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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is the deep poop & hair cleaning lady wife above divorced?

She cited 10 years of marriage so maybe that was the stint…. [/quote]

That's me and no we are not divorced yet. We are in couples therapy and we are in the process of hiring a regular cleaning person (something I had to fight tooth and nail for and finally got him to agree to in therapy).

I will also note that he was not always like this -- he lived alone before we got married and his house was pretty clean. Not spotless, but not gross, and for instance he cleaned his own bathroom. I knew going in that he had an allergy to the vacuum cleaner and was fine being the person who vacuums. But I had no idea how bad it would get.

One thing that happened, that I think is interesting, is that when we had kids he reduced how much he cleaned more and more until he was doing virtually nothing. In therapy, one thing he has talked about is feeling envy of our kids and all I do for them, like seeing me cleaning up after our DD and helping her get dressed, cleaning her room, preparing meals for her, etc. And how sometimes he sees this and instead of thinking "wow my wife loves our daughter so much, that is sweet," he thinks, "hey, how come she doesn't take care of ME that way."

Hearing this was wild and alarming, because the child in question is a toddler. And I'm also insanely burnt out from parenting two kids like that through baby and toddlerhood, and have been talking about how burnt out I am for years and asking him to help me care for them for years, and all this time he's been watching this unfold and not feeling guilt, but ENVY at how I take care of our kids.

This kind of clicked something into place for me, I think this is why his cleaning and household responsibility has been declining since our kids were born. I had previously thought it was just overwhelm to the stress of being working parents, which I also feel, and that he was having some kind of freeze response. But now I think on some level he saw me taking care of our kids and decided to opt in to being another creature for me to take care of in that way. And at the same time, no one was stepping up to care for me, I feel so abandoned as a human being at this point because I've been working so hard for so many years.

And linking this all back to sex drive. I want to be clear, I'm not intentionally withholding sex from my husband. It's not like I want to have sex or am even neutral about it and just think "no, I'm mad at him, I refuse." I actually wish I was having sex at least some in my life, and I'm still physically attracted to my husband outside all this context. But in context, I feel so used and demeaned in my life that I simply cannot have sex. My body does not turn on in that way, I cannot experience sexual arousal. We'll watch a sexy movie and my husband will get in the mood and I feel nothing. It would not be possible for me to have sex in this state, it would be painful and horrible. So this is not some tit for tat competition here. My sex drive is DEAD. I wish it was not, but I do think it is closely linked to my level of stress and just feeling like I spend every waking hour either working (where I have to serve and help others all day) or cleaning and caring for my family, and the sexual side of me has shut down.

I am hoping getting a cleaner this fall will help and allow me to feel like a person. Sex is not my first priority at that point (I'd like to start working out and sleeping more first, both things I've struggled to find time for the last few years), but I am hoping that with time if I can stop feeling like a domestic servant, we can shift things. My DH is also doing solo therapy and I also hope that his growing awareness of the way in which he has helped turn me into a domestic servant can help change his behavior towards me, as well, and sex might be on the table at that point. Our kids are very young and I don't want to give up on our marriage yet, as the thought of separating our household when our youngest isn't even in school yet is very upsetting to me. I want better for them.[/quote]

How big is that house? A 1800 sqft, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths takes 1-2 hours for two adults cleaning together.

It’s important to declutter as much as you can and try to keep things tidy during the weekend, like no dishes in the sink, wipe surfaces clean after cooking etc. We had a cleaner and she would finish everything in 4 hours, but she was thorough and taking her time.

The husband should help for sure, but there may be some underlying health issues (physical or mental) that make it so overwhelming and exhausting. It sucks to clean up after everyone, but unless you’re dealing with extreme circumstances, it shouldn’t be as debilitating.[/quote]

Good job missing the point. No one said it was "debilitating." The point is that it is demeaning for one partner to have to literally clean up the other partner's feces while he does nothing to help care for her or support her, and that this will kill a couple's sex life.

Maybe some women get off on feeling like the housekeeper but most of it don't scraping sh!t off the toilet bowl to be a turn on. Maybe you are just weird that way.[/quote]

The description made it seem debilitating enough that the poster couldn’t function normally. Not blaming the PP but if chips crumbs, food splashes and dirty footprints are so triggering, then maybe there are deeper issues at play like being burned out, depressed. That doesn’t excuse the husband which is very inconsiderate and should do even more in that case.

Somebody has to clean the shit stains, in most families the unpleasant chores are divided to a varying degree. I don’t think it’s demeaning to do them, but it’s a matter of fairness.[/quote]

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