How to Get Your Spouse to Pitch in When You Work From Home

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When one person works from home and the other person works outside the home, it seems that the one who works from home is also expected to do all of the housework. This is not fair to the person working from home, because if their work-from-home business is full-time and thriving, they can find themselves working more hours than the spouse who is able to separate his or her home life from their job. Here are some tips to get your spouse to pitch in when you work from home.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Step1

Go on strike for a week. Do nothing but your work-at-home business and let all of the household duties pile up. Sometimes this is the only way to get your significant other to see just how much you do between phone calls and business tasks.

Step2

Write a list. Make a list of everything you do during the day to keep the home in order. Separate your list into two parts, which includes things that you are capable of doing in the course of your day, and things that you have a hard time getting done.

Step3

Ask you spouse to take on one of these tasks at a time. For example, if putting in a load of laundry during the day is not problem for you, but folding that laundry is impossible, start him off with folding the laundry after dinner. Once he is in the habit of doing that, consider asking him to help with another task that you can't seem to get done during the day.

Step4

Trade household chores. If taking out the garbage is your spouse's chore, but it is not a difficult task for you to do, do it yourself, so that you are leaving them more time to get the laundry folded. You have to be flexible, as you are asking them to be.

Step5

Show them how much money you are losing or stand to lose by having to spend so much time on household chores. It might even help to take a week off from work (at a time when it won't hurt your business) so they can see that your not working makes a big difference financially for the family. If they insist that they don't have time to help around the house, then it is time to hire someone to do housework. In short, they have to pitch in physically or financially.