One thing I've seen in several places, you've mentioned it, Gottman's book mentions it, and therapists in different places mention it, is the housework-sex connection. It's said that men who do more around the house tend to be more satisfied with their sex lives. I've wondered about why. Do women reward them with sex, is it because they find it sexy when a man takes out the trash without being asked, or is because they feel more relaxed? You've mentioned that the female drive is distractable. One factor might be the types of men who actually do work around the house. According to studies, couples divide chores pretty evenly until kids are born. For many couples, their sex lives change dramatically after kids. Perhaps, the reasons why men who do housework seem to report more satisfaction is because a large chunk of them aren't parents. (By the way, one of the reasons why men might not be esp. good at running a house is they've never really gotten much training in the area. This is from an article in the Boston Globe:
Carson talks about how his own father was a successful juggler of work and family - though it came after a painful divorce. His father was forced to cook, clean, and iron for the first time after the split-up. Carson and his siblings, who lived with their father, also pitched in with an array of chores.
"I know what it takes to run a house," Carson says.