5 Ways to Make Your Husband Pick Up After Himself
For some, having a husband can seem like having another child around the house if you have to constantly nag and bother them to clean up after themselves. More men should be excited to help their wives because Spike Tv’s Manswers found that the sure fire way into the wife’s…heart….was to help around the house and ease the burden of cleaning, thus giving her more energy for other things! Psychologist John Gottman has noted that marriages are happier when husbands help with the housework because it keeps harmony, and when the wife is happier, the husband is happier and generally gets more sex. Ladies, here are five tips for getting your man to help clean up around the house:
1. Ask!
Women often times assume that men see the room’s messes in the same way that women do but that often times isn’t the case because they just haven’t been raised the same. Many mother’s emphasize cleanliness and neatness for their daughters in a way that they don’t for their sons, so your hubby really may not be socialized to clean up well after himself or to notice that the bed is unkempt. So ask him to help with housework, to clean up after himself, when you notice that things are messy. Don’t rant and rave, point it out and see if that approach gets more things done.
2. Create a game of sorts out of cleaning, with penalties and rewards.
Using daily or weekly goal sheets, create some type of system. He can have his favorite meal, special naughty time, a new tool, something that will spark his competitive nature to get the task done. Better yet, play a game of strip cleaning if you don’t have children around. Take off an item of clothing for each task that he accomplishes or promise to do your housework in the nude alongside him or in a sexy maid’s outfit. I guarantee it’ll become something that he WANTS to do if that is how you clean!
3. Make a smart stand so that he notices these things.
If he can’t be bothered to put his dirty clothing in the hamper, then don’t wash what isn’t in the hamper and when he’s run out of underwear he’ll notice and you can point out that they weren’t in the hamper so you didn’t know to wash them.
4. Keep a clear head and don’t be a control freak about the cleaning.
Your standards may never be met by your husband’s skills, so cut him a little slack if things are EXACTLY as you would normally do them but the job is done with intent and purpose. It will become a hated task if you are on his back about it all of the time, especially if he’s actually done the job but just not how you’d like it done all of the way, so step back and consider if it’s really worth fighting over.
5. Praise and reward him!
Compliment him on a job well done and notice the things that he does do, such as fix the sink, clean the car, mow the lawn, etc because sometimes we just gloss over and forget the tasks that are done normally by one another, which may be why it doesn’t seem like he appreciates the things that you do as well. You both need to acknowledge what one another does and reward each other with compliments and other tokens of appreciation. Bake him a treat, let him take you to dinner to thank you for your hard housework, give him breakfast in bed, etc. You’ll both feel better with loving appreciation.
Work together and the job will get done faster, so share that load! Good luck on retraining the psyche of your husbands so that they want to help you and for goodness sake, train your sons early on so that HIS wife won’t have to complain about the same things!
