Distributing domestic labor fairly is frequently one of the major points of conflict for anyone who lives together, whether that’s roommates, family members, or romantic partners. When this kind of conflict comes up between romantic partners, however, it can be extra fraught — any underlying concerns around your relationship, how much your feelings and desires matter to your partner, or other conflicts can get mapped onto tension over housework in a way that escalates friction in your relationship overall. How do you stop the cycle? Here’s what I recommend:

Why you’re having disagreements about housework and domestic labor

There are plenty of understandable, good-faith reasons why you might be struggling to distribute housework equitably between the two of you. Maybe one of you works much longer hours, or one of you lives with a disability or chronic illness that limits your energy or ability to perform physical labor. Maybe one of you is living with depression or another mental illness that limits your executive function.

These are all real challenges, often not possible to just “get over,” and should be handled delicately and with compassion and grace while navigating questions about the distribution of housework. However, there are also other very common reasons why housework is such a fraught topic for so many couples: because it often taps into gendered expectations of who should have to take on this kind of labor, and how important this kind of gendered labor really is, and because it often follows existing fault lines within a relationship of one partner being taken for granted.

Why it hasn’t worked to “set up a system”

Often, a first thing that couples or partners try when it comes to making housework more equitable is to institute a more formal system. That could look like a chore chart, or a rotation of tasks, or assigning different areas to different members of the household. Often, couples find that this doesn’t work as well as they had hoped — or even exacerbates arguments, because now you’re fighting both about the chores and the chore chart.

A chore chart or a new system assumes that the core of the issue is that there isn’t clear enough distribution of tasks or clarity about whose turn it is to do what. In fact, the core issues are often different — two partners may have completely different ideas about what successfully completing a housework task looks like, or how to prioritize it. Imagine that you and your partner switch off on the task of “doing the dishes” every other day — but when you do the dishes, you load, run and empty the dishwasher while also doing all the handwashing in the sink and putting it away when dry. When it’s your partner’s turn, they just load the dishwasher and do only enough handwashing to fill up the dishrack, leaving dishes in the sink and in the machine. (Or they skip their day entirely because they had a long day at work.) The chore chart can help surface some of these issues, but may not solve them.

The role of mental load

One thing that can confuse discussions about housework is the distinction between the domestic labor itself and mental load. Often, the partner who’s historically less involved in housework will say something like “I’m happy to help — just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” This can be a frustrating response to hear because while it ostensibly offers help for physical domestic labor, it still evades any responsibility for mental load: the constant labor of keeping track of and managing household needs and tasks, or knowing “what to do.” Mental load can include:

• Planning meals and grocery lists
• Maintaining household supplies, cleaning chemicals, appliances
• Keeping track of pet needs, walking schedule, medications, feeding times
• Remembering when something is running out, expiring or needs to be replaced
• Keeping a running list of what needs to be done around the house
• Reminding others in the house to do their share of chores and following up on them
• Anticipating and planning future household needs, like a big grocery shop before hosting a party
• Organizing the household schedule and planning domestic labor around it
• Managing finances, bills, and a household budget
• Researching options and strategies for household tasks
• Making decisions around household needs, from what kind of vacuum to buy to what chores need to be done

In a professional context, we generally understand that ‘manager’ is a job within itself that requires skill and time; it’s not equitable in a domestic context for someone to take on all the manager duties AND split the actual labor 50/50.

How to approach future conversations about housework

In any conflict or fraught topic in your relationship, it’s useful to show up with an attitude of compassionate curiosity: the goal is to try before all else to genuinely understand where your partner is coming from and how they feel rather than trying to convince them to feel otherwise or prove your point.

And while most conflicts don’t have an objective right or wrong, it is important in conversations about housework to enter into them with a willingness to recognize that there is in fact inherent value and significance to domestic labor. Trying to dismiss the gravity of your partner’s frustration or hurt around housework by arguing that they should care less or that it’s only a subjective preference will likely be unhelpful. There’s a reason why arguments over housework are a leading factor in divorce — even if it doesn’t matter to you personally, it does matter to your relationship.

Other options to try

Sometimes, even with the best of effort and intention, it’s really difficult to get on the same page about housework. When you live together with your partner, the home and the tasks associated with it are a constant issue that surrounds you at all times — it’s tough to get a break from the topic or cool down from conflict about it. If you’re having trouble moving through discussions on this topic, here are a few things to try out to lessen the pressure or make resolution easier:

• Sleeping in separate bedrooms can sometimes sound like a precursor to a breakup or an admission your relationship isn’t going well, but for many couples, it helps make their relationship healthier, happier and more secure. If you and your partner are dealing with different expectations about what makes a space clean or desirable to spend time in, having separate bedrooms might let you both enjoy having at least one space you can keep exactly the way you like it.
• Tools like Fair Play can help give you some structure and accountability for figuring out concrete solutions around housework and sharing domestic labor more equitably.
• If it’s affordable for your household, choosing to pay for some degree of outside professional labor like a housecleaner can lower some of the stakes of conflicts about housework and domestic labor. If the person who feels less invested in housework or has historically done less of it wants to pay the greater share for the professional help, so much the better.

Recommended Books:

Fair Play: Reese’s Book Club: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live)

A Better Share: How Couples Can Tackle the Mental Load for More Fun, Less Resentment, and Great Sex

Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home

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