Dividing Up Household Chores: How Newlyweds or Roommates Can Keep a House Clean and Avoid Conflict
© Jessica Steinmetz
A common argument between newly married couples or new roommates is who will do what in the house.
Dividing the household duties can cause some stress, but it certainly does not have to break a marriage or friendship.
Make a Household Chore List Together
To avoid disagreements, newlyweds or roommates must communicate and come up with a strategy. Sit down together and list your household management chores. It’s important to come up with your list together and remain flexible.
Discuss your strengths and weaknesses. For example, one of you might be very good at window cleaning and the other might hate it. Address things like:
How to Settle Housekeeping Arguments
When everybody does their share, things run smoothly. However, there will be times when people don’t do their job. Keep calm and realize that they are people too and things come up.
If this is an ongoing situation, consider having a family meeting. Discuss what is going wrong and perhaps change the tasks around. Try to stay on task. The more you procrastinate, the easier it is for tasks to pile up.
Dividing the household duties can cause some stress, but it certainly does not have to break a marriage or friendship.
Make a Household Chore List Together
To avoid disagreements, newlyweds or roommates must communicate and come up with a strategy. Sit down together and list your household management chores. It’s important to come up with your list together and remain flexible.
Discuss your strengths and weaknesses. For example, one of you might be very good at window cleaning and the other might hate it. Address things like:
- Vacuuming
- Indoor and outdoor plant care
- Bills and money issues
- Mail duties
- Cooking and dishes
- Organizing
- Cleaning windows
- Grocery shopping
- Dusting · Mopping and carpet care
- Cleaning the bathroom
- Laundry
- Pet clean up
- Bedrooms
- Emptying garbage
- Lawn care
How to Settle Housekeeping Arguments
When everybody does their share, things run smoothly. However, there will be times when people don’t do their job. Keep calm and realize that they are people too and things come up.
If this is an ongoing situation, consider having a family meeting. Discuss what is going wrong and perhaps change the tasks around. Try to stay on task. The more you procrastinate, the easier it is for tasks to pile up.
Go To Page: 1
The copyright of the article Dividing Up Household Chores: How Newlyweds or Roommates Can Keep a House Clean and Avoid Conflict in Household Management is owned by . Permission to republish Dividing Up Household Chores: How Newlyweds or Roommates Can Keep a House Clean and Avoid Conflict in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Jessica Steinmetz's Household Management topic, please visit the Discussions page.