Don’t Make Her Ask You

Every family has a certain division of duties. It can vary from family to family, but within each family there are things that he does and things that she does. In some cases, the division is brought about by abilities, in others by what you had learned as children and in still others because that thing is more important to one than the other. Regardless, it’s a reality that exists.

Let’s take something simple, like taking out the trash. That seems to be a typical “male” chore in most home. It could be that it’s worked out that way because the trash tends to get heavy, or it could just be that women don’t like to handle dirty stuff.

Okay, so let’s say that you’re the one who takes out the trash. Let me ask you a question, do you take out the trash when you see it’s getting full, or when your wife asks you to? It’s funny, but in most cases, guys don’t take out the trash till their wives ask them to. Now, I’m going to give us all the benefit of the doubt and assume that we’re mature adults; so if that’s the case, why does she need to ask?

Mature adults take responsibility for doing what needs to be done. They don’t have to be told, because they’re adults. That’s part of what being an adult is. So, it would stand to reason that we are all capable of taking out the trash, without our wives asking us to.

Yet, most of us wait until she asks. Even worse than that, we then complain that she’s nagging us and telling us what to do. You see? We’re creating our own problem. Instead of doing what we know we need to do, we put ourselves in the position where our wife has to treat us as if we can’t do things on our own; then, we complain when she does.

You know, by and large, women don’t like asking their husbands to do things. That’s because they don’t want to receive any sort of negative reaction from us. They’d rather keep that need bottled up inside them, then risk having a confrontation or an angry reaction.

When that’s happening, it’s not building up anyone’s marriage. If anything, it’s tearing down the marriage. Maybe it’s not intentionally down the marriage; but it’s not intentionally avoiding tearing it down either.

Okay, so what should you do? Simple, make an effort to take care of things, before your wife notices that they need to be taken care of. She may not notice that you’ve done it, but she won’t be noticing that you haven’t either. That will remove one more concern, one more worry and helping her to be more relaxed and enjoy life.

I’m sure you realize that I’m not just talking about the trash here, I’m talking about anything and everything that falls into your area of the home. Don’t assume that just because it’s your responsibility, that she won’t worry about it; she probably will. The only way to keep her from worrying is to be sure that you take care of it, before she notices it.

I’d say that more than anything, that requires an awareness of what needs to be done. Our wives tend to notice that stuff a whole lot better than we do, so we’ve got to develop an awareness. Learn to look at things and see what kind of shape they’re in. Learn to see that the lawn needs mowing, the car needs washing and the garbage needs to be taken out. That way, she won’t be having to look at it so much.

Is this romantic? In a sense it is. It’s helping to keep peace in the home by taking care of things that are important to her. That’s an act of service, one of the five love languages. It shows your wife that you care about what she cares about and are committed to the family. That’s important to her. So, while taking the trash out may not invoke any feelings of passion in her, it does set the stage for those feelings to be awakened.

Keep an Eye on Her Workload

We all know how the hustle and bustle of everyday life can wear us down. It seems that all we do is work, take care of things at home, run around taking care of things and get ourselves ready to do it all over again. Finding time to really rest and relax is a luxury that few can afford; and when we do, it’s usually taking time to bee with friends that we haven’t seen for a while.

For most of us, just dealing with how tired, stressed and overworked we are is so much that we don’t think much about how all that work and stress affects others. Like our wives for example. Stress actually causes more health problems for women than it does for men. Sadly, most of us have no idea of how much stress our wives are under.

You’ve heard the old saw about how “a woman’s work is never done.” Well, with modern appliances and such, it probably is better than it used to be, but there’s still a lot of work that women have to do. It’s even worse for those who work outside the home, then come home to work at all the “traditional” woman’s work in the home. The house and clothes get just as dirty when she’s out working, as they do when she’s at home. Meals still have to be prepared, even though she has less time to cook them. Kids still need to be taken to activities and need help with their homework.

Fatigue and time pressures are the number two cause of depression in women. That makes it a pretty serious problem. With so many women today in the workforce, instead of being in the home force, it’s no wonder they’re battling with time pressures and fatigue. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Whether or not your wife is a good manager of her time, she may need some help from you. For her, managing her time well might be limited to making sure she’s got enough time to do everything she needs to do. That’s not all there is to it. There are a few details which you need to take charge of, just to make sure that they don’t fall off her priority list. Details like recreation and relaxation. Even though she might complain about it, she needs you to make sure she has enough R&R time in her week.

Part of making sure that she has enough time might just be you taking over some of the household responsibilities from her. Don’t cringe; vacuuming the carpet or washing the dishes won’t cause you to lose your man card. Neither will cooking for that matter. I’ve never been able to figure out why men feel they can’t cook at home, but most of the commercial cooks and chefs in the world are men. Tis’ a mystery to me. Of course, the corresponding mystery is why women can’t use a barbecue grill.

Anyway, cooking is a great way to take some of the burden off of her; it’s even fun. Maybe it’s not as fun as watching the ball game, but its’ a great chance to be creative. At the same time, you can relieve your wife’s time constraints, especially if you clean up the dishes afterwards, as well.

Another way that you can help her with her workload is to farm it out for her. Maybe it’s time to hire a part-time housekeeper to come in and clean once a week. It’s amazing what four hours of help, cleaning the house once a week, can do for your wife’s schedule and peace of mind.

Remember, you’ve got great motivation to help her out with this; it will help keep her from being depressed. I don’t think anyone enjoys it when their wife is depressed, and I’m sure that the women don’t enjoy it either. So, do what you can to help make sure that she has enough time, so that she doesn’t have to have all that pressure.

Give her a Break

Do you have one of those highly repetitive jobs? I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, even if your job doesn’t fall into that category. There are just some types of jobs, where it seems that the people do the same thing over and over again, all day long, day in and day out. I don’t know about you, but that type of thing would drive me nuts. I need variety in my work.

Being a wife and mother has a lot in common with that sort of job. The same work needs to be done over and over again; the same dishes need to be cleaned, the same floor has to be mopped and the same clothes need to be washed that were washed last week. Not only is it repetitive, but it seems that everything that you do, has to be done over and over again. Sounds just like that repetitive job, or maybe even a little bit worse.

The worse part of any job is when you aren’t appreciated for it. The person who comes up with a way of saving the company a million dollars might get a little appreciation; likewise the sales person who landed the huge contract, but the one who does that repetitive job? No way.

I don’t know about you, but I appreciate what my wife does for me and my family. All those boring daily chores which have to be done make a difference; even if we can’t always see that difference. I’ve had to do all that stuff, so I know what things are like when she doesn’t do them.

Women say that one of the most romantic things that their husbands can do for them is to take over some of that work and give them a break. That’s right, it’s not buying flowers or writing a love letter (although those are always appreciated as well), but washing the dishes, vacuuming the living room or doing the laundry.

How can it be that those things are romantic? It’s really rather simple. Romance is all about telling the other person that they are valuable to you. So, when you take over those jobs, you’re saying to her, “you are important, because what you do is important.” It’s showing that you appreciate what she does in a very tangible way.

So, when was the last time you washed the dishes? When did you vacuum the carpet for her? How about getting down and dirty to clean the bathroom, have you done that recently? Well, I guarantee you; taking the time to do any of those things won’t make you turn in your man card. Instead, you might just manage to make your wife feel that you really do love and appreciate her.