On popular psychological sites, this question is sometimes heard from the lips of men and women. I think the question is important and interesting, but I suggest you, dear readers, look at it from a different perspective. Let's look not from what we should do, but from the distribution of money and the psychological and physical contribution to the family life of both partners, assuming that the family is an integral system. If you look at finances, then from the point of view of making money there may be situations when a man works and a woman does not , the woman works and the man does not, or both work. By the word work, I mean some actions of a man or woman that generate financial income for the family. To begin with, I will repeat one idea that I often repeat in my articles: it is important that the partners agree among themselves on the distribution of responsibilities in the family, who will work and how much, and who will do something else. And on the basis of this they have already built their relationships. In fact, it is quite difficult to calculate who will do what from the point of view of even distribution of the load. For example, a man works in a company, receives a good salary, and a woman sits with the child and does household chores. Both are necessary for the normal functioning of the family. The question often arises, whose contribution is greater? By what criteria can it be calculated? My answer is subjective for each partner. For example, a family agreed that the husband works, and the wife sits with the children and does all the housework. Some time passes and one or both partners begin to feel that they are doing much more than their partners. This happens quite often. What to do? As always, the answer on the surface is to sit down and talk about it. For example, the husband begins to realize that he is investing more in the family. And he tells his wife: I’m very tired at work, I have a lot of responsibility, I have to strain a lot. It seems to me that you are sitting at home, just playing with the child, and I would like you to take on some more responsibility. To which, as a rule, the wife, very surprised and often already angry at these words, can tell about her feelings that she experiences when she takes care of the children and the house and offer something to her husband. If you look at it impartially from the outside, then what both husband and wife say, they are conditionally right. They are right in their subjective feelings and desires. And what to do in this case? First of all, it is important that each partner hears the other. And then he somehow reacted to what he said and how his partner reacted to his reality. It is important to meet these realities, become experts on them and look for options that will suit both. For example, a wife can say that she sees how hard her husband is trying, that he is tired, she is grateful to him. However, after several months of staying at home only with the children, she felt very bad, she was suffering, she wanted to realize herself not only as a mother and housewife, but as an employee. She has no contact other than her children and sometimes other mothers and children. She lacks her husband's attention and suffers from all this. And in the case when both husband and wife manage to hear the pain and wishes of the other, then there is a huge chance to find options that will suit both partners and lead to each of them feeling much better in the relationship. For example, a family will hire a nanny who will look after the children, the spouse will go to work and spend time alone with her husband more often. It is important to emphasize here that reaching agreements is an important step, but it is important to test them over time. In practice, it may turn out that the current agreements are not perfect enough. And then you just need to continue to negotiate again, look for new options. Good luck with your search, dear readers! If you can’t find options that suit your couple on your own, please contact us, Tasha and I will help you find them.