To expect DH to do more?

[Sastra]

I feel like I do much more round the house than DH. He does the washing up, but that's about it.

Problem is that he's really messy; if he takes the milk about of the fridge, he doesn't put it back, leaves lids off things, doesn't put rubbish straight in the bin. He leaves yeaterday's clothes on the floor and wet towels too.

We've had conversations about it numerous times and he says he'll try and do better, but nothing changes. He is a bit of a daydreamer and it's as if he zones out and goes into auto pilot.

Things have come to a head as we're moving next sat. We don't have time off during the week, so I really wanted stuff sorted and the majority of stuff packed this weekend (oh, an he's a fucking hoarder so we can't throw anything away without him studying it for 20 minutes first). He knows how stressed I am about getting everything sorted, but tries to reassure me by saying, don't worry, it'll all be fine.

I think what I struggle with is the fact that we clearly have different expectations of what clean and tidy is - I just want the house cleaned every week an the bloody bed made every day, and I'm sick of clearing his stuff up - surely not too much to ask?!

I know I could leave it but he really would do it and id be the one who suffered. He says that he will do stuff and he'll get round to it - but then he gets distracted. So I do it, then he gets pissy and it starts an argument.

I'm at the end of my tether. I'm 25 weeks pregnant and shattered and still nauseous, but instead of helping me pack for the whole yesterday he read the fucking Guardian from cover to cover (he did some packing, but we've hardly made a dent).

:-(

Pack YOUR things and the stuff YOU need leave HIS - socks, pants, favourite food items, books, golf clubs, car manuals, favourite furniture.

Alternatively go and live elsewhere without him.

This is all you need right now, you must be tired.

I considered just packing my stuff, but I can predict already what'll happen - he'll jut scrape everything into boxes leaving me with an almighty mess the other end - I've got next week off to try and make the place habitable and I can envisage myself sitting among all the boxes exasperated whilst he skips off to work.

He just has a much higher tolerance for mess and disorder. I need at least a bit of organisation to feel calm.

You should go on strike like i did two weeks of him cooking his own dinner after woek and washing his own clothing soon made his understand what the score was

Maybe I'll try it when we've moved, but I reckon he wouldn't be bothered. God I just want to shake him. But it's not cos he's deliberately being a tosser, he is just really laid back. It's a characteristic of his that I love in other contexts, but makes me murderous in this one.

See to your own things and leave his things, including the unpacking of them, to him.

Alternatively you can sit him down as ask him why he thinks it's okay to be disrespectful to you.

Can you make him pay for outside help? If he scrapes stuff into boxes it'll be stuf you do not need. Place it in storage until he retieves it and sorts it out. If he doesn't sort it out, put back in storage. He sounds insensitive to your needs. This will ruin your marriage eventually.

Some would say 'really laid back', others would say 'lazy git'.

To avoid being landed with all the packing you have to be out of reach somewhere. Pack your own stuff then go away for a day or two and leave him to do the move.

Is he this laid back because he knows that you'll do the things that he doesn't want/can't be bothered to do?

Let him pack his stuff - at the very least, he's done some of the hard work and a plus is that his horded stuff is in boxes ready to be 'lost' during the move.

The problem with different expectations of what tidy is, is that YABU to expect him to live completely up to your expectations when he's happy with his. The most strict person on any subject can't really always force the most relaxed to do more - if you do that you end up with neither of you ever having any time to do what you want and you both spending way too much time on things you don't think need doing. You can try and trade him being tidier for something he wants you to do - or you can find a way to manage the untidiness - have him agree to specific areas where he's free to do what he wants - so his clothes can be on the ground as long as they are in a certain area of the bedroom etc.

A bed doesn't need to be made every day, so if you want it made every day, you need to do it, nagging someone else who doesn't think it necessary doesn't work, it just causes resentment on both sides.

That said, with you pregnant and moving and stressed, he does need to recognise that just saying it'll all be fine (which it will, even if you end up with lots of boxes of random crap that he needs to sort in the new place) and actually help re-assure you by some actual actions.

After the first year of living with DP I stopped doing joint washing because he never bloody did any. It took a few weeks for him to realise! But it was bliss. Didn't do any of his washing for the next 8 years we lived together

Re moving, you might just have to suck that one up - I remember moving from shared houses and the men always left everything to the last minute so I ended up doing the kitchen, living room etc. If it is going to make your life hell to not pack some of his stuff then just pack for now, the move has to happen so you probably don't have much choice.

However, can you then NOT unpack his stuff? Is there a spare room in the house where you can just pile it all up? Leave him struggling to find clothes?

But in the long term this definitely needs to be discussed. My DP is pretty useless too, and while we're coping at the moment as we are in a new house (also moved at 30+w pregnant, is sucks doesn't it?!) and so things are relatively clean and sorted, once I go back to work I'll be tackling this properly. Ideas I've had so far are...

1 - write down everything I do on a big, obvious list stuck to the fridge so he can actually see how much needs doing every day and how he's not doing any of it (he can have a list too, it will just be very, very bare...)

2 - give him an ultimatum about a cleaner. If he doesn't do 'x' amount around the house during a set period, then he's obviously not capable of helping out and we need a cleaner.

You have my sympathies though, it is incredibly annoying when your partner doesn't pull their weight around the house. Good luck with your move!

I had a similar issue with DP. He just doesn't care about mess at all. He wont do any cleaning himself but doesn't expect me to either which is difficult because going on strike makes no difference to him (just makes me hate being at home). He will just live in filth.

I had to lower my standards otherwise leave him, i couldn't sustain the constant bickering and unhappiness. It was as simple as that really. So when he comes in and opens his gym bag and yanks everything over the floor in the middle of the lounge I just leave it there and step over it.

We eventually reached an agreement which doesn't suit all but does us - He works very long hours and earns much more than my capability ever will be. So we have agreed, i give up work (which i hated - i wouldn't have if i liked it) and have the children and 'my job' is the house. The other option was to get a cleaner to cover his half of the chores.

I can cope with the chores, it's just the leaving his shit everywhere! I feel like I'm fighting a loosing battle. I tidy up, he walks through the house leaving a trail of chaos behind him!

Alas, our new flat is two bed, as is the one we have now. But with the baby on the way it means we will have less space than we have now. I know if I don't sort his stud out he'll put all his boxes of junk in the baby's room til he gets round to sorting it out (which he won't). I cannot tolerate this happening!

Has he always been this way? To some degree, if you were aware of this behaviour already, you should hardly be surprised. I realise that's not horribly helpful, but some things you may need to simply adjust to.

Sit down with him, work out a plan of action and make sure it's within his capability to stick to it.

My dh is the same. We both work. I have dealt with it by getting a dishwasher and a cleaner for 2 hours a week, whom he pays for. I do his washing if he puts it in the laundry bin, otherwise I throw it onto his side of the bed. I won't put his clean clothes away, I just pile it up on his side of the bed. I took a photo once when the pile was 4ft high. Anything such as bags etc that he dumps on the floor, I also throw onto his side of the bed, or in the cupboard under the stairs. His side of the bedroom looks like a student's but I can ignore it. These tactics have kept me sane and kept us married! If you carry on the same way, so will he. Leave his stuff unpacked both pre and post moving, and let him deal with it.

Yes, he really has always been like this, which I guess is why I feel guilty. He doesn't have a malicious bone in his body, he just is on a different planet a lot of the time.

I think that most of the time things are fine, and these things are mild niggles but not something I get worked up over. I think I'm very very tired and emotional, so it's all coming out.

I have been wavering over whether to get a cleaner once the baby's born but now I can see that I'm going to be even more tire d and stressed then, so it's probably a sensible solution.

Oh, and I think the other thing I'm upset and cross about it that I really resent being made into a nag.

For those of you that just leave it, have you got used to tolerating it? I think I'd be embarrassed to have people round!

See all that stuff that he leaves at the cow's tail (so to speak)? I'd stick it under the duvet on his side of the bed, and keep on doing it until he stops expecting you to tidy up after him. After all, you're not his mother!

Have you thought about shifting his energies into other tasks? For example, DH is rubbish at putting his clean clothes away, but he's happy to clean the toilets. I'm quite happy to trade off - I'll put his clothes away if he wants toilet duty. I hate cleaning toilets.

Haha! The idea of putting stuff in the bed is bloody funny!

I think I'm going to sit down with him once we've moved and come up collaboratively with a set of 10 house rules, I.e., stuff we BOTH should always do/ not do. That way I think the other stuff can slide, and it's not a big deal.

I guess I'm not that keen to go down the Making A Stand route as I think it's a bit passive aggressive. I know he appreciates me and is great in other ways, so perhaps we just need to be a little more concrete about how to solve the problem in the long term .

Thanks guys. I bloody love MN.

Oh, and I think the other thing I'm upset and cross about it that I really resent being made into a nag.

Yes, yes and yes. My dh is very much as you describe. Drives me insane. My 3yo is tidier than him. Just wanted to sympathise.

FWIW, i would really really try to get the balance of work, expectations and resonsibility sorted out before there is a baby in the house. All that 'managing a household business' - just the basics like getting washing done, make sure there's food/nappies in the house, putting bins out, changing stinky sheets etc - all gets tougher when you have a baby. If you are still shouldering the brunt of it then, it will be very hard for you.

Posts like this do make me quite angry, I have to say. I know SO many women living with these half men/half teenage boy hybrids, and it's a real problem. I don't buy that it's just a question of having 'different standards'. I think men are on the whole not brought up to take care of themselves or their environments - they just have an expectation that things will somehow 'get done.' By mummy when they were small, and now they are big, by Girlfriend or Wife.

I think in situations where one partner works a lot more than the other, there's a certain amount of horsetrading to be done about it all. But on the whole, in an otherwise fairly equal situation, women do a LOT more than their fair share in running households. I'm sorry, but I don't think reading the Guardian cover to cover instead of sorting out possessions and packing indicates a dreamy disposition. I think it's selfish and rests on the assumption that you will be sorting all the difficult, boring and non intellectual stuff out.

Some would say 'really laid back'
Some would say 'lazy git'

I often ask, what was it about getting married that made you think that your DH would turn from this laid back lazy git into a domestic god? Why are people always moaning about traits that people had way back when they were first together, when they were deciding what they could and could not put up with in a relationship and weighing up what was worth it?

It sounds like you are having a hard time at the moment, pregnant and stressed about moving house. But if he has always been like this, it is unrealistic to expect him to change when you obviously accepted him for it in the first place.

This is not giving men an excuse to be lazy, it is about making people think when they enter a relationship about what they are willing to deal with and what they want to change, and setting the ground rules early on so that resentment doesn't build over years of things not being done how you want/expect them to be.

Moving house isn't fun anytime, even less so when pregnant

I moved twice when pregnant with dd2, once at 14 weeks then again at 36+2 weeks

Neither move planned but both very necessary. I didn't even see the house we were moving to second time as i was in hospital with HBP when DH viewed it . He knew my criteria, it all turned out fine

YANBU to NOT pack his stuff, nor unpack it the other end. Are you his wife or his mother??

You need to try and find a happy medium with regard to cleanliness and tidiness etc FWIW I am the same as you, want the beds made, don't like unnecessary clutter etc, but DH can sit amongst piles of utter shite clutter all day long

He's also the same in the kitchen, leaves crumbs everywhere and never puts milk/sauce/butter back either

Good luck with the move anyhow!

Leaving the milk sitting on the worktop with no lid on isn't 'really laid back' it's fucking lazy and slobby!

Stop excusing him. He's not 10 and you are not his mum!!

Ok, my tuppence is that 'different expectations of tidy' is 99% bollocks.

There are some people who are genuinely messier than others. There is a need to compromise with your partner. Yes.

I'm saying this because my DH, who used to be very like your DH sounds, didn't really get why I got fed up about, say, washing the kitchen floor once a week. Because after all, he washed it every few months and it seemed to stay clean, and when it got a bit sticky, well, he didn't mind did he? And then magically it got clean again - which proved, clearly, that my 'expectations' must be higher than his because I cracked first.

Only ... when I stopped doing it, he rapidly realized that he, too, found himself wanting to wash it more often, and he too found it was easier to do it before it became quite as messy as he'd once have let it get. Funny, that!

That is no way to live. If you didn't crack and do things first, he would very soon find out that his 'expectations' are not so different from yours, because frankly there is no especially complicated hierarchy of perception about what is dirty and what is clean! Honest.

At the moment, you are the one currently doing the work so you should get to say why you feel things need doing a certain way and at a certain time. Could you sit him down and tell him how you are feeling and say what you feel is a basic acceptable level of cleaning/tidying to do - both for this move and afterwards? I did this a while back - it really made me think about what I routinely did or expected to have done. It also really helps him to get his finger out and recognize what you do.

Given that you are currently doing the cleaning and tidying, and you expect you'll end up sorting out his packing at the other end, clearly you're in a situation where he doesn't have to think about how things get tidy. This is not good for either of you. It sounds really school-y, but having lists of 'chores' isn't actually awful.