I’ve seen this from different angles of results. I like my place to be neat, clean, and dialed. I had a partner of eight years, and we had a mutually agreed division of house chores. She complained that her chores were sapping her libido, that my standards were too high. “I hear you honey. Would it help if I did everything, leaving you to focus on your graduate degree?” She confirmed that would be helpful all around. Yeah, except things got even worse.

And reacting to “I’m just not horny after [doing my share of maintaining our home life]” has, in my experience, been a trap. In retrospect, that late stage behavior has always been my wife/partner trying to bleed the relationship just a little more before throwing away the husk, all while weaseling out of any reciprocal effort. I also now understand that I was self-selecting whatever that personality archetype is.

Now, with my current partner, she loves being of service. When she had cancer, me trying to take over everything domestic made her feel worse. We negotiated that she could retain her share of chores, but I could veto for the day if I thought she was overextending herself. For the entirety of our relationship, the amount of chores I do has nothing to do with how much sex we have. I cook dinner? We have sex. She cooks dinner? Sex. Someone else cooks dinner? Believe it or not, sex.

I credit a lot of our success to strong communication and clear boundaries. The chores:sex ratio seems to go completely out the window in a healthy, communicative relationship. Again, in my experience.