Dear Mary-anne: How can I get my partner to allow me to do more household chores?

QUESTION: 

My wife and I have two children and I have become very good at contributing a lot of energy and time to household stuff like cleaning, washing clothes, getting the kids fed etc.

Mostly we work well as a team, but sometimes my wife seems to be waiting for me to make mistakes. I don't know how to get her to trust me more with the home and baby jobs without her telling me what to do. I can understand how people in jobs lose confidence if they are not given responsibility.  

Of course, I have mucked up a couple of times, but not about anything serious. If my wife could trust me more around the house and kids then she would see that she will have more time to do her own thing. She works as a freelancer so, in the end, it would be better financially for both of us if she could get more of that work done too. 

Any suggestions? 

ANSWER: 

You're willing to shoulder your share of the chores and you want to be trusted to manage the jobs without being told what to do? This sounds like an ideal scenario – but it seems there's still problems …..

One of the clues to what these might be lies with the line: "mostly we work well as a team, but sometimes my wife seems to be waiting for me to make mistakes". 

We all come to our relationships with different expectations and past experiences. Perhaps your wife feels threatened by your capabilities and your desire to do as much as you can. (Sadly, this is not the way things always run). 

She may have expectations that the home is her domain and that you should be doing outdoor maintenance. It may be that something else does not seem fair and fairness is, after all, what most people want in a relationship. You're going to have to find out the real cause of the problem and talk this out because it may be that you've assumed you know what she's thinking, but you've got it wrong.

The other phrase I noted was, "without her telling me what to do". No-one likes being told what to do; certainly not for chores that can be accomplished quite adequately in different ways. There's more than one way to skin a cat. 

So it's back to communication 101 for you two. Try and talk out how you're feeling and, if you can't talk about it, or your wife doesn't acknowledge there's a problem, then I suggest you just carry on as you were and back yourself.

She could complete her freelance work elsewhere, or behind closed doors, so she doesn't get annoyed if she witnesses blunders, messes or double-handling. You'll learn as you go along and all that matters is that the children are safe.