How to get your man to wash dishes

9th August 2007

How to get your man to wash dishes

Someone commented on this picture a while ago (picture taken in SC) that I needed to write instructions for how to get men to wash dishes.

Well I can’t give instructions, but I can say that it is NICE… and research in other countries (Australia and Japan were the ones I read about) shows that for every hour men spend helping with housework type things (not just mowing the lawn, guys), the rate of divorce goes down significantly. Of course, this is a correlation, not necessarily causal.

So, I was going to tell Topher this, but I only got to, “For every hour men spend helping with housework,” before he interrupted me with an excited, “more sex?”
Which is funny because the research showed that the fertility rate (children per couple) went up with every hour men helped too. Again, that’s a correlation. Still interesting though.

I just asked him if it would be ok to tell that little story on here, and he said it was fine, but added that probably the real reason the correlating fertility rate was higher is that guys who are more likely to help out are the family-oriented ones. I got a smart one, didn’t I?

So basically, you have to get a guy who WANTS to help by washing dishes, vacuuming, or doing laundry. And then? I think you’re good to go.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Marriage, How-To, Cleaning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On August 9th, 2007, Wendy said:

I don’t know - I think if you told your man the statistics showed more sex that could lead to him doing more dishes.

ha, you crack me up Emily.

posted on August 9th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

2 On August 9th, 2007, MrsDragon said:

Oh thank goodness, I thought you were actually going to offer “training” and I was going to have to complain! ; )

I’m a lucky one, I got a guy who cooks, cleans, and is generally very domestic. One time, when we were first dating, he was doing dishes and I had run to the bathroom. While I was gone, my roommate walked out and said “How’d she train you to do that?” I pretty much haven’t stopped hearing it since, from all different people.

It’s generally not very helpful to say “I didn’t marry a jerk.”, so I keep my mouth shut. ; )

posted on August 9th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

3 On August 10th, 2007, admin said:

Wendy, he pretty much does them all already, so I can’t really trick him into doing more. Haha.
He’s fantastic.

MrsDragon, I’m glad you’ve got a good one too! I thought about writing at the end of this post that if you’re already married to a guy who’s a pig, I guess you’re out of luck… but I didn’t think that would be quite prudent of me.

posted on August 10th, 2007 at 5:10 am

4 On August 10th, 2007, Bethany said:

I’m so glad that my hubby isn’t the only one out there! I never have to ask really if I’m tired and try to apologize he’s like ” I make the mess as much as you do. You shouldn’t have to clean it up all the time.”
It’s nice to know he’s not the only great catch out there. That means there’s still hope that there’s more and my two sisters can find one.

posted on August 10th, 2007 at 8:21 pm

5 On August 17th, 2007, On doing dishes | Joyful Abode said:

[…] Check out: How to get your man to wash dishes. […]

posted on August 17th, 2007 at 5:30 am

6 On September 8th, 2007, Amy said:

That’s cute! I have a great guy who never complains about helping around the house, however…like all people *man or woman* he can forget to get things done now and again…so I employ the “If you don’t have to work to do dishes tonight, I’m taking the night off too and won’t be cooking dinner” (since I need the pots/pans to cook anyway)method. He laughs, kisses my forward, stands up and starts the water.

posted on September 8th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

7 On August 9th, 2008, Cathy said:

I’m the stay at home mom and Jenna is the breadwinner. Therefore the lion’s share (that’s all) of washing dishes falls on my lap. I can agree with you on the point oyu make - clearly your partner/spouse has to want to do dishes. Jenna clearly isn’t in that category.

posted on August 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm