Well, maybe not that last one. If toilet cleaning doesn’t quite fit into your list of beloved romantic activities, you’re not alone. And you feel pretty much the same way about taking out the trash, folding laundry, and vacuuming. Relationship buzz-kills, every last one. For its Modern Love and Household Responsibilities survey, Yelp asked 2,000 Americans with partners (split evenly between men and women) how chores affect their relationships—and more specifically, which chores they look forward to the least. It turns out people’s lists of tedious household duties put serious strain on their relationships. If given the opportunity, many people admitted they’d go to great, hypothetical lengths to avoid doing chores altogether. But is this really a surprise? Not only are these maintenance musts unpleasant on a one-time basis, they require constant doing and collectively take up a lot of time. According to the survey: “The average chore-doing respondent can spend up to 690 hours a year on housework. This comes out to a little over 13 hours per week. With respondents estimating their time to be worth (on average) about $64 per hour, those who do their own chores are spending over $44,000 worth of their own time on housework, per year.” Per the survey, 80 percent of chore-doing respondents said they have disagreements about housework—and of that group, one-fifth say the disagreements happen frequently. More specifically, couples seem to be most at odds other over details like: when to do housework (53 percent), how to do it (50 percent), who should do it (48 percent), whether or not to hire a professional (39 percent), and how good of a job their cleaning pro is doing, if hired (32 percent). And it’s no wonder couples keep bickering over domestic tasks, since 61 percent say they often have to clean again after their partner did. So, which chores do people hate the most? Here are the worst offenders:
- Washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen.
- Cleaning the bathroom (including the sink, toilet, and shower).
- Sweeping and vacuuming.
- Cooking meals and grocery shopping. People seem to loathe these quotidian responsibilities so much that, when polled by Yelp, many said they’d be willing to sacrifice some surprising things to sidestep them for good. Over a third said they’d give up alcohol and a fifth said they’d give up sex forever—yes, forever—if it meant they’d never have to slog through chores again. All this is likely why Yelp apparently saw a spike in Americans outsourcing their cleaning. And of the couples who’ve gone this route, nearly two-thirds think it has helped their relationship, 47 percent claim it’s offered them more time in the day, and 42 percent say it’s relieved some stress (it gives them one less thing to argue over). If spending money is the main factor hindering your decision to outsource housework, consider that potential $44,000 worth of time and energy you’re spending doing it yourself.