2080. The Battle over House Work — Part III: How She Wins

This is a dynamite cocktail that should cause a big noise. Women find more and better ingredients for earning happiness when they do daily housework without involving their mate. I may never prove it to you but the following proves it to me (and I never thought it possible until first draft of this series.)

Recall from part I: She’s born to be happy; he’s born to be satisfied. She’s motivated to improve her self-importance and needs confirmation from others to spread her gratefulness and thus earn—not receive or find—happiness. He’s motivated to seek self-admiration and basically needs little confirmation to find satisfaction.

Recall from part II: When she thinks like a man and rewards herself for satisfaction, it pits her against him. They compete. She becomes jealous of his beating her because satisfaction is not the governor of the female heart and he so easily trumps her in that realm. When she pursues happiness instead of satisfaction as her daily goal, they become more compatible.

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He’s simple and not much concerned with happiness. If he’s satisfied with himself, he’s relatively happy. His pursuits stop with satisfaction. Since a satisfied need no longer motivates, he reaches for something else at the end of an accomplishment or workday. His duty day ends long before bedtime.

Being more processor than producer by nature, her satisfaction comes from the little things she achieves. Example: Love never ends but kisses do. Shopping never ends but the last trip did. Nesting never ends but housekeeping ends at bedtime. Relationship management never ends except when sleep comes. Each little thing satisfies her—kisses, packages, dishes washed, she pleases someone.

She’s quite opposite and far more complex. Satisfaction is but a stepping stone rather than an achievement. However, it feeds gratefulness to herself for herself. Grateful that she’s capable and motivated to nest to her satisfaction and appreciation of hubby. Moreover, self-gratitude happens to be the entry toll for the highway to happiness.

Satisfaction from the dozens of little things each day make her grateful for herself. She can and did do those things, which adds to her sense of self-importance, which adds to her sense of self-gratitude, which enables her to be grateful for others and things, which places her on the endless highway to happiness.

What’s the nature of the relationship management beast that’s born when wife determines that husband should help with housekeeping?

• She thinks in terms of equality, which is never achievable and she won’t like it when he makes nesting decisions that override hers.
• She feels less important because he won’t agree or stir from his dominant convictions.
• She takes on the role of competitor with assertiveness and eventually aggressiveness.
• She blames him for her tiredness but he has no connection with that and doesn’t feel guilty.
• She imposes guilt, which men reject or dispose of quickly from a competitor.
• She becomes jealous of his inactivity, comfort, or diversions. Other things about him become wrong or intolerable. Tiny red flags creep into her psyche.
• She envies his complacency about household things. Mistaking complacency for disinterest, anxiety mounts and she starts losing interest in keeping house and dedication to him.
• She squelches her spirit of joy. It dissipates behind new expectations of not losing whatever arguments she has started.
• She sets lose the beast of declining mutual respect, wherein she’s the biggest loser because his love is based on respect but hers is not.

So, what are the benefits when she takes full responsibility for housework and leaves him to his satisfying R&R? The benefits don’t accrue until she teaches herself to maximize her natural qualities designed to generate compatibility out of sex differences.

By not becoming jealous, envious, or anxious about hubby’s recovery habits, she enables herself to stay in tune with the positive side of her nature. Her worry can shift to future goals and not be entangled with his lounging, careless or carefree attitude. Her attitude can become more affirming of those around her. She can become more grateful for herself because of the peace and harmony she’s able to cultivate. Her spirit of joy can soar, which releases her to manage relationships from the highest possible position in life.

In short, she’s better able to put the full force of her nature into the nesting process—both relationship management and housekeeping. The former with feelings and the latter with labor. But the labor is not labor as commonly thought of. Repetition frees up her multitasking mind to address and solve issues, plan her immediate future, and simultaneously breathe a calming spirit into her home as things happen while she cleans.

She rules best who does the rest. It’s the pleasantness of mom’s nesting habits that kids carry into adulthood as her most endearing quality. The greatest love of mom—especially by men—arises out her strength of character and willingness to insist that everyone obey her rules within a never-in-doubt delivery of respect, trust, and affection. Contrary to what girls love to think, love does not cure all, and especially not cure men of habits misplaced in time and place.

By not taking offense at husband’s R&R habits, she enables herself to exemplify the goodness of woman. It frees her to more easily cultivate hubby to help when she needs it. For example:

• She feels no guilt to ask him to help on tasks for which she has too little aptitude or strength. She can more easily detect tension and know how to convince him with gentleness and charm, which adds to her unique value within him.

• She can pleasantly expect and patiently await his learning that certain things are his responsibility. When he accepts something as his duty, she has won from him also the sense that she’s worth it. Examples: 1) Men, not ladies, haul the trash. 2) Her duty is to clear and clean the floor. His duty is to deal with—other than back on the floor—whatever she picks up and places on his side of the bed or in his favorite chair but never spitefully. 3) If her commandment is a place for everything and everything in its place, and she lives by that code, then the family is easily taught that mom’s word is law and everyone falls in line. Husband included. It’s a technique right out of an imagined dominance handbook.
• Free to dominate nesting routines, she can pleasantly expect that he live up to her standards. Examples: Make it habitual to lower both lid and seat when finished in the bathroom; light a candle before leaving a stinky bathroom; help clean up after she supports entertaining his associates.

I surprised myself with this article. I fell for the pop culture spirit that expands male dominance. It previously seemed fair to harangue hubby for dodging housework.

Now I object based on the strength, patience, and other qualities embedded in each female at birth. Girlhood hopes and dreams boil down to this as the predominant objective. A happy life with a loveable and loving husband, loveable and loving children, and sailing together into the sunset of their lives in total harmony.

Of course such dreams require a lot of work. Not strange to me, but women have every quality to make it work in a two-step process. First, they find and develop ways to be grateful for themselves each and every day. Second, they find and develop the habit to respect, trust, show affection, and show gratefulness to those around them. If others don’t deserve that out of her, she isn’t following her heart but her propagandized conscious mind.