If Shared Housework Brings About Divorce, You Need To Pick Better

by Laura Donovan

If you’re a lifelong clean freak like me, you believe that your living space can never remain immaculate for too long — and that you prefer to clean things your way. That could help explain the fact that couples who share housework are more likely to split up, according to new research, and prompt partners to only have one person fulfill such duties.

The research, which was compiled into a study titled “Equality in the Home,” reveals that the divorce rate is higher among couples who divide household chores than among those where the lady takes care of pretty much everything.

“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” one of the paper authors told The Telegraph. “One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite.”

I’d like to think it’s because people have their own way of doing things and tackling chores, but the study concludes that it’s more about the dude being reluctant to do his part around the house: “The more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate.”

Such findings wouldn’t please Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is probably up to her ears in work 24/7 and needs her husband to pitch in from time to time:

“We need our boys to be as ambitious to contribute in the home and we need our girls to be as ambitious to achieve in the workforce.”

The key to a successful marriage and career, she has said, is finding a partner who is happy to help out around the house. It may increase your odds of breaking up, but you don’t need to be the only one taking out the trash or scrubbing the floors. Everyone has to earn their keep in this world.

http://www.thejanedough.com/if-shared-housework-leads-to-divorce-just-stay-single/