Have you heard about this??

So every morning I wake up at 8 am and take Lucky outside to potty and then get my coffee and breakfast ready. After that I sit down at the kitchen table and while listening to the radio I check  my email, read blogs, pay bills and take care of anything else we need to get done until 10 am when I change and leave for work.

Yesterday morning on the radio they were talking about an article that came out recently where a guy in Norway allegedly did a study stating that housework equality has a greater chance of leading to divorce. That households where the wife is in charge of the house work are happier homes. You can read about the article here.

What does that mean? Basically he’s saying that in households where couples divide up the housework evenly there is a greater chance of divorce as opposed to house holds where the woman is in charge of doing all the housework. Supposedly it’s because it decreases the chance of arguing over who’s turn it is to get things done for the week and also you get less frustrated with each other for doing things wrong or not on time. So according to this study if the wife does everything life is happier. Is it true? who knows.

I do know that in our household my husband and I are quite happy. We get along great, agree on mostly everything and never fight (we disagree and talk about it, but never yell and fight). Now chores wise, I do them ALL, that includes the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping (grocery, clothes and anything else), and paying the bills. I did up until recently also mow the lawn. Why do I do it all? Well, I’ve always done most of them, but for the last year Matt worked and I didn’t. So I had all the time in the world to get things done and since he worked all day I took care of everything at home. Now that I also work all day I still do it all and it’s really because I enjoy doing those things to take care of my Husband.

I love cooking- I like searching for new recipes and trying them out. We’re not very messy so cleaning is easy because I do a little here and there so it never comes down to slaving away all day on a Saturday to clean the house. The laundry really just consists of putting the clothes in the washer/dryer and then folding and putting them away, which takes me about 10 min and I usually do it while watching TV. Matt hates shopping so it’s more of a hassle to try and make him come with me and listen to him complain the whole time, so we have a list on the fridge where we write down whatever we need for the house or ourselves and every once in a while I will take a picture of it and go get that stuff, Done! I pay the bills because I’m much more organized then Matt, so every payday I sit down with my spreadsheet and pay everything that’s due for the next two weeks and decided how much extra we can pay towards everything else (ie: student loans, credit cards, and into savings). I’m a numbers person so I actually enjoy doing that.

Matt doesn’t expect me to do any of it and he doesn’t get mad if it’s not done on time. If he needs something specific cleaned and I haven’t done the laundry he will put a load of laundry in himself. He often finds a recipe he really wants try and will get the ingredients and cook it to have ready when I get home or he will grill up some good ribs or he will make us a mean sushi dinner. He mows the lawn on the weekends, takes out the trash on Thursday night and helps anytime I ask him too, which usually comes in the form of emptying the dishwasher. He works hard and he takes really good care of me so no, if you’re wondering, I don’t resent him for not doing any of the chores.

So I suppose we prove this article correct. One of the radio DJ’s was so mad (side note: she also said she does all the chores in her house) about the article because of it saying that women should do everything. I don’t think that woman should do everything, but I think the idea they’re trying say makes sense. The whole arguing and getting upset with each other for things not getting done is eliminated. It only works though in instances like ours where one person does it all because they want to. I don’t think anyone should start doing everything just because this article says you’ll be happier or that it specifically needs to be the woman. It does simplify things when one person does all the chores, but I have some very good friends where the husband does everything and they are one of those insanely happy and cute couples you love to hate. So it can go either way . . .

How does your household handle chores?