Are Power Struggles Ruining Your Relationship?
You plan the vacations, call the plumber, get a gift for your mother-in-law's birthday, and bring in the car for repairs. His idea of helping: staying out of your way. This unbalanced picture can leave you both feeling resentful. Here, how to break up the pattern.
"I do everything around here."
At one time or another, you — like every other hardworking wife on the planet — have probably made that statement. It may well be true. And, sorry to tell you this, but ... it may also be your fault.
"Knowing that we're the only ones who can manage family life is very empowering, and I think many women get a thrill from being so indispensable," says social psychologist Carin Rubenstein, who interviewed more than 1,500 men and women for her new book, The Superior Wife Syndrome."That sense of power and control can be difficult to give up." In two out of every three couples Rubenstein interviewed, "Wives run the show while their husbands sit back and take it easy," she reports. "Women are the CEOs of their households, and their husbands are more like employees."*
Rubenstein knew that she was on to something when she observed this do-it-all, know-it-all, fix-it-all pattern in many of her friends' relationships, in her work doing couples research, and even in her own 
And all that control comes with a dangerous downside. "Superior-wife marriages end up leaving both partners feeling unfulfilled," Rubenstein says. "When one person calls all of the shots all of the time, contempt and a lack of respect fester, and that undermines trust, intimacy, and loving companionship." REDBOOK talked to Rubenstein to find out how to restore equality to a
*YOUR TAKE:
"This definitely describes me! I feel resentful when my
— Alyssa Yano, 32, Indianapolis
Why is this superior-wife syndrome so common now?
Some women believe that they're supposed to do it all. The women I interviewed in superior-wife marriages described their role as: "If I don't do things, they don't get done." And, "His philosophy is that as long as he has me, he doesn't need to worry about things." Men tend to think that a household functions automatically, when it's really the wife who's hard at work behind the scenes.
The fact is, most marriages don't start out this way. Somewhere along the line, an insidious shift occurs. I think that, biologically speaking, women are generally better at multitasking, and they're also more efficient. Add a husband to the mix who lets his wife take charge, and let that mixture simmer. Eventually men accept the wife's superiority as the natural state of affairs. Over time, a woman's thought process becomes, It's too annoying, complicated, or time-consuming to explain to my husband how to [fill in the blank], so I might as well just do it myself. The standard male response to a superior wife's rare request for help is, "You're better at it than I am." It may sound like he's giving you a compliment, but the truth is that it's really a cop-out. If he changed a diaper 10 times, he'd be perfectly good at it too.
You yourself were a superior wife. How did it affect your relationship?
I've been married for over 30 years, and my husband always followed my lead and never had any desire to take charge.* His only jobs were working, washing our cars, and handling family finances. I was always the one who cooked, cleaned, shopped, fixed our computer, planned family vacations, helped our two children fill out their college applications, set up the satellite TV, and hired the painters — to name a few of my responsibilities. I also work full time. I was constantly irritable and pissed off — it's exhausting to live like that!
Two years ago, we visited our daughter in Washington, D.C., for her graduation from college. I thought it would be nice to get her a graduation cake, so I researched bakeries in the area, ordered the cake, and paid for it over the phone. When I asked my husband to pick up the cake, he protested, saying, "I don't want to have to think!" That was our marriage in a nutshell: I think, therefore he doesn't have to. I should have responded, "I prefer not to think either, but unless we hire a butler, cook, and valet, both of us are going to have to do some thinking." But instead, I resentfully went to the bakery and picked up the cake. That resentment kept building in me, and it was harming our marriage. I viewed him not as my partner but as a third child — he was someone who relied on me and couldn't manage on his own.
*YOUR TAKE:
"If my husband was in charge, our living room would have stadium seating, our TV would be sitting on beer boxes, and all dinners would consist of something wrapped in bacon!"
— Melissa Heidelberg, 27, River Edge, NJ
Why is wife superiority so bad for a marriage?
Women may think that their husbands have the better deal, but both partners are robbed of the emotional benefits that flow from a loving bond and fuller participation in family life. Neither gets the connectedness or true partnership that he or she deserves. In extreme cases, women think, If I'm doing everything like a single person, then I might as well be single!
Their sex lives suffer too. My research showed that men and women in superior-wife marriages report having sex less often and being less satisfied with their sex lives. Some women admitted to using sex to bribe their husbands to do chores around the house. Others often reject their husband's sexual overtures — which makes sense. After all, it's pretty hard to desire someone you resent.
How can superior wives bring balance to their relationships?
It's never too late to renegotiate expectations and responsibilities, but it will be a gradual process. Just don't get caught up in your feelings of injustice or anger; cool reason and common sense make a better foundation for a productive conversation. Talk to your partner in a nonthreatening way during a nonrushed time, and explain the many perks of doing more household and parenting tasks as a team: You two will have a stronger marriage and a better sex life, and he'll have a closer relationship with his kids.
What's the first step?
Start out by asking for small requests and gentle favors, such as picking up milk from the grocery store or helping your son with his math homework — they'll prepare him for life's bigger demands. And be specific about what you want him to do. Try saying, "Can you throw in a load of laundry while I get dinner started?" Men are often more open to change than we give them credit for. Once my husband understood all I'd been doing, he saw how unfair it was. I think our house was running so smoothly that he never paid much attention!
Women aren't born knowing how to run a household, but we learn through experience — and the same holds true for men. It's like a lightbulb suddenly gets turned on over his head. First he notices that you're out of eggs, then he remembers that it's time to start planning his mom's surprise birthday party, and that reservations need to be made for dinner this Friday, and that your den could use some sprucing up. And he may even begin to enjoy playing a part in the bigger picture of your lives.
Lastly, remember to thank your husband. Positive reinforcement always works! Critiquing your husband, on the other hand, is the quickest way to put an end to his helpfulness.
Okay, but what if a wife has trouble giving up her control? How can she learn to loosen up on the reins?
Think of it this way: Creating an equal marriage is not only about him doing more, it's also about you expecting less and relaxing your standards. You have to give up control and embrace the mind-set that there's no right or wrong way to feed the kids lunch, wrap a birthday gift, or clean the bathroom.* If you cannot bear to watch him do things his way, leave the room or leave the house. In my case, I'd go shopping for the afternoon, go for a morning run, or go away with my girlfriends for the weekend. My husband had no choice but to chauffeur the kids to practices and birthday parties, feed them three meals, and get them ready for bed. And my absence made it easier for him to learn — I wasn't there to fix things if he messed up, and he didn't have to worry about feeling embarrassed in front of me if he made a mistake. The bottom line is, people get good at parenting and being a good partner by trial and error. Let him have that privilege.
How will restoring balance help bring couples closer?
The women I interviewed who weren't superior wives reported being happier in their marriages, as well as more satisfied with their sex lives. Carol, 42, said, "My husband is my biggest fan. If I have an idea, we discuss it and then do research so we can make the best decision together. And the very same is true of our sex life, since he's eager to try anything I ask him."
When you adopt that team mentality, there's less of a feeling that "This is my job" and "That's your job" and more of a sense of "Here's what needs to be done — let's do it." My husband and I have gotten better at working together and eliminating "his and her" tasks; I'll take the car to the car wash or take out the trash, and he'll do housework. I know I can count on him to be thinking about things; he's always writing in our calendar "car needs an oil change" or "pick up milk from the grocery store." And I've become more relaxed, less irritable — and, I'll admit, less picky and controlling — since I don't feel the pressure of doing it all by myself. We're now able to talk about issues like money and kids together, as opposed to me feeling like, What am I going to do about this? My husband and I have completely transformed our relationship; he has a more loving and respectful wife who sees him as an equal partner in life, and in return, I've gained a husband who loves, supports, and respects me. We're on the same team now.
*YOUR TAKE:
"I don't care how things get done or who does them as along as they get done. I'd rather be sitting with my feet up than worrying about how he diapers the baby."
— Alicia Lucas, 36, Carmel, IN
More from MSN Lifestyle Site Search: Get additional content on gender roles and marriage.
Housework Pays Off Between the Sheets
Housework may seem like the ultimate romance-killer. But guess what?
A new study shows that for husbands and wives alike, the more housework you do, the more often you are likely to have sex with your spouse.
Earlier studies have hinted at this connection for men; the sight of a husband mopping the floor or doing dishes sparks affection in the hearts of many wives. But the more-housework-equals-more-sex link for wives, documented in a study of 6,877 married couples published online recently in the Journal of Family Issues, is a surprise.
Scrubbing the floor is no aphrodisiac, and seeing your spouse doing it usually isn't either. "My husband loves doing laundry, yet I don't get any thrill out of his doing it," says Chicago writer Julie Danis. And "I don't think he thinks it's sexy when I go around gathering the detritus of his daily life."
But for some high achievers who take a "work hard, play hard" approach to life, researchers say, working hard in one domain produces more energy for others. The study also found a correlation between hours spent on paid work and the frequency of sex in marriage.
"Rather than compromise their sex life" because of time demands at work or at home, "this group of go-getters seems to make sex a priority," says Constance Gager, lead researcher and an assistant professor of family and child studies at Montclair State University, Montclair, N.J. The study doesn't measure what proportion of spouses fall into this group, but she believes "they are on the leading edge of couples we expect to see more of in the future."
Many husbands and wives I interviewed offered an additional explanation—that housework may be a proxy for a general willingness to invest in shared interests, a symbol of commitment to home and hearth. Perhaps "working on the same task … makes the couple remember why they married—to be on the same team, to build a life," Ms. Danis says.
Tom Doran, a Plymouth, Mich., engineer, says doing housework "promotes friendship and intimacy" for him and his wife, an executive assistant. And John Rogitz, a San Diego attorney who has been married for 30 years, says, "If you're both around doing housework, that also means you are alone together, and in a place where both are relaxed and comfortable." He adds, "It's pretty hard to have sex when you're not together in a place that permits it."
“Wives in the study spent an average 41.8 hours a week on housework, compared with 23.4 hours for husbands.”
Another husband, a St. Paul, Minn., accountant who describes himself as happily married for 20 years, says housework reflects a deeper bond. Although he does plenty of housework, "to me it's not the dishes, laundry, vacuuming (or Viagra) that matters," he writes. Sharing chores reflects a "willingness to hold my wife's needs and wants on a par with my own. For us, the key to intimacy is the sharing and minimization of selfishness." His wife, a nurse, agrees, saying that "doing the household chores is certainly part of the sharing."
It's also possible that one reward of doing chores—a serene, well-tended home—can be conducive to intimacy. Tracy Evans, New York, says she and her husband "definitely can relax better if the house is clean," she says—to a point.
But plunging too deeply into chores also can have the opposite effect, she says, if it is linked to "this perfectionistic type of thing where you want to get everything done"—for example, deciding you can't rest until your entire spice rack is in alphabetical order. "Before you know it, it's one in the morning and you haven't spent any time with your spouse," Ms. Evans says. Researchers didn't explore whether housework reached a point of diminishing returns—where time on chores expanded so much that it choked off intimacy.
One might suspect that the housework-sex connection was related to couples' views of appropriate gender roles. A wife who embraces a traditional female role, for example, might tend to regard both doing lots of housework and having frequent marital relations as part of her responsibilities.
But Dr. Gager and her co-author, Scott Yabiku, associate professor of sociology at Arizona State University, Tempe, controlled the results for "gender ideology" and found the housework-sex link remained true, regardless of people's views on roles. Results from the data, taken from the National Survey of Families and Households, were controlled for age, health, duration of couple's relationship, religion, income, education and marital satisfaction.
The study defined housework as nine chores: cleaning, preparing meals, washing dishes, washing and ironing clothes, driving family members around, shopping, yard work, maintaining cars and paying bills. Wives in the study spent an average 41.8 hours a week on these tasks, compared with 23.4 hours for husbands—a split that is fairly typical, and often regarded by wives as unfair. However, the effects of any fairness concerns among wives weren't measured in this study.
Outside the home, husbands spent an average 33.8 hours a week on paid work, compared with 19.7 hours for wives. Couples reported having sex 82.7 times a year on average, or 1.6 times a week, about the same as in other studies.
After a long national decline in time spent on housework, the study joins a growing body of research on how chores shape the dynamics of marriage. A survey of 2,020 U.S. adults placed "sharing household chores" as the third most important factor in a successful marriage, behind faithfulness and a happy sexual relationship, says the nonprofit Pew Research Center. That's a sharp increase; 72% of respondents gave high importance to housework, up from 47% in a comparable study in 1990. In respondents' minds, housework outranked even such necessities as adequate income and good housing, Pew says.
A 2003 study by Scott Coltrane, a sociology professor at the University of California, Riverside, linked fathers' housework to more feelings of warmth and affection in their wives. And a survey of 288 husbands, reported in Neil Chethik's 2006 book "VoiceMale," linked a wife's satisfaction with the division of household duties with her husband's satisfaction with their sex life.
One husband, Mr. Chethik says in an interview, reported that his wife enjoyed flowers or a candlelit dinner out; but "if he wants to be sure of a romantic evening, he goes for the vacuum cleaner."
Other research supports the "work hard, play hard" thesis. Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has found that it doesn't lead to less intimacy in marriage when wives hold paid jobs.
"Some people are high-energy people, and others are not very high-energy," she says. Those who like juggling a lot of roles are often energized by the process, she says. "Work hard, play hard" may not work for everybody, but there is certainly a group for whom it does work."
That usually requires conscious effort. Mary Miller, a marketing executive, says that while she and her husband talk at home in the evening about making time for each other, "we are often too tired once we finish cleaning up the place," she says. Recently, they have begun planning to reserve down time for themselves, "almost like adding it to the chores," she says.
Could the study spark a national housework craze? Like a number of spouses I interviewed, Lawrence Lamb is skeptical. At home, the Birmingham, Ala., medical-school professor unloads the dishwasher and puts away laundry while his wife, a teacher, does laundry and cooks. "But that has nothing to do with the sex life," he says. For him and his wife, career achievement and the energy and attitudes they bring to their relationship provide more of a spark, he says. The bottom line, he adds: "It's chemistry."
But another married man, a communications manager attending a panel discussion at which the research was mentioned, quickly announced that he was leaving. "Gotta go," he said. "I need to run home and put in a load of laundry."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574485351638147312.html
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