Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Wanting wife to do more

349 replies

Shroppfly · 14/03/2020 12:06

I’m probably going to get shot down here and that’s okay becAuse I want honesty.

I’ve been married to my wife for 10 years and we have two children. 6 and 3.

I work as a director of a medium sized company and work a lot of hours.

My wife Is a part time student 2 days a week

Kids are at nursery and school full time.

My wife makes dinner in the week and does the laundry. Since she started college she no longer irons.

We have a largish house and two dogs as well as the sprogs.

The house has been hard to keep on top of and it’s been stressing me out.

I know it doesn't bother my wife as much as me so I’ve been taking Saturday morning to totally blitz the house, because I just don’t get time in the week, out at about 7am after walking dogs and usually back just in time for bed time for the kids.

By the time the weekend comes I’m usually filling a bin bag of rubbish before I start cleaning and just tidying the mess takes a couple of hours.

The idea of doing this would be it would be easier to keep on top of. However it’s just meant my wife is leaving everything until the Saturday for me.

I really don’t want to be chauvinist pig, but the simple matter is that I don’t like living in crap and if I was at home more and she was working the hours I am m, then I’d have no problem doing more housework.

I’ve spoken to her about it but she just shuts down on me.

I’ve suggested getting a cleaner but she won’t entertain it.

I feel frustrated by the situation as I don’t feel we ever get beyond just about coping with the house, so it’s disorganised and nothing gets improved - silly things like sorting out draws, putting up pictures etc

I’m bloody exhausted and just want to relax at home. I don’t mind doing the housework at the weekend, but I want the house not be a stressful shit pit in the week as well.

She’s not depressed, she just doesn’t want to do it. When she was doing more (before I started the big cleans) she’d do a job a day so that in reality the house was never in good order all at once.

I Love her very deeply and believe me I’ve got a lot of faults but this one thing is really getting to me.
So there you go, rip me to shreds mumsnetters, tell me I’m being a jerk and how I should handle this. Ta.

OP posts:
saraclara · 15/03/2020 00:40

Also if she is in her 40s or 50s she may have perimenopausal exhaustion. It’s like pregnancy exhaustion. It’s not something you can push through.

Parents who work outside the home have to push through it. And parent their kids and tidy their homes when they've spent all day pushing through it while meeting deadlines and having their boss standing over them.

Jeeze, how come only SAHMs get excuses made for them? I'm almost ashamed to have been one.

GinnyWeasleysQuiff · 15/03/2020 00:51

I lost you at sprogs.........

nachthexe · 15/03/2020 01:05

The dick pandering on here is boggling sometimes. So many women clamouring to agree with men who strut on claiming their wives are lazy bitches.
The fawning is embarrassing. And the internalized misogyny is breathtaking. Absolutely oh wondrous bepenised one! You are a veritable soothsayer and thy wife is a slattern! Burn her!
Ladies, he could be any of yours. And frankly, you’re welcome to him.

Lynda07 · 15/03/2020 03:20

Patroclus Sat 14-Mar-20 13:02:41
hahahaha always, always, always the 'I'd love to hear her side' comment.
.......
Well I would, wouldn't you?

Helpmechangemymindsetplease · 15/03/2020 05:18

Agreed @nachthexe - especially regarding the internalised misogyny.

Beerincomechampagnetastes · 15/03/2020 05:25

Yep nach awful

Tessatea · 15/03/2020 05:30

How often does she study?

Exam season is on the horizon and I can imagine she's dedicating her time to her studies and just doing essentials in the mean time?

Graciebobcat · 15/03/2020 05:57

When the kids were little and in a period when I was at home more I often felt totally burned out and overwhelmed by everything and even putting a load of washing on felt like too much of a project to tackle. To get through I had to make lists of tasks really broken down into micro things that I could more easily tick off. Gradually things got better.

I would suggest three things to the OP. You all pitch in and tidy up together at the weekend and you get a cleaner who comes on a Monday after you've tidied up. Reward charts for the kids with age appropriate tasks - get 5 stickers and they get a treat.

PhoneTwattery · 15/03/2020 06:56

For those saying we haven’t hears the wife’s side....true. But we never hear the other side of any OP surely.

TiredMum10 · 15/03/2020 07:15

She sounds so lazy. Ask her to go back to work pt and start contributing financially then she might get her act together.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 15/03/2020 07:35

@Msmcc1212 - OMG, thank you for the link to that thread! I missed it first time around, obviously but it makes so much sense of my life now!

GreytExpectations · 15/03/2020 07:45

You all are despicable.
You know for damn sure that if a woman wrote this making the same complaints about her husband you would all be calling him much worse names than just lazy and you'd be throwing around LTBs. Yet the post is from a husband (god forbid they come on Mumsnet) about his wife and you all get upset at calling the "poor women" names and want to hear her side? So can I ask why that is? I never have seen a poster want to hear the husband's side. Sexist the lot of you are

Soozikinzii · 15/03/2020 07:48

I would say get a cleaner say 3 hours a week to keep the housework down then it should be more manageable. If she still can't keep on top of it then that's lazy !

Sassanacs · 15/03/2020 07:56

JUST GET A FUCKING CLEANER

wowfudge · 15/03/2020 07:57

I think if one half of a couple is knackered and wants to relax at the weekend but is spending a significant amount of time tidying and cleaning then getting a cleaner is the obvious solution.

GA2012 · 15/03/2020 08:02

Some people just don’t enjoy cleaning and sometimes I think are blind to the mess.

This is coming from someone who cleans constantly but my partner could happily live in a tip.

I don’t think you can change her but it is unfair on you.

Have you talked to her about this?

So many times I’ve felt like not doing a thing in the day getting my partner to realise how much there is actually to do and seeing if he will help out more but being the clean freak I am I can’t leave things..

I’m a stay at home parent so naturally I have more time than him. We have considered switching roles for a while so I’d go out to work and he would stay home - both working isn’t really an option for us as dc are disabled but I know he wouldn’t do a thing and I would still have to do it all so I’m unsure.

I would definitely consider a cleaner. But cleaners won’t sort out full drawers and clutter...

curlsnotfrizz · 15/03/2020 08:08

stop sending the younger child to nursery when DW is at home and use the money for a cleaner.

she sounds incredibly lazy.

curlsnotfrizz · 15/03/2020 08:08

why is the younger one at nursery when she is at home anyways? I thought that is being the point of not working with nursery aged DC?

curlsnotfrizz · 15/03/2020 08:11

Washing for 4 people is a job on its own! She is also cooking a meal every evening which involves shopping, preparing and so on.Added to that 2 children to get out ,fetch from School

most people manage that on top of a full time job!

YukoandHiro · 15/03/2020 08:17

Just get the cleaner. Tell her you want to spend the money on it, so that your differences over house proudness don't nag away at your relationship. Tell her you appreciate she's busy but that you are too an that you're doing it, and you'll make sure the cleaner comes on one of the days you're all out of the house so it's not an inconvenience.
Make sure the whole family helps with the pre cleaner tidy up the night before. I already get my toddler to help with this putting away toys and books etc.

YukoandHiro · 15/03/2020 08:17

Ps: you must do the mental load work on this cleaner - find them, organise them, pay them.

strawberry2017 · 15/03/2020 08:23

So she has a husband who is willing to support her financially through 6 years of studying, who sounds like he does his fair share round the house and instead of helping she refuses.
2 options as far as I'm concerned

  1. She helps more
  2. Hire a cleaner to do it.

She doesn't get to to say no to the cleaner If she's not prepared to help herself

WaterOffADucksCrack · 15/03/2020 09:01

nachthexe that's not what's happening here though. If the op were a woman everyone would be queuing up to abuse her husband. So I think you're being a bit silly.

Greydove28 · 15/03/2020 09:33

@Nachtheex i agree

5LeafClover · 15/03/2020 09:42

Hmmm....there's enough here for me to want to know the other side of the story.

I am director of a medium sized company and work a lot of hours.My wife Is a part time student 2 days a week.
Do you see her as an equal partner in the joint enterprise of your family...

Then there's a lot of minimising everything she does: the washing but no ironing, kids are 'in nursery', 'silly things' like tidying out drawers and putting up pictures.

And glossing over the impact of your choices, leaving at 7am, getting home just in time for bedtime, working abroad.

And then you are ring fence your needs:
'I’m bloody exhausted and just want to relax at home' plus a hint of how you speak about it 'a stressful shit pit'

And some hanging questions: When she was doing more (before I started the big cleans) ...how long have you been contributing this weekly clean? how tidy are you personally in general? what is in all the storage in your house and who does it belong to? who cleans up after dinner? Do you do anything in the week to put the house back to a tidy state? how much of the shared family work do you claim on the basis that you like doing it ( like the weekend cooking) and is that always fair? Do you support her degree or do you see it in terms of something that impacts on you in a bad way? Do you intend to show her this thread as 'proof' that she is bad and you are good?
Did you plan to organise the cleaner yourself or did you just instruct her to get one?

I think this is a marriage in trouble, more than you think, not just about who should throw the weeks rubbish away on a Saturday morning. You say you love your wife but you don't write like it. You write like it's a performance management issue with a junior employee and that itself is an issue outside of the mechanics of who does what. My advice to you is to talk to a counselor, by yourself, with a view to understanding your role in your relationship and then take it from there.