Marriage 50/50; Fair or Impossible?"

INTRODUCTION

Family is a life time project that requires a continuous efforts of both partners. There is an ever increasing family responsibilities which one partner may not be able to meet.

As children begins to come, the responsibilities increase. The partners begin to shift their attention to that of taking care of the kids as they come forth. As time go on, the responsibilities involving the husband, wife and the child or children triples and quadriples.

With the little scenario that I have portrayed above, I align myself with the title of this context as presented by the host, @ninapenda. I now go ahead to deal with the questions the host presents.

I don't believe husbands and wives should share bills, house chores, and responsibilities 50/50?

For me, even though sharing responsibilities 50/50 by husbands and wives aims to balance family responsibilities of both partners, I don't subscribe to it. By nature, the husband has his assigned duties and same with that of the wife. While the role of the husband is to provide, the role of the wife is to be supportive.

Now if family responsibilities are shared 50/50, what happens when a partner is rendered incapacitated as a result of ill-health or loss of job? When this happens, the other partner may may be unwilling or feel discouraged to continue playing his or her own role.

Looking at the current economic conditions, both the husband and wife should rather be ”supportive" to one another than sharing the responsibilities 50/50. The 50/50 formula makes it look as if the family is a company and so if one partner doesn't meet up to target, the other partner may be forced to withdraw his or her own roles.

In my opinion, “equal” does not always mean “fair” in marriage

This is because when family responsibilities are discharged on equal ground, there may be some certain male responsibilities that may be transferred to the female and there may be female responsibilities that may be transferred to the male ones. Though the partners may adopt the "equal" shearing of their responsibilities, it does not always seem “fair."

Now in my opinion, both the husband and wife should see themselves as partners in progress by supporting each other to discharge their responsibilities.

If one partner earns more money or has a busier job, should the other take on more house chores?

Now if one partner earns more money or is more busier than the other partner, it doesn't call for the other to be overloaded with more house chores. But there should be a balance between the two. A partner having job overload or work overload could be detrimental to the family as it could threaten its survival.

For me, no one should overload him or herself with job or home chores. Where there seems to be such by one partner, then the less busier partner should come in and lend his or her support to lessen that of the overloaded partner.

What are practical ways couples can balance responsibilities without feeling stressed or unfairly treated?

To balance family responsibilities without a partner feeling stressed or unfairly treated, couples should:

• Support each other to discharge their home chores

• Being supportive financially
  Nowadays, responsibilities requiring financial attention are increasing. Partners should seek ways to support themselves to earn more so as to meet this increasing financial responsibilities in the home.

• Assign some home chores to the children
  If the children has grown to the age of performing some domestic responsibilities, the parents should not hesitate to do so. Cleaning the house, washing should be assigned to the children if they are up to the age of doing so. This would relieve the partners and make them focus on other areas the children can not handle.

• Emotional support
  This also very important. The couple should as a matter of importance, help themselves and their children attain or be in a good frame of mind. Where there is peace, love, and care the family thrives well.

I now invite the following persons to participate in this contest:
@akareen
@mercybliss and
@udyliciouz