When couples in New Jersey do not share household chores equally, they might be more likely to get a divorce. Harvard Business School studied 3,000 couples and found that 25 percent of the ones who split up did so because of fights over housework. According to a 2017 study, even when women work full time, they still do a majority of the housework.
Couples who are able to hire a cleaning service and other types of help are more likely to stay together. In addition to eliminating arguments about who does those particular chores, it also gives families more time together. The National Academy of Sciences found that that spending an extra $100-$200 per month for these types of tasks tends to make people happier. Unfortunately, this type of expenditure is not feasible for many couples.
However, what is more important is how couples fight. They need to be able to express their needs to one another. Therefore, in some cases, a divorce may not be over housework specifically but over the fact that one person is not responding to the needs of the other.
If couples do decide to divorce, whether because of arguments over chores or for some other reason, they might want to consider negotiating an agreement for property division and child custody instead of going to court. While this may seem difficult considering an inability to reach an agreement is what may have led to the divorce, there are approaches such as collaborative divorce that focus on helping couples resolve conflict in a divorce. There can be several advantages to a divorce negotiation including less time and money spent on the process and more control over the outcome. If a case goes to litigation, both people may be unhappy with some of the judge’s decisions but have little recourse.