Anyone ever feel like a slave in their own house?

[MyMindsaBlank123]

Just this.
Spent over 3 hours this morning cleaning the house, usual stuff including hoovering, dusting, unstacking the dishwasher/restacking with dirty dishes, cleaning kitchen and bathrooms, general tidying, bed making etc. Also cleaned the oven and grill racks. Mopped floors. Had a quick lunch then straight out into the garden, spent another 3 hours of backbreaking digging/weeding and planting in clay soil, and filling/lugging 20 sacks of clay/rubble across the garden (just moved into a new build) until it can be taken to the dump.
DH cheerfully comes down from his office to ask what's for dinner. I could cheerfully have throttled him. Told him to make his own and the kids dinner. I go in after their dinner to find 1) dirty dishes left on the kitchen surfaces, not in the dishwasher which I tell them to do EVERY FUCKING DAY 2) recycling/manky yogurt pots left out, not taken to recycling area 3) dirty dishes in sink 4)dirty footprints all over the kitchen floor 5)empty food packets strewn across the kitchen 6) general untidiness and mess everywhere 7) bathroom towels chucked at the towel rail not folded over it.

Honestly, sometimes I just feel like crying, its a never ending battle and I repeat myself every day but it never sinks in. I wonder why I bother and I would go on strike but I know I could not live in a dirty/untidy house so I end up doing it anyway. I feel like a nagging witch and like a slave in my own house. Anyone else ever feel like this?

Sometimes yes. I think it’s worse at the moment because everyone’s here all the time so mess is much more than usual!

Yes! I can empathise with all of this. Not that it will make you feel any better though! I feel a lot of resentment towards my DH at the moment as he is back at work every day now, I'm at home trying to WFH, homeschool DS and stop DD (2yo) trying to hurt herself in every way humanly possible. He strolls in and wonders why I look like I've been dragged through a bramble bush. "What's for dinner?" is a great one. I just laugh in his face and tell him he should have been a comedian.

I might go to DH's office just after the cleaners have been and eat my lunch, leave everything out. Wee on the toilet seat and chuck some rubbish around just for good measure

I hear you!

I fantasise about living in a little house or flat on my own

Then I get over it again

MN will tell you their DHs are not like this, they would not stand for it, LTB etc

But yes, this is my experience also

And I work too!

Women pay a high price for marriage IMO. I have learned to take time out for myself , say “fuck it” and/or bully DH and kids to help

But it’s swings and roundabouts...

It is like groundhog day here too

I want to live alone with just a dog and a garden

Why are you voluntarily doing all of that? Sounds rubbish!

DP is learning.. he sees a certain look on my face and says "why dont we use deliveroo tonight? Got to keep the economy ticking over you know"

But yes OP I feel like that too. Its utterly relentless. I cleaned the bathroom this morning and returned to find toothpaste smeared all over the basin, clean towel on the floor in a damp mess. Washing up seems to breed.. wheres it all coming from?

Oh and while I'm at it why does nk one understand that LEAVING BREAD CRUMBS SCATTERED OVER EVERY SURFACE IS NOT ON ? especially but not limited to the recently swept and mopped kitchen floor, the recently wiped surfaces.. I'm sick of bread crumbs.

YADNBU

I said to my DH tonight that I feel like a parody of a 1950s housewife at the moment. He is back at work whereas I am still wfh. Think he likes it 🙄

Did he not make your dinner too ??
Tell him to clear up his mess, it's so disrespectful.

I feel a bit like this, it like I've been preparing 3 meals a day forever. All I seem to do is sort out lunch and dinner for everyone than wash up. I don't work, haven't for a few years so it is what I do, but with everyone home I just feel like a feeding machine.... Don't get me started on the constant washing up.

How old are your kids? Old enough to be given small jobs to do?
Sit everyone down and have a proper talk.
Also get them to help you do things. Or go on strike. Some people don’t notice stuff - it’s invisible to them eg I took the car to the car wash today and neither DH or Ds1,2 noticed despite it being filthy before and sparkling now. I now point things out. Ask for jobs to be done and I don’t do them myself.
Be strong. As everyone is at home there is much more work around the house and it’s only right that everyone pitches in.
Even a 5 year old can set the table.

Me too!! And yes to 1950s. I have no work (freelancer in Events) so am right back in the domestic drudgery whilst he gets to spend all day calm and ON HIS OWN in MY (recently refurbished - by ME) office!!!!!!!!!

I had a meltdown on Tuesday night and he promised to help more with dinner times.

Today I tested his assertion that he'd be fine with beans on toast as I just could not be arsed - there was only a flicker of disappointment before he composed his face into 'grateful'

Putting dishes on top of the dishwasher rather than inside it is one of my huge bugbears!

Yes it’s shit. My suggestions
Get kids to do more
Make dinner when you make lunch so kitchen trashed for 2 meals not 3 when dinner comes it feels like a takeaway

Reassuring we are not alone but sad really in 2020

Stand over them while they do it
and take tomorrow off
It's the only way to make it sink in

I had this scenario, the one thing that changed my husbands behaviour was to return to full time work. Sadly he saw it as my job to do everything, whilst a SAHM. I am now much much happier that the running of the house and care of our children is equal, that I am supported AND doing something for myself.

Right now though, I am truly getting sick of the food shop, prep and clean up! I feel you.

As for the gardening, if your dh is leaving you the kitchen clean up, I wouldn’t take on outside jobs.

My husband's life wouldn't be worth living of he ever left the kitchen in such a state, but luckily he's an amazing cleaner and would never do that. You need to have a very serious talk with your husband and children. Even if they're still young, they are perfectly capable in helping out with small tasks. Don't put up with this nonsense.

In response to a couple of questions, I do it because if I didn't literally it would stay like that until the dishes reached the ceiling/towels grew mould on the floor/recycling took over the house etc. I admit I am a bit of a clean/neatness 'freak' for want of a better word, but it makes me so uncomfortable that I end up doing it just so I don't have to look at it. The kids are 12 and 13 (both girls) and I really don't know how I've raised two such messy and disrespectful (when it comes to helping out around the home) children. Every night they leave their dirty laundry in piles, inside out as they've dropped them taking them off, on their room floors. And every night I ask them to put dirty laundry in the basket or at least at the top of the stairs so that I can gather it up easily. I ask them to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher every day, and every day they are left in the sink or on the worktops. I just can't keep saying the same things over and over again. At heart it is disrespect isn't it? They just don't care how long/how hard a person works to keep the home they live in and enjoy looking nice. Why is my time to be used doing shit like this as if I really enjoy it? Sorry, feeling really down tonight.

I went on strike a while ago. They all coped.. lots of baked beans and toast. But then it came to bed time and DS (THEN 6) arrived sobbing because his bed hadn't been made!! Ever since that, hes made his own.. well normally

Same here. Always crumbs and a sticky knife on work surfaces. Recycling not done. Dishes left by the sink. Towels on the floor.
Its not fucking rocket science!!!!! Sick to death of nagging and trying to keep on top of it while working from home

Yeah I've pretty much give up and do the absolute bare minimum I can get away with!
OH does pull his weight but it's just never ending
Absolutely never fucking ending

I said to my DH tonight that I feel like a parody of a 1950s housewife at the moment. He is back at work whereas I am still wfh. Think he likes it

My DH knows how hard I'm working at home because he was furloughed and was pretty impressed. Because he worked all day on every day on the allotment (It does look amazing to he fair), I let his lack of effort indoors slide. Now he's back to work, I think he thinks I'm in a pinny all day brandishing a feather duster and a potato peeler.

"What's for dinner?" or "have I got any clean...?" will be the hill that HE dies on.

“ At heart it is disrespect isn't it?”

Nope. I mean, I’m not denying that it’s incredibly annoying behaviour, but you don’t have to martyr yourself and judge their moral fibre over this issue.

They are just young teenagers who suffer no consequences when they don’t do as asked. So give them a consequence. They’ll get it faster that way.

They are 12 and 13?! Come on now, their not doing chores needs to change now. Make a list of chores and they can switch off every day. If the chores aren't done, there will be consequences. At their ages, they should be doing their own laundry, hoovering, dishes, etc, at a minimum. Don't be a martyr, op. It's only going to make you even more miserable.

• working from home