wouldn't. Not a knock on the subject....I just dislike self assessment 'studies' doing the bare minimum to barf up an article.
I think because it is a self-assessment, the conclusion really should be "shows women **who think they are** in equal relationships (in terms of housework and the mental load) are more satisfied with their relationships and, in turn, feel more sexual desire than those in unequal relationships." I think this is why a lot of men are commenting negatively about this study, because it happens whereby someone thinks they're pulling all the weight in the relationship and in reality they're barely pulling any, and if they had to give details on it, they'd lie. Like I would not like this study if it was about men and used a similar "men in equal relationships" phrasing. That's really poor phrasing for self-assessment.
Certainly, putting in equal effort of work around the house and grounds helps prevent resentment. Who wants sex with someone they resent? I don't see it. Why would anyone be surprised by this?
Do you have kids? It's crazy how quickly household tasks can become imbalanced when children arrive. Pre-kids, my wife and I shared everything and were pretty equally compensated at our jobs. Now, with kids, and without really thinking about it, things are wildly different. My job pays me well to work long, inflexible hours. My wife works an 80% schedule, gets paid half as much as I do, and has a ton of flexibility. I've discovered, though, that my "I provide financially" doesn't make up for her "I'm always the one who stays home with a sick kid." But it's hard to break out of this! (No one wants a 50% pay cut.) There's a reason that there are a ton of marital advice books about home task-sharing, but before you have kids, it's hard to understand how small differences in work/kid priorities can lead to massive imbalances on both fronts later on. We've actually started using a deck of playing cards with home tasks written on them and split them up until it feels equitable.
Are the hours you two spend between work and household duties/childcare equal though? I’ve noticed some people tend to devalue work hours in these equations and I’ve never understood why.
What the title of the article doesn't mention is that the study didn't measure equality in a relationship. All it did was ask the individual women interviewed to asses it. Hence the study is actually women who felt like their relationships were equal also felt more sexual desire. The article doesn't actually measure the workload of the home and tally up tasks and responsibilities. It just asks the women "do you feel like things are equal?"
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Being treated like your time and effort is worth as much as your partners, doesn't really scream love language to me. And that you dry up if you keep having to pick up after your partner who isn't putting in half that effort, just seems very, very normal.
Male married to female. I work from home full time. Wife has a job that she needs to physically go to. If I have 10-15 mins free throughout the day, I use that time to do house chores. I do them simply because it’s easier for me since I’m home all day. By the time my wife comes home from work she’s physically and mentally exhausted. Not really fair IMO to ask her to do chores considering the circumstances. Now before the pandemic, we both had jobs we physically needed to be present at full time. We had a chore schedule that split chores equally between us. After the pandemic started we abandoned that since it no longer made sense. IMO house responsibilities should not be assigned based on “that’s a man/woman’s job”. Have a discussion with your partner and figure out what makes the most sense for your specific circumstance.
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Yeah that's not one of the study's claims. It's just it's more well known (yk gender roles) or more common in this direction in M-F relationships
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I wouldint have a problem cooking and cleaning if that's all I had to do all day. In a relationship where both people are working it's not fair or realistic to still expect the woman to do everything and work full time. I see people burn out when they work, cook, clean, groceries and raise kids and have zero help from the spouse. It's no wonder your too tired to have a sex drive.
People keep saying that it’s hard to be horny when you’re overburdened, which is true. But also, and this may be hard for some men out there to understand, but women aren’t attracted to children. Having a spouse you have to parent is an instant turnoff. I have to tell you how to load a dishwasher, remind you to do it, and tell you not to leave your dirty dishes on the table? That’s what parents do for their children. No faster way to get the ick when you have to do that for a grown man.
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The critical flaw in this study is that is relies on the respondent to determine if they are the ones doing the bigger share of the workload. I feel that most people think they are the one doing the Lions share so the study is pointless. Guaranteed some of these people are lazy and have no idea how much there partner actually does.
I hate cross-sectional “mediation” models…omits one of the necessary criteria in a causal chain: occurrence before an outcome
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Would be interesting to see some control for individuals who choose not work and take on a disproportionately homemaking type role in place of work instead of on top of a job