How To Deal With A Lazy Wife – 8 Tips To Get Her To Be More Active
Medically Reviewed By Lisa Childers, LCSWIt can be worrisome when you have a lazy wife who doesn't seem to have any motivation. Learning how to deal with a lazy wife partially depends on the situation. There is a chance that your wife could be going through some personal problems that you will need to help her with. For instance, she might be depressed, and this is causing her to withdraw from the world. If you don't think that anything is wrong with her, then it might be that she truly is in a slump and is being rather lazy.
Take a look at the following eight tips that can help you to get your lazy wife to be more active. These are practical suggestions that should help to motivate her. Some of them might work for your situation while others won't be as good for you personally. Read through them all and decide which ones will help you to get her off of the couch and to feel better about herself.
- Talk To Her
The first step to figuring things out is going to be to talk to her about what is going on. There might be a reason that she has been acting so lazy as of late. Was your wife always this way in the past? If not, then what changed to make her feel more lethargic than usual? Try to ask her what is wrong without accusing her of being lazy. You could say you notice that she hasn't had a lot of energy lately and that you want to help.
You might determine that she has a medical problem. Some people do have issues with chronic fatigue for medical reasons. If the issues are purely motivational, then you can try to help her get out of this rut over time. Acknowledging that something is wrong is fine, but you do want to navigate the topic carefully. You don't want to make your wife feel bad or treat her like she is a lesser person due to her current lack of motivation. If you want her to snap back to normal, then you need to be there for her.
- Lead By Example
How can you expect your wife to get up and take care of things if you aren't doing so yourself? Remember that it isn't a woman's responsibility to take care of all of the household chores. Ideally, these are things that should be divided up by the two of you. Even if she doesn't work, it can still be useful for you to do your fair share at home. Leading by example is going to show her what she should be doing.
Try to be mindful of taking care of chores. You could even institute some system that everyone in the house can get used to. Some people immediately take care of rinsing dishes after they have had a meal, for instance. After this, they can easily be placed in the dishwasher. Figuring out what works for you and hopefully, your wife will be motivated to start helping out a bit more.
- Start Exercising Together
Exercising together is something that can help your wife to get back into the groove. She might not know where to begin with a new exercise routine, but it's something that you can figure out together. Many types of exercises will work well for someone who isn't in great shape. You could walk around the neighborhood for thirty minutes per day - some couples like getting into exercises such as yoga or kickboxing classes.
There are things that you could do together at home that will provide lots of exercise for your wife. Completing some squats, sit-ups, and calisthenic exercises each day will be helpful. Find a routine that works for you and try to commit to exercising at least three times per week. Exercising more often is better, but anything is good to start with. Your wife will both mentally and physically benefit from exercising more often.
- Ask For Help Around The House
Don't hesitate to ask for help around the house if you need it. You could let her know that you don't have time to do the laundry due to having to go to work. If she could do that for you, then you'd appreciate it. Hearing something like this is going to make her more likely to get up to do it. She has the motivation to do this task. You're counting on her, and you appreciate the time that she is taking to do it.
Approaching chores like this can be a good motivational tactic. Eventually, your wife might start helping around the house more because it feels natural. Try to distribute the chores evenly so that it doesn't begin to feel like her burden to bear all by herself.
- Be Supportive
When people are struggling with motivational issues, it can be tough for them to get out of that slump. You might want her to get better and start acting like her old self again. It's normal to want this, but it isn't realistic to think that she will be incredibly active as soon as you make one change. It is likely going to take time for her to build up her physical fitness and her motivation levels. Your support during this time will mean the world, so try to be there for her.
If you notice that she is making progress, then you should praise her. Tell her when you see her working hard and appreciate the dedication that she is showing. This will motivate her to continue on this journey, and you can be happy that she is starting to move away from the lazy wife persona that she had fallen into.
- Make Her Feel Beautiful
How often do you compliment your wife? Do you go to great lengths to make sure that she feels loved and appreciated? You might want to try to make her feel beautiful so that she will feel better about herself and the situation. Some women get a bit complacent after having kids or gaining weight due to age. This can make a woman feel less sexy than she used to be, and she might even think that you don't desire her any longer.
This likely isn't true, and you should show your wife just how much you care. Compliment her and give her lots of affection. Be sincere with your feelings while still being mindful of the fact that she needs a confidence boost. Your attitude and complacency could be part of why she has felt so lazy and low-energy as of late. Making some changes to how you are interacting could help to motivate her to be more active and start engaging with you again.
- Work On Your Sex Life
It's no secret that having a healthy sex life can lead to a happier marriage. How is this related to getting her to be more active, though? Well, it ties into the tip above somewhat. You know that increasing her self-esteem can help her to become more motivated in life. Sex can be a big confidence booster as well, and it can even give you both a bit of exercise.
Try to carve out some time to be intimate together multiple times per week. If you want to make sex more rigorous so that you can burn some calories, then you can try to engage your core and make use of more complex sexual positions. This might seem tough at first, but as you practice, you're going to get better and better. Sex is one of the best things in life, and it can help you to motivate your wife to be more active as well. Even if this isn't the silver bullet solution to the problem at hand, it can be helpful.
- Consider Taking Up A Physical Hobby Together
A final tip that is going to be very good for many couples is to consider taking up a physical hobby together. You know that your wife needs some exercise, and she needs the motivation to get out of the slump that she has been in. You can find a way to get some exercise together that is also going to be a fun hobby. For some couples, a hobby such as hiking is going to be a perfect way to reconnect.
Even if hiking isn't your cup of tea, there are many other good physical hobbies to consider. You could play tennis together or learn a martial art. Just try to discuss the possibilities and find something that would be enjoyable for you as a couple. If you put some effort into your search, then you're bound to find a good fit. This could lead to better physical fitness for you both, and it will also help you to strengthen your marital bond.
You Might Need Online Couples Counseling
If nothing else seems to be working, then you might be worried that nothing will ever change. At this point, it's going to be worthwhile to enlist the help of online couples' counselors. They can work with you to determine what is wrong. Your wife might have some personal issues to work through, and there may also be problems with your relationship that need to be addressed. Taking the time to work on things with dedicated counselors can help you to get your marriage back where it needs to be.
Issues like this can be mentally taxing on both of you, but you can get to a better place. Having counselors that talk to makes a difference, and you can reach out at any time. If you need a convenient way to get couples therapy, then online counseling is the best fit for you. It's very discreet, and it's also quite affordable. Make contact today if you would like to start working on solving your marriage problems.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
What To Do If You Have A Lazy Wife?
The word lazy is a negative phrase. If your wife is acting unmotivated, there could be many reasons for this. If you’re a loving husband, it’s important not to judge your wife because there could be a reason that it seems like she’s not active. Perhaps she works full-time, or she’s at home with the kids working 24 hours a day? However, this isn’t a sign of laziness. When you call your wife names, it doesn’t make it better, and if you use passive aggressive jabs to make her feel bad about not being active, that also doesn’t work and is not productive. When you get home from work, you’re probably exhausted, and that is understandable. But, you don’t need to act out on your wife because chances are, she’s also tired.
It’s difficult when you come home from work. Particularly if you have children, it can be challenging to work full-time jobs and maintain a marriage and a family. One thing that you can do if you’re dealing with a “lazy wife” is to talk to each other about what’s going on. Marriage is a full time job. You need to communicate with your partner. When you ask your partner multiple times to help, and they seem to be ignoring you, that’s frustrating. Maybe there is resentment happening. Maintaining a family is hard work, and the person who stays at home with the children is working as well. You may be thinking my wife is so lazy, but that’s not correct. It’s difficult to be doing the household chores and taking care of the kids full time.
It’s important to be a good role model for your kids. That means being active and taking care of the home, whether you are the husband or wife. Household duties, putting away toys and clothes, dealing with tantrums, cooking, and cleaning, possibly caring for pets, all take a lot of energy. There are probably days you wanted to give your partner a break but felt exhausted yourself. There are so many different roles that you have to take on when you are staying home with your children as a full-time stay at home parent. It can become a 24-hour job when you are breastfeeding or pumping milk or when babies don’t sleep through the night, or if you are caring for a child with special needs or chronic illness. Just because you stay at home doesn’t mean you don’t work.
In fact, stay at home parents work 24 hours a day. Perhaps your wife is also working her way through school or certification and has assignments or research to complete in addition to caring for the children. Bottom line: if your wife is cooking healthy meals and being a role model and doesn’t give you the attention that you want because she is focused on cooking and cleaning and then when you get home, she wants you to set the table, that’s not laziness; that’s asking for help or delegating tasks to get things done more efficiently. So, when you get home, it may look like your wife’s submission to laziness is real, but if you’re a loving husband, you need to understand that being cruel and making her feel put down because she’s having trouble getting things accomplished doesn’t work.
Marriage is a long term commitment. You want to invest the emotional energy into making it work. One thing that you can do is go to marriage counseling and talk about these issues with a couples’ counselor. Both of you may feel hurt, but what the other partner is doing or not doing. You may not know what it feels like to stay at home with kids all day, or you may not be doing the cooking and cleaning or grocery shopping. Likewise, she may not understand what it is like to be in your shoes, and a licensed professional can help you to communicate your respective points of view and come to an understanding about what your partnership could look like. Going to marriage counseling can help you and your wife talk about these issues. It’s a long term solution that helps both partners.
Gender roles are societally constructed. Society tells us that it’s a man’s job to work full-time and then come home, and his wife makes him food and takes care of him, the home, and the children. What isn’t talked about is the fact that your wife could be dealing with chronic pain in addition to all the responsibilities she has with the children. She feels the weight of that. While you’re managing other things, she is too. There are situations in which maybe it’s the dad who is a stay at home parent, and that could be you. Maybe your wife is working full-time, and you feel like when she comes home, she’s acting “lazy,” and you feel hurt because you’re putting all your energy into being there for the children and raising them while she’s at work. You may feel like there isn’t any sexual desire between you two because there’s so much resentment built up.
These are real life issues, and this is where couples’ counseling can help. It’s time to take your relationship into your hands and make it better. Dealing with a lazy wife or husband is exhausting. You want them to do more, but they won’t.
How Do You Know You Have A Bad Wife?
Marriages are subjective, and each person needs to feel comfortable in the connection. Dealing with a lazy or unmotivated wife can cause resentment in the marriage. The long term goal is to develop healthy communication and trust. If you feel like you’re not being appreciated and your wife is cruel to you, then that could be a sign that something in the relationship needs to change. You simply can’t be in a relationship where your significant other is abusing you, whether that’s verbally, physically, sexually, or financially.
There are some situations in which a partner will take control of the bank account and finances and not let the other person have any ability to have access to money. A partner who is a bad partner is somebody who is deliberately hurting their significant other. It’s not so much that there is such a thing as a “bad wife” as that there is a relationship where two people don’t get along. If you feel like you can’t take it anymore and you’re not the best friends you used to be, then that could be a sign that you might need to move on from the marriage. There are steps to dealing with that process, and a therapist can help. To clarify, it goes beyond cooking and cleaning or who stays at home or who doesn’t. It’s about understanding if the connection works.
What Is A Lazy Woman?
“Lazy” can get confused with being overwhelmed. Remember, there are many steps to dealing with marital problems. Don’t assume you can fix you might think you are dealing with a lazy woman if she gets home from her full-time job, school, or other responsibilities, such as caring for elderly family members, etc., and she wants to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. In reality, she is effectively at work full time, and when she’s home from work, she wants to be on the couch watching tv because she needs that time to decompress. That is not somebody who is lazy. It’s hard to work full time. No matter if you’re working from home or at the office. Full time employment is taxing on the mind and the body. It’s not lazy to want to relax. It’s that she needs time to clear her head.
It is important to remember that lazy is a negative term. Whether you stay at home with the kids or go to work, everyone is doing their part to contribute to the household. If you see that your wife isn’t doing as much work as you feel you are, then you need to say something. But don’t use the word “lazy.” A better term than lazy is unmotivated. If you’re dealing with someone who is unmotivated, it means that you value different notions of “work,” but they are not participating in being an equal partner in the relationship. When you’re trying to get your partner to carry their weight in the household, it could feel like a full time job. In this case, one person is doing more of the work that contributes in one form or another to the family than the other.
If you’re dealing with a lazy person, that means that they don’t feel like they need to do as much of the work in the marriage and or in raising the children as the other partner. There are steps to dealing with a situation where somebody is more motivated than the other partner. One of them is to work on these issues in counseling.
What Is A Walk Away, Wife?
In the same sense of labeling someone as lazy, a walk away wife is somebody who stays at home, and because of that, they are raising the children and feel they don’t have to attend to their husband’s needs. Dealing with a lazy partner is frustrating; no matter what gender you are. A husband may ascribe to a traditional sense of toxic masculinity where his wife’s submission is the most important thing, and that’s not correct. Whatever the gender, it’s important to remember that both individuals need to be hands-on in the relationship, regardless of what the roles may be.
You can set boundaries with your partner and say, I would like to have these responsibilities, and how about you take care of these other commitments? If your wife is acting lazy and you want to talk about it, it’s important to steps to dealing with the issues. Whether you stay at home or go to work, each person has their own set of responsibilities to the house. Both partners need to have equal obligations and fulfill them. There are steps to dealing with problems in a marriage, and one of them is to address the issues and look at how to fix them in counseling. When you go to marriage counseling, you are taking one of the best steps to dealing with your problems in the relationship. You may think, “I can’t take it anymore,”
Dealing with a lazy person in a marriage is infuriating. Take it one day at a time. You will get there with your marriage. Maybe couple’s counseling can help or joining a support group for married couples. Whatever you need to feel less alone is important to do.
