Let's talk straight here: husbands, even the best of them, can be a pain.

Know this picture? Family dinner is coming to a cacophonous end, food is flying and kids are crying and you're trying real hard, so hard, to keep from flinging all the crusted dishes and cold spaghetti out of the kitchen window. And there, in this chaos, as your anger simmers right below the surface, throbbing so fiercely you can hear the rush of blood, is your husband, sitting serenely at the table, oblivious to the pasta whizzing by his cheek, thumbing through the newspaper in a spotless white shirt.

Wiping a smear of tomato sauce off your black trousers, you ask for a wee bit of help, like trotting over some of the dirty dishes from the table and putting them into the sink; just table to sink, not even rinsing them off first, or God forbid, sticking them in the dishwasher. Hubby peers above the top of the sports section so only his eyebrows show, sighs deeply and says: "Honey, I've been working all day. This is the first time I've had to relax."

His response means two things: first, he is saying, "No, do it yourself"; and second, he is telling you that no matter what you did today with the children or cleaning house on in your own career, your day could never be as rough as his. You resist the temptation to pour his glass of iced tea over his head -- not because the urge isn't strong enough -- but because you know if you do spill the sugary beverage it means one more sticky mess that you'll have to clean up.

A husband who doesn't help enough is the most common complaint in the sisterhood of mothers and wives. One reader who wrote in to The Militant Mama put it this way: "My husband comes home and just sits on the couch, eats dinner and goes to bed -- he says he's tired. Now, I get off work, pick up the children, rush home, feed the baby, make dinner, clean the kitchen, clean the kids and maybe get to bed about midnight. Then I wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. to feed the baby, and start my day all over again. Who's the one who should be tired? My husband actually came home one day and said the doctor told him to talk to me about giving him back rubs. HA!"

This guy needs a slug, not a rub. Yet, infuriating as the division of labor can become, it is hardly grounds for divorce. Rather, we must surrender to this basic fact: Even the most liberated of males view housekeeping as primarily a wife thing, a female thing. The cold truth is this: Most men don't feel compelled to clean up messes. Most men don't even notice messes. Most men are not agile multitaskers like women are, although I will give them this: Most men are able to eat and read newspapers simultaneously.

When was the last time your husband held a shrieking child, cooked spaghetti sauce from scratch, planned a birthday party on the portable phone, served dinner, loaded the dishwasher, bathed children, lulled them to sleep, then came back downstairs to unload the dishwasher and put everything away, on the right shelves? When was the last time your husband knew where to look when you asked him to find red socks for your son? When was the last time your husband got down on all fours, like a dog, to pick up rice off the floor that was too glommed on for the Dustbuster?

We need to accept that the men we love may never go halfsies in tending the hearth, but I did leave our four boys with their father the day after Thanksgiving for a 37-hour trip to Chicago and came back to find the children all alive and thriving. In fact, they were gyrating -- having started their day with leftover pie for breakfast. Here's what else I found: pieces of clothing and wet towels scattered in a trail, like bread crumbs left for birds, from the kitchen through the living room, up the stairs and into their bedrooms, where beds were trashed and hundreds of Legos covered the floor. I was about to sputter something nasty that started with "How could you..." but suddenly remembered the advice of a shrewd great-grandmother I know who had outlived two husbands and had two great marriages: "If you want to get along with a man, let the angry thoughts stay inside your head and say something sweet instead."

So I didn't mention that our home looked like pigs had visited, and praised Chuck for his ace househusband skills. I then hugged him hard, this man I married because he is consistent and sexy, patient and kind. Mighty Maid he is not, but hey, you never get it all in one person, and it's probably just as well.

The few men I know who could clean houses for a living, the ones who color code their closets and Windex their own mirrors, aren't the types to whom I'd ever want to be married. One boy I dated in college used to iron his blue jeans, and he drove me nuts. But, I started to yearn for Mr. Crispy Jeans of 25 years ago this morning when I went to brush my teeth and found Chuck's black socks from yesterday slung over the toothpaste, drooping into the sink.