Husband Creates Daily Schedule For His Wife To Help Her ‘Become A Better Wife’
The list consisted of all the chores that she was expected to complete.
fizkes | Shutterstock A husband has received an influx of criticism and backlash after a list of tasks that he made his wife has started circulating around social media.
The list prompted a content creator named Shawnda to not only point out the discrepancies in the list the unnamed husband wrote for his wife but also point out that this kind of dynamic is incredibly unhealthy but seemingly common in many heterosexual relationships.
A husband created a daily schedule for his wife to help her 'become a better wife.'
A screenshot of the list shows that the anonymous husband provided an in-depth list for his wife, Lisa. On it, she was expected to wake up at 5 a.m. every morning to provide breakfast for him, which he requested included eggs, bacon, toast, and freshly brewed coffee. He insisted that the breakfast needed to be ready at 5:30 a.m. sharp.
Once she was done serving him breakfast, he wanted his wife to go to the gym for exactly an hour, writing on the list that she was to "keep in shape, no excuses." If that wasn't bad enough, once she was home from the gym, he expected her to spend the next two hours cleaning the entire house from top to bottom. He gave her an extensive list of the exact chores that he wanted done, which included vacuuming, laundry, and mopping the floors.
The husband's list was focused exclusively on chores and labor he didn't want to do himself.
Apparently, Lisa's husband had enough energy to write the list but refused to put that same energy into doing some of those chores himself, considering they're in a marriage and not a dictatorship, but I digress.
The rest of the list was Lisa being expected to make lunch, prepare dinner, be available for drinks if her husband and his friends wanted to go out, ensure that there was a quiet house by 9:30 p.m., and she was even told to be in bed by a certain time as well.
In Shawnda's video, she pointed out that this husband wasn't talking about his wife being understanding, a good listener, or caring for him, but rather, he just wanted somebody to do the chores that he was too lazy to do himself.
And apparently, the only thing a wife is to him is a maid to clean up and cater to his needs.
"When you leverage your chores in exchange for a wedding ring, all you'll get is a man willing to make a mule out of you," Shawnda said. "There is no wedding ring big enough, there is no amount of bills paid that would make me wanna sign up for this."
Wives in heterosexual relationships are often expected to take up the traditional role of doing household chores.
While this isn't the case for every marriage dynamic between a husband and wife, it's definitely an outdated expectation that exists in too many relationships. Even as their contributions to family incomes have grown in recent years, women in opposite-sex marriages are still doing more housework and caregiving than men, a report from the Pew Research Center has found.
Moreover, in 2023, a majority of people believe society still values men's contributions at work more than their contributions at home, according to the report, which was based on three different national surveys. Twenty-nine percent of marriages were found to be "egalitarian," meaning husbands and wives were each contributing roughly half of the couple's combined earnings.
However, in these "egalitarian marriages," wives were still spending more than double the amount of time on housework than their husbands (4.6 hours per week for women vs. 1.9 hours per week for men) and almost two hours more per week on caregiving, including tending to children.
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There is no reality under the sun where a husband demanding that his wife make all of his meals, go to the gym, and be in bed by a certain time is considered remotely respectful or the meaning of a loving marriage and partnership.
Because at the end of the day, that's what a marriage is supposed to be — two people agreeing to share their lives with each other.
It doesn't mean that women shouldn't become stay-at-home mothers because if that's a choice they're making for themselves, it means something different than it being forced upon them. But husbands should never make their wives feel as if they're in servitude to them; that's not a marriage, but rather control.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.