When your husband doesn’t help with housework, it’s important to understand how it might impact you.

Sometimes his refusal to do housework is a sign of emotional abuse. To discover if he’s using any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free abuse quiz.

Transcript: When Your Husband Doesn’t Help With Housework

Anne: It’s just me today. I’m going to talk about what happens when your husband doesn’t help with the housework. When he fails to help with household responsibilities, it forces you to shoulder a heavy burden alone. The situation feels overwhelming. Before we dive into solutions, we need to discuss why this problem happens so often. We’ll examine societal norms, historical dynamics, and personal beliefs. So let’s get into it.

Historically, many cultures have perpetuated the idea that housework is “women’s work.” And this notion is rooted in the systemic exploitation of women throughout time. This belief persists often unexamined, allowing unequal dynamics to thrive in households. Misogyny, whether overt or subtle, plays a role in enabling the unequal distribution of labor this is a powerful truth about emotional abuse.

Women do about 70% of the world’s work. Unfair systems have exploited women since the beginning of time, so society teaches men to expect women to handle most housework and family responsibilities. If your husband avoids chores, remember this goes beyond cleaning—it’s about fairness.

When I grew up in my faith, people said household tasks held divine importance. They claimed these tasks were special and that women who did them were lucky. I disagree. Someone needs to do the laundry. The dishes need to be washed. Someone needs to buy the groceries. Someone needs to make the meals. These tasks are not special.

The Importance Of Shared Responsibilities

Anne: If someone avoids housework, problems pile up. Your house becomes a disaster. Nobody feeds anyone. Nobody stocks the fridge with food. This work matters, but anyone can do it. I mean, you’ve seen 9 to 5 or Mad Men. The women worked hard at the office, but the men claimed all the credit and earned the bulk of the pay. And THEN women handled all the chores once they got home.

When we discuss an imbalance of labor, we must address issues of power and privilege. Many men who resist housework often exploit their partners by placing the burden of domestic responsibilities solely on them, failing to acknowledge their exploitative privilege and unequal division of labor within the household. Abusive men often believe that asking them to contribute equally in a relationship or help around the house attacks their identity as men.

All marriages must prioritize safety. But being pro-safety doesn’t oppose marriage. Marriage exists to create a safe and equal partnership.

When I educate others about these imbalances and encourage women to advocate for equality in their homes, men with exploitative privilege often push back. They claim discussions about equality attack families or go against Christianity. From my Christian perspective, I see this conversation as aligning with my values, because Christ taught love and equality. The scriptures never condone exploiting women or expecting them to handle all the housework alone.

Christian Perspective On Equality

Anne: In the scripture where Christ talks about Mary and Martha, He says Mary chose the better part. She didn’t do household work; she focused on desk work, like writing or thinking. The New Testament highlights the fruits of the spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness. Both men and women must embody these values in their homes and marriages.

When your husband doesn’t help with housework, it’s not a matter of biblical roles or faith. In fact biblical submission often becomes abuse. It’s simply about power and control, because inequality thrives when one group benefits at the expense of another. And while some misuse scripture to justify this power imbalance, Jesus himself modeled a different way. He rejected exploitation and dominance, teaching that true leadership and love come through service.

So if your husband claims to follow Christ, his actions should reflect a man who strives to live out his faith, as a Christian. He would not just serve in grand gestures or in public. But he would help with laundry, clean the kitchen, and pick up without complaining or prompting. Jesus himself demonstrated servant leadership, washing his disciples’ feet. In today’s world, it’s comparable to everyday tasks like wiping down countertops or cleaning the bathroom.

Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” – Revelation 3:20. His nature is invitation and partnership, not control. Similarly, a godly marriage, a biblical marriage, if you will – one that God would endorse – should reflect this spirit of cooperation and mutual care. When your husband doesn’t help with housework, it’s not just leaving chores undone.

He’s missing an opportunity to embody Christ-like love in a relationship. If you’ve tried to have a conversation or multiple conversations about this power imbalance or this imbalance of labor, and it hasn’t gotten you anywhere, he probably resists because of his refusal to give up this exploitative privilege. So when any woman asks, what do I do when my husband doesn’t help with the housework? She’s asking a deeper question.

When Your Husband Doesn’t Help With Housework: Coverture Laws & Women’s Rights

Anne: Why do some men not share household duties? In the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, why did Jacob have to work for seven years to be with Leah, and then another seven years to marry Rachel? The answer is not in the Bible. I don’t know why they took this out. But it’s because he purchased them from their father. He was working to buy them. It took him seven years to earn enough money to buy Leah, and then seven more years to buy Rachel. When they married, Rachel and Leah became his property.

Since the beginning of time, until the late 1800s, men have owned women in marriage. It was essentially a form of slavery in Western society, including European countries and eventually the United States. Coverture was a legal practice that gave husbands almost complete power over their wives.

These laws essentially stated that women had no legal status. She gave up her identity, and her husband completely absorbed her. It meant she had no independent legal rights and was subject to her husband’s control.

Coverture Wrongs

Anne: She didn’t even have a right to her own earnings, and any property she previously had was now her husband’s. In addition, any children they had were his. If they divorced, he would automatically get custody. She would never have custody of her children. Under coverture laws, women didn’t have the right to property, money or children, but also their own body. So it was legal for a husband to rape his wife.

Coverture laws also prevented a woman from suing or executing a will without her husband’s consent. One of the most alarming aspects of coverture laws was the power it gave men to control their wives’ lives, including the ability to commit them in a mental institution for literally any reason or no reason at all. During the 19th century, husbands institutionalized countless women against their will.

Often, the excuse was simply that she had challenged male authority or disagreed with her husband. You can read about this in a book called The Woman They Could Not Silence. It’s about Elizabeth Packard, and it’s on our books page. These laws stripped women of legal autonomy, allowing their husbands to label them hysterical or unfit with absolutely no evidence. It not only silenced women, but also perpetrated a system of oppression that denied them basic rights and freedoms.

Feminists have been around throughout history. Women thinkers in the 1800’s or the 1700’s wrote a lot of the stuff I’m teaching you today. Women documented information, and then men destroyed their writings. Since the internet didn’t exist back then, the writings aren’t in history books or integrated into society. Today, we build on the hard work of the amazing women who came before us.

Dismantling Marriage Coverture Laws

Anne: I want to talk about when coverture laws were dismantled, because I think you’ll be surprised how long it took. It wasn’t until 1839 that Mississippi became the first state to begin dismantling coverture laws, but they didn’t dismantle all of them.

New York passed the married women’s property act in 1848. Married women then had the right to own and control property in their own names, but their husband still jointly owned it, of course. In 1860, women in New York gained the right to joint custody of their children, in addition to the right to sue and be sued. The Homestead Act passed in 1862, which allowed women to own property without their husband’s permission.

The Women’s Bureau was established by the US Department of Labor in 1920, which improved the working conditions and opportunities of wage earning for women in the United States. This included their ability to collect their own wages. Also in 1920, Keezer’s Law of Marriage and Divorce stated that mothers should be preferred as custodians of their children.

Since the late 1960s, children have often been regarded as property rather than individuals. And I talk about that in several episodes about parental alienation. So if you want to learn more, just search parental alienation on my website. Discover more about the challenges mothers face when their voices and experiences are not believed. This will shock all of you.

Modern Legal Advances For Women’s Rights

Anne: It wasn’t until the 1960s that women could open their own bank accounts. We all owe the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, passed in 1974, which made it illegal for banks to discriminate against lending based on gender or marital status for the first time. So if you’re my age, your mom would not have been able to get a credit card in her name until 1974.

It’s shocking to think that marital rape remained legal until 1991. The case involved a man convicted of raping his wife, but appealed on the basis that a husband could not be convicted of raping his wife because of the marriage contract. This ruling highlighted how entrenched male dominance was even within marriage.

It’s just part of this entrenched thought process. So when your husband doesn’t help with housework, it reflects a cultural legacy of the exploitation of women. Advancements in women’s rights have always been driven by law, because historical evidence shows that without legal changes, many men are not willing to give up their exploitative privilege. While some good men throughout history, and there are probably quite a few of them, treated their wives well, helped around the house, and were equals to their wives. But enough resisted.

Laws are needed to enforce women’s rights. It’s interesting to me that the misogynists have decided to use the Bible now to enforce the exploitation of women, now that they don’t have the law to back them up.

The Lingering Impact Of Patriarchal Structures

Anne: Even though the original purpose of marriage was to grant men ownership of women, and that legacy lingers in our cultural DNA, marriage should now be seen as a partnership. This is why fundamentalism and patriarchy fuel abuse. So why do all these laws matter when your husband won’t help with housework? It’s because for centuries, marriage was built on the idea that women exist to serve men physically, emotionally and sexually.

The mindset has steeped even into the most mundane aspects of daily life, like who does the dishes or who folds the laundry. When your husband doesn’t help with housework, it might feel like a small thing on the surface, but it’s deeply tied to this historical imbalance. The expectation that women should shoulder the burden of domestic labor without complaint is a direct result of centuries of male exploitation in marriage.

Even today, many men think of housework as “helping” their wife. Like they help their wife by vacuuming, or help their wife by doing childcare. This type of language reflects the lingering idea that domestic labor is inherently a woman’s role. So even though these patriarchal structures may have been legally dismantled, their impact remains.

During biblical times, men had exploitative privilege. That lens shaped the interpretations of Christ’s teachings. The way they wrote about it 3,000 years ago continues to influence the everyday struggles of women today. So this exploitative mindset that has historically permeated marriage is the belief that power is only real when it involves controlling someone else. So a king, for instance, would not be a powerful king without subjects to rule.

If he had no subjects, he would have to do it himself. He’d have to go out and plant, grow, pick the wheat, turn it into flour, drag it to the market and sit there and sell it. But what if he didn’t know how to do any of that? What if the only thing he knew how to do was boss people around. He’s not very powerful because if the people stopped doing it, he is completely powerless. If he’s not able to exploit people, he has no power at all, because he’s just pointless.

True Power & Self-Sufficiency

Anne: True power, on the other hand, stems from your individual ability to bring things to pass. The ability to sustain oneself without relying on the subjugation of others. That is true power.

True power comes from your ability. For example. to pick your own wheat, because then you’ll always be fine. If the person working for you just gives up and quits one day, you’re not wondering what will I do now? Because you know how to pick your own wheat.

If your husband doesn’t help with housework, or believes that housework is someone else’s job, it echoes that power over dynamic. Deception keeps that power over dynamic going. So a man might say, I have to work so I can’t do the dishes. Here’s an example. My ex-husband worked from home. He would say, “Don’t interrupt me while I’m working. I can’t help with the kids, the dishes, or the laundry.”

So I wouldn’t interrupt him, but then I would find out that he watched YouTube all day. He lied to me so that he didn’t have to do domestic labor.

Women Aren’t Naturally “Better” At Housework

Anne: Leaving housework undone is tied to this power over mindset, because ignoring shared responsibilities sends a message that one partner’s time and energy or priorities are more important than the others. So when it comes to equality, it doesn’t mean splitting everything 50/50 down the middle necessarily. But it does mean acknowledging and valuing each partner’s unique talents, strengths, interests and weaknesses.

And being able to talk about those in a very real way, without relying on rigid stereotypes. For instance, a husband with a talent for cooking might take charge of the kitchen and grocery shopping. Meanwhile, his wife prefers yard work or home remodeling or other hands-on projects. That’s what brings her joy. Or perhaps she’s the CFO at a hospital or a banker, and he’s a plumber or librarian.

The specifics don’t matter. What matters is that each partner embraces their own natural gifts and interests, the gifts God gave them, and they work together as a team. A partnership doesn’t have room for outdated gender thinking. Like I don’t clean toilets, because men don’t clean toilets. Or a woman says I don’t mow lawns, because that’s men’s work. It needs to be based on their individual talents.

Intentional Discussions About Dividing Responsibilities

Anne: Many couples don’t have these types of intentional discussions about dividing responsibilities. In the few dates I’ve been on, I’ve had to say, I don’t enjoy cooking. I’m not going to cook. I just need to get it out there. Can you imagine a man going on a date and saying, hey, just a warning, I don’t enjoy cooking? I don’t think any man would ever feel like he had to say that.

Have you ever had a conversation like this in your marriage? I’m not a fan of cooking, but it seems like you enjoy it. Would you be willing to take the lead in the kitchen? And have him actually take the lead and plan meals. Or, I love working in the garden. I’d rather mow the lawn than cook. Since neither of us enjoys cleaning the toilet, should we consider taking turns, or would it be better to hire someone? Like an actual discussion about it?

Those types of conversations would allow a partnership. But saying I don’t like doing this, so you have to do it because you’re a woman? That’s crazy town. Rigid traditional gender roles, often perpetuated from the pulpit, undermine God’s intention for each of our unique strengths and talents. I mean, we’ve all been commanded not to hide our light under a bushel. So if a woman excels at math and feels called to pursue a career as an engineer, and she doesn’t do that, wouldn’t she be hiding her light under a bushel?

Think about the scripture where God gives some people the gift of prophecy, and others the gift of teaching or sharing His word with others. Nowhere does the scripture say He gave prophecy and evangelism to men, and to women, he gave the task of making sandwiches. That’s not in the scriptures anywhere. If you genuinely love making sandwiches, fantastic. But it was not based on gender.

In fact, all the scriptures talk about men. Because women were slaves during that time. I mean, you can either say it applies to everyone. Or that their husbands should own women, like they were 3,000 years ago. You have to think about the context.

Rigid Gender Roles & Mental Load

Anne: It’s also worth noting how these rigid gender roles shift the full mental load, the emotional labor of everything onto the wives. I mean, no amount of can you do this or please take care of that will magically transform him into an ideal partner. If you still have to remind him or ask him, and he still views it as helping you, that’s where the problem lies.

It’s important to determine if he’s just not educated about this type of misogyny and needs education. Or if he uses this exploitative privilege to his advantage on purpose. Which would amount to emotional and psychological abuse and exploitation.

Even if you don’t label it abuse, you’re allowed to say this isn’t for me. This is not the partnership I was looking for. I mean, many women feel stuck because they don’t want to label it abuse, but they also don’t like it. Or maybe even a therapist, a book, or a pastor will be like, it’s not that bad. You need to communicate better. But you’ve already tried to communicate these concerns, and it’s gotten you nowhere.

Why are you not helping with housework? Can we work together? You may want to consider that he knows this and is doing it on purpose. And this is emotional and psychological abuse.

Figure Out The Real Reason He Won’t Help With Housework In The Living Free Workshop

Anne: I created The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop for you to determine what type of character he actually has. Has he adopted these historical misogynistic ideas, and doesn’t want to let go of them? Does he enjoy his exploitative privilege and not want to give up the things he gets from that privilege? The Living Free Workshop takes women through determining what his true character is, and then learning what to do next.

Because this may be an emotional, and psychological abuse issue. It’s not just refusing to help with housework. If he deceives you to maintain power, if he has affairs, if he uses porn, and lies to you about it. If he’s not willing to do his part around the house, if he tries to convince you that God said you had to do laundry.

Because I think, unfortunately, the unequal division of labor has been normalized in so many relationships, institutions and religions. It makes it hard to see how damaging this is when your husband won’t do housework. We all have brain fog shaped by years of taking on too much, which makes it difficult sometimes to recognize these power imbalances.

Although Jesus taught us to serve, and serving is awesome, he wanted us to be equally yoked. The only case in which he says it’s okay to be unequally yoked is with him. Where he pulls more of the weight, not less. He asks us to separate ourselves from wickedness repeatedly throughout the scriptures.

So when it comes to wickedness, which is when we get exploited by someone who wants to use us, he says separate yourself from that. He doesn’t want people to be exploited. Refusing to do housework is a form of exploitation. Because it leaves you with less time, energy, or mental space to work on your own goals to get an education to have a job.

Reproductive Coercion & Neglect

Anne: One particularly insidious form of abuse is reproductive coercion. He might also dismiss your needs as a mother or pressure you to have more children. Or prioritize his desires over your physical and emotional recovery after childbirth. This neglect of your wellbeing sends a clear message: your needs are secondary, even when your body and mind cry out for support.

So many women I’ve talked to have only realized the full extent of this imbalance of power after they’re away from it. They looked back and thought, holy cow, I didn’t realize I went through that same thing. After I separated, I realized I was managing everything. He didn’t do any of the things I thought he was good at, or that I was grateful he did without me managing it. So it was me, I was grateful for myself.

Societal & Cultural Messages That Normalize Husband’s Not Participting In Housework

Anne: In a society where women can feel trapped by these societal and cultural messages that tell you that you’re only valuable if you serve in a domestic way, God gave you specific talents and interests for a reason. And it might be laundry. But consider that women are praised for their sacrifice. And men are praised for their achievements. This comes from 5,000 years of misogyny, which we are still dealing with today.

So if you’re wondering, why won’t he help with housework? It may be as simple as educating him about historical misogyny and the DNA of when marriage was essentially slavery. Or it might mean he’s emotionally and psychologically abusive. So the next step would be determining what’s really going on.

To get more information about what’s going on, go to The Betrayal Trauma Living Free Workshop. That will teach you how to observe what he’s doing. Learn if he’s the type of person you can actually talk to about this, and it will make a difference. Or if he’s going to weaponize that against you.