3. HOUSEHOLD CHORE
Perhaps surprisingly to a non-clinician, the issue of how to equitably and fairly divide the list of common household chores can be frequent topic in conjoint therapy. While modern straight couples sometimes like to pretend that they are oh-so-liberated, in reality, in many (or most) cases, the woman is subtly expected to, and ends up doing, the majority of the household chores related to keeping things clean, organized, in good repair, supplied, delivered, monitored, and humming along in a domestic household. There is certain quality of “Mrs. Hughes” from “Downton Abbey” in even the most liberated modern wife and mother, because, again, men are still SO socialized against these things in favor of the “primary breadwinner” duties being outside the home, or the more physical/mechanical duties of the house, car(s), or yard. Even straight couples who buck this are often very much aware, either with themselves or with other people’s reactions, they are indeed bucking the “tradition” (societal expectation). So, when two gay men form a relationship and have a domestic component to their lives, there can be friction about who does what, and who is “expected” to do what.
There are no “traditional” gender roles to point everyone in the “right” (I mean that facetiously) direction. In couples counseling, I generally recommend that a Master List of Required Household Chores be written down, which is exhaustive and comprehensive. Who pays the bills? Who does the cleaning? Or, who supervises the cleaning? Who mows the lawn? Or, who pays the gardener to mow the lawn? Who supervises the gardener? Who changes the light bulbs? Who cooks? Who cleans up? Who grocery shops? Who picks up the dry cleaning? For the affluent gay couples, I often work with in Los Angeles, hired household help does many of these things, but there are certain domestic chores that cannot be “delegated” to anyone. Often, making a list and then discussing how to divide it can be a discussion at home, or in session. If one partner is a physician and works at a hospital 60 hours a week, and the other partner is a dancer who has many more hours free at home, how much more of the household chores is the dancer “expected” to do?
The key to this in counseling is often “what ‘feels’ fair” in a concept where both partners are expected (somehow) to be making a very subjective “equal contribution” to the relationship. In my own relationship (now marriage, since 2008), I’ve found that there are certain chores that each of us both likes to do more, and can do better, and it roughly falls into a 50/50 split. Maybe we’re just lucky that way, but I am perfectly happy to pay all the bills online if he oversees keeping the dry cleaning delivered and picked up. One man’s tedium is another man’s relatively happy task. The challenge is trying to achieve a sense of “fairness” without one partner feeling humiliated by too much «domesticity,” which can be seen as an emasculinization, but why? That sounds like it’s right next door to misogyny, that something associated historically with “women’s work” is somehow also associated with menial, humiliating work, as opposed to a necessary and vital component of having a clean, sanitary, healthy, comfortable, and aesthetically-pleasing home. In counseling, sometimes issues of sexism need to be identified and processed out, and issues with family-of-origin where perhaps one partner saw his mother abused by his father, and those dynamics “carry over” into that partner being especially sensitive about “dominance dynamics.” These things are the
emotional issues that underlie very practical chores that need to be done for a household (even with no kids) to function.