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Over on the Marriage Bed forum, there was a discussion of “chore play” – the idea that a man can get more sex by doing chores. One fellow cleverly called it tat for tit.
Most men who have tried this approach find it doesn’t work. They do more work around home, but there is no increase in sex.
The problem is we don’t understand her situation. All of us have to have some minimum level of our needs being met in order for us to want and enjoy sex. For most men, that line is significantly lower than it is for most women. This is primarily because our drive is so much stronger. The fact we have a need for release is also a factor. Additionally, we men are given permission to want and enjoy sex, whereas many women have not been give such permission.
Doing more around the house should get your wife closer to the minimum level of needs being met necessary for her to desire sex. But close won’t change anything if she’s still below the line. So vacuuming the living room carpet won’t make her tear off her clothes and beg to be taken on that nice clean floor. But if it takes her over the line, she might be open to a romp in the bedroom.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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I have read about choreplay and it seems to affect women differently. Some like it and it gets them over the line as you say. But some it does the opposite and makes their man seem a bit less manly.
We tried something similar for a while, I liked it, wife not so much. I would do nearly all housework, laundry etc each week for sex on a Friday evening. I would have continued, but wife said she felt like she was taking advantage of me doing so much for a few minutes of pleasure. I told her it needed doing anyway and if I got something out of it, I was good with it. She didnt’ want to do it anymore, no more Friday evening sex either.
I love the picture by the way!
I suspect this is one of those things where it won’t get you over the line so to speak. But… if you don’t participate in household tasks, it will definitely prevent you from getting over the line.
Sharing household tasks is something we expect of platonic roommates. Therefore, there isn’t much sexy to it.
But… it’s NOT sexy to live with a lazy slob.
I think that in some cases, it might work if the line held still. What I mean is, if the things she has in mind that need doing right now were enough to get her past that line, it might work for my wife, except that when those things are done, they are immediately replaced by more. It’s rather like trying to kill the hydra. I may cut off a few heads but each is replaced by two more. I literally don’t have enough time or energy to get her across the line this way, assuming that there is eventually an end to the list. I know because I have tried for years to help her complete her list so we can actually relax together and I have never even seen the end.
I do think she appreciates the help and she believes it would help her be more in the mood. I also agree with @Tony that she doesn’t appreciate a lazy slob. I also know this because of her frustrated reaction when I stop and sit down to take a break. If there are things to be done and I stop, she sees a lazy slob. She hasn’t exactly said those words but her reaction says it loud and clear. I have managed to mitigate this with the kids so that they can relax without her reacting, maybe to an extreme, but that doesn’t apply to me…or to her.
I tag that lady on because she isn’t actually a sadistic slave driver, it applies to her as well. She cannot sit and relax for more than a few minutes at a time unless she is actively on a phone call or something that requires her full attention (yes, I know that isn’t really relaxing).
I know where this is coming from, even though I haven’t found a way to help her. Her mother kept and still keeps a spotless house in spite of kids and now grandkids coming and going. She also worked full time until a few years ago. How she does it, I have never learned but it taught my wife that anything short of a spotless house is something that must be remedied and stopping to relax is something you do only on vacation and even then…
Except that her parents live in a relatively new house and did so in a different house while raising their children. We only lived in such a house for about a year before we had to move for my job and every other house has been old with the dust and problems that eventually become an apparently permanent feature over the years. Even in a new house, I don’t know how my MiL is able to keep her house so painfully clean but we have NEVER been able to bring any house we have lived in close to that kind of clean, including the one relatively new one (three small children in a sandy/dusty area… we couldn’t keep ahead of their mess).
If we were independently wealthy, perhaps we could hire someone (or perhaps several) to help us catch up and keep caught up. As it is, I think our best hope is to hang on until the kids all move out and then trade for a smaller, newer house. Then maybe we can catch up.
Clean but slightly lived in will never do. Her mom’s house usually looks like a demo model that rarely sees people and is thoroughly cleaned by a full cleaning crew a couple of times a week. I actually struggle to fully relax there because I feel like I might mess it up just by being there. Frankly, I’m not sure if I want to live like that but I don’t think my wife will ever really get past “that line” until our house reaches that level. I kinda wish I could afford an extra house to keep show ready that my wife can live in and relax while the kids and I can live without feeling like we can’t stay still or move without messing up the fengshui or something.
We have talked about this a few times. My wife doesn’t want to be like that. She wishes she could just relax in a house that is a “normal” level of clean and tidy with active kids. It seems to be part of her subconscious that won’t quit.
Actually, it reminds me of my own struggle to boot pornography, come to think of it. It seemed for most of my life that I simply didn’t have a choice. Everyone said I did but my experience said otherwise. I would try to willpower my way away from it and it would work for a while but there always came a point where I seemed to cease being capable of choosing. It was as though I became someone else entirely who simply didn’t care about the consequences or the fact that I never wanted to do that again until I would “wake up,” for want if a better term, in my pig sty horrified at what I had done again.
It required that determination plus a whole lot of outside help both from the Lord and several key people holding me accountable with a lot of knowledge about what I was fighting that I hadn’t possessed before. Even then, it was a long uphill battle.
If her compulsion to have a spotless house is like that for her, I don’t know if there is any help for us. A big part of my breaking free was my own determination to do so, my willingness to go through a lot of unpleasantness, and submit to the oversight of others who would hold me accountable. I don’t see her being willing to do that to break free from this. This needs thinking and especially praying about.
Wow that was long. Sorry for the long rabbit trails.