How To Get Your Husband To Help Around the House WITHOUT Nagging
Learn how to encourage your husband to pitch in more around the house and with the kids without having to be the “bad guy.” These simple tips and tricks will help you work together as a team to knock off that to-do list in no time!
- Reasons why your husband isn’t doing his fair share
- Why nagging is problematic for your relationship
- Ways to get your husband to help without nagging
- Time to get to work!
Reasons why your husband isn’t doing his fair share
Feeling like you are doing a disproportionate amount of the work around the house can quickly cause resentment in your marriage. Why can’t your husband just see that you can’t do it all and lend a helping hand without you having to kick him in the pants every time?!
The first step to fixing any problem is to understand the problem. In this case, you need to understand why your husband doesn’t feel so inclined to help. Here are some possible reasons:
- His standards for the maintenance of your home are lower than yours
- He doesn’t feel that he can live up to your expectations, so he doesn’t try
- You do all of the tasks before he has a chance (because just getting them done is easier for you than explaining it)
- He feels like he is already doing his fair share, so he doesn’t want to contribute more
None of these reasons are excuses for why he hasn’t been pitching in, but they might be explanations for why his to-do list is much shorter than yours. Now that you know the why, you are better equipped to find a great solution.
But first let’s look at why nagging probably isn’t that great solution you are seeking. . .
Why nagging is problematic for your relationship
Nagging is when you end up having to constantly harass your husband to get something done.
Maybe you nag about big projects that he’s said he will do and never does, so you ask him 100 times when he’s going to finally just do it. Or perhaps it’s a daily habit of ambushing him with a to-do list when he gets through the door at the end of the day.
This pestering doesn’t seem like a big deal to you in the moment – you just want to remind your husband that he’s got some responsibility to take care of – but continued nagging can slowly eat away at your husband’s happiness in your marriage (and therefore yours!).
Here’s what happens when you nag:
- You turn into your husband’s mother rather than a spouse (which isn’t very sexy)
- He starts to avoid you out of expectation that he is going to get tasked with something new when you’re around
- He relies on you to tell him what to do, but gets angry at you for doing it
- He implies that carrying the weight of the mental load is your burden, causing you to build up resentment
You don’t resort to nagging because it’s fun or because you want to be a total pest to your husband. You do it because it’s the only tool you have in your kit to get him to help you out with the never-ending to-do list.
Until now!
Ways to get your husband to help without nagging
Check out your new toolkit of ways that you can encourage your husband to contribute more around the house!
These tips and ideas are going to get the ball rolling on a fair balance of workload for you and your husband without you having to nag for even a second.
Include him in setting the standards
Have a conversation about the standards that you BOTH agree to in your home.
Oftentimes it is us women who call the shots on how our homes should be maintained and we end up (often unintentionally) forcing our husbands to abide by our high standards.
Including your husband in the active decision-making and giving him a voice in the agreement to the standards will make him more willing to uphold them.
Strike up an honest conversation with your husband about the condition that he would like to have in the home. If his standards are higher or lower than yours, that’s OK. This is your time to set priorities and compromise to find a good solution in your home you both agree to and can commit to.
If you both are on the same page and know what the standards are, you both have the same set of expectations. It’s not YOU forcing anything on your husband, but rather getting him to understand what it takes to meet that standard.
Don’t forget to take action!
NOTE: This isn’t an end-all-be-all solution. Like with everything here at Dating in Captivity, communication is just the first step of any solution, but you still have to take action using the other methods on this list in order to be successful.
Divvy up your tasks
Set clear expectations for which tasks you are expected to take in your household and which ones your husband is expected to take.
The person responsible for a task is the project manager of that task. The respective project manager is responsible for all of the required mental planning and follow-through of that task- making sure it gets done sufficiently and on-time. The project manager is allowed to delegate or ask for help with a task, but it’s still their responsibility to follow through on the project until the end. No passing the buck and letting go of the reins.
For example, if your husband’s task is to make dinner on Wednesday nights, he should plan the meal, make the grocery list, and do the actual cooking. Maybe, however, you are responsible for the grocery shopping for the week. It is your husband’s responsibility as the Wednesday dinner preparer to ensure that you have the complete list of what he needs when you go shopping.
There are always going to be gray zones and areas where things slip through the cracks, but if you have a general picture of who is responsible for what, you can turn off your brain for the responsibilities that aren’t yours and rely on your husband to take care of his.
Learn more about how you can delegate your tasks based on Eve Rodsky’s “Fair Play.”
Pick tasks that play to each of your strengths
When you are divvying up your tasks, think about which ones naturally fit better with one of you or the other.
Maybe one of you is better at reading the kids bedtime stories with animated voices, while the other is better at putting together outfits for the kids that actually match. If those tasks (bedtime reading and picking out clothes) naturally fall to one of you or the other, roll with it!
No one would probably consider their strength to be “folding laundry,” but perhaps one of you is better at sitting and getting something done while watching an episode of TV while the other one prefers to be actively up and about doing things. In that case playing to your strengths would encourage the partner who would rather do their chores in front of the TV to take the laundry folding, while the partner who prefers to be up and about to be in charge of mowing the lawn.
Doing chores is going to be less of a burden for each of you if the ones that are under your domain fit your strengths and style. Take advantage of this as much as possible!
Ask him to choose a deadline
If your husband has a task that is either assigned to him or something that you would like him to do, but he is him-hawing about getting it done, ask him to set a deadline for completion.
This should be a reasonable timeframe – under a week, for example – during which he has time to mentally prepare for the task and do it at his own convenience.
Once he has picked his deadline, accept it and don’t ask him about it again. If he says he will take the bottles to the recycling station by Thursday, thank him for setting a date and clear that task from your brain (at least until Friday).
If his deadline comes and he hasn’t followed through on his task, you’re allowed to remind him and tell him that your disappointed he didn’t follow through. The disappointment will cut like a knife (way more than anger!) and he will likely follow through immediately.
This will be a test in your patience sometimes, but practice giving him tasks and letting him take care of them himself completely on his own timeframe. Then he won’t feel nagged, you won’t have to have the task on your mental to-do list, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Make chores more fun
If you find yourself constantly nagging your husband to do chores or to help you with things around the house, change your tactic and try to make doing chores more fun.
Challenge him to a race to see who fold their basket of laundry first – winner gets to pick which movie you will watch that evening. Or make lists of 3 things you each have to do, set a timer, and see if you both can get your tasks done under the clock. Or crank up some tunes and jam out to your favorite music together while you tidy up.
Chores become less of a drag and more of a way to connect with each other when you add in a little bit of fun!
Find more ideas for how you can make chores more fun here.
Train him to be fully capable
Set your husband up for success in doing the tasks that you would like him to do by showing him how to do them properly.
Yes, this does require even more of your time in the beginning to show him how to do things the right way. But you have to see this as an investment. Training your husband how to do things once will eliminate the need for you to “just do it” a hundred times down the road.
This also gives him the confidence he needs to execute a task without fear of criticism or feeling like he just never does anything good enough. And when he is equipped to do things with confidence, he won’t require you nagging him on how to do it.
And if you’ve shown him the right way to do things, he has no excuses not to do them the right way!
Avoid unsolicited advice and criticism
Training your husband how to do something is VERY different than offering unsolicited advice. Let’s look at the example of your husband helping with the laundry.
Training
“Honey, can you come here for a minute? I want to show you how to use the settings on the washing machine. When you wash black clothes, use this setting here, and when you wash white clothes, use this setting here. Separating keeps the colors in good condition. I’ve written the settings down here so you have a reminder when you do the laundry.”
Unsolicited advice with (unintentional) criticism
“Oh, you’re doing the laundry? Did you remember to separate the blacks and the whites? If you use the cold temperature for the blacks, they won’t get all faded like last time. Should I show you how to do it?”
In the training example, you take charge and show your husband how to do something like an adult. You use direct language and set him up for future success rather than criticizing something he has done in the past or is attempting to help with currently.
Unsolicited advice, on the other hand, tends to crop up as our husbands are in the midst of trying to do something. We offer our well-intentioned advice on how they can do something better, but all he hears is that you are talking down to him like a child and criticizing the way he is doing things.
Unsolicited advice will be an instant buzz killer for your husband, and he may not attempt to help out with tasks again because “he just doesn’t do anything right anyway.” Unfortunately this starts the cycle of nagging all over again.
Stick to training rather than advice-giving and you’ll be set!
Praise, praise, and praise some more
Don’t underestimate the power of saying “Thank you!”
Acknowledging the work your husband does with a “thanks” or a “great job, honey!” is going to give your husband the atta-boy motivation he needs to continue helping out more and more.
You may be thinking “does he really deserve a gold star for doing basic tasks around the house that I do all the time without expecting anything?” And my answer is, yes. Yes he does.
Forget fair and focus on what helps you most in your situation. You want your husband to help around the house and you don’t want to be a nag. Thanking him for the work that he does gives him a little burst of good vibes that will motivate him to do a task again, and the only thing it cost you was saying two very nice words to him.
Create a culture of appreciation in your home by being the one who initiates the “thank yous” and the “well dones.” The more you give out, the more you will likely get back in return. And wouldn’t you also love to get a pat on the back for the work you do sometimes?
Set a routine
Have a routine in your home that everyone pitches in to help tidy up and get some housework done for 20 minutes after dinner, for example. Or maybe you have one hour on Sunday mornings. Whatever time works for you, make doing chores a routine in your house so that everyone knows what is expected, your husband included, without you nagging.
Having this routine makes it clear for everyone in the household that this the time to get to work, no questions asked. Everyone can mentally prepare and everyone agrees to the expectations. It works as well for your husband as it does for your kids.
Pick a “no chore” day
Choose one day a week to just let it all go – a day when you commit to NOT doing housework and instead focus on having quality time together with your husband instead.
This gives YOU a necessary break to relax and enjoy your time together with your husband, and it gives your husband a break from any expectations of having to do work. After all, you can’t nag him to do anything if you’ve both agreed to a day with no tasks!
This doesn’t mean you can’t tidy up here and there or do the dishes if you have some time. But you need to practice the art of letting go. Only do chores if it doesn’t impact your planned quality time together, and whatever you do, do not ask your husband for help with anything this day.
I promise, one day isn’t going to kill you. And if you have a planned chore time routine set up for the following day, you’ll be back on track again the very next day. The benefits to your relationship will be way worth folding one more basket of laundry the day after.
Time to get to work!
Are you ready, mama?
Don’t spend another day waiting for your marriage to magically get better as your kids grow older and you and your husband grow further apart. Take charge of your life and get the marriage you want and deserve.
Turn off the nag and turn up the fun to get your husband to help out today!
This article is part of the series How to Revive Your Marriage After Kids Fundamental 3: Balancing the Workload.
About me
Hi, I’m Bailee! I am a mom just like you who, after having my second baby, was struggling BIG TIME to cope with motherhood and marriage. Divorce seemed like the inevitable option until I decided to fight for the family life that I truly wanted.
I challenged my husband to give our marriage one more go and was able to pull us out of the abyss. With a change in my mindset and some other handy tools and tricks along the way, I brought us back into the light of a happy marriage with kids.
Now I am here now to help you do the same! Are you ready, mama? Learn more.
