is there equity in my marriage?

[Sootsprite2612]

Background - 26, been together 10 years and married for four to a truly wonderful, kind and considerate man. My childhood and early adulthood was abusive and he has done so much to help rectify my skewed views on relationships and is generally just amazing... except when it comes to housework. No kids and live in a large 2 bed flat.

Both work FT Monday to Friday and get home around the same time. When we get in, he plonks himself on the sofa and I start cleaning, cooking tea and tidying up. He is very appreciative but cleaning up genuinely doesn't occur to him. We have been living together for 7 years and not once has he ever deep cleaned the bathroom or kitchen unless I've specifically asked him.

His job is very very difficult (intelligence governmental work) and so I think he needs time to settle when we get in but AIBU to get really bugged that he can sit in mess?

It's the only thing we argue about. When I ring it up he just says that most of the mess is mine, which I agree - he is naturally more tidy than I am, however we both contribute to the dirt! It's the cleaning that bothers me more than tidying.

The only thing he does is take the bins out once per week and even then he needs my help to hold the bin while he pulls out the bag and disinfect the bin afterwards.

In his defence, he does all the driving as I can't, and has given me an incredible amount of emotional support especially during a recent breakdown I had where I had to take 6 months off.

AIBU to expect a 30 yr old man to notice the house is dirty and do something about it?!?! Feel like I spend every day cleaning and I can never catch up!

@Fredkites you teach children as soon as they are old enough to carry things, they don't just leave their empty dirty plates on the table. You also teach them if they drop food/make a mess when eating it doesn't magically disappear and someone has to clean it up.

So, two bed flat.

Weekly pristine:- vacuum, mop floors, wipe sills, give surfaces a dust over.
Monthly:- as above but damp wipe paintwork, lightswitches etc, under basin, under bogs, etc, quick wipeover of tiles.

Honestly, set it out as a job for a cleaner: two hours a week should do it.

My DH does tend to forget the time it takes to do the laundry, shopping, cooking, dishwashering, etc, though. An hour a day I'd say.

Does he have learning disabilities? No? In which case this is not about him "not thinking" about tidying/cleaning or "not noticing" that tidying/cleaning needs to be done or (barring some kind of visual problem) not being able to see what needs doing.

This is a man who thinks cleaning/tidying is a woman's job. Same old. Same old.

I don't see someone who has done such a stellar job of "rectifying your skewed view of relationships".

He came along at 16 as your knight in shining armour to rescue you from your abusive childhood and teenage years, and you credit him and him alone as showing you what a healthy relationship looks like? Yet can't see that this isn't healthy?

Troubling.

I assume as part of his education of you he taught you that not all abusers are the same, and that many act like charming, loving people on the outside while they manipulate and groom you to obtain control of you?

That all abuse is about power and control, so the methods and tactics used vary from abuser to abuser?

That just because someone does not assault us doesn't mean they're not abusive?

That comparing one abuser's methods to a new person is not a reliable or trustworthy way of determining whether the new person is abusive?

He covered all that, right?

Behaving like a decent human being doesn't make somebody amazing. (Especially when they're not actually even meeting that standard!)

Your posts make me sad.

Men who "don't notice" the washing up, or do a half arsed job of cleaning, or fail to "realise" the house they live in gets dirty and needs cleaning, do all of that to ensure you give up on expecting them or asking them to do it and do it yourself.

Which is exactly what he's achieved. You're his domestic worker.

He is not amazing. He's manipulating you.

YY Anoukspirit I agree with everything you say.

The fact that you were sixteen when you met your DH means that you have not spent any adult years alone sootsprite. Your early adult years means post-16, so I am presuming you mean your parents were abusive whilst you were still living at home.

Female equality in the outside world relies on equality in the home. Domestic labour is unpaid, and if women do more of it when children come along, then they lose out financially. Husbands go out to work and value their work more (devaluing the contribution their wife makes). How is a person who does more domestic and childcare work supposed to participate in civil and public life equally? Without being exhausted over time?

Outsourcing cleaning would solve the problem IF you were both finding it too much, and made that decision together. If you insist on a cleaner, without him pulling his weight, it is simply substituting one female domestic for another.

Your DH may be great, in which case he will take on board what you say and step up. That is what you are aiming for, and you should not settle for less.

If you are only two adults working full time and are out all day, just how untidy does your house get?

Why do you only empty the bin once a week? Try more often and the bag won't get stuck. It does not take two adults to empty a bin ! And it does't need disinfecting every time either.

Stop making hard work for yourself.

Of course you show children how to clear up but you know sometimes stuff gets left, if you're in a hurry or someone hurts themself or has a tantrum, or a hundred other things. I just can't see how everyone doing strictly their own tidying ever really works.

Also you get hours of "But I didn't play with those toys/use the butter/get those pens out so I'm not putting it away blah blah".

Much better surely to instil a spirit of everyone pitching in?