With so many fights about house cleaning and chores

[Anonymous]

Our house is such a mess that we can't even have a maid service come in!! There's junk all over the floors and every surface in every room. There are unfinished projects everywhere. I start them, buy the materials, get out the tools, and then DH watches TV or reads a book or says he's too tired, and that's the end of it. I just found black mold growing on the wallpaper backing in the kids' bathroom that DH was supposed to remove six months ago! It's a messy, tedious job that he doesn't want to do! So he always finds other things to do, does the laundry, washes the dishes and says he's too busy, too stretched to do any of these household jobs!!! And no, we don't have the money for a maid, DH says. Well, I've tasked myself with getting the crap cleaned up enough so we can have a maid. The dirt is killing me, killing our kids, all of whom have allergies. Is this grounds for divorce?? I'm thinking about it....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Divorcee here. This was a battle my ex and I had. Our marriage counselor suggested, as a PP did, that it was not about the chores but about deeper issues in the relationship. I thought she was wrong at the time but now with some distance and hindsight I think she was right.

Sometimes this fight probably really is about the cleaning and getting things done. In that situation a cleaning service would help immensely.

However, in our case, and probably many others, the underlying issue was that my ex was checked out of the relationship and not contributing in many ways. I felt lonely and unsupported. The fact that he would say he would do x and then not do it was just a manifestation of the bigger issue, the lack of support and loneliness. Getting a cleaning service (which we actually did) does not help with that.

Another divorcee here. This was an issue in my first marriage too, exactly the way you put it. I also felt (perhaps unfairly) that his suggestion of us getting a cleaning service rather than just helping himself was a manifestation of his lack of interest in our collective life. It's a perfectly rational solution to a problem of cleaning, but it seemed to me that it was another way for him to not deal with an issue he was contributing to, to make that someone else's responsibility.

That said, having someone come in and mop floors and do detailed cleaning of bathroom and such was (and is) great. The day our cleaners come, the house just feels better to me. I swear the light looks different on those days

+2 here, I am not yet divorced, but this issue is never ending in my marriage and I feel exactly like the bolded above. It is just one more thing that my husband makes someone else's problem vs. addressing his lack of contribution to our household. I know the issue is much deeper than just "cleaning".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Divorcee here. This was a battle my ex and I had. Our marriage counselor suggested, as a PP did, that it was not about the chores but about deeper issues in the relationship. I thought she was wrong at the time but now with some distance and hindsight I think she was right.

Sometimes this fight probably really is about the cleaning and getting things done. In that situation a cleaning service would help immensely.

However, in our case, and probably many others, the underlying issue was that my ex was checked out of the relationship and not contributing in many ways. I felt lonely and unsupported. The fact that he would say he would do x and then not do it was just a manifestation of the bigger issue, the lack of support and loneliness. Getting a cleaning service (which we actually did) does not help with that.

Another divorcee here. This was an issue in my first marriage too, exactly the way you put it. I also felt (perhaps unfairly) that his suggestion of us getting a cleaning service rather than just helping himself was a manifestation of his lack of interest in our collective life. It's a perfectly rational solution to a problem of cleaning, but it seemed to me that it was another way for him to not deal with an issue he was contributing to, to make that someone else's responsibility.

That said, having someone come in and mop floors and do detailed cleaning of bathroom and such was (and is) great. The day our cleaners come, the house just feels better to me. I swear the light looks different on those days

Yes, I have totally lived this. After major fights, I am just trying to get through.

PP, what I am trying to do now is find every hack around the situation possible: for example, I've started filling the sink full of hot water and clearing everything there. Then loading the dishes after bedtime is easier. Sink needs to be cleaned more, and it gets gross, but with gloves and some good tunes, its just a couple of minutes. In the morning I unload the dishwasher while the coffee is brewing, and make it into a game to get it done while the coffee is just trickling out. I use this type of strategy with my children as well, to make picking out clothes the night before and cleaning up a game, Sure, it only works part of the time, but I just try to live with the rest. I married a nasty slob, who totally hid his stripes til well into our first or second year of marriage. for us wives, its the equivalent of gaining 40 or 50 lbs after you get married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our house is such a mess that we can't even have a maid service come in!! There's junk all over the floors and every surface in every room. There are unfinished projects everywhere. I start them, buy the materials, get out the tools, and then DH watches TV or reads a book or says he's too tired, and that's the end of it. I just found black mold growing on the wallpaper backing in the kids' bathroom that DH was supposed to remove six months ago! It's a messy, tedious job that he doesn't want to do! So he always finds other things to do, does the laundry, washes the dishes and says he's too busy, too stretched to do any of these household jobs!!! And no, we don't have the money for a maid, DH says. Well, I've tasked myself with getting the crap cleaned up enough so we can have a maid. The dirt is killing me, killing our kids, all of whom have allergies. Is this grounds for divorce?? I'm thinking about it....

Get a trash bag. Clear out your house. You have too much stuff. Find a handyman. Take care of it yourself. But get the KonMari book and just go to town. You are choosing to live with this.

Consider yourself a single mother, with the bonus of some sex and a lower cost of living than if you were single.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Divorcee here. This was a battle my ex and I had. Our marriage counselor suggested, as a PP did, that it was not about the chores but about deeper issues in the relationship. I thought she was wrong at the time but now with some distance and hindsight I think she was right.

Sometimes this fight probably really is about the cleaning and getting things done. In that situation a cleaning service would help immensely.

However, in our case, and probably many others, the underlying issue was that my ex was checked out of the relationship and not contributing in many ways. I felt lonely and unsupported. The fact that he would say he would do x and then not do it was just a manifestation of the bigger issue, the lack of support and loneliness. Getting a cleaning service (which we actually did) does not help with that.

Another divorcee here. This was an issue in my first marriage too, exactly the way you put it. I also felt (perhaps unfairly) that his suggestion of us getting a cleaning service rather than just helping himself was a manifestation of his lack of interest in our collective life. It's a perfectly rational solution to a problem of cleaning, but it seemed to me that it was another way for him to not deal with an issue he was contributing to, to make that someone else's responsibility.

That said, having someone come in and mop floors and do detailed cleaning of bathroom and such was (and is) great. The day our cleaners come, the house just feels better to me. I swear the light looks different on those days

Yes, I have totally lived this. After major fights, I am just trying to get through.

PP, what I am trying to do now is find every hack around the situation possible: for example, I've started filling the sink full of hot water and clearing everything there. Then loading the dishes after bedtime is easier. Sink needs to be cleaned more, and it gets gross, but with gloves and some good tunes, its just a couple of minutes. In the morning I unload the dishwasher while the coffee is brewing, and make it into a game to get it done while the coffee is just trickling out. I use this type of strategy with my children as well, to make picking out clothes the night before and cleaning up a game, Sure, it only works part of the time, but I just try to live with the rest. I married a nasty slob, who totally hid his stripes til well into our first or second year of marriage. for us wives, its the equivalent of gaining 40 or 50 lbs after you get married.

My housecleaning hack: I set a timer on the stove for 15 minutes every night after putting DD to bed. No matter how tired I am. During that 15 minutes, I clear up clutter, load and/or unload the dishwasher, wipe down counters - whatever is most needed. When the timer goes off, I stop cleaning and set up the coffee maker to brew in the morning (it has a timer that I just set every night). It's actually pretty amazing what you can get done in 15 minutes if you mentally situate things properly. Music helps.

I'm remarried, and my husband - who is the most amazing person I've ever met in my life and who I love more than anything - is a horrible slob, but unlike my first husband, he is not bothered by mess so it's not the insult-to-injury of making a ton of messes and then complaining about them. I also have learned better to ask for specific things I need from him - "DH, can you please change the litter box today?" or "DH, can you start laundry before you leave for work?" - rather than just expecting him to recognize what needs doing. For stuff that I truly care about HOW it's done, I just do it myself.

[Anonymous]

Because in all honesty, some people feel weird with the idea of a stranger in their home, scrubbing their toilets and folding their underwear.

And there still lies the stigma that anyone who has a maid is lazy and so forth.

A maid service can come clean once a week. So the rest of the days of the week, spouses need to negotiate taking out the trash, cooking and doing dishes, laundry duties along with pet and/or childcare duties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't people just fucking get a maid service?? Save your marriage.

And don't tell me you don't have the money, it's cheaper than therapy and lawyers.

If you have to ask this question, you're probably the partner who's not pulling their weight at home. The cleaning service will scrub your toilets and mop the floors, but won't grocery shop or cook dinner or wash the dishes or pack kids lunches or sweep the floor after each meal so you don't get ants or make sure the kids put their toys away or or a million other things that still need to be done on a daily or near-daily basis. If you get the cleaning service and then figure it's all taken care of so you check out on the chores, you're still leaving your partner with a whole lot of work.

[Anonymous]

NOT EVERYONE HAS AN EXTRA $400-$600/MONTH FOR A MAID!

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's me but I don't understand what's so hard about cleaning or rather not making such a huge mess in the first place that cleaning it up becomes insurmountable.


Yeah, it's probably just me.