295. When Your Husband Doesn’t Help

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 295: When your Husband Doesn’t Help.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hello everybody. I can’t wait to see how many downloads this episode gets because unfortunately I think there’s a lot of you who this episode is going to apply to. And if you don’t have a husband or spouse who isn’t helpful or you can’t relate to this directly, I would encourage you to still listen because it’s really applicable in any situation where somebody isn’t doing what you wish they would do. Somebody isn’t showing up the way you wish they would.

So this is the same general information that I give to my kids when they’re working in a small group at school and somebody in their small group isn’t helping, or somebody in your church calling isn’t pulling their weight. So this can be applicable in a lot of different ways. But I’m going to talk about it with regards to your spouse. I’m going to speak mainly to women who have a husband that isn’t helping. But I just want to begin by saying husbands, I love you, and wives, I love you.

And I know that there are many husbands who are extremely helpful and that there are wives who don’t help in various ways. So I just want to apologize upfront for the generalization and stereotyping that I’m going to do. It’s simply by way of example, but there can be all different flavors of this that exist in the world.

So if you are like many of the women I coach who have kids, maybe you have lots of kids, maybe a lot of them are still at home. Maybe you have some little ones who require a lot of attention and energy. Maybe you have lots of responsibilities in terms of trying to keep everything running, trying to keep everybody fed and driven to where they need to go. And make dinner, and grocery shop, and do the laundry, and keep up on all the things, and you’re feeling a little resentful, overwhelmed, angry.

Because your husband comes home, he sits down on the couch, or he gets on his computer, or he gets on his phone and he expects you to make dinner and have it ready to go. And he complains that you’re not keeping up on the housework, or you’re not doing a good enough job managing the children or something like that. I’ve coached many women in versions of this scenario and I want to talk to you if you can relate to this in some way.

I want to begin by saying I’m so sorry that your husband doesn’t help, I really am. I’m sorry that he doesn’t want to help with dinner, that he thinks it’s your job to make dinner, and it’s your responsibility. And I’m sorry that it’s stressful. And I’m sorry that you have so much that you have to deal with, I really, my heart goes out to you. And I want you to know that I think that he should be helping you.

I personally don’t believe it’s the woman’s job just because she’s a woman to do the housework, and cook, and take care of the kids. I think we are now living in the year 2021 and that’s a ridiculous way to think about the world. The same way I don’t think it’s the man’s job just because he’s a man to provide financially for the family. I think that that is a ridiculous way to think about the world.

I think that it is a husband and wife’s job together, ideally, to decide how they are going to provide the needs of their family. And take care of their life, and their home, and their finances, and all the things they want to do together. Do women often have more nurturing tendencies than men? Yes, so often in many family situations where that’s an option the women will choose to be the one home with the kids.

Traditionally, in the past are men more inclined towards career and making money? Yes, but there are so many exceptions to that. That I really do believe that it is ideal for a couple to decide together how they’re going to divide up the responsibilities. And that both people, even if you decide the man’s going to work and the woman’s going to be home with the kids, both people are equally responsible for the outcomes that you want to have in your life and your family, I really do, I believe that.

Now, I’m not telling you, you should believe that, if you believe differently, that’s fine. I just want you to know where I’m coming from. I also believe that in a marriage, or in any relationship, or in any situation we cannot control other people. So while I can empathize with you all day long, I don’t find that to be very empowering.

And there’s a place for that, if you’re my sister or my best friend, and you’re telling me how your husband doesn’t help, I’m just going to empathize with you. But if you’re my client and you come to me, my sister doesn’t pay me money to listen to her. And I’m not, please know brother-in-laws if you’re listening, I’m not saying any of you are this way. I’m just saying my best friend, my sister, somebody in that scenario isn’t paying me money to go to lunch with her and hear her complain about her husband. And I think that all she wants is empathy. And that’s what I like to give her.

But my client pays me money and you guys, even though you haven’t paid me money here on this podcast, you’ve paid me with your time and your attention and I’m your coach now. And so my job isn’t to just pet you on the head and say, “Poor kitty, it’s so hard to be you” That’s not what you’re paying me for with your time and your attention, or your money. You’re paying me to help you solve this challenge, to empower you. And that is what I want to do today on this podcast is to empower you.

So you can keep the part if you want to, where it’s a bummer that your husband doesn’t help, and he should, I agree, he should. So as soon as I figure out how to make him help, I promise to give you that information. Until then, let’s try empowering ourselves. There’s three things I want to talk to you about today that will empower you around this situation.

The first thing I want to talk about is taking a look at whether or not you have really done everything you can do to possibly influence your husband. Now, I am a huge believer that there’s a difference between trying to influence people and trying to control people. The first is much more fun. Yes, it requires some creativity, requires some trial and error, but it’s a lot more fun than trying to control people. And to me the main difference is when I’m just simply trying to influence people I have kept the control over my own emotions. I am not delegating my emotions to whether or not it works.

I’m not going to decide, hey, I’m going to try to get my husband to help and if he does, I’ll be happy, and if he doesn’t, I’ll be resentful and angry. That is trying to control him. What I do instead is, hey, I wonder if I could get him to help. I bet I could. I’m going to get creative now. I’m going to get clever. And knowing all the while that it might not work, I’m going to have fun in the process of it though. And I’m going to choose how I want to feel on the other side of it whether it works or not.

So have you done everything you can? Now, you might be asking, “Well what can I do, Jodie?” Well, you can just have a conversation first of all. Now, clients tell me this all the time, they’re like, “I’ve asked him to help.” I’m like, “Okay, tell me what that sounded like? Were you upset? Did it sound like the way you sound right now? Was it like, “I just really need help?”

Because personally, that doesn’t sound very fun to me either, it reminds me of being a kid and having a parent upset saying, “I need you to come and help me do this thing.” And you’re like, “Oh no, I guess I have to do this. But this is all very painful and not fun. And I’m going to avoid it in the future” Again, I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be upset if you want to be. But it’s not a very powerful way to influence people.

So have conversations but clean up your emotions first. Don’t be frustrated; just be like, “Hey, listen, we need to have a conversation about dinner. Because I noticed when you get home from work you don’t seem very interested in helping out. And dinner is a crazy time. I’ve got babies and kids crying. I’ve got food to figure out and there’s a lot going on. So I want to have a discussion about how we can make that part of our life work better. It’s not working for me right now, can we talk about it?”

Be confident but also be open to what your husband has to say and have a discussion from that place. And by the way, it’s not just a one time; I told him I need help. You might have to tell him every night, every time he comes home. And the more specific you can get the better. “Hey honey, I need you to take the baby because I’m making dinner, and the baby’s crying.” “Hey honey, I really need you to make a salad. All the ingredients are right here, super simple, it’s going to be the best salad we ever had. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Here’s what I need you to do.”

You might have to tell him. If he doesn’t own that project of making dinner, you own it. And I’m not saying you have to, but a lot of you do and then you don’t understand why your husband doesn’t come along and step in and want to help. He’s not thinking of it, you guys, he doesn’t need to, it’s fine. We don’t need his brain to work the way your brain works. We have you, we have your brain.

o unless you want to change that up and decide I don’t want to own dinner anymore, let’s figure out a different plan, which I’m fine with that too. But we need to figure out, how can I possibly influence him to get what I want?  I’m not talking about being passive aggressive, manipulating either, I’m just talking about like, “Dude, we’re making dinner over here in the kitchen and it’s a party. And I’m going to need you to come join the party.” I mean you have to decide based on your personality what would be authentic for you, but have fun with it.

Experiment with it, try some stuff out. Don’t be frustrated, and resentful, and angry about it. It’s just not very fun. And you’re way more influential when you come from more useful emotions to begin with. So have I really done everything I could to influence him? Did I ask him a few times and then expect that he was going to get it every night? That’s not enough, you might ask him every night. And you might need to have a different conversation from a different energy with more openness and less resentment.

Alright, number two, you don’t have to do it either. You really don’t. So this is again what I hear a lot from my clients, “My husband comes home, he just gets on his phone. He doesn’t help. I ask him for help, he says no. Or he ignores me”, or whatever it is. Or he says he’s going to help, he does for one night and then he doesn’t. So I have to do everything. Listen, you guys, that is one of the most toxic poisonous thoughts you could have. I have to do everything. You don’t have to do it. And I genuinely mean that.

I don’t mean it in a sarcastic like you know you could just abandon your family and move away, even though that’s true, you could. But I mean it in a legitimate there are a lot of other solutions. If you decide you’re not up for cleaning the house, there are people all over the place that you can pay that come in and clean your house. It’s amazing. It’s such a great world we live in. Now, I know you’re like, “Okay that must be nice Jodie, but we can’t afford that.” Alright, still, there are many, many ways to get your house cleaned if you don’t want to do it.

I hear clients say, “Yeah, my husband came home and he said, “Oh man, the floor really needs to be mopped.”” And they make it mean all this dramatic stuff, that he’s criticizing them, that they haven’t done a good enough job and that she should be mopping the floor. And I always say, “Well, did the floor need to be mopped?”

And they always say, “Yes, it did, but I know what he meant.” And I say, “Okay, but you could have just gone, “It sure does. Who’s going to mop it? Not me, I don’t like mopping floors. I have some ideas, there’s this girl we can hire. I could ask somebody to come and serve us in this way. We could make the kids do it. What are your ideas, honey? Because I’m with you, that floor needs mopping and I hate mopping, I’m not doing it.””

I mean, you could, I know I can hear a lot of you going, “Well, that would never work for all these reasons. “But I just want you to just put your mind into the place where we live in the most amazing world ever. And there are solutions to problems, ways to get all the things done you want to in your life. And they don’t have to cost money, and they don’t have to cost time. And you could get creative and find these ways. I’m just brainstorming right now.

My sister who lives a few miles away from me, I love to see her. And I don’t get to see her enough. So maybe I would like, “Hey, Lindsay, I’ve got an idea. How about every Monday morning you come to my house and we clean my kitchen together. And then every Friday afternoon we go to your house and we clean your kitchen together. And we drink a diet coke, whatever beverage you’re drinking these days. And we listen to some Sia because we both love Sia. And we get to have some sister time, and we get our kitchens cleaned.”

I mean, there are ways, you guys. That I just came up with that one off the top of my head. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But I’m just saying you don’t have to do it either or you don’t have to do it in the way you’ve been doing it at least. But you’re going to have to open your brain up to it. And you can just decide you’re not doing it.

Okay, number three, if you entertain that option. Well, I should say both of those things. If you’ve already done step one, you’ve tried everything you can to influence your husband and he’s not helping, or it becomes more work for you to try to influence him than it is to just do it yourself. So you decided you don’t want to do that anymore. And you’ve brainstormed all of the other solutions, there’s always Chick-fil-A for dinner and cereal.

But if you don’t like any of the other solutions, and what you decide from a clean, not resentful, not playing the martyr kind of space is that you want to be the one to do it, to own it anyway. Then these are your options. We have two options. We can do the work with resentment, and anger, and bitterness. Or we can do the work without resentment, and anger, and bitterness.

And even if it’s work that you don’t really love doing, you just might decide, listen, I can’t get him to help. I don’t want to hire it out, or recruit it out, or get creative in some other way. I’m just going to do it. Then your brain says we should be angry while we do it. And I want you to know that’s only punishing you. It’s not getting your husband to help. It’s not providing a solution. It’s just now you have to mop the floor and you have to feel angry.

So, tell me if you can relate to this. I remember having this huge aha moment years ago when we were living in California. And my husband took a job and had to move a little bit before we did. So I was basically at home with the kids pretty much living on our own. He would come back and visit a little bit, but this lasted a couple of months. And we were trying to sell the house too, of course. So we have to keep the house clean because you never know when somebody’s going to want to come and see it.

And I remember being so amazed at myself that I could do it, that I could keep up on the house, keep it all clean, and cook dinner, and take care of the kids. And I didn’t even feel as overwhelmed with it as I do sometimes when my husband’s home. Now, I was motivated to keep up on it because we were trying to show the house to sell it. But still I remember being like who am I? Why do I have so much energy? Why am I able to keep up on it so much? Why do I not feel so drugged down and heavy by it like I normally do, when I’m normally like I should clean up but I don’t really want to?

And I realized it was because my husband wasn’t there. So I never had the thought, maybe he’ll do it, maybe I could get him to do it, if only he would notice this, or why did he do it that way? He did it wrong, now I have to come back and do it the right way. My way is always the right way. I didn’t have any of that. And so the amount of energy that I had to just keep up on all the things was phenomenal.

Some of you can relate to this when you’re like, “Yeah, well, if he’s gone on a business trip then I’m not resentful, then I just do it all, and it’s not even that bad. What makes it so terrible, and hard, and heavy is that when he’s home I think that he should be helping.” So like I said before, I wish he was helping. I do think that there are a lot of people out there with some 1920 style mindsets that we might need to get to catch up with us. And your husband might be one of them. And I wish that wasn’t the case. But none of that serves you.

So, the alternative is, listen, I got me, I don’t need him to do it because I will do it, or I will find a solution. And I will get creative too and keep trying to influence him to get him to help. But in the meanwhile I’m not going to punish me. I’m not going to be like, alright Jodie, you’ve got to clean the bathroom today and you’ve got to be resentful and angry. No. Why would I want to do that to me? That makes it all so much harder and heavier.

What I want to do is empower me. You know what you are good at?  Cleaning bathrooms and I love you for cleaning that bathroom because you hate cleaning bathrooms. And you did it anyway because that’s who you are, you’re the bomb. I know we’re not supposed to say that anymore, it’s not cool, but this is how I talk to myself. So, I don’t know, again, husbands, help out at home. Wives, if you want more money you might have to go help make some money. Let’s get out of the rut we’re in of accusing one another of doing it wrong. There’s zero upside to that.

Let’s just work on our business partnership and our marriage. Let’s work on communicating better. Let’s work on owning the results that we want to see and let’s stop trying to change one another. You also don’t have to stay in that marriage by the way, you could find a different husband. And for some people, that’s the right move. But when you step into owning what you have control over, and taking full accountability for yourself, and the result you create for yourself, that is where all of your power lies, my friend.

And that is why your best friend should be there to validate you, but she shouldn’t be your life coach. You need a life coach. That’s what we do, we empower you. That’s why I have a life coach. Even though I have sisters who are life coaches, they are not my life coaches because I want them to just validate me.

I want my life coach to give me full accountability for the results I am creating in my life. And when I’m ready to hear that and I embrace that. That is when my life becomes extraordinary because I step into my full power. And I want to invite you to do the same. Alright, thanks for joining me today you guys, I love you so much. I will see you next week. Take care.

Who is your life coach? If you don’t have one I would be so honored to be your coach. I created a virtual coaching program called Be Bold that I want to invite you to join me in. We can address challenges, we can work on goals, and we can do it in so many different ways.

We have group coaching, individual private coaching, and online chats along with hundreds of hours of courses and content that I’ve created just for you. When you’re ready to really take what you’re learning on the podcast to the 10x level, then come check out Be Bold at JodyMoore.com/membership.