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" When Alicia Traverse decided to go back to work part time after five happy years of being a graduate student and a stay-at-home mom to 6-year-old Jake, 4-year-old Madalyn and 1-year-old Jared, she knew it would be a big change. But Alicia and her husband, Jeremy, both 31, also knew it was the right decision for their family and for her career as a special-education provider. &amp;quot;I thought I&amp;#039;d feel guilty when I went back to work,&amp;quot; Alicia says, &amp;quot;but once I started, I saw how much I needed it for myself.&amp;quot;   But the couple, high school sweethearts who have been married for six years, underestimated how much the new setup would affect their household -- and their relationship. Alicia feels that, in addition to working 20 hours a week, she&amp;#039;s still shouldering her full load of responsibilities at home -- everything from paying the monthly bills to shuttling Madalyn to dance class. Meanwhile, Jeremy regularly puts in 10-hour days (including a one-hour commute each way) as a middle-school teacher and works in construction during his off-time in the summer.   In short, both are feeling overworked and underappreciated. &amp;quot;I feel he doesn&amp;#039;t understand how much I&amp;#039;m doing,&amp;quot; Alicia says. &amp;quot;He should know that if I&amp;#039;m asking him for help, it&amp;#039;s because I&amp;#039;m at my limit.&amp;quot; Jeremy, for his part, feels that Alicia underestimates his contributions to the household; he takes care of all home improvements, as well as their cars. &amp;quot;It frustrates me when she says I don&amp;#039;t do anything around the house,&amp;quot; he says. As a result, Alicia admits, &amp;quot;We often fight about who does more and who has more stress.&amp;quot; And considering that next year Alicia hopes to be working full time, the problem will likely get worse. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m looking ahead, and I don&amp;#039;t see my situation at home changing,&amp;quot; Alicia says. &amp;quot;Something has to give.&amp;quot;   Clinging to Old Ways Before going back to work, Alicia ran the household. &amp;quot;I was in charge of everything,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;That gave me worth.&amp;quot; Now she&amp;#039;s finding it hard to give Jeremy control of tasks like bill paying because, she says, &amp;quot;I think he&amp;#039;ll do it wrong.&amp;quot; As a result, Jeremy is hesitant to step in. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always told Alicia that I&amp;#039;ll help,&amp;quot; Jeremy says, &amp;quot;but I don&amp;#039;t want to come in and change what she does.&amp;quot;    An Old Routine for a New Life Because he works longer hours, Jeremy is simply unavailable to take on certain tasks. Jeremy leaves for work at 7am, when the kids are just getting up, so Alicia is responsible for getting everyone fed, dressed and out the door -- including helping a neighbor&amp;#039;s daughter get ready for school and on the bus each day -- before she dashes off to work. And while Jeremy quit coaching the boys&amp;#039; volleyball team at his school when Alicia got her job, he&amp;#039;s still rarely home before 5:30 or 6pm -- which is too late to help get the kids&amp;#039; dinner ready. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re definitely in a routine, and we like to stick to it,&amp;quot; Alicia admits, but adds, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just not feasible for me to wait until Jeremy gets home to start making them dinner. They&amp;#039;re too little to wait so long.&amp;quot;    Competitive Mind-Sets With two hectic work schedules, Alicia and Jeremy have fallen into a one-upping game of &amp;quot;my day was busier than yours&amp;quot; that causes resentment in both of them. &amp;quot;I get angry at Jeremy when I try to tell him what&amp;#039;s bothering me, and he automatically compares it to himself,&amp;quot; Alicia says. &amp;quot;Sometimes I need it to be just about me.&amp;quot; Jeremy, in turn, gets upset because he thinks that if Alicia isn&amp;#039;t happy, that&amp;#039;s a negative reflection on him and the job he&amp;#039;s doing as a husband and father. &amp;quot;I clean, I pick up after the kids, I vacuum,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Sometimes I feel like she just doesn&amp;#039;t appreciate what I do.&amp;quot; But he admits that when he feels stressed out from work, he&amp;#039;s likely to complain to Alicia about the house not being clean instead of talking about what&amp;#039;s really bothering him. &amp;quot;I guess I&amp;#039;m used to the fact that Alicia takes care of these things,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s been a tough transition.&amp;quot;  When both partners in a marriage have such full plates, it&amp;#039;s not uncommon for each person to get caught up in his or her own stress, says Jane Greer, Ph.D., a marriage therapist in New York and author of Gridlock: Finding the Courage to Move on in Love, Work, and Life. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s important is making an emotional connection and sharing the stress together. Instead of making it about one versus the other, Alicia and Jeremy should take a joint approach.&amp;quot;    Divide and Conquer To ease Alicia&amp;#039;s burden, Greer recommends the pair sit down and divvy up the household tasks according to who likes to do what (or, perhaps more appropriately, who hates a task the least). The key is to define a set of jobs that always belong to Jeremy, rather than having him just randomly &amp;quot;help out&amp;quot; here and there. For example, while Jeremy might not get home in time to make the kids&amp;#039; dinner, he could take over bath and bedtime duty.   Alicia can turn tasks over to Jeremy more confidently if she eases into it. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t just hand it off and say, &amp;#039;Lots of luck,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Greer advises. With the bills, there&amp;#039;s no reason for Alicia to fear that Jeremy &amp;quot;won&amp;#039;t do it right&amp;quot; if she describes her approach and explains how she&amp;#039;d like him to share the responsibility; similarly, there&amp;#039;s no reason for Jeremy to feel that he&amp;#039;s going to do something &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; if he&amp;#039;s open to learning the system that&amp;#039;s worked for them.   Ultimately, though, Alicia needs to let Jeremy take full responsibility for his tasks. If she truly wants him to pitch in, she has to let go of the idea that there&amp;#039;s only one &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; way to do something. Alicia should remind herself that Jeremy&amp;#039;s way of doing things isn&amp;#039;t wrong -- it&amp;#039;s just different. &amp;quot;The key is that things get done, even if it&amp;#039;s not necessarily exactly how she would do them,&amp;quot; Greer says. If Jeremy does make real mistakes -- say he takes over the laundry and it all comes out pink -- Alicia should try to offer helpful suggestions instead of criticism. &amp;quot;Instead of being negative, she can be supportive,&amp;quot; Greer says.   Reprioritize Busy two-career couples have to accept that &amp;quot;this is a stage of life where you can&amp;#039;t do all things all the time,&amp;quot; Greer says. So another goal for Alicia and Jeremy is to decide what&amp;#039;s really important to both of them. &amp;quot;You have to pick and choose what gets done,&amp;quot; Greer says, &amp;quot;and that needs to be what makes each of you feel calm, relaxed and free from anxiety.&amp;quot;   Some to-do&amp;#039;s may fall by the wayside, but as long as Alicia and Jeremy agree on what gets left behind versus what&amp;#039;s crucial to each of them, they&amp;#039;ll both have less stress. The two easily identified an area where they can adjust their expectations: cleaning. &amp;quot;When I stayed home, I always liked the house to be picked up when Jeremy walked through the door,&amp;quot; Alicia says. &amp;quot;Now, we&amp;#039;ve both come to the conclusion that if the house is &amp;#039;kidified&amp;#039; and there are toys on the floor, it&amp;#039;s okay.&amp;quot;    Stop Competing -- and Start Commiserating &amp;quot;Alicia and Jeremy are both overloaded with tasks and responsibilities, and each needs the opportunity to vent and have the other person respond with understanding,&amp;quot; Greer says. &amp;quot;Sometimes you just want to say, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;ve got to hear what I did today,&amp;#039; and have your partner reply, &amp;#039;Wow. How do you do it?&amp;#039;&amp;quot;   With their current tit-for-tat mind-set, Alicia and Jeremy &amp;quot;are missing the chance to really appreciate all that each has to do,&amp;quot; Greer says. In order to move beyond their arguments, Greer recommends that they carve out five or 10 minutes of downtime every evening to say to each other, &amp;quot;Let me tell you about my day,&amp;quot; and have the other listen and respond with empathy -- not one-upmanship. When talking, Alicia and Jeremy should use phrases like, &amp;quot;Boy, that must be hard; I know how much you do.&amp;quot; By reconnecting in this way, Alicia and Jeremy will not only fight less, but they&amp;#039;ll also make their marriage stronger, day after busy day.  Who does more around the house? No surprise, it&amp;#039;s usually Mom. But things are looking up. Check out these statistics.   Fathers in dual-income households now spend 42 minutes more per day on household chores than in 1977. (Hey, it&amp;#039;s progress.) Working women spend about an hour more per day than working men on chores and caring for kids and other members of their household. Couples with kids spend an hour more per day with their children than they did 25 years ago (and less time on themselves).   Want a marriage makeover? Tell us about your biggest married-life challenge. Click here for more info. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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