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).

:-(

My DH is pernicketily tidy with his own possessions. We have moved house once. If I had allowed him to be involved every item would have been examined, polished, wrapped, commented on, and possibly dusted. The job would never have got done. Ring the removal firm and get them to come and do it for you. End of.

Although my DH is uber tidy, he doesn't know where the hoover is kept, what the iron does, that a bog brush even exists, although he does sweep up but leaves the bits in a pile and I wish he wouldn't. He does bins, garden, wiping down outside. I do shopping, cooking and laundry. The cleaner does: vacuuming, mopping, cleaning, tidying, wiping down paintwork. The window cleaner does the windows.

We have done this for 21 years now. Sometimes we drive each other to distraction. I have a messy pile on the bedside table and by my bed; he doesn't really understand changing bed linen and can spend hours straightening books on bookshelves. But I wouldn't change him and he wouldn't change me much

They've got us sewn up, haven't they? We wouldn't want to seem like a hateful patriarchal stereotype that was made up to keep women in their place and stop them asserting their rights, that would be 'nag'. Same with strip clubs. I don't want to seem uncool and uptight. Same with relationships, don't want to seem needy so I won't ask for what I want.

Thanks goodness, and my militant feminist mother, that I married an evolved human being.

LRD - oh, that thing where people assume it's me that's cleaning and tidying and organising the house, not my partner.... I hate that so much. Hate it. I'm the main breadwinner in our house - we both work but I have always, so far, earned more than him, and yet it is assumed by family and friends that it is also MY house in as far as I am responsible for what state it is in.

So true LRD - if a house is a tip...no-one says 'he's a lazy bastard' do they?
The onus pretty much always falls on the woman, such is the social conditioning.
Pisses me off no end. Everyone helps to make the mess, but yet we women are held accountable for it.

In my home it's pitch in or fuck off.

And in mine. I'm not picking up after some scummy bloke. Clean up your shit, or live somewhere else.

Well you need to take the guardian off him( shove it up his arse) and tell him that as he isn't helping and you are pregnant and knackered you are getting packers in.

Tell him to put all his stuff to keep in a pile or it will be chucked out.

Move and get a cleaner once a week to help out.

Good luck but make him understand that if he won't pull his weight he's going to have to financially contribute to hired help.

Well, I think we will change it gradually. I do think there's a shift in attitudes, isn't there?

I think the 'nagging' thing is annoying too - I'd rather have it all out, once, then agree to something and stick to it. The OP's saying her husband 'gets distracted' ... that would irritate me no end. We all get distracted sometimes. I'd love to get distracted every time I had to put the washing out. But you learn, don't you?

As an asides, if my new boyfriend's bathroom was filthy with crud and stank of piss, having not been cleaned for two years, the relationship would be over.
I am in no way a fastidious housekeeper. It's bare minimum required here....but that bathroom would tell me everything I needed to know...that man is not for me!
I have no maternal instinct towards men and have zero desire to show them the way it's done, or accept that they are 'just the way he is' and redouble my own efforts to compensate.

Men who can't even see their way to putting the milk back in the fridge are disrespectful slobs and hold no attraction for me. And never have.

he is a bit of a daydreamer and it's as if he zones out and goes into auto pilot.

loving your D's tactic, when he clearly does not want to do it

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.

OP no offence but what difference will the above make, you have been unable to put your foot down thus far!!

Packers and a cleaner

Pictish i understand calling those people who do that a slob but i do not agree it is necessarily disrespectful. To me it is only disrespectful if the person expects you to tidy up after them. Similarly to narked the towel thing would only bother me if i was expected to pick it up, but my dp is happy to use them wet and smelling of damp from the floor. In fact i have done an experiment and asked him to use a clean fluffy one and then the wet smelly one and he really cannot tell the difference.

I think he is different from everyone else in the world. There are a pile of clean towels in the bathroom and he opts for the wet one on the floor because it is nearer.

In all fairness, the distractibility/ inattentiveness is not just in relation to cleaning. He is late for absolutely everything, including work on a daily basis, usually because he's been reading or something. He looses the thread in conversations sometimes (with everyone, not just when I'm talking about cleaning!).

You say about putting my foot down, but I don't really think of it like that. The reason I think the rules would be helpful is because if there are 5 or so things that absolutely he needs to do, I think it's easier to make a fuss about, rather than it seemingly like I'm making a fuss about everything (from my point of view). I think if there are something that are done (putting the fucking milk back in the fridge) then I won't be as wound up by other things.

My mum visited my db's home and complained about the fact that the house wasn't tidy. She put the blame squarely on my dsil who works full time and is 30 weeks pregnant, My db escapes my mother's wrath because 'He is a man' according to my mother. This is a woman who encouraged my dsis and i to go to university, because she wanted us to be self sufficient.
I think that these men can see the mess, but they feel that the housework is womans work and therefore cannot be bothered.

I agree Spuddy - when a person refuses to lift a finger but then complains about the state of the house, or critisises his their partner's housekeeping skills, then it is 100 times worse.

Still though, a bathroom like you described would be a definite deal breaker for me. Whether they intended it or not, all I would see is the fact that I would be keeping my future bathroom clean with no help from him. No thank you.

I suppose the issue is that when you live with them, it doesn't just matter that everything should be as they like it, or as you like it - you have to be come to an agreement. I would personally find it disrespectful if DH left wet towels on the floor even if he did happily use them, because in our house, that'd mean a) the bathroom smelt a bit funny and I wouldn't like that and b) there might not be a nice clean towel left for me! But if you don't mind, obviously it's not disrespectful. It's about communicating what you feel and having a partner who bothers to listen and try to do what makes you both happy.

Oops, sorry, cross posted with you sastra.

I think you are spot on (though I would think that as we have ticklist rules here and I know it drives some people nuts ... works for us though! ).

Maybe the OP can't afford a cleaner.

Spuddy, my DH does the same thing with wet towels. He can also ignore dirty bathrooms for weeks/months on end, unless begged to do it, and even then he gives the toilet/sink etc a quick wipe, missing loads of dirt.

However, he does tidy, he just doesn't clean. He does 85% of the cooking, a lot of the tidying, most of the gardening. I clean in a very haphazard manner and do all the laundry apart from putting clean clothes away. It annoys me that he doesn't see dirt, just untidiness - hence, he tidies up and then thinks the job is done and that he did it all, while I'm still dusting/hoovering/wiping kitchen surfaces etc.

My dp doesn't have an expectation that I will do things for him, exactly. It's more a very vague but VERY deepseated expectation that somehow things will get done.... by someone.... before he has got round to doing them.... if he even noticed they needed doing in the first place.

So that big bag of DS clothes, clean and dirty, that also contains half eaten biscuits and fruit, a couple of nappies and suncream, that gets left in the hallway after he's come back from his mother's house... well, that will sit there. And sit there. And sit there. And the fruit will rot until liquid starts to seep out of the bag. Unless I move it and empty it. Or I specifically ask him to. Which might well mean him having a strop along the lines of 'god! I was GOING to move it!' (to which I reply, 'when? it's been there over a fortnight. Can't you smell the food rotting?' and thus an argument starts).

I think that's quite common, looking at my female friends. It's not so much there is a direct expectation that they should pick up after their male partners - more that their DPs just sort of have an expectation that it will get done, somehow. But of course, if there are only two adults in a household and one isn't pulling their weight, then the other does more than they should. The magic housework pixies do not exist.

Agree with the MN'ers suggesting a cleaner and packers and letting him unpack his own stuff. If you can afford a cleaner it would make a huge difference. I would still nag him about putting things away and his general slobbyness. My DH responds to praise. I have got him doing the dishwasher every Saturday and Sunday by a ridiculous display of wonderment and delight every time he does it. (he works, I don't and I have a cleaner so anything he does is a bonus)
Has your DP every lived on his own or was it straight from his Mum's to yours.

YANBU, and DP is being VERY VERY U

One thing that bothered me about DP, and has been improved on to some degree, is that he didn't know HOW to clean anything. As an adult male over 30, whatever he had done til then had either been so minimal or badly done - I don't know, whatever, but he didn't know HOW to clean.

After one argument about housework, he agreed to clean the floors downstairs. Laminate flooring, dusty as hell, with pet fluff and grit and muddy foorprints all over -

He filled a bucket with water, squirted some wood floor cleaner in it (floors aren't wooden but whatever) - then threw the bucket of water over the floor. He then grabbed a couple of bath towels from the radiator and kicked them round the floor with his feet to try and soak up the water.

afte that, I took him through the basics of floor cleaning. Sweep to get dust and grit up - mop and scrub to get actual dirt off. DP was a bit angry about how much work was involved.

Fine. Next time, he used bleach in the bucket (after I had shown him how to use bleach in the bathroom, he thought it would mean less mopping and scrubbing work) - then did the thing with the bath towels all over again. Great big bleach stains all over my towels. And they were mine, I paid for them myself. I don't get hugely excited about towels but I prefer them not to have bleach patches all over, if possible. Dp thought I was making a fuss. He'd cleaned the floors, hadn't he?

I think that is spot on fruity.

OP, hello - sorry for moaning on your thread.

I think agreeing lists would be a good idea. We have tried in the past, and it hasn't worked, but I think we should prob try again!

none of my beeswax of course, but keep an eye on that 'dreaminess'. I don't think being late for work every day because he's been 'reading' is great, tbh. He must have very understanding employers.

Oh, I sympathise OP. My DP isn't as extreme as yours, but we definitely have different standards. He never ever makes the bed, never does the washing up until the sink starts to overflow with dirty pots, and he leaves his stuff all over the place which, like you, I find especially infuriating right after I have tidied up. He just doesn't see the problem though, and before I moved in with him he was exactly the same, so I can't make the "he's only acting like this because he expects me to clear up afer him" argument.

So we eventually came to an agreement: I assumed responsibility for the state of the downstairs of the house, and he is responsible for the state of the upstairs. This works for me because that way I can at least keep on top of the main living space without feeling too resentful about the fact that I'm clearing his mess, since I know that eventually (he does the clean/tidy of the upstairs once a week at the weekend) he will be sorting out the upstairs. And guests hardly ever go upstairs so it doesn't matter too much if it's messy until he gets around to doing it.

Put all is shit in bin liners (including anything he leaves out EG: Milk & wet towels) and put it in the boot of his car.