One Warwick wife went on national TV to get her family to help with chores. What does it take to get couples to share the housework equally?

03/05/2006 01:00 AM EST

BY LAURA MEADE KIRK
Journal Staff Writer

Susan Heiss was so fed up with her husband not helping around the house that she signed on with the reality television show Wife Swap to give him a reality check.

For two weeks last fall, Susan traded her place as wife and mother in a spoiled family and cushy home in Warwick with that of a hippie wife in Virginia, who lived in a ramshackle house where cleaning chemicals weren't allowed and the family's meals consisted of scraps plucked out of dumpsters.

Meanwhile, the mom from Virginia moved into the Heiss's house and was clearly distressed to find that Susan's husband and three teenage children expected her to work like a slave, spending her days cooking, cleaning and catering to each of them.

The swap had the effect Susan desired: By the end of the show, Susan's husband and kids finally realized how much she did for each of them -- and how little they did in return. When she came home, her husband did something about it.

"It's a miracle," Susan said. "I tell you, the guy's a changed man."

Edward Heiss agrees, saying he now does chores he wouldn't have dreamed of -- such as grocery shopping. "I never thought I'd see myself going to Shaw's or Dave's or Stop and Shop with a list walking up and down the aisles with a carriage like a housewife."

WHILE FEW WOMEN -- OR MEN -- would resort to appearing on national television to get their spouses more involved in housework and child rearing, it's clearly an issue that affects many relationships.

Nearly two-thirds of all women would like men to do more, especially when it comes to cooking and cleaning, according to a recent survey by shopzilla.com.

The survey found that 68 percent of women respondents said they were primarily responsible for the housework in their home, while only 9 percent of men said they were the primary homemakers. In addition, 69 percent of women said they were primarily responsible for cooking meals in their households, as compared with 22 percent of men. It also found that more than half of the men questioned -- 55 percent -- were satisfied with the balance of house-related duties. But only 34 percent of women were satisfied.

That's no surprise to Josh Coleman, author of the book The Lazy Husband: How To Get Men To Do More Parenting and Housework.

"In truth, women do do more," Coleman said, during a recent interview. "And most men either don't see it or don't realize it or don't value it."

Some guys still believe in the old stereotypes -- that housework and childcare are still a woman's responsibility and they have all kinds of excuses for not helping out, Coleman said. He even has names for them:

The "boy-husband" who is needy and pretends to be incompetent around the house.

The "perfectionist husband" who wants the house and kids to look perfect, but doesn't want to do the work himself.

The "status seeker husband," who puts his career before his family and spends little time at home.

The "I get no respect husband," who doesn't want to look weak so he makes excuses and avoids helping out because he believes his wife won't respect him if he does more housework and parenting.

Others have no idea that their wives are doing so much, Coleman said. But the reality, he said, is that "their wives are typically doing much more than their mothers did."

Consider how radically motherhood has changed in the last 30 or 40 years, Coleman said. "When I was a kid, I could leave the house at 9 or 10 (a.m.), get on my bike, come home at 6 (p.m.), and if I told my mom where I was, she didn't worry."

But today, mothers have "much more responsibility" when it comes to keeping their kids safe and engaged with friends and activities, he said.

And it's even tougher on women who work outside the house, Coleman said. "Men don't appreciate working moms -- they don't appreciate the amount of guilt and worry they feel" as they try to juggle work while keeping house and raising a family.

On the other hand, he said, more men are helping out than ever before -- especially those in their 20s, who probably do more than those in any other age group. "Most guys feel, "Gee, I'm doing so much more than my dad ever did, and even than my guy friends do, so why doesn't she just see that and give me a break?'," Coleman said.

But it's still not enough, he said. One recent study showed that women spend an average of 11 more hours a week on housework than men.

SCOTT HALTZMAN, a Brown University professor and marriage therapist who recently published a book called Secrets of a Happily Married Man, agrees that women tend to do more. But on the flip side, he said, "I think women underestimate what men do."

First, most men have a longer commute and put in more hours at work than women do so they don't have as much time to work around the home, Haltzman said. And, he contends, most men would willingly give up the responsibility of being the prime bread-winner in the family. "But until our wives tell us we don't have to worry so much about paying for college and making the mortgage, we're going to take on those roles."

In addition, he said, much of what men do in and around the home is taken for granted. For example, he said, "If on the way in, I happen to notice that the fender is off the kids' bicycle, I might fix it. I might pump up the kids' tires with air, or the kids' basketballs with air, but she might not notice these things that I do because they're not on her list. But we're recognizing these need to get done and we take care of it."

And, he added, "In my 17 years of practice, I've never once had a husband tell me that he sent his wife downstairs when they heard a sound in the middle of the night."

The same stereotypes also apply to women, Coleman noted. "In general, if someone comes over to the house and the house is a mess, they're not going to say, 'This guy is a slacker.' We still pin it on the woman. The same with if little Johnny shows up with torn jeans and peanut butter on his pants -- 'What was mom thinking?' There's still a lot of prejudice that women should be responsible for the house and kids.The women have more pressure."

THAT SAID, HALTZMAN BELIEVES men are pitching in considerably more. "Almost every young husband that walks into my office will tell me he's involved with helping to change diapers for his children. And that's something his father never did. Guys are much more involved in taking their kids to sporting events, after-school activities."And women are much more comfortable demanding that their husbands play a role in the household.

That's not to say it will always be a 50-50 division, Haltzman said. Both he and Coleman say most households are too complicated for that.

But a division that both sides agree is fair can be worked out. Recently, The Journal asked couples who are happy with the division of chores at their house to share their methods with us, and some of their stories can be found on projo.com/lifebeat/content/.

Fairness is the key, Coleman said. He notes in his book that women who do an unfair amount of housework and parenting are more likely to get divorced and to suffer from depression and anxiety.

When men help out, the children are happier and their wives are happier. In fact, he says, a marital researcher found that women are more interested in having sex when they're married to men who are more willing to do housework.

Coleman said he believes the happier the couple is with their relationship, the more likely they are to share chores. "In those households where men feel liked or appreciated by their wives or their partners, they tend to do more housework. It isn't because housework is important to them. It's because they know it's important to their wife or their girlfriend and they want to make them happy."

THAT'S WHAT HAS HAPPENED with Susan and Edward Heiss -- after a nudge from Wife Swap.

During their 24 years of marriage, Susan has always done it all -- the cooking, cleaning, the child rearing, the errands, the entertaining. "He really did nothing -- nothing. He wouldn't even take the garbage out," she said. "He's a good guy. He's a good provider. He was just always very set in his ways."

Ed admits it. "My philosophy is: my wife doesn't work, so I expect her to do all these things, to keep me healthy (and) raise the kids."

He considered himself a "traditionalist" with a "traditional, typical, stereotype marriage -- from an Italian point of view." He had no clue, he said, anything was wrong with that view.

Then they got a call from the casting director of Wife Swap, who'd previously approached the couple about appearing on a reality show about neighbors, which never got off the ground. The director told the Heisses they would be perfect for Wife Swap, which involves having two women who come from decidedly different backgrounds and economic and emotional settings switch places for two weeks. For the first week, the wife must play by the host family's rules. During the second week, the host family has to adapt to the new wife's rules. Participating families get $20,000 -- if they survive the two weeks.

Susan decided it could be the perfect wake-up call for her family. "I'd had enough," she said. She was ready "to go to the extreme."

Ed said he agreed to go along, figuring it would be "a fun game." Instead, "it really opened up my eyes."

Susan left to spend two weeks in Virginia, where she played wife and mother to a 24-year-old guy and his 12-year-old son who wore skirts, begged for hand-outs for food and sold handmade trinkets to make money to pay the bills.

Meanwhile, Sienna, the 34-year-old mom who came to live with the Heisses, complained bitterly about the extravagant and wasteful lifestyle they lived and that Ed treated her like a slave. At one point he called out to her repeatedly from his hot tub: "Sienna! Get me a beer!" while she desperately tried to keep pace in the kitchen, cooking for him and his friends.

During her second week, she turned the tables on Ed, making him wear a skirt and help out with the cooking, cleaning and kids.

"It really, really opened up my eyes," Ed Heiss said. One scene that didn't make it on the show, he said, was when his daughter came up to him and said: "See, Daddy, see how you take advantage of Mommy?" That, he said, "made me cry."

Since the show, Susan Heiss said, "things certainly have changed for the better. My husband is a little hard-headed, but that show straightened him right out. I knew it would, once my husband started seeing it from the other side. The only way that a husband truly knows what a wife does, whether she works, stays at home, whatever, is to be put in her shoes for a week. It will cure them."

Today, Ed Heiss proudly reports, he helps with everything: each morning, he makes the coffee, unloads the dishwasher, cares for the family's three dogs and makes sure everything is tidy when Susan comes down. He takes out the trash, wipes down the shower, and sets and clears the table. "I'm embarrassed," he said. "I don't want to go on and on -- people will think I'm gay."

Susan Heiss reports: "This is the best part of all: he's been going grocery shopping -- with a list. He's been twice this week. I'm really, really proud of him, that someone so set in his ways could make a change like that."

And for the record, Ed Heiss has kept his skirt: "I'll probably wear it in the summer, just for laughs."

Susan Heiss said people are still talking to her about her family's appearance on Wife Swap. A lot of women told her: "Oh my God, your husband is the spitting image of my husband" or "I made my husband watch that."

And that's a good thing, Susan says. "I swear by this show. You want results? You go on a show like this. If Ed can transform into a helpful husband, there's hope for other women out there."

Lazy Husband excuses

Excuses of the lazy husband, taken from the book, The Lazy Husband by Joshua Coleman:

I earn more than you and therefore shouldn't have to do anything when I get home.

I'm too tired to help.

I don't know how.

I contribute in other ways. I shouldn't have to do this, too.

Tips on winning him over

Joshua Coleman, author of The Lazy Husband, offers these tips for getting your spouse to help out more around the house and with the 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 principal," 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 encourage 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 is one where women lower their standards and when 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.

lkirk@projo.com / (401) 277-7379