The Chore Is Not the Point
Why the everyday work of life can bring two men closer
Nobody falls in love because a man knows which night the recycling goes out. At least, I hope not. But give two people enough years together, and suddenly the recycling, the grocery list, the dentist appointments, and the mysterious question of who keeps buying paper towels become part of the relationship.
We tend to think of love as the romantic stuff. The long conversations. The kiss before bed. The way he reaches for your hand without thinking. And those things matter. But there is another side to love that rarely makes it onto an anniversary card: the ordinary work of keeping a life going.
A recent study in the Journal of Marriage and Family looked at more than 3,400 people in same-sex and different-sex relationships. The researchers found that people who felt more satisfied with how housework was divided also reported greater relationship and sexual satisfaction. What caught my attention was that how fair the arrangement felt was more closely associated with those outcomes than the hours recorded in time diaries.
That does not mean the hours are irrelevant. It means a relationship is not an accounting department. Two people can divide tasks exactly in half and still feel unsupported. Another couple can have a very uneven split and both feel perfectly comfortable with it because the arrangement makes sense to them.
After more than fifty years with Al, I would never suggest that every couple should organize a household the same way. I would suggest something simpler: both partners ought to feel that they are on the same team.
Sometimes teamwork looks like cooking dinner together. Sometimes it looks like one man cooking while the other takes care of a hundred things nobody sees. It may mean one partner handles the finances and the other handles the social calendar. The question is not whether your arrangement would win a fairness contest on television. The question is whether it works for the two people actually living in it.
And those arrangements need to change. A new job, an illness, a move, a parent who needs help, or retirement can turn yesterday's perfectly sensible division of responsibilities into today's exhausting routine. What worked when you were both forty may not work when you are seventy. Neither of you has to be the villain for that to be true.
I particularly want gay male couples to give themselves permission to invent their own version of partnership. We did not grow up with many models of two men building a life together. That can be a disadvantage, but it can also be an invitation. We do not have to inherit a set of rules about what a husband is supposed to do. We get to decide what being partners means in our home.
Here is a little exercise. Set aside fifteen minutes, preferably when neither of you is already irritated about the dishes. Each of you answers three questions: What part of our everyday life feels easy and supportive? What responsibility has become heavier than it used to be? What is one small thing we could do differently this week?
Listen to the answers without immediately defending your job description. You are not negotiating a union contract. You are finding out what life feels like to the man beside you.
Then pick one experiment. Switch one task for a week. Do something together that one of you usually handles alone. Simplify a routine. Pay for help if you can. Or simply agree that the person who cooks does not also have to clean the kitchen. Revolutionary, I know.
The goal is not perfect equality. It is a sense of shared responsibility, mutual generosity, and enough flexibility to let the relationship grow with the lives you are living.
And there is something surprisingly intimate about that. When your partner knows he does not have to carry the whole invisible load alone, he has a little more room for affection, laughter, and the pleasures that brought you together in the first place.
Love is not a scoreboard. It is two people looking at the life in front of them and saying, 'How shall we do this together?'
Research note: Smith, Bradbury & Karney (2026), Journal of Marriage and Family. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.70073
Be Well
Dr. Steve May, PhD | www.drstevemay.com
Dr. Steve May, PhD | Psychologist, Author, Speaker, and Relationship Educator
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Making Love Last...Longer November 17, 2026 Visit my website and sign up for newsletter to keep up to date
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