A mom who nearly left her partner because she was “fed up with him not helping with household chores” went on strike – and says it worked.
Karla Loft, 32, says she’s spent most of her entire 11-year relationship keeping her house tidy, without much help from her partner, Carl Scott, 42, a youth work business owner.
From cooking, cleaning and dusting to washing up, looking after their children and cleaning bathrooms, Karla claims the majority of the housework and childcare fell on her.
The stay-at-home mom from Hastings, Sussex says she would often spend the day cleaning up after their children and Carl would complain if the house looked messy when he came home. She even joked about wearing a GoPro camera throughout her day so Carl could see how much she was doing.
Karla eventually became so “tired and exhausted” and even considered leaving Carl as it was like “speaking to a brick wall”.
The mom-of-two soon reached the end of her tether and felt she had run out of options to get him to change. She was considering leaving her husband right before the family was selected to appear on the Channel 5 show ‘Mum’s on Strike’.
The show has moms leave the home and make their partners to fend for themselves for seven days.
Describing the show as a “blessing in disguise”, Karla said her strike enabled Carl to see what it was like to raise kids and “not have any support.”
When Karla and Carl’s episode began filming, Karla was worried he would forget responsibilities as she stayed in a hotel for seven nights but since the show, she says their lives have completely transformed and Carl helps out “so much more”.
“Carl had always been a bit of a lazy person in the household,” Karla said. “He’s such a workaholic but not as much in the house and I couldn’t make him change but those seven days on the TV show made him take a walk in my shoes and that made him realize exactly what I have to do at home and how hard it is. It’s gone from me feeling like I didn’t know if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him to knowing 100 percent I do want to.”
Carl said the show “opened my eyes to how much work there is to do in the household.”
Before Karla went on strike, she claimed Carl would put pressure on her to have the house constantly spotless.
She said: “It was so difficult. He was so oblivious to things that needed doing. None of it seemed to exist to him. I remember we once wrote down what we thought needed doing and I think he had four things on his list and mine was a full-side of A4 paper. It was like getting through to a brick wall – it didn’t matter what I said, he would never get it and never change.”
Carl said that after being on the show, he had a “completely different mindset.”
Karla says her husband contributes a lot more and has even arranged his calendar so he has more family time.
Carl agreed that it’s helped the relationship as well.
