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How to Get Your Husband to Help More
(Author’s note: I realized after writing this piece that it needs a bit of context and preamble. In this essay, I offer some pointed thoughts about female tendencies in relationships. I mistakenly assumed that this needn’t be said: some men are lazy and inconsiderate, and no amount of effort from their partners will fix that. I don’t discuss male problems in this essay, but I fully realize that they exist. Also, this essay critically examines the actions of one woman who made her relationship behavior very public. Her story is a useful example of a common pattern. I do not think she is a bad person, nor do I believe her behavior is representative of all women.)
Do you feel like your husband or boyfriend has become lazy and uncaring? That he has stopped listening and no longer does his fair share? Are you two becoming increasingly irritated with each other over simple tasks?
It’s a common pattern that can feed on itself and grow like an ugly weed. “I love you, snickerdoodle” turns into “you never help me anymore,” followed by “maybe I would if you’d get off my back.”
Let’s talk about three of the most important things you can do to gain more cooperation out of your man. But first, an example of how not to motivate most members of the male species.
At The End of Her Rope
In a recent Parenting Magazine article, Martha Brockenbrough vented her abundant anger about the bumbling, lazy, irresponsible behavior of men in general, and her own husband in particular. This is the first impression she paints of the man with whom she has vowed to spend her life:
“Once, when I was dangling at the end of my rope, I insisted he go to the doctor for a hearing test. I was quite certain the man was deaf. How else, for instance, could he have taken my grandma’s books to Goodwill instead of the antique-book dealer, as I’d asked when he was cleaning out the basement?”
Mrs. Brockenbrough’s article included survey results of 1000 mothers. Among the results, “46% of moms get irate with their husbands once a week or more.” Not angry or frustrated, but irate.
Magazine surveys are notoriously slanted and unreliable, but Parenting Magazine nevertheless found 460 women who admitted to becoming irate more frequently than I fill my gas tank. It’s a pattern that I’ve seen countless times in my clinical practice.
Both partners lose when this type of interaction becomes routine. The woman ends up feeling perpetually disappointed, and she’s resentful that she has been put in the position of a nag. The man feels belittled, and he’s weary of being on the defensive against his wife.
They find themselves wondering how their relationship came to this. Where is the kind and nurturing woman he married? Where is the dependable, stand-up guy with whom she fell in love?
Since I’m writing to women right now, I won’t offer advice to men except this: if you make a promise, then man up and keep it. If you have no intention of doing what she has asked of you, then say so. Don’t avoid things like a 10-year-old boy trying dodge his homework.
Now, back to the women in the room. Mrs. Brockenbrough demonstrated some common tactical errors that create resentment and discord in a marriage. If you want a man who won’t lift a finger but will instead focus his energy on avoiding and undermining you, simply follow this recipe.
1. Loss of Perspective
The first error is a loss of perspective. Mrs. Brockenbrough got so upset about how her husband helped her that she seems to have lost sight of the fact that he did, in fact, help her. He cleaned the basement and, at her request, made a special trip to dispose of her grandmother’s books.
Yes, he made a mistake. Here is my suggestion for coping with the disappointment: thank him for the clean basement, retrieve your books from the Goodwill store, and go out for a nice dinner together. Life is short, and your time with him will be over soon enough. Until then, you can choose to behave like the bright and shiny center of his world, or you can be the poo in his punch bowl.
(Another author’s note: after posting this essay, I received some feedback that the above advice is insensitive and perhaps sexist. Rest assured, it is the same advice I would give a man. I understand how easy it is to interpret mistakes as a lack of caring: Grandmother’s books were special to me. If you loved me, you would have understood that, and you would have done what I asked. Even if that is true, it is more useful to discuss the underlying issue (I’m worried that you don’t care about me) than to go to war over the particular incident.)
Rather than maintaining perspective and behaving graciously, she seems to have fixated on his mistake and committed a second strategic blunder…
2. Exercising Aversive Control
“Aversive control” refers to the use of repeated punishment to manage behavior. It works only as long as the oppressive agent is present. As soon as the prison guard steps out for a cigarette break, the inmates begin to mutter their discontent and plot their revenge. Speeding tickets are an example of aversive control. How fast would you drive if you knew that you could never be fined?
Mrs. Brockenbrough responded to her husband’s mistake with severe retaliation: a demeaning, publicly-humiliating essay. I cannot imagine treating my spouse with such hostility.
Couples who are locked in a cycle of aversive control can look forward to two problems. The first is an exhausting battle for control in which one person tries to dominate while the other tries to avoid being controlled. Each behavior increases the other. The more one partner tries to dominate, the more the other tries to avoid, which leads to increased efforts to dominate, and so on.
The second problem is that they will lose respect for one another, and that is a difficult thing from which to recover. Human minds never forget an injury. We can learn to look past them, but history never goes away, and so it pays to choose behaviors wisely.
Mrs. Brockenbrough is probably a lovely person who has simply allowed her frustration to overtake her. Patterns like this are so insidious that even lovely people can become enmeshed in them. Let’s look at some alternatives.
1. Offer Reinforcement
Guys are relatively uncomplicated. Most of the time we want to make you happy. Each time you tell us what makes you happy – for example, by thanking us when we’ve done something you appreciate – then you’ve just increased the odds that we will do it again.
This is not rocket science, yet so many women I have met insist on telling their men what they don’t want. They don’t want him working past 6:00; they don’t want his friends marking up the coffee table; they don’t want a repeat of last year’s vacation at that cheap resort.
A man who cannot please his woman will stop trying. And you probably don’t want that. So do tell us what you want, and do express some gratitude when we hit the mark. (Bonus tip: express your gratitude with more than words if you want serious results.)
2. Attack Patterns, Not People
If you and your fella have fallen into a pattern of tug-o-wars, power struggles, or pointless arguments, avoid the temptation to pin all the blame on either him or yourself. Instead, tackle the pattern that has cropped up between you.
Relationship problems are like snowflakes. Each one is unique. Together, you and your man will create relationship patterns – both good and bad – that would be impossible to precisely replicate with another human being. So when the destructive patterns crop up, attack those patterns as a team rather than focusing anger on each other.
Here’s an example. Suppose that a couple has regular shouting matches over household chores. She wants more help; he wants time to relax after a stressful day. The temptation is to focus on the surface behaviors: she doesn’t like what seems like a lack of concern; he doesn’t like what seems like domineering behavior.
Instead, develop some curiosity about the pattern. When did it start? What happens in the days before the arguments? What goes on in each of their heads before the shouting starts? What happens during and after an argument that sets them up for another one? Looking at patterns of interaction rather than targets of blame diffuses some of the emotion and focuses attention on a shared problem to be solved.
It takes mental discipline to step away from blame and anger, and the process requires mutual commitment, but attacking patterns is much more productive than attacking each other. In my clinical experience, most men are willing to communicate and sink their teeth into a problem if they have some assurance that they won’t simply be a target for anger.
3. Behave Respectfully, Even If You Don’t Feel Like It
One of the truly unfortunate aspects of Mrs. Brockenbrough’s essay was the profound lack of respect for the person she once admired enough to marry. In essence, she called him an idiot. Publicly. It was downright rude.
Mutually respectful behavior is important because it sets the tone of the relationship. It is like the strings section of a symphony. The music simply cannot be complete without it.
I know what some of you are thinking because I’ve had similar thoughts. Why should I make the first move? HE is the one who is uncaring. Frankly, I’m just too angry to be respectful.
Refusing to make the first peace offering in a relationship may feel righteous in the moment, but it is one of those behaviors that almost always achieves the opposite of our desires.
The Danger of Quick Fixes
The motivations of men are generally less complex than women and that is to your great advantage. We tend to respond fairly directly to incentives, which means that you have a great deal of influence over our happiness. That in turn gives you a great deal of influence over our behavior.
Destructive patterns are so tempting and ensnaring because of their payoff ratios. Becoming irate or exercising aversive control can feel quite satisfying in the short term. Let’s face it: sometimes it feels good to vent anger. It’s a quick fix. The downside doesn’t show up until later.
On the other hand, thoughtful, constructive responses pay off in the long run but feel ever-so-unsatisfying in the here and now.
The desire for quick fixes comes naturally to humans and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. The drive for quick fixes is simply one of the mind’s strategies for solving problems. When the mind identifies a source of discomfort (such as a husband who appears to be disengaged or uncaring), it wants to fix the problem as quickly as possible. Luckily, we don’t have to obey every emotion that comes along.
If you’ve already traveled down the path of power struggles and aversive control, don’t despair. If you married a real man he should be more than willing to help improve things. Most men don’t want to feel like children in their marriages, and most women certainly don’t want to feel like mothers to grown men. Identifying the pattern and resolving to change the day-to-day behaviors that cause it can be the most difficult but important step.
-IS
17 Responses to “How to Get Your Husband to Help More”
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look! a book!
Frustrated with your own mind? This book might help.
“yet so many women I have met insist on telling their men what they don’t want. They don’t want him working past 6:00; they don’t want his friends marking up the coffee table; they don’t want a repeat of last year’s vacation at that cheap resort.”
That’s an understatement. In a great many marriages I know of, women spend huge amounts of time trying to control men, not only their behaviour but their feelings. Once you look for it, it’s a pattern that’s truly astonishing.
Just a quick note to EssEm. Are you a male? I have noticed this in many men, the feeling that their woman is trying to control them. I wrote an entire post on that topic alone. I honestly think, (not in all cases, of course, but in many) that it is a misunderstanding-a communication failure. So sad, because that sensation, to most adults, that someone else is trying to control them will, amongst a lot of other reactions, just bring up their resistance.
Why is his cleaning out the basement helping her? Isn’t it his basement too? is it that they were her grandmother’s books? He was cleaning the basement and this was part of the job. That they were her grandmother’s books is important because it makes the oversight more hurtful. If she was doing the laundry (while he worked on the basement because that is how they divided the chores that needed to be done) and ruined his favorite shirt after he mentioned to her it was dry clean only, is he ungrateful for the favor she was doing him by washing his dirty clothes if he is upset about it? If he lets it go, goes out and replaces the shirt and it happens again should he just go buy another one? How many times?
Why did you advise the women to suck it up, not make a mountain out of a mole hill, and fix his mistake by going to retrieve the books?
I guess it would have been a very short blog if you just said, “Guys, if you don’t like being treated like a wayward child stop acting like one. Stop expecting pats on the head for doing what most studies on the subject indicate is way less than half the work, and if you screw up and drop her Grandma’s books off at Goodwill let her vent for a minute and then go get them back. You broke it, you fix it. Then when you apologize for the mix up acknowledge that you weren’t paying attention, it is probably not the first time, and your sorry because your are pretty sure that makes her feel X (just guess, she loves you and will be so glad your trying to understand how it made her feel she won’t really care if your wrong, try frustrated or unheard if you really have no clue).
Hi NotThereYet,
You made a lot of points. Let me take them one at a time.
1) “Why is his cleaning out the basement helping her?… If she… ruined his favorite shirt…” I think you misunderstand my point. Yes, they’re a team, and yes he screwed up. Screw-ups are inevitable when people do things as a team. Sadly, Mrs. Brockenbrough’s response to her husband’s mistake was cruel retaliation rather than a constructive team-response. As an outsider, I don’t see this as his fault or hers, but rather a very unfortunate interaction that probably fits a larger pattern. In many couples, the angrier she gets, the more mistakes he makes, and vice-versa. A couple can spend a lifetime arguing over shirts and books and various other ultimately irrelevant objects, or they can attack a pattern that probably has no clear beginning but will continue indefinitely unless they decide to change it.
At my house, I happen to be the one who does most of the laundry. I’ve made mistakes, just as my wife would make mistakes if she did that chore. Despite my mistakes, my wife is still appreciative that I do that task in general. She doesn’t take it as a personal affront every time I put a red sock with the whites, and if she did I would stop washing her clothes for her. But my wife and I don’t treat each other that way. At my house, we try very hard to keep things in perspective so that we aren’t at war with each other over things that, a year from now, we won’t even remember.
You are obviously free to reject my opinion, but it’s been my experience that couples who blow gaskets over little things and ignore the larger pattern typically don’t last very long.
2) “Why did you advise the women to suck it up, not make a mountain out of a mole hill, and fix his mistake by going to retrieve the books?” I made no suggestion that women should “suck it up,” although that is sometimes very good advice for both partners in a relationship. Like it or not, the alternative to picking our battles is to have endless battles. As for retrieving her books, I don’t care who does it. The point is, it’s probably a fixable mistake. Ideally, they will approach it as a team and repair the mistake rather than spending that energy writing hurtful articles about each other.
3) “I guess it would have been a very short blog if you just said, ‘Guys, if you don’t like being treated like a wayward child stop acting like one.’” Actually, I did say something like that (paragraph 11), and you’re right, it was very short. I think the rest of your advice to men is very good. I agree with it.
In this piece, I just happen to have been writing to women, not men. I’m not excusing men who happen to be lazy, nor am I blaming women for a lazy man’s behavior. I’m suggesting that it usually takes two people to establish a pattern. I also recognize that my advice is irrelevant to most women, because most women aren’t consistently angry, as Mrs. Brockenbrough portrays herself to be.
Your article SCREAMS “I’m a sexist”. Perhaps you didn’t mean for it to come off that way but boy does it. Phrases like, “but I didn’t marry a woman who behaves that way” made me cringe. This is highly presumptuous of this woman’s specific situation. Thinking she had the worst or malicious intentions at heart (along with your choice of words) makes this article very unprofessional. Take a wholistic approach next time if you want some credibility.
Hi Olive, I edited the phrase you mentioned from the above comment because it was not what I meant to convey. I wrote it hastily in response to NotThereYet’s comment and I can see how it came across as domineering.
That phrase aside, what precisely comes across as sexist about my approach? I thought I was taking a wholistic approach in suggesting that couples look at patterns rather than small incidents. Yes, I was writing to women and not men. Is that what makes it seem sexist to you?
By the way, in my defense, I did not write about Mrs. Brockenbrough’s intent. I wrote only about what she DID, which was to pen a scathing article aimed squarely at the person she married. Her article was certainly sexist if one defines sexism as a narrow and condescending view of the other gender.
So, getting back to my question – and I really am curious about your view – can you tell me what it is about my approach that screams sexism?
I wasn’t going to reply, but if you really are curious about the perception of sexism, well I also felt that way so I’ll reply after all. I was just going to ignore this one, but your bravery has inspired me. You had to have known this was going to get you into trouble.
Yes, partly I think it was that you focused very heavily on the female contribution to a marital conflict over household chores. It seemed like you were saying women were more of the problem. If a woman is doing more of the work, then of course she is more invested in a dispute over that work than her partner, but just because she has more of a grievance doesn’t make it more her fault. I agree, these usually do start off as asymmetrical conflicts, but in my experience, just habitually avoiding conflict isn’t a great pattern to get into either. The key is to bring respect to these conflicts and I agree with every point you made along those lines.
I think what was confusing is that your column switched back and forth from one specific woman’s situation to advice to women in general. Criticism of what that author did in her specific conflict felt like criticism of all women that find themselves having issues with their partners over chores.
Also, the advice about rewarding a man for doing a chore sorta felt like wifely prostitution. Definitely irksome anyway. When a woman cleans the sink, she gets a clean sink. When a man cleans the sink, he gets a clean sink and deserves sexual favors? Anyway, women already know there is nothing sexier than a man that cleans. That would all take care of itself naturally, I think.
Also, perhaps it was the assumption that if a woman is having this conflict, then she is therefore a nag or acts disrespectfully to her partner? You did suggest perhaps she just has a lazy husband, but then didn’t develop that possibility enough to make it seem like you really believed that is what most women are facing.
Hi Stephanie, thank you for those thoughts. I can see your points. I may be writing more on this sort of topic in the future, and your feedback is going to be very helpful.
One of the difficulties in broaching this type of subject – and especially being a man writing to women – is the foregone outcome that it will come off as sexist. Thanks for the feedback. I’ll use it to temper future work.
For what it’s worth, I think by the way you responded to the criticism of this article demonstrated that you did just intend to be helpful and that you, personally, aren’t sexist (Well, no more so than anybody can expected to be. There are probably always blind spots in such things).
Truthfully I found both the original artical and yours in reply somewhat imbalances.
In reading yours it seemed like you jumped to the conclusion this woman’s response went from zero to sixty. That her using this example of what happens to make women angry was her first and primary response to this incident. She was giving an example of what was a perpetual problem.
I disagree with your claim that you did not assume intent. You interpreted her publishing this as motivated by anger and as an attempt to humiliate and shame her husband. Claiming you know the authorial intent is presumptuous even if modern literary critics seem to think it is not. (I’d guess that if she is still married to this man they have long ago settled this issue and he was well aware of her topic before it was published. But that is just conjecture on my part).
In real life with partners that are chronically hard of hearing, how do you approach the topic as a problem pattern? How do you even know when they have heard you as opposed to nodding and saying yes dear, because I’m pretty sure she thought he understood when she asked him to take the books to the shop instead of to Goodwill.
How do you approach something as a pattern without using an example? If you are trying to look at the pattern would you then want multiple examples? Isn’t that what women are constantly told not to do (bring up more than one specific incident at a time)? How do you word the problem pattern without it seeming like a personal attack or softening it so much it seems like a nonissue?
I don’t think it is possible to approach a problem like this from one side. She can make the first move but he needs to step up too. If the response was written to the couple instead of trying to advise just half of the couple it might work better. That is, again, conjecture.
Hi NotThereYet, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on a couple of points, but I do want to address a couple of questions.
1) You asked, “How do you approach something as a pattern without using an example?” It’s tough, and I think what makes it tough is that our minds want to give us nothing but examples when we’re stuck in a pattern like this. That’s why it’s helpful to have an objective third party when these patterns take over. You’ll never be entirely free of examples, but it helps to use language like this: “I notice that when you do (broad description of behavior), I tend to do (broad description of behavior)” or sticking to the good old-fashioned I-statements. “When you misunderstand my instructions, I feel like you don’t care enough to listen.” It helps immensely to have some ground rules in place before starting a conversation like that.
2) You wrote “I don’t think it is possible to approach a problem like this from one side. She can make the first move but he needs to step up too.” I agree completely.
I am newlywed, but have been living with my man for about 2 years now. When I met him, he was a lazy slob. I can tell you from experience that thanking your man, for even the tiniest of things, will greatly improve behavior. He helps around the house now, not because I yell at him, but because he knows it will make me happy (ps. he knows it will make me happy because I TELL him). Men and women think very differently. If he doesn’t feel helpful because you don’t thank him, he will start to act negatively. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I’ll wait patiently for days without help around the house… it’s hard to be patient all the time, but I’ve discovered from experience that yelling only makes things worse while talking properly improves the situation.
To those who argue sex as a reward, I’ve used this method previously and it’s good, for both you and him. It shouldn’t be thought of as “sex for chores,” it should be thought of as “he helped me and made me happy and now I want to make him happy too.” It relieves stress and both of us get to enjoy ourselves. If women are too caught up in their feministic ideals to enjoy sex, it’s their loss. Women, I’m sure you would enjoy a massage from your man as a “thank you” for something. You would be getting a pleasurable reward from physical stimulation. Does that make it prostitution? I’ll tell you now that if your man cares enough about you to help with chores, he probably isn’t using you for your body. (When my man does chores, it’s his way of saying he loves me because I know he still hates doing them) He doesn’t see you as an object, and having sex with him doesn’t make you a whore.
Hi Elizabeth, brilliantly stated. Maybe what makes your approach work is that he respects you as much as you respect him.
Gulp.
Well, this has been controversial… So, anyway, I am daring to step in.
This is SUCH a common problem (why is that?). All of us therapists have seen this many times. Of course, each couple is different. For sure, little battles can be fought (she turns off the lights, he turns them on) over and over, as a symbol of deeper issues.
But, how about this? Just a simple agreement to be fair in the division of labor?
Two adults sit down, make a list of what all has to be done to maintain their life and they divide up the tasks in a way that feels reasonably fair. It will never be perfect. And,yes, of course we have to bend a little when collaborating with others. But, feeling fair enough to both parties seems a reasonable goal. Yes?
Also, I have found it helps (in my own personal rela.) to inform the other of what I actually am doing and for him to do the same to me. We don’t always know… Sometimes it’s more than we realize.
Agreed. Men in particular don’t always know what’s expected of them, and so they can fall into the trap of thinking that there is no way to please their wife/girlfriend. A little communication goes a long way.
Shawn,
You forgot one. Some women once they become mothers start to treat their husbands in the same way they treat their kids, sometimes with cause, sometimes without, particularly when they are stressed, but sometimes its out of habit or reflex.
I suppose the other side of that argument is that men, once they become fathers, compete with the kid for the mother’s attention.