Firstly, the study found that women shouldering more of the housework were also likely to perceive that dynamic as unfair—and that feeling of unfairness in the relationship was part of what was leading to lower desire for their partner.
This is important, the researchers note in the paper, because it refutes the argument that women take on more domestic tasks because they want to or because they simply enjoy caregiving. While that might be true for some, this study found women in imbalanced partnerships were actually often resentful of the situation. And it’s pretty hard to be turned on by someone you kinda resent.
Secondly, the researchers found that women dealing with an imbalance at home were more likely to feel like their partner was dependent on them. That feeling—that is, feeling like your man relies on you to take care of him and perform basic life tasks for him—was the other factor associated with lower sexual desire.
As Harris and the team point out in the paper, doing someone’s laundry, cooking for them, cleaning up after them, and planning their social calendar are tasks people typically perform for children. So, when a woman has to perform these tasks for her husband with no real reciprocity or recognition, the relationship “more closely mirrors that of a mother and a child.”
Unsurprisingly, that’s not very sexy.
“The inequitable proportion of household labor may contribute to a burdensome blurring of mother and partner roles, whereby partners are perceived as recipients of caregiving, akin to dependent children,” they write. “As a result, women may experience lower desire for partners who are perceived in dependent-like ways.”
There’s a common joke married women make where, when asked how many kids they have, they include their husband in the count. That dynamic is often laughed at and accepted as the norm between men and women, but as this study shows, it comes with direct consequences for a couple’s sex life. It’s very hard to be sexually attracted to someone who you feel like you need to mother.
