Joshua Coleman offers these tips for getting your spouse to help out more with the house and family:

¢ “Try to have these discussions when you’re feeling calm or affectionate, and not in the middle of a fight,” he suggests.

¢ Start the discussion on a positive note. “I wonder if we could talk about getting me some help with whatever.” (Conversations end the way they begin, Coleman said. “If you start off telling your husband he’s a lazy jerk and he’s not doing anything, the conversation is going to end with him telling you you’re not so great either.”)

¢ Appeal to his sense of fair play. “This assumes that your partner has a sense of fair play and cares enough about you to be motivated by such a principle,” Coleman notes.

¢ Suggest that changing his behavior will benefit him in some way, such as getting a happier wife or giving his wife more time to get other things done.

¢ Consider eliminating some chores around the house or encouraging kids to do more chores.

¢ Be willing to negotiate standards. “On average, how a house looks is more important to women than it is to men,” he said. “The households that seem to work best are those where women lower their standards and where men raise theirs.”

¢ Communicate and work together. “Any wife who wants to have her husband share in the responsibility of their home needs to assert herself, communicate clearly with her husband and work with him to create a united, planned approach to getting chores done,” Coleman says.