My wife is a much better cleaner than me but much worse about leaving crap laying around. I can't stand, for example, dirty dishes, clothes on the floor, and trash on the counters. On the other hand, I have a much higher tolerance for, say, dust on the shelves and dirty floors.

We both kind of do our own thing and, objectively, it works out. But at some level we both think the other one is a bit of a slob.

So, he changed his work pattern to WAH, now does the bulk of the childcare, cooking, household chores and some limited cleaning and you still bitch and moan about his cleaning? Sounds like you want to make him divorce you, because you've doubled/tripled his workload and you give him grief because he doesn't clean to your standards.

Either you cut back somewhere to afford the housekeepers, you keep your comments and standards to yourself or you start doing more cleaning when you get home.

Thanks everyone! Perhaps you're right- I'll try laying off of him for a few days. It's just hard- now that he's working from home, there's so much more mess!

As both a woman AND a clean freak, I hear you loud + clear.

It may be one of the sacrifices you may have to make now along w/the long hours and lower pay in order to pay dividends later.

I mean, you can tactfully tell your husband that while you appreciate all he is doing to keep the home fires burning overall, you also need him to pay a little more attention to detail.

He may either a). Accept your constructive criticism and try a little harder next time OR b). Get defensive and stop putting in the effort.

If he chooses to do the latter, you can look at your monthly budget overall and see if by cutting back in certain areas, perhaps you can hire at least a bi-weekly cleaning crew to come in and do the heavy duty stuff.

If that is not an option, then as I stated before, it just may be that you may have to add this to your list of just another of the sacrifices you must make NOW for a better future later on.

Good luck.

Anonymous wrote:Even my teenager wipes doen the counters after he makes himself a sandwich and is expected to contribute and clean up-which Iincludes running the swiffer each night after dinner.

My 5 year old runs the swiffer. It's easy.

Anonymous wrote:For the floors, buy a Roomba and run it every night after you go to bed. (It seriously works!)

For the dishes, buy paper plates. Honestly, my SIL used to go nuts with all the dirty dishes her ADHD DH and DS left lying around. Paper plates saved her marriage.

Then, let it go. You're holding onto a standard you could enforce, but that isn't as important to your DH. It's not a battle worth fighting.

Paper plates? Sure...screw the environment, just be lazy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH has been incredibly supportive of my taking a lesser paying job that requires much more time and energy from me - but one that will help me pursue my long term career goals (and will be financial lucrative at that point). In the process, DH has transitioned to working from home and taking on a lot of the household and childcare duties and cooking. For the most part he is fine. He is excellent with DD, relatively positive, is available for house related issues.

But, he is messy and unclean, and it drives me insane. I mean, as grateful as I am for all the effort he's put in, I don't understand why he can't clean up crumbs or spills or put away dirty dishes. I don't have time anymore. It's been causing a lot of arguments. My drop in income makes me feel like we can't afford a housekeeper, but I don't have time to clean the floors and vacuum all the time. DH will claim he cleaned the floor, but it will turn out to be a tiny spot in the kitchen because DD dropped something. Then he wants me to be super excited that he "cleaned the floor." WTF.

Any suggestions to make him feel appreciated while at the same time emphasizing basic cleaning tasks?

Be happy for what you have. Many women work and does everything at home too. No one will do things exactly the same as you.

Or she could have a DH like mine. He works from home. I quite often come home to dinner in the oven and the house spotless. What person wants to walk around on dirty floors and crumbs all over counters. Takes 5min to wipe something down.

Its called being a responsible grown up man. Not a grown man child.

And a responsible adult woman would help OP, vs humblebrag and be bitchy. Your husband may be awesome, but you are not.

Yeah I was surprised to find out that many DCUMers think nothing of leaving dirty dishes in the sink for several days.

I literally can't stand that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you need the cleaning service.

To wash dishes?

DH should wash dishes, but no harm in leaving them in the sink a few days. Same with crumbs on the floor. They'll get swept up eventually.

A few days? You people are a bunch of pigs.

I completely get the frustration, because I prefer to have a really clean, spotless house too. Your DH, however, has made huge personal sacrifices to let you pursue your professional goals, and you're harping on some crumbs? I think this is a situation where you need to appreciate the fact that you have an incredibly supportive, generous spouse, and let this little flaw go. Plan to spend ten minutes when you get home wiping down the counters and sweeping the floors to your standards, and call it a day.

OP here. Thanks so much for all the responses. I should say - I didn't used to be so crazy about stuff like this, but in our last home, we ended up having bugs. I'm the one that had to put out the effort to get rid of them. And it took DH a long time to get on board with getting rid of them. I have a strong aversion to them now, so I have to admit, I may be going a bit overboard to make sure we don't get them, but I think if we're good about it now, we won't have to make the extra effort later.

Anonymous wrote:For the floors, buy a Roomba and run it every night after you go to bed. (It seriously works!)

For the dishes, buy paper plates. Honestly, my SIL used to go nuts with all the dirty dishes her ADHD DH and DS left lying around. Paper plates saved her marriage.

Then, let it go. You're holding onto a standard you could enforce, but that isn't as important to your DH. It's not a battle worth fighting.

+1. I'm the messy one and my husband knew this going in. Nagging isn't ever going to make me as neat as him, it would only cause a rift. There are three things that keep me from going to the extreme. One, my mom is even worse and I know if it gets to that level we are going to counseling. The second thing is I realize one reason I am not in top of it is that I never learned good habits growing up. Although my parents argued about cleaning, we never actually had routines built into our daily living. I realize my bad habits are being passed on to the kids. When out kids are going to start washing dishes, is the routine going to be before tv goes on, dishes are washed? If so, we have to model what we pass on. Sweeping every day is not gonna happen but setting a roomba after dishes while watching a tv show or sweeping Wednesday and Sunday and alternating the person, is possible. The third things is a I don't like bugs. We have a quarterly pest control service and while this doesn't make me anal about cleaning, I won't let it get to obvious bug food levels.

Anyway, appreciate everything that is going well and realize that the cleaning from your spouse will never be at the same level as you want. if you have a talk, I would frame it as what would be workable for him I.e. Paper plates, he does dishes but it will be in the morning not after dinner, certain days you commit to doing the dishes (even with your schedule) and he does them the other days. Delve a little and see where he is coming from, how was it when he was growing up. Try to find some middle ground.

Good luck

For the floors, buy a Roomba and run it every night after you go to bed. (It seriously works!)

For the dishes, buy paper plates. Honestly, my SIL used to go nuts with all the dirty dishes her ADHD DH and DS left lying around. Paper plates saved her marriage.

Then, let it go. You're holding onto a standard you could enforce, but that isn't as important to your DH. It's not a battle worth fighting.

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you need the cleaning service.

To wash dishes?

DH should wash dishes, but no harm in leaving them in the sink a few days. Same with crumbs on the floor. They'll get swept up eventually.

Even my teenager wipes doen the counters after he makes himself a sandwich and is expected to contribute and clean up-which Iincludes running the swiffer each night after dinner.