10 WAYS TO GET YOUR HUSBAND TO DO WHAT YOU WANT AROUND THE HOUSE

Posted on February 4, 2013 by admin | in Housekeeping

Some women are lucky enough to have married men who enjoy helping out around the house – or at least who help out without complaint. Others have men in their lives who will do anything for their wives, except help out with menial household chores. Here are 10 way to encourage a little help from the main man in your life.

1. Incentive – Sometimes people need a reason to do something. The knowledge that he’d be helping you out is not always enough. So, implement a small reward system such as letting him  pick the movie you will see this weekend if he vacuums the living room and puts the dishes away.
2. Tit for Tat – Remind him that you did something for him the other day and that it’s only fair that he does something for you now. Or, transversely, you can promise to do something for him later if he helps you out right now.
3. Logic – Logic doesn’t work on everyone, so tread lightly with this one. It is only logical and fair that he help out with doing household chores because you both have jobs, therefore you both should be doing laundry and dishes and everyday tasks.
4. Hysterical Tears – Not everyone can conjure hysterical tears at the drop of a hat, but if your husband can see how frazzled you are from always having to do everything around the house without any help, then maybe he will give in and help out a bit more to prevent the tears from happening again. Crying women tend to make men very uncomfortable.
5. Bribery – Similar to tit for tat, bribery is a way to get things done. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but you could give him an allowance of sorts. You could even try having a money jar and for every dish that is not put away a dollar goes into the jar. At the end of the week, you can split the money or do something together with it.
6. Guilt Trip – Few things get under a man’s skin like a good guilt trip. The trick is to avoid turning it into a yelling match. The goal of this is not to get into a fight; it’s to get things done. Perhaps you need to sit down with your husband and point out all of the chores that need to get done around the house. It can be broken down into categories of the ones he does (if any) and the ones that you do. Having it spelled out for him might be just the ticket to light a fire under him.
7. Work Together – This one is great for couples who enjoy doing other activities together. If you can turn it into something that you are working on simultaneously, it can be more appealing than one person doing all of the work while the other is not. You can even switch tasks every week so it doesn’t get boring. Almost every chore around the house can be done with two people. One person can wash the dishes while the other dries. One can dust while the other washes the windows. The house will get cleaned in harmony and it will take half the time it would if only one person was doing it.
8. Ask the Right Way – According to the popular book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray, the way to get a man to do something is to ask him the right way. Asking him, “Could you do the dishes please?” is a surefire way to get him to not want to. Obviously he coulddo the dishes, but he certainly doesn’t want to. Instead, try asking, “Would you please do the dishes for me?” Changing ‘could’ to ‘would’ will help take away the resentment he may feel for you asking him to do something in the first place.
9. Make a List – Some men just need a honey-do list to get things done. They may see that the dishes need to be done, but they may also think that you enjoy doing them and will leave them out for you to take care of later. By using a simple list of tasks that you need done around the house, you can help him realize there are things he should be doing on his days off instead of just watching TV.
10. Go on Strike – If nothing else works, go on strike. If you let things pile up, eventually he will have to take action. He will wake up one day and realize his favorite shirt is still sitting in the dirty laundry pile and that will encourage him to get the clothes in the washing machine. He will go into the kitchen for a snack and have no clean plates to eat it on. This will make him realize how much you do around the house that he has been taking for granted.