The wife and I have been going through a little bit of a rough patch lately. For about the past eight years. Mostly because I feel like I do a ton of work around the house while she insists I don’t do anything.* Seriously, I cook (duh), clean, vacuum, do laundry, fold laundry, make the bed, mop, dust, dry the shower, treat the septic, and grocery shop. There’s probably more but I’m going off the top of my head here. And anyhow, I’m pretty sure that’s more than most guys would even admit to anyway even if they did do all of that.

All in all, I’d say I’m a good little housewife. Hell, I usually don’t even have to be told to do any of this stuff!

And that’s not counting all the work I do outside the house, like mow, seed, caulk, wash cars, take out the trash, caulk, go to the dump, kill moles, shoot squirrels, caulk, rake leaves, shovel rocks, deforest, and all the other fun shit that makes us guys. The problem, in my wife’s view anyway, is that I don’t do nearly as much work with the kids as she does. And I don’t do toilets. But it’s mostly the kids.

To me, it’s obvious. It’s called division of labor. But no matter how much work you do, I guess it doesn’t count as long as you’re not always there to help her out when she wants you to be. The funny thing is, it’s not like I never help with the kids. She works late a lot and goes on travel every now and then, so who do you think’s home with the kids then? I think the biggest problem is that by the time she’s putting the boys to bed, I’m usually on the couch with my bourbon, so then I just look like I’m a lazyass while she’s still doing work. But that’s just an illusion.

In my wife’s defense, her strongest argument is that she’s the only one who gets up with the kids in the middle of the night. No argument here. Even though I believe kids — babies, especially — prefer, need, and grow attached to their mother more than their father (a no-brainer if they’re breast-fed, which both of mine were), my argument has never been that it’s a “mother’s job” to take point here; I’m just too damned old to get out of bed! You haven’t seen bitchy until you’ve seen me with less than six hours sleep. Seriously, when my wife told me she wanted a second child, I almost had her sign a contract saying she’d be the one getting up at night with him. Hell, we had a de facto handshake agreement as it was, and I’m pretty sure her response was, “How’s that any different than last time?”

Touché.

Look, even though I do all the housework I already mentioned, I’m still not saying she doesn’t do it, too. She does. Certainly just as much as I do (inside, anyhow) and more in some cases. But for her to say I don’t do anything would be equivalent to me saying she doesn’t either, which would be just plain silly. After all, it’s not like I give her crap for never mowing the lawn or blowing leaves off the roof. Honestly, I think the real issue is that most chicks seriously don’t consider yardwork to be “real work” if they’re not the ones doing it.

I’m the first to admit I’m not perfect, and it’s never been hard for me to go into jackass mode if I think I’m getting a raw deal. But relationships are a two-way street; it’s rarely just one person’s fault if someone’s not happy about something. I honestly think this type of thing is inevitable when you have kids and you both work. You never have time for yourself, much less each other, and you’re always stressed about your work, personal life, or most likely both.

That said, I’m way too quick to get frustrated, which I need to work on, but it’s not like you can just choke your spouse when you get into an argument. (Well unless you’re a woman, but we won’t get into that here.) I have to admit, half the reason I’m writing this in the first place is because I want to see if my wife ever reads this blog. But I’m equally interested in sharing some of my incomparable wisdom for all you guys who find yourself in the same predicament I do. So if you just can’t win, here are some tips for getting out of doing some of the work around the house you probably don’t get credit for anyway.

1. Get a housekeeper. You may not have the financial means to pull this off, but if you do, try something like this: “Honey, I hate seeing you work so hard around here. I’m trying to do what I can, but why don’t we get a little help?”

2. Make a ton of dough. No, don’t become a baker. If you make enough money, your wife can afford to stay home. If she chooses to, of course. (Hey, feminists might like chili, too!) Plus, you’ll be able to buy her all the cars and jewelry she can handle, so she probably won’t mind getting up to fix your lunch in the morning or driving the kids to school.

Or, at the very least, this would allow you to implement Option #1.

3. Don’t cook on a regular basis. I love to cook. I cooked for my roommates in college and when I first met my wife, I tried to impress her by cooking for her parents. Sadly it worked, so now my life is over. Juuust kidding. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I spoiled the hell out of her by doing almost all the cooking for the first half-dozen years we were together.

Nowadays all we eat is chicken nuggets or pasta, or basically anything you can boil or microwave in fifteen minutes to feed the kids before they have a meltdown. So my wife has assumed the primary cooking duties, mostly because I’m always outside working in the god-awful excuse for a yard we inherited when we bought a 50-year-old house last year. So you know what that means: “You never cook anymore!”

If you have the luxury of being at the beginning of a relationship, do yourself a favor: work late every night or eat out five nights a week.

4. Never write a cookbook. This is where I really screwed myself. You kinda scream “I’m the cook of the house!” when you nail your hobby down in hard copy, so naturally you’re just asking for it once you relinquish the cooking duties.

5. Ruin her clothes. Thankfully blouses are expensive. You only have to wash silk with a red tablecloth a couple times before she tells you not to touch her clothes ever again. Recently I had the luxury of having a bent lint trap in the dryer. It failed to fit snugly into its reservoir, causing one of the corners to become a veritable magnet for bras. It would twist them like a wrung dish cloth, shredding the straps. I now enjoy having to worry only about bath towels.

6. Break the mop. You’re strong! Especially if you habitually eat T-Rev’s Stiff Willi Chili! But even if you haven’t seen a weight room in a while, tough guy, most of us will still break a Swiffer accidentally just by trying to work a stubborn scuff mark out of the linoleum. Do it once more intentionally and you’ll probably be asked not to bother anymore while being thanked for your effort.

7. Get an additional job. These days you’re lucky if you can find a job, much less more than one, but it’s hard to argue with people who just want to make more money. Especially if you sell it as a way to save up to take your better half on a well-deserved vacation at the end of the year. Whatever you decide, you can’t do chores if you’re not at home. As long as you’re not sitting at a bar while your wife’s taking care of the house, you should be good to go.

8. Learn to make a bitchin’ frozen margarita. This is very easy if you don’t know how. Just look over there on the right sidebar where you see a photo of my cookbook cover. Sign up for my mailing list to download a FREE version of 50 Ways to Impress Your Girlfriend’s Parents. The recipe’s on p. 78. Whip up these bad boys a few times a week and your girl might just forget about all your slackass behavior (her words, not mine), or at the very least have enough of a buzz not to care. Just be careful, though; you could be walking the dangerous line of violating Rule #3 if you don’t keep at it.

9. Okay, that’s about all I can think of at the moment. So I guess this is really more of a Top 8 list after all. Whatevs. People like Top 10 lists more anyway so we’ll just stick with that for the title. Hey … my blog, my rules!

* I love my wife dearly and couldn’t imagine my life without her. Most days.