A man once joked with his friends saying “I love being a dad of 2 children, but my wife has 3”. Even though it’s a common joke that moms see their husbands as another child in the family, a surprising number of mothers actually consider their husbands to be a stress producer rather than a person who share the stress.
A survey conducted by “TODAY” studied the above theory using 7000 mothers in USA and shockingly 46% mentioned their husbands as the main reason for stress. The study also revealed that the stress level of an average woman is as high as 8.5 out of 10.
Why does this happen?
In today’s context, women does not only play the role of a mother and a wife. They play the roles of teachers, chefs, maids, nurses, event planners and problem solvers. In addition to all that, many women have their office and professional work as they contribute to strengthen the financial situation of the family.
The study pointed out that not splitting up household tasks is one of the major reasons of stress. According to the survey, above 75% of women feel that they need to do most of the household and parenting duties. In one hand as women are normally more organised than men, mothers do not fully trust their partner to take on certain responsibilities, so rather they do it all by themselves. On the other hand, as women do not normally speak for themselves, husbands assume their wife’s have everything under control.
The study also pointed out that instead of sharing duties, husbands also heavily tend to rely on their wives in day to day functions. One of the mother who participated to the survey stated “I am exhausted emotionally and physically when my husband comes home. He feels like another job”. A research team from the University of Padova supported this claim by discovering that when husbands lose their wives, their health deteriorates, but when women lose their husbands, they actually become healthier and are better at coping with stress and depression.
How to Solve This Problem?
An article by “Healthy Holistic Living” listed down several secrets that can reduce the stress levels and bring partners in a marriage closer together. Some of the key problems that you need to address and how to address each problem is listed below.
1. Communication
Whenever there is a problem or a situation that needs a solution, you should talk through with your partner. Talking directly without judging each other can bring out amazing results in a relationship.
Women should openly talk with their husbands on how they feel about everything and let them know how they contribute to make things better than it is. Men should also pay more attention on their wives physical, mental and emotional wellbeing by maintaining a healthy communication with each other.
2. Husbands should step us
Rather than assuming that their wife have everything under control and waiting for her to speak up if she needs support, husbands should step up and show their interest to contribute in household work.
Husbands should voluntarily take up responsibilities such as organizing play dates, doctor appointments, and homework duties. Having a shared calendar to split up the children’s work such as drop offs and pickups would make the life of their wives much easier.
3. Wives should Step Back
As mentioned before, most of the time mothers do not trust their husbands with the parenting duties. Sometimes, even though husbands want to take charge of certain duties related to children, mothers do not let them due to their lack of confidence in their partner.
If mothers want to overcome their high level of stress, they should allow their husbands to take certain duties off their shoulders. Mothers have fantastic visions for their children and they usually expect everything to be executed exactly the same way they want. But sometimes it is important to resist that temptation and take their time to recharge themselves while trusting husbands to handle their part of parenting duties in their own way.
Always remember that “The greatest marriages are built on teamwork. A mutual respect, a healthy dose of admiration, and a never-ending portion of love and grace”