Messy husband, won’t clean

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02/08/2024 07:33

Subject: Re:Messy husband, won’t clean

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Anonymous

I feel this way sometimes too. DH will clean the kitchen but that's about it, and even with the kitchen he will just deal with the dishes -- he's never wiped down the stove top or scoured the sink cleaned out the fridge beyond tossing a few takeout containers.

Having a DH like this PLUS young kids can be hard even if you're not obsessive about cleaning because they (the DH) becomes like another child you must clean up after. Sometimes I feel like the maid. DH also has habits like eating food out of his hands while walking through the house (like he'll grab a handful of chips or crackers and then walk through the living room eating them out of his hand, getting crumbs everywhere). The kids see this and they do it too. Meanwhile I'm the only one who ever vacuums or dusts, so seeing this pisses me off.

I've dealt with this by being vocal about certain messes. Sometimes DH just makes a big mess and I just tell him "I will not clean this and it must be cleaned up now." Like once he dropped a full container of flour in the pantry while cooking and just left it there, and when I came up on it hours later, he said "yeah, I know it needs to get cleaned up but I was cooking and then I was tired." NO. I got out the cleaning supplied needed for that job and told him exactly how it need to be cleaned and that it could not be left any longer (some of the flour had fallen into the dog's food and water bowls, so we were dealing with wet flour congealing on the floor, it was ridiculous). He grumbled but did it. I think he appreciated me explaining how to clean it up because I think half the battle with him sometimes is that he doesn't know how to approach certain cleaning and no one has ever told him.

I will also just tell him he needs to clean a bathroom that he recently used or that he can't postpone certain cleaning activities because they get worse with time (he has done things like cleaned up a milk spill and then thrown the towel soaked with milk in the bottom of a hamper with a bunch of sweaty workout clothes, and left it for days for me to discover when I do the laundry, it is disgusting).

So basically I just make him clean when he does stuff that is so gross it makes me mad to clean it up. But I also complain about it enough that it guilts him into doing more other stuff and that's made it more equal. Like cutting the grass occasionally is not equal to doing ALL cleaning, but cutting the grass, cleaning out the cars and getting regular service on them, dealing with all the kids' summer camp stuff, doing runs to the dump or goodwill when I clean out a closet, etc., comes closer. I don't just accept that I'm the one who cleans and oh well. I make it clear that if I'm the one doing almost all cleaning, he better be picking up the slack elsewhere. After about 10 years, he mostly does.