To say no to request to clean his house?

[Rose789]

I feel like a bitch and I’m awake at 1am worrying about it.
My brother and sil have 3 kids. Between ages of 4-10 (so all in school)
Brother works full time sil works part time (3 days a week)
Kids spend every Saturday night at their grandparents house.
Sil has been signed off for work for depression and is struggling and finding it difficult to get the motivation to do anything.
I text sil and told her if she ever needed any support or someone to listen I’m here for her.
Spoke to my brother told him if there was anything I can do to help let me know e.g if they wanted me to have the kids overnight or if they got stuck with the school run.

He’s messaged today saying what would be the most helpful is if I could go round and clean the house as it’s a bomb site and sil isn’t doing any housework and he hasn’t got time with kids.
I’ve said no for several reasons

1. I have my own house to clean. Yes it’s hard trying to clean around kids I understand that. But that’s the same for everyone. The oldest 2 are more then old enough to start helping in the house but they have no chores at all. They will eat sweets and just drop the wrapper on the floor. Have a drink and the cup just gets put anywhere.

2. My dad has a lot of health issues. As a result I spend at least one day and one evening a week cleaning his house doing his washing making meals, getting shopping. My brother occasionally visits and doesn’t help at all.

3. I was ill at the start of the year and spent a lot of time in hospital. Dh managed to clean the house, look after the kids and visit me, and work full time. Brother and sil picked up dd from school on one day. No other help- or offers to help.

4. the kids are at their grandparents every single Saturday night. Blitz the place when they are gone if you can’t do it when they are there.
   I would kill for a night off every single week.

I know my reasons are valid. But I do also feel awful for sil I have been in a similar position where everything was just too much of an effort even getting out of bed. While the mess and dishes and washing piled up around me. It’s an awful place to be and it might help her if the house is clean and tidy and she doesn’t need to worry about it. But she has a husband who is just as capable as she is at stepping up and doing the cleaning.
I’m such a people pleaser I’m really struggling to stick to my guns and refuse to help.
I’m not being unreasonable am I?

@Anordinarymum

So if getting a cleaner is not an option, tell him you will help him to clean the house. I don't think you should do it on your own

This sounds like a fair compromise. Or the other suggestion of you looking after the children while he cleans. They are both good offers.

That is the trouble with offering to help! Why not say you would be delighted to help hm have the time to do his own cleaning and you would take his children on Sunday morning 9 - 12 noon so he can do 3 hours of cleaning.

Also what happens the second time the brother needs help with the cleaning and the third. Forth? Fifth? Once you become their cleaner then when is the right time to step back? What if the SIL has long term depression?

Why can't he do his own cleaning? I was a single mum and a full time nurse and my house was always clean.
Also you could clean it for him but if he's not doing top up cleaning everyday it will be a tip again in a week, then back to square one.

If people say "Anything I can do to help" that kind of implies they are open to the other person asking for things that would actually help them. If what you mean is "I could watch your kids for a couple of hours at a time that suits me" then say that. Or if you have no intention of actually doing anything, then keep your virtue signalling comments to yourself.

Years ago when the daughter of 1 of our neighbours had leukaemia, a few of us mucked in and did their garden for the summer - because that is what the family wanted doing. Lots of people brought round food that they didnt want and didnt need and then sat back and waited for praise for their kindness. Most of it went straight in the bin.

But the OP isn’t offering NOTHING, she isn’t making an empty gesture to make herself look good. She’s offered to do something genuinely helpful. And you can’t take this on isolation without considering that she cooks, cleans and shops for her father and her brother has never done anything to help whatsoever. There is clearly a pattern of behaviour and there is no way the OP should enable him to carry on like this when she is already doing a huge amount to help an actually incapacitated family member. The brother is fine and there is no reason he couldn’t do his own cleaning - he just doesn’t want to! As evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t do anything for his dad and didn’t do anything to help OP when she was in hospital.

YANBU. Seems your brother views cleaning as a woman's job. If his wife can't/won't do it, then you should. Hence why you support your father with cleaning, and he just judges your help while not lifting a finger.

he needs to sort it.

I think offering to have the children whilst he cleans the house is perfect. Or offer to help him clean the house together.

Well I must be really crap then. Because today I will shop and do laundry and batch cook for the week and that means little to no cleaning is done. For that I need Sunday (or for the rest of the family to pitch in which is exactly what happens, but then my kids arent small and my dh isnt severely depressed). So I can quite see how a person could work and help w kids, Mon-Fri, do stuff round the house Sat and deal w cooking/kids on Sunday and still struggle to keep on top of things.

No room in the freezer I assume @Porcupineinwaiting?

I would help them but get them to do it with you. Sometimes a neutral person coming into the situation helps everyone get motivated. Don’t do the cleaning but facilitate them in getting going with it. I’ve found this helpful when I’ve been overwhelmed by what seems like such a big task.

Even if the brother should clean, even if he is making a sexist assumption I honestly think you should help by cleaning which is what he asked when you so kindly offered. They are in a mess and need help.
Clean once and then talk to him about how he can sort this out for himself As you can’t do it for them regularly.
As for anyone thinking cleaning is something a family member shouldn’t ask you to do I just don’t understand this. Family are exactly the people who can ask for all sorts of help when they are in need (if there’s no backstory of no contact or similar obvs).

So Porcupine how could the OP be expected to manage cleaning her brother’s house given that she works, has children and does her father’s shopping, cooking and cleaning as well? I don’t see that her brother expecting her to clean his house on top of managing two households, a job and a family of her own already is reasonable?

Seriously? He gets a whole day off from work and the dc and sits looking at a messy house then has the nerve to ask someone else to clean it? Someone else who, by the sound off it, uses HER day off to cook, clean and shop for HIS father? Yes, like he'd ask a male relative to do it! Op, either show him how to clean his own toilets or get him to shadow you at your dad's to see what a normal cleaning routine looks like. What does he do in the evenings and at weekends? Again, just look at the mess? If it was me op, I would talk him through how to clean stuff but not do it for him, that's pointless. The amount of people saying YABU is astounding. Because it's wimmins work the op should do it because she said she'd do 'anything'? No one lists the jobs they'd be willing to do because no one would expect a request like this. Yes, he's overwhelmed but he needs to see it's his mess, his family and just because he has a penis he's not exempt from doing the grunt work himself.

Don't enable her I agree. She needs to hire a cleaner. Sounds like she gets enough time o do it. She will come out of the other side. She needs therapy.

There’s no way I would do this and I think very much YANBU.

Here’s my reasoning:

He sees you cleaning for his parents and I would think he has probably not given a thought to what that means (love, duty, whatever) and just sees competence and willing. Cleaning for somebody is done with strings attached, always, (maybe financial, maybe emotional) but perhaps he doesn’t see that because, you know, man. Perhaps for him it’s a practical job and nothing more. Look at how often leaving this practical job to others demeans and hurts them and frankly irritates the fuck out of them.

I’d be worried he - without thinking - would slip into seeing you supporting him the same way you support your parents and that would be hideous for you, and would erode your relationship at a time when it needs to be strong.

There is a really great alternative which is you pay for a half-day blitz for them - no tricky waters to navigate with that. An act of love and support. And they will likely do a brilliant job, whereas you might not have time to.

Wish you the best, they’re clearly having a very hard time but this needs a more neutral and clinical solution I think.

@justanotherneighinparadise no the freezer was kept full by his mum and she (female neighbour) spent most of her time at the hospital and her mum used to take her food there. I have a very clear memory of thanking a friend for a mushroom stroganoff then shutting the door and then starting to laugh/cry at the thought of trying to feed his 3 year old mushrooms on top of everything else.

I think that you were right to say no tbh.

Why can't he clean with the kids there?

Or perhaps you could go somewhere for a couple of hrs with SIL & the kids?

Of him thanking a friend...

Nothing to do w me.

I agree with pp who’ve said: there is not a chance he’d ask a brother to do this for him. Maybe it’s not the time to be fighting the feminist corner and I wouldn’t challenge him in it but for your own sanity, dont take on the role of his cleaner!

YANBU at all.

MN has virtually trade marked the term cheeky fucker and yet you are getting so many replies saying you should do it because you offered to help without being specific. Many of us offer to help other people without specifying the boundaries because we simple don't expect people to take the piss. I think you were specific enough when you gave examples of what you could do. If I had a friend who lived alone then the things I would be prepared to do would be different to the help I would be happy to provide to a friend in a couple or family situation.

You are taking sole responsibility for making sure your father is cared for and managing your own household. It sounds like your brother has been happy to allow the lion's share of the mental and domestic load to fall on his wife's shoulders and now the nanny/housekeeper is out of action he needs a replacement because, through lack of practice, he's unable to juggle everything. He needs to step up and stop taking the piss out of his wife and trying to do the same with you.

Can we please stop feeling sorry for men who suddenly have to do the things women usually do for them and can we please stop making women responsible for the wellbeing of other women because men won't step up.
I witnessed what my mother's life was like because of the social pressure put on women to fulfill certain roles and I think it's time women simply said no.

Stick to your guns OP and maintain your boundaries.

I agree this is a difficult predicament. There are many assumptions about the OP brother and whether or not he is taking the piss or genuinely needs help , and none of us on this thread can validate that - so I won't comment on that . I do think that maybe this boils down to communication , and maybe you should have offered what you were happy and willing to do , rather than saying "anything I can do to help " . Especially if your brother is the taking the piss type , as you would have given him carte Blanche to go ahead and ask for anything .
Also , just a thought but I do think if this was a female friend asking for help , the replies would be very different and more sympathetic to their plight !

@CaptainBrickbeard

So Porcupine how could the OP be expected to manage cleaning her brother’s house given that she works, has children and does her father’s shopping, cooking and cleaning as well? I don’t see that her brother expecting her to clean his house on top of managing two households, a job and a family of her own already is reasonable?

The expectation is fair apparently because she is female. We have super powers don’t you know!

If you don't want to help, you shouldn't have offered. You said you'd do anything to help.
People say "why didn't you ask for help?" when they hear that someone was struggling.
This is why, because actually the offer to help is must often just a shallow platitude.

But you offered!! Why don't you pay for a cleaning service to go over for a half day? You don't have to do it yourself.