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?

No chance, he can clean his own house at a push I would offer to do it with him. Offering to take the kids while he cleans seems very reasonable. If you clean you'll be doing it every bloody week

@itsagogo not an empty offer then, but limited. There has to be a limit somewhere. Anyone offering to do ‘anything’ can’t actually mean anything in the world. You wouldn’t think it reasonable if the brother asked her to pay their mortgage or kill a man, right? I think we all know that anything does have limits.

@kursaalflyer

When my brother was widowed last year, I travelled to another country to support him and his kids. I did all their cleaning so they could sit and watch TV together or take the dogs for a walk without a thought. It wouldn't cross my mind not to. And I'm sure the op would too if it was the only thing she was doing. Unfortunately she has her job, her own kids, her own house and her father's house to do at the same time, she's not expected to look after her brother in a bubble like you were.

I have kids and a job, I was very aware that their need was greater than ours at that time and I made arrangements that mine were cared for and safe so that I could be there.

I don't think offering to do anything to help means that you have to do it when it's as cheeky as cleaning the house!

Especially when he could do it-by asking Op to help in other ways.

YANBU!

You’ve offered to have the dc so tell him you’ll have them while he cleans.

@jay55

So he could take you up in your offer to have the kids, and do the cleaning himself during that time, but he'd rather you did the cleaning?

Bingo.

Personally, I think it's a cheeky ask so I wouldn't feel bad saying no or offering childcare to free him up to clean without the kids in tow. I'd also have phrased the initial offer of help in the same way you did.

If I wanted to find a compromise, I'd probably pay £50 as a one off for a cleaner to do a four hour blitz (as an early Christmas present if that makes it more acceptable to you both).

Yes @tearstainedbakes you weren't doing it all at once is my point. Someone else was helping you out while you were helping someone else, your own job and drudgery were on hold or being attended to. Not so in op's situation

YANBU, OP, I’m only reading your posts because I really don’t want to read the bilge from the 45% who think you are BU!

Your brother should be helping yo look after your dad, he’s a cheeky fucker except you to clean your house, and your dad’s and now his! What a twat!

@ShelbyCherryBlossom

"Let me know if you need anything" is not the same as "I'm prepared to do anything."

YANBU, he's a cheeky twat.

Exactly. I have had people say that to me many times over the years. I have never assumed that they were offering to clean my house.

He's not ill, he's not grieving, he's just a lazy man.

*expecting

Actually, if your brother is a bit of an old sexist and your DH is a good sport, would your DH be willing to go round and do the cleaning, once, with your brother?

That would both help your brother by showing him how to clean and make the point that he should be the one taking on the cleaning now.

Could work if they get on ok and it would be a friendly experience, not a really weird one.

I think you are being harsh. I would do it as a one off. Do a real blitz and then point out that you cannot do this regularly with your own cleaning and your dads to do so they need to keep on top of it. If SIL cant then him and the older kids need to start a rota. Make it clear after that exactly what you could help with ie pick ups emotional support or the odd night of babysitting. But honestly dont offer to help in any way you can if you dont mean that. It doesnt look good.

@kursaalflyer

Yes *@tearstainedbakes* you weren't doing it all at once is my point. Someone else was helping you out while you were helping someone else, your own job and drudgery were on hold or being attended to. Not so in op's situation

Apologies, I must have missed where OP said she was a single parent.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad

YANBU for refusing to clean FOR them.

What might be a compromise is that you agree to go round and organise them into cleaning the house for SIL - so while you'd still have the mental load of telling them what to do, they'd all have to pitch in and help out, including your brother (who has no excuse).

Teach the kids what to do. Tell them how to operate the washing maching, explain that they're old enough now to clear up after themselves and not be such godawful slobs. No wonder SIL is depressed if she's living with a bunch of layabouts who just create mess and do fuck all to help clear it up!

It's the old "give a man a loaf, feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow wheat, make flour from the ears and bake, and you'll feed him for a lifetime" thing. You can't be expected to go and clean for them every week (although your brother probably thinks you can) so best option is to teach him and the kids how to do it themselves.

If they don't want to learn to help, then fuckit - leave them to it.

I agree with the above.

Threads like these make me wonder just how many women are being guilt tripped into cleaning for and providing child care for relatives.

@diddl the children's mother is suffering from depression, the husband is having to deal with that, deal with upset children and deal with supporting his wife.

So, just maybe he wants to use the time that he could be cleaning the house to support his wife and children, to take them out for a coffee to encourage his wife to get out of the house and have some fresh air, to encourage and support her to maybe go shopping with him, to try and get her to have an interest in that.

I'm not sure that If the wife wasn't suffering from another form of debilitating illness that peoples reactions wouldn't be different.

@itsagogo but he can do that in stages.

So he sends DC to OP while he cleans house.

Then another day he sends DC to OP so he can take his wife out for a coffee.

He doesn’t want to clean.

@itsagogo my reaction would be different if he helped with his father. The fact he doesn’t speaks volumes about his attitude. I absolutely understand that depression is debilitating and that inability to care for yourself and surroundings is a major part of it. But this man obviously just doesn’t want to do housework, ever. The OP can’t be expected to take on a third house. He can do it himself.

Urgh just NO. NO to the awful sex stereotyping and masochistic misogynistic bullshit I have seen on this thread. Shame on you all for trying to shame a woman into doing something that she doesn't want to, doesn't have capacity for and that there is a perfectly capable male who could do it closer to the situation.

YES she offered. She offered broadly, not specifically. She is NOT obliged to do anything that her brother comes back with. She can still say no if it's something she's not comfortable or prepared to do, for any reason or indeed for no reason. Those of you who think her open offer obliges her to do anything specific, work on your own darn boundaries.

OP already cleans her own and her father's house. Her brother does fuck all for her father. It was just expected that as the female offspring, she would do it.

Their house isn't just needing to be got on top of then it's hunky dory - there are at least two of the members of the household actively contributing to making it worse all the time through their sheer indifference. Dropping sweet wrappers on the floor deliberately is a pretty fundamental contributor, and It won't just be sweet wrappers, but the general attitude and apathy that shows. Why hasn't and isn't their father pulling them up on this and since his wife is out of action is now asking his next available woman, his sister, to clean up after his kids?! Does he do any housework or emotional labour at all?

If you still want to babysit, I think the suggested idea that you take the kids for a day while he gets on top of it is a good one. And yes I agree that they could and should use the Saturday nights for that, but maybe he feels that a Saturday night date night is a priority for her mental health.

TLDR: YANBU for asking what he wanted help with and then declining to do cleaning.

@haggistramp

Yanbu. If sil was a single parent, I would consider it. But she's not. And your db is not ill, so house cleaning falls to him. Working full time as an excuse not to do it is a crock of shit, lots of us, single parents included, work full time and keep a relatively tidy house. Your db is taken advantage of your offer of kindness, and only entitled people would expect that it would mean skivvying for someone that can't be bothered to do it themselves. Offer to take the kids, to let your db get on with it.

This. I bet if you were a man there is no way your DB would ask you to come over and clean his house. Until women stop letting men away with this, our DDs and even DGDs will end up cleaning and working and raising children with no help from their husbands for the next 100 years. This lack of support is a key driver of depression in women.

@tearstainedbakes I'm not going to engage with you any more because you are purposely trying to goad. Yes her dh can look after their own house but she is working (you presumably had time off) and she is looking after her father as well.

"So, just maybe he wants to use the time that he could be cleaning the house to support his wife and children, to take them out for a coffee to encourage his wife to get out of the house and have some fresh air, to encourage and support her to maybe go shopping with him, to try and get her to have an interest in that."

Well he just needs to find the time to do it all, as many others do, doesn't he?

Without just asking his sister to clean up the "bombsite" house.

How has it got so bad when there is already one childfree evening a week?

He doesn't help look after his own father, did next to nothing to help his sister and now wants help to look after his house as he is struggling. I'm sorry but you get back what you put in.

You are definitely NBU! You're plate is already full and you still offered help that was manageable for you and he asked for more.

Id say you will take the kids for 3 hours tomorrow or something so he can clean.

And as @ColleagueFromMars says, so many women on this board are so unsupportive of other women that it is no surprise Feminism is going nowhere.