Last weekend, my friend Mollie and I lamented an ongoing conflict with our husbands: the mess and the dirt in the home seem to go unseen by our partners while for us it arouses a feeling of madness. Why does it make us so crazy and how is it that they don’t even seem to notice?

Many women confront this ongoing conflict in relationships. We can frame this as a political issue, as in “the personal is political:” there is inequality in the home around the unpaid labor many of us engage in even though we are also productive wage earners. We have all grown up with feminism and have taken it for granted—even those who are not self proclaimed have been influenced by these profound societal shifts. We have come a long way in sharing domestic responsibilities, and for those of us who are mothers, fathers share a much larger burden of childcare than previous generations. We can see fathers pushing strollers, with babies in carriers and picking kids up from school, and fathers embrace these tasks with a commitment that did not exist a generation or two ago. We love the way our men father, and in many ways they share our task of “mothering”—mothering in the sense of nurturing and caretaking. Yet more times than not it is the woman of the household who will uphold the standards for cleanliness, hygiene, meal preparation and a general sense order and routine—we are the pillars of home life.

For many women, the mess is crazy making. Is it the chaos of young children that arouses a need for a sense of control, a feeling of calm that a tidy house emanates? There is certainly a sense of relief when the toys are picked up from the floor and the sink is empty of dishes. Yet women in relationships without children may still feel like the maid. “Men don’t see dirt,” says psychotherapist Katherine Mcquarrie, Mollie’s mother, in response to her daughter’s complaints, “my practice is full of couples struggling with these issues.” In my own practice women complain and struggle with how to approach these issues with their partners, how to deal with their intense feelings of anger and frustration, with the sense they are not heard by their partners and that their own needs are being neglected.

“In the home, boys of our generation were not socialized to see dirt,” says psychoanalyst Michael O’loughlin. “Expectations for boys and girls were very different.” Boys were often more highly esteemed than girls. Girls were taught to develop skills for domestic up keeping while watching their mothers do the same. When boys were given household tasks it usually included washing the car and taking out the garbage. In order to clean one has to see the dirt. One woman’s husband, following a grumbling about the accusation of not seeing dirt, described a capacity to compartmentalize: “I see it but if I can’t deal with it in the moment I put it away.” And away it goes until his wife comes home.

There may be a deeper dynamic at work that moves from the sphere of the political into the psychological and emotional. A symbolic parallel can be drawn between the home and the arena of emotional and relational well being for the couple. When interpreting dreams, the home is often a representation of the self or of the body. Just as women keep the home, we keep up the emotional and relational concerns in the couple (see my story Our Men and Psychotherapy). We may consider housekeeping and childcare as an extension of emotional concerns or a living metaphor of such concerns—keeping up the intimate, private environment free of clutter and dirt so it can be clear and open is another form of caretaking and is likened to taking care of the couple’s and family’s emotional needs.

In her book The Mask of Motherhood, Susan Maushart, a mother and social scientist, offers a perspective at how we may be colluding, as women, to the perpetuation of this dynamic—“why working mothers seem to share a disproportionate share of family work relative to working fathers.”  ”For better or for worse, we are uniquely placed at the crossroads between tradition and innovation—between the values absorbed in our families of origin and the ideals we have been busily acquiring ever since,” writes Maushart in the chapter titled ‘The Juggled Life.” She describes what she calls “maternal sabotage” in which women choose mates and create conditions that perpetuate traditional gender roles. She questions to what degree we truly seek this egalitarianism and proposes that perhaps, whether consciously or not, we fear the loss of the unequivocal power of Mother as pillar of home life. “The payback is not just love, not just power, but some heady fusion of both that transcends the sum of each.”

Is equality in the home what we really want? Or do we prefer the status of “Mother knows best?” This is a question we must each contend with personally, deeply, to sort through our own emotional labyrinths regarding our roles. Maushart concludes the chapter with the acknowledgment and celebration of our choices, choices that exist in the context of two profound questions: “If families do not begin with mothers, where do they begin? Even more to the point, where on earth can they hope to go?”

Should families begin with mothers and hope to go to a better balance and distribution of responsibilities? How do we keep the peace whilst moving forward towards a more egalitarian household? “The prospect of endlessly renegotiating the division of household labor with an unwilling or unable partner often seems more daunting that doing it all yourself,” writes Maushart. I contend that it seems more daunting but it is a worthy and important endeavor. To some degree it is like any learning process, or any process of change and growth: repetition, practice and communication are of the essence; flexibility, a tolerance for frustration and a recognition of a natural resistance to change—in ourselves and in our partners. The implementation of routines and rituals in which each partner’s responsibilities are clear helps alleviate some of the tension. We, as women, may need to accept different standards for the purpose of creating the space and opportunity for change.

Perhaps this is an aspect of the third wave feminism: the wheels are turning and moving along in the public sphere, the intellectual discourse is not singular but plural and activists continue to tackle an array of vital women’s issues. In private, we are engaged in a day to day campaign of equality in the home. While it may feel at times that the opponent is our man, the essence of the battle is instilling a change in the realities of home life that may create a larger societal shift. Perhaps our children will take for granted that equality is a given in all spheres of life, just as our generation takes for granted our entitlement to a rewarding work life and fulfillment in both the private and public spheres.

Michal Tziyon is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist in private practice. Her website is www.nypsychotherapy-mtziyon.com. E-mail her at michal.tziyon@gmail.com