S/o outsourcing cleaning as a relationship fix

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m kind of with you, OP.
Outsourcing to a cleaner every other week helps somewhat, but it isn’t that helpful. If we were really only talking about 4 hours/wk of work, then all of this complaining would be ridiculous.
But outsourcing daily cleaning really isn’t that expensive. It’s not cheap, but it’s considerably less expensive than other alternatives like divorcing and maintaining two households or quitting your job/going part time (as long as you make a higher hourly wage than your housekeeper).

Also, I would argue that it isn’t any harder to teach kids to clean when you have a regular housekeeper. When you have this, then kids are used to things being clean, and they feel like that’s the way things ought to be, so they tolerate less mess. My kids were used to having a clean room, dusted and vacuumed, with a made bed and clothes put away. Now that they are older, and we don’t need a daily housekeeper anymore, when they have to clean their rooms, they only feel clean when they are dusted and vacuumed with made beds and clothes put away. Same goes for bathrooms, kitchen, etc. If it had been up to me, they would have spent their childhoods digging clean clothes from a huge pile in a hamper that I never completely got folded.

+1.

What about the disrespect he is showing you by outright refusing to perform a very reasonable request by you (doing his fair share of the cleaning)?

I don’t think it’s about respect. It’s not that he thinks that *I* should do the cleaning. He just doesn’t like to cook, clean, do laundry, or do yard work. He likes his work (as do I), and he likes being a husband and father. Why should he have to spend his leisure time doing laundry or mowing the lawn? Why should I have to?

I have a maid, so I understand if you're saying that you BOTH agreed that it was worth the money to hire cleaners.

But I think the PP's problem is that many posters on here seem to be saying that the wife should hire the cleaner because the husband just outright won't clean and expects the wife to do it. That's unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only thing done daily in my house from your daily list is the dishes, and other than that, laundry (sent out) mail management and putting away groceries, our weekly cleaning service does it for $120/week.

And, I should think obviously, this does not mean we are “living in filth.”

You don’t make your bed every day? What about crumbs, dust, hair, and dirt brought in from the outside by shoes/clothes or a dog? If you’re living with kids or an animal, you need daily vacuuming and sweeping.

Sorry but I think that’s living in filth.

WTF? Do you eat in your bed in your outside clothes?

And I don’t have a dog.

+1. What exactly is the purpose of making your bed? I have never done this and have no intention of starting. People outside my family are not wandering into my bedroom to see if my bed is made or not. It's more hygienic not to anyway. I do sweep around the table after my kids eat because they're little and messy, but if it's not too bad I generally assign that task to my 3yo son who loves it. Otherwise, vacuuming once a week is fine.

You're the second person to say this - can you please explain? I make my bed because I find it more appealing to climb into a bed with smooth sheets than a rumpled bed, but I don't see how it's less hygienic to make it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only thing done daily in my house from your daily list is the dishes, and other than that, laundry (sent out) mail management and putting away groceries, our weekly cleaning service does it for $120/week.

And, I should think obviously, this does not mean we are “living in filth.”

You don’t make your bed every day? What about crumbs, dust, hair, and dirt brought in from the outside by shoes/clothes or a dog? If you’re living with kids or an animal, you need daily vacuuming and sweeping.

Sorry but I think that’s living in filth.

WTF? Do you eat in your bed in your outside clothes?

And I don’t have a dog.

+1. What exactly is the purpose of making your bed? I have never done this and have no intention of starting. People outside my family are not wandering into my bedroom to see if my bed is made or not. It's more hygienic not to anyway. I do sweep around the table after my kids eat because they're little and messy, but if it's not too bad I generally assign that task to my 3yo son who loves it. Otherwise, vacuuming once a week is fine.

You're the second person to say this - can you please explain? I make my bed because I find it more appealing to climb into a bed with smooth sheets than a rumpled bed, but I don't see how it's less hygienic to make it?

Airing it out kills germs or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m kind of with you, OP.
Outsourcing to a cleaner every other week helps somewhat, but it isn’t that helpful. If we were really only talking about 4 hours/wk of work, then all of this complaining would be ridiculous.
But outsourcing daily cleaning really isn’t that expensive. It’s not cheap, but it’s considerably less expensive than other alternatives like divorcing and maintaining two households or quitting your job/going part time (as long as you make a higher hourly wage than your housekeeper).

Also, I would argue that it isn’t any harder to teach kids to clean when you have a regular housekeeper. When you have this, then kids are used to things being clean, and they feel like that’s the way things ought to be, so they tolerate less mess. My kids were used to having a clean room, dusted and vacuumed, with a made bed and clothes put away. Now that they are older, and we don’t need a daily housekeeper anymore, when they have to clean their rooms, they only feel clean when they are dusted and vacuumed with made beds and clothes put away. Same goes for bathrooms, kitchen, etc. If it had been up to me, they would have spent their childhoods digging clean clothes from a huge pile in a hamper that I never completely got folded.

+1.

What about the disrespect he is showing you by outright refusing to perform a very reasonable request by you (doing his fair share of the cleaning)?

Yes, this is my problem with this solution. You aren't actually fixing anything. Your husband is a jerk. I don't know how you could stand to be married to someone who thinks you should do everything around the house. That, to me, would be worth leaving, if someone thought my time was worth less than theirs. Why throw money at that problem?

He didn’t think that I should do everything, just that he wasn’t going to do it. He also outearned me, so throwing money at the problem was, in essence, him contributing.

Also, really, sometimes wonderful people can be jerks for a little while. And you just have to wait it out until they work through whatever is going on inside themselves.

[Anonymous]

You don’t need to vacuum every day. You don’t need to make the beds every day. As for the bathroom, well yeah that’s kind of gross but if you just make one bathroom the kids bathroom and don’t let guests see it you can just have it cleaned every week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m kind of with you, OP.
Outsourcing to a cleaner every other week helps somewhat, but it isn’t that helpful. If we were really only talking about 4 hours/wk of work, then all of this complaining would be ridiculous.
But outsourcing daily cleaning really isn’t that expensive. It’s not cheap, but it’s considerably less expensive than other alternatives like divorcing and maintaining two households or quitting your job/going part time (as long as you make a higher hourly wage than your housekeeper).

Also, I would argue that it isn’t any harder to teach kids to clean when you have a regular housekeeper. When you have this, then kids are used to things being clean, and they feel like that’s the way things ought to be, so they tolerate less mess. My kids were used to having a clean room, dusted and vacuumed, with a made bed and clothes put away. Now that they are older, and we don’t need a daily housekeeper anymore, when they have to clean their rooms, they only feel clean when they are dusted and vacuumed with made beds and clothes put away. Same goes for bathrooms, kitchen, etc. If it had been up to me, they would have spent their childhoods digging clean clothes from a huge pile in a hamper that I never completely got folded.

+1.

What about the disrespect he is showing you by outright refusing to perform a very reasonable request by you (doing his fair share of the cleaning)?

Yes, this is my problem with this solution. You aren't actually fixing anything. Your husband is a jerk. I don't know how you could stand to be married to someone who thinks you should do everything around the house. That, to me, would be worth leaving, if someone thought my time was worth less than theirs. Why throw money at that problem?

He didn’t think that I should do everything, just that he wasn’t going to do it. He also outearned me, so throwing money at the problem was, in essence, him contributing.

Also, really, sometimes wonderful people can be jerks for a little while. And you just have to wait it out until they work through whatever is going on inside themselves.

+1. My husband didn’t think *I* should do everything. He thought *neither* of us should do most of what I was doing. Sometimes he was totally wrong (preparing healthy vegetables our kids would eat). Other times I was wrong. We both compromised over the course of our marriage and now have an equilibrium. I let a lot more go and hire more out. He does more and has come to realize our kids’ health is a priority.

[Anonymous]

Cleaning is just one thing. There is a lot more- cooking, doing laundry, grocery shopping, parenting. If a spouse doesn’t pull weight it’s usually all across, not just cleaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something we've learned is that even if you have a partner who is bad at cleaning or hates doing it (which in our case, like most cases, is my DH), you can still technically both contribute more equally, if not perfectly equally, simply by being respectful, mature people. I do the bulk of the cleaning that is purposeful and planned, as in "I'm going to go clean the bathrooms now" and I get out cleaning materials and scrub and wipe things down and actually "clean". But my DH is a grown up and does a ton of stuff that makes it easier for me to be the person who handles the bulk of the cleaning, including:

- keeping his stuff (paperwork, phone and iPad, reading material, personal mail, etc.) organized and tidy
- cleaning up after himself and after our kid, by putting dishes in the dishwasher, wiping down counters and tables when done using them, etc.
- doing the laundry at least half the time if not more, including doing our kids laundry
- doing grocery shopping and keeping an eye on the fridge and pantry and knowing what we have and need
- doing dishes after he cooks or after we eat, at least half the time
- helping me with cleaning periodically if it seems like I need it, like helping me make a bed if he walks in the room and I'm doing it, etc.

None of this stuff is "cleaning" in the sense that none of it could be outsourced to a cleaning service. It's more like basic maintenance and taking responsibility for your immediate surroundings plus being respectful of the people you live with. I still do the bulk of the cleaning. But it doesn't cause problems most of the time because DH does all of the above. And if your DH doesn't do these things, outsourcing the cleaning will not solve your problem.

It's really about being a grown up, taking care of yourself, and not treating your spouse like your mother. We can't afford weekly cleaners, and even if we could I would probably still do it because I truly don't mind, but it's not a huge problem because my husband behaves like an adult in his 40s with a mortgage and a child, not like a 9 year old.

I couldn't have said it better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have cleaning people come on Mondays and Thursdays. We rinse off dishes and silverware and put them in the dishwasher and run/empty it. If something spills we clean it up. We're not messy people though so it's not as if there are crumbs on the floor after each meal.

I do one load of laundry a week, and so does DH. The cleaning people do all linens and the nanny does the kids' clothes. We would vacuum if we saw visible dirt but otherwise think twice a week is fine.

We generally have groceries delivered when the nanny is there, so that's how groceries are put away. Dh or I sort mail/pay bills once a week. But we autopay and streamline as much as we possibly can.

That's great but most of us aren't in a position to have a cleaning service come twice a month, let alone twice a week. So the house has dirt, and we have to manage dealing (or not) with it somehow.

But good for you for being in a position to have that much help. Your house must look beautiful!

It’s cheaper than quitting your job or working part time to do it yourself, and much cheaper than getting divorced and maintaining two households!

... which is the kind of thing you say when you actually do have the money to get cleaners twice a week, which we don't. so, again, good for you!

Thanks?
DP. But my house doesn’t look beautiful. We don’t buy new things. Furniture is mostly used or hand me downs covered in slip covers. We haven’t “updated” or even decorated our home much outside of fresh flowers.
But everything smells nice, and it’s clean, and we get to spend our free time together .
I’m sorry you are in a bad financial spot right now. It sounds like things are really tough, and I hope that things start looking up for you. I am aware that not everyone can afford this kind of help, but it really isn’t just for the 1%. If you hire an individual, rather than going through a company, it’s cheaper and you can be sure that your employee is treated fairly. Even my housekeeper had her own housekeeper when her kids were little .

There's a big gulf between "bed financial spot" and having an extra $1200 a month for cleaners!

Jesus Christ, DCUM - get a grip on reality

My maid costs less than half that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A husband who genuinely loves his wife and respects her as a person would change his ways after being shown how impossible it is for her to do everything (be a working mom and a SAHM who does 90% of child and house related tasks).

No, because he doesn't agree that ALL of it needs to be done
And certainly not to his wife's standards. And probably most of it, not at all.
That includes schlepping the kids' around to activities.

He may not express this, or even think about it much, but likely that's how he's wired

And who is to say the more anal person should get their way? Just to keep them happy? No. No reason to think their way of life is better.

NP: sadly, this. It took me forever to understand. My DH views “housework” as doing dishes after meals, doing laundry (whether it gets put away now or later) and wiping or sweeping up anything particular gross. He helps with all of those things, and in his view he is “helping with half of the necessary housework”. He does not care about fingerprints, dust, crumbs, clutter, and feels it is totally fine to leave things lying around absolutely everywhere (why put it away if I will use it again soon?). If the shower doesn’t have visible mold/mildew and the bathroom floors or toilet aren’t truly nasty, he can still see himself in the mirror, etc- he sees no reason to clean them. He’s be fine with cleaning then bathrooms twice a year other than swishing the toilet- he’s maybe do that every 2wks. He just plain does not see anything beyond the most basic (dishes and laundry) of household tasks as “essential”. He seems them as a personal preference, almost like a hobby. To put it into a different perspective: I see yard work as mowing the lawn and removing snow when it snows. I’m happy to help with my 1/2 of those. If DH planted or put in some super elaborate landscaping that required an hour of daily maintenance, then expected me to “do half” I would refuse. I don’t care how much it makes him “happy”- it is unnecessary and not how I want to spend my free time. If he wants to, he can.

I HATE the above facts, but it is the truth, and it is how my DH sees it. I’ll bet tons of other messy people do too.

That’s the problem.

I also echo what someone said about people not understanding easy basic tasks (wipe frequently with a Clorox wipe, put stuff away daily, etc etc)- if those things are done by everyone in the household, the cleaning should be minimal. Some people have absolutely no how to do this- most of us learn it the hard way. “Ugh look at all of this buildup I have to scrub...never letting this happen again...I’ll make sure to wipe down weekly”. That sort of thing.

I have no solutions to this awful issue. Paid cleaning helps, but there is still daily stuff to do.

If you can't see the difference between keeping a house you jointly own and use (and that your children, if you have them, also use) and a pet project of planting elaborate and unnecessary flora I don't know how to help you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My feeling about it is this. I love my spouse and I love our life together. Outsourcing the cleaning does two things. It gets rid of conflict and it improves quality of life because neither of us likes to do it. Yes there are things to be done, but when the big stuff is out of the equation there is a lot less on your plate and it’s not as important to keep score.

I guess some people will divorce over cleaning of cleaning can be the straw that breaks the camels back. And I’m sure for some the cost of outsourcing is a deterrent. But living in conflict, therapy and divorce are so much more expensive.

So I totally get this. I've had a maid for as long as I've had a salary because I hate cleaning and will do anything to avoid it. I keep a super neat house and am good at cleaning things that are used on a regular basis and I'll vacuum, but I'd rather do just about anything than clean a bathroom, even one that's not gross. So improving quality of life I am all for.

But the getting rid of conflict thing confuses me. Last March, when everything went crazy, we stopped having our maid come. This was for several months until we decided it was ok to start up again and she felt comfortable, so for those months it was just my husband and I doing all the cleaning. He actually did more than I did because I was busy with some other things. So I know he'd step up and do it if we didn't have anyone. Paying someone to avoid being annoyed with him seems to me to be putting a bandaid over a bullet hole?

Eh. If it’s not a conflict for you, then it’s not a conflict for you. Personally, I don’t see why married people would fight about money or sex. But for some people, those things are an issue. For us, it’s chores.
I’m sure there is some kind of conflict in your marriage.

We work to resolve our conflicts. We are fundamentally different people and therefore obviously react to things differently, but then we use our words to explain how we feel and we understand what the other person is saying and we move on. So no, we don't have any kind of outstanding conflict in our marriage. We don't fight about money because we've discussed how each person feels about it and we came up with a joint plan for how to address it. Same with sex, although obviously that's a much less calculating and transactional kind of resolution. We don't feel the same way about either of those things but by learning how the other person feels and respecting their position, we have some to a place where we're both happy. Hence why I think hiring cleaners doesn't actually solve the underlying issues you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only thing done daily in my house from your daily list is the dishes, and other than that, laundry (sent out) mail management and putting away groceries, our weekly cleaning service does it for $120/week.

And, I should think obviously, this does not mean we are “living in filth.”

You don’t make your bed every day? What about crumbs, dust, hair, and dirt brought in from the outside by shoes/clothes or a dog? If you’re living with kids or an animal, you need daily vacuuming and sweeping.

Sorry but I think that’s living in filth.

WTF? Do you eat in your bed in your outside clothes?

And I don’t have a dog.

+1. What exactly is the purpose of making your bed? I have never done this and have no intention of starting. People outside my family are not wandering into my bedroom to see if my bed is made or not. It's more hygienic not to anyway. I do sweep around the table after my kids eat because they're little and messy, but if it's not too bad I generally assign that task to my 3yo son who loves it. Otherwise, vacuuming once a week is fine.

You're the second person to say this - can you please explain? I make my bed because I find it more appealing to climb into a bed with smooth sheets than a rumpled bed, but I don't see how it's less hygienic to make it?

Airing it out kills germs or something.

Ok, I kind of understand that. But how dirty are people when they get into bed and how frequently (or infrequently are they washing their sheets)? If I'm gross before bed (sweaty, dirty, whatever) I take a shower. Obviously certain activities, ahem, can make a bed dirty, but I never go a week without changing my sheets so I guess in my head the amount of germs that could be in there don't have time to breed. But maybe I'm wrong. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something we've learned is that even if you have a partner who is bad at cleaning or hates doing it (which in our case, like most cases, is my DH), you can still technically both contribute more equally, if not perfectly equally, simply by being respectful, mature people. I do the bulk of the cleaning that is purposeful and planned, as in "I'm going to go clean the bathrooms now" and I get out cleaning materials and scrub and wipe things down and actually "clean". But my DH is a grown up and does a ton of stuff that makes it easier for me to be the person who handles the bulk of the cleaning, including:

- keeping his stuff (paperwork, phone and iPad, reading material, personal mail, etc.) organized and tidy
- cleaning up after himself and after our kid, by putting dishes in the dishwasher, wiping down counters and tables when done using them, etc.
- doing the laundry at least half the time if not more, including doing our kids laundry
- doing grocery shopping and keeping an eye on the fridge and pantry and knowing what we have and need
- doing dishes after he cooks or after we eat, at least half the time
- helping me with cleaning periodically if it seems like I need it, like helping me make a bed if he walks in the room and I'm doing it, etc.

None of this stuff is "cleaning" in the sense that none of it could be outsourced to a cleaning service. It's more like basic maintenance and taking responsibility for your immediate surroundings plus being respectful of the people you live with. I still do the bulk of the cleaning. But it doesn't cause problems most of the time because DH does all of the above. And if your DH doesn't do these things, outsourcing the cleaning will not solve your problem.

It's really about being a grown up, taking care of yourself, and not treating your spouse like your mother. We can't afford weekly cleaners, and even if we could I would probably still do it because I truly don't mind, but it's not a huge problem because my husband behaves like an adult in his 40s with a mortgage and a child, not like a 9 year old.

I couldn't have said it better.

I don’t know. My husband and I are both doctors. I would rather spend my time taking care of my patients (I always have a long waitlist), and use the money they pay me to hire someone else to do the laundry. DH works in the ICU, and I would rather he feel that he has time to have a family meeting about end of life care than have to rush home to make dinner. There is more than one way to be an adult.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Frankly, I felt that I was acting more childish when I was insisting that we did everything ourselves and getting angry that he didn’t do his share. It took some work to get past worrying about what my mom was going to think of me, or whether or not my friends would judge me, and recognize that DH was right, and this wasn’t the best use of our time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something we've learned is that even if you have a partner who is bad at cleaning or hates doing it (which in our case, like most cases, is my DH), you can still technically both contribute more equally, if not perfectly equally, simply by being respectful, mature people. I do the bulk of the cleaning that is purposeful and planned, as in "I'm going to go clean the bathrooms now" and I get out cleaning materials and scrub and wipe things down and actually "clean". But my DH is a grown up and does a ton of stuff that makes it easier for me to be the person who handles the bulk of the cleaning, including:

- keeping his stuff (paperwork, phone and iPad, reading material, personal mail, etc.) organized and tidy
- cleaning up after himself and after our kid, by putting dishes in the dishwasher, wiping down counters and tables when done using them, etc.
- doing the laundry at least half the time if not more, including doing our kids laundry
- doing grocery shopping and keeping an eye on the fridge and pantry and knowing what we have and need
- doing dishes after he cooks or after we eat, at least half the time
- helping me with cleaning periodically if it seems like I need it, like helping me make a bed if he walks in the room and I'm doing it, etc.

None of this stuff is "cleaning" in the sense that none of it could be outsourced to a cleaning service. It's more like basic maintenance and taking responsibility for your immediate surroundings plus being respectful of the people you live with. I still do the bulk of the cleaning. But it doesn't cause problems most of the time because DH does all of the above. And if your DH doesn't do these things, outsourcing the cleaning will not solve your problem.

It's really about being a grown up, taking care of yourself, and not treating your spouse like your mother. We can't afford weekly cleaners, and even if we could I would probably still do it because I truly don't mind, but it's not a huge problem because my husband behaves like an adult in his 40s with a mortgage and a child, not like a 9 year old.

I couldn't have said it better.

I don’t know. My husband and I are both doctors. I would rather spend my time taking care of my patients (I always have a long waitlist), and use the money they pay me to hire someone else to do the laundry. DH works in the ICU, and I would rather he feel that he has time to have a family meeting about end of life care than have to rush home to make dinner. There is more than one way to be an adult.

I'm the PP who liked the first post.

My husband and I also both work and we have a maid. Neither one of us cleans, other than making the bed (which apparently we're not supposed to do?!?), keeping the kitchen clean, and picking up things around the house. So I don't have a problem with both parties deciding that they don't want to clean.

What I think my issue is with some of the posts is when one spouse acts like the other spouse should do all the cleaning. If you say you don't want to do it and your husband says he doesn't want to do it and you decide to hire a cleaner, I think that's fine. If your husband says he won't do it no matter what and he believes it's your problem to solve so you hire a maid, I think that's ignoring the actual problem, which is that your husband is a disrespectful a$$.