Are You Getting Your Fair Share?
The women's movement has shaken things up a bit, and I know many women who feel if they "just stay home and raise the children" then they are not truly exchanging enough with their husbands, or they are not being "productive members of society."
I actually had someone once tell me I was "wasting my life" being a stay-at-home mother and homemaker. When homemakers - men or women - hear comments like this, this can add to their feelings of inadequacy, and as if they are not truly giving enough back to their spouses.
On the other hand, women, as a whole, do not earn as much money as men earn. So many married women who hold jobs outside the home bring home a smaller paycheck than do their husbands. Again, they may feel they aren't exchanging enough.
Likewise, a man whose wife earns more money than he does, may feel inadequate and as if he isn't "doing his job" as a husband. What a crummy state of mind to be in! That attitude would certainly strain the relationship!
The system has changed, and so we need to look at the arrangement of "marriage" and figure it out for ourselves. Each marriage is different, and each couple needs to make decisions that usually didn't have to be made in our grandparents' time. No wonder so many marriages end in divorce! Society no longer figures these things out for us - we have to do it ourselves.
And we need to feel GOOD about our choices, and we need to feel good about our own personal levels of exchange.
When you were a child, did you ever make a trade with another child, knowing in your heart that you were getting a much better trade? That probably didn't feel very good.
On the other hand, consider the last time you helped an elderly neighbor take her trash to the curb. Or when you helped a child cross the street. Or when you donated cans of food to the local homeless shelter. That felt pretty good, didn't it?
Everyone wants to contribute more to others than is contributed to themselves. Contributing to others makes us truly happy!
My husband and I actually meet regularly about our exchange. A couple of times a year at least, we will sit down together and discuss the various household duties and child raising tasks, and we agree on who will do what. This
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