Do men care about their home being clean and tidy? Do they have a routine for housework?

[HurricaneFloss]

Over and over again on MN there are threads asking for cleaning/laundry/household tips as women get stressed about mess and clutter.

Do men put themselves through this anguish?

Isawthesign

Are you married to this guy?

www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/style/modern-love-honey-i-swept-the-floor.html

Suppose they're all different. My ex was extreme. He would be up at 5am cleaning, bleaching, fixing. No matter how much I did it was never enough. Everything was sterile and perfectly in place. I remember having a row about why I should do 2 hours of housework a night. His house now is cleaned and primped to within an inch of its life. Same with his car. DP is messy, tidys occasionally and I do most of the cleaning. My dad is kind of in between.

DH took it upon himself to write up a housework rota the other day. 75% of it is jobs for him! His standards are far higher than mine so he knows if he wants things up to his expectations, he can crack on!

My DH does get stressed about it and more so than me.

But what he seems to like doing is no tidying/cleaning for several days, hey stressed and then clean for several hours. I'd much rather have a routine so it never gets bad in the first place.

*get stressed

My friend's husband used to get angry at her if the house was dirty when he got back from work. Some dishes in the sink was 'dirty', even though everything was sparkling.
She left him and was much happier for it!

This is what I was trying to say Smurf. Loads of men have really high cleaning standards but not enough pick up a sponge.

I don't know if my spouse has ever been on a forum asking for hints, but I know he has googled and asked people in person for it. He often cleans or repairs things when it's bugging him or when he knows it's bugging me.

He has a routine of doing a deep clean of the kitchen & the floors downstairs on his first night off-shift and deep cleaning of the bathroom on the next & we do deep cleans of other spaces together with me doing the lighter day-to-day tidying.

Our housemate-friend, who is also a guy, doesn't. His spaces are often messy and is known to leave the kitchen a mess. I wait until after he cooks to do evening tidying in there as it's not uncommon for there to be food bits left in the sink and on the counters. Nice guy but I'm glad most of his mess is contained to his rooms.

Yes dp does. He likes having the place nice and clean, along with the washing machine and dryer empty !

Mine cares. He whinges about the state of the house to me but does little to help. He has no idea how much work keeping on top of a house while working full time with 2 DC involves.

He pulled the TV out the other week for the first time since we moved in 8 years ago and proclaimed it was disgusting and he couldn’t believe that it hadn’t moved for 8 years. I pointed out I cleaned behind it every 6 months or so and that amount of dust had accumulated in 6 months not 8 years. His response was to say that it therefore needed cleaning more often - if he is that bothered he can do it himself but I know he won’t.

My H cares a huge amount more than I do. He'd love to be houseproud, but isn't actually neurotic enough to make it happen.

I could live in a hovel pretty happily.

Years ago I was in someone's house when another guest spilt some crumbs.
"Leave it," said our hostess. "My husband has OCD so will come home & clean everything anyway. Does that every day. May as well give him something real to clean up."

I am creeping into that same mindset, too.

It's a bit simplistic today women 'care more', as if our extra X chromosome just makes cleaning that much more of an interest of ours.

We are socialised our whole lives to feel responsible for our houses presentability, in a way our husbands are not. If we live in messy or dirty houses, that is seen as directly related to us and our standards, our husbands are assumed not to care or be responsible.

Personally, I am not really naturally they. And neither is my husband. We try and keep it in order, but I do notice the difference even between us of what is considered 'clean and tidy'.

Exactly, DryIce, and in many circumstances men are socialised to think of us as responsible for the drudgery. Often, women date men who appear to be more than capable of maintaining themselves and their home, only to move in with them and discover that he's quite happy to do fuck all while she does everything.

That's why we do 60% more. Not because we enjoy it, are better at it, or even care more about being tidy. Because when it comes down to it, men are more likely to down tools and we're so used to being told what we're here for that we just pick up the slack.

And you can say what you want, but it is about sex. If we are socialised according to our sex, it is about sex.

Sorry that last 'you' was a general 'you' and not you in particular DryIce

Mine has the irritating habit of sweeping the kitchen floor round where I work, collecting it all over by the bin and leaving it there! He likes to rearrange things, ie move something from A to B then wonder where it is. The TV remote is invariably on the window ledge, annoying when I'm on the sofa. In our first house, eons ago, it was decided that he would tidy and hoover the living room while I was out then I'd do the hall, stairs and landing when I returned. I returned to find all the living room stuff needing to go upstairs on the bottom step, so I returned it to the living room.

Mine is probably more house aware than me. He certainly does his fair share and does the less pleasant household management tasks - clearing gutters regularly, putting bins out and cleaning them each time they’re emptied, ironing, cleaning dishwasher, pest control, window cleaning, sweeping terrace, fetching logs etc. He also takes his turn at things like swapping laundry round and emptying dishwasher.