Ever feel like your partner or husband is a giant man-baby? Sure he may not require nappy changes or help with his homework, but many women tend to joke about the trials, tribulations, and stress of living with an extra child – their husband.
Well, ladies, the jokes on them. Or us, rather because we put up with it. Science has confirmed that husbands are actually better at stressing us out than our own children.
Husbands the leading cause of stress
And it wasn’t even a close race. Mums stress out over their husbands twice as much as they stress over their kids.
The results come from a survey from Today, asking 7,000 mums in the US the reasons they are stressed. The findings are actually quite interesting and incredibly relatable:
- The majority of mums rate their stress level at 8.5 out of 10.
- 46 percent of mums surveyed felt like their husbands caused them way more stress than their kids.
- 75 percent of mums said they always feel the need to do all of the household and parenting chores, because they don’t think the work will get done otherwise.
- 20 percent of mums also said they feel stressed all the time because their husbands simply don’t help them with any household chores.
Why are our husbands causing such stress?
Stress is a part of life. Work is stressful. Managing a household – that’s stressful. Money is stressful. Raising decent human beings is heaps stressful too. How can husbands come out on top of all of these things???
Here’s my theory:
We expect stress in our lives. We understand work can be stressful and we are programmed to handle it. Most likely through venting. And wine. This is the same with the household stuff, finances, etc.
And it goes for our kids too.
We expect our kids to be demanding little shits. It’s our duty to raise them, to care for them and to teach them to be helpful, non-demanding little shits. It’s kind of what we signed up for when we decided to have kids.
We don’t, however, expect to have to teach our partners these lessons. They should have learned these lessons growing up. We expect our partners to already KNOW how to be helpful and how to take initiative without having to be constantly asked or nagged.
Now, I know men will probably say their wives are the biggest stress factor in their lives too. And, fair enough. I will be the first to admit that I can pile on the demands and bark orders like a bloodhound. But, husbands, let’s admit that some of the barking will subside if you just HELP US OUT.
So to keep the peace and take the stress levels down, I’ve put together a quick checklist for husbands on how to be a helpful human being.
Wives, print it out and place it on the fridge. Or on the back of the bathroom door. Because we all know how much time they like to spend hiding in there…
10 easy ways to stop stressing us out
- First things first. Husbands, please refrain from hiding in the loo. Especially during peak crazy hour, like after dinner or before bedtime. We know you’re not pooping. We know you’re on your phone watching YouTube videos of cats.
- Don’t walk past a pile of unfolded laundry. Stop and fold it instead.
- This goes for all chores, actually. If an appliance is beeping (washing machine, dishwasher), investigate. Trust me, you don’t need an invitation to open the dishwasher and unload it. Another study has actually confirmed that men who do the dishes get more sex. So there you go.
- Look before starting any sentence with, “Have you seen the…?”. Odds are, whatever you’re searching for – a cup, the toothpaste, the car keys, the wipes – is in plain sight.
- Make a mess, clean it up. This is basic kindergarten stuff, yet, here we are, discovering dirty giant man-baby work socks at the front entrance.
- Don’t snore. The last thing we need at the end of a long day is the inability to fall asleep because of your trumpeting hippo call.
- Don’t assume we’ve got everything under control. We most certainly do not. Communicate instead.
- Don’t turn us into nagging dragon ladies. We hate being the dragons. We don’t want to breathe fire down your necks. So, please, just listen and respond the first time around.
- If we look like we’re about to turn into crazy fire-breathing dragon lady, take over. Tell us to go into time out. And bring us wine.
- And, finally, be our partners. In crime, in parenting, in chores. In everything. We’re in this together. Come and take your place on top of the family hierarchy beside us. Because bossing the kids around as a team is so much more fun than making us do it all alone.
