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?

You're not helping your sister-in-law in the long term if you enable your lazy-arse brother who thinks females are better equipped for housework. Buy him a pair of Marigolds and let him crack on; I gather there's even a special penis-friendly variety.

@Rose789

I don’t think a cleaner is an option for a financial point of view. *@junkcrumpet* I offered to do the school run or have the kids overnight, and offered emotional support and a listening ear to them.

What you have offered is enough. Your hands are already full. I know how you feel but sometimes we have to say, "No". However I doubt your brother expected you to say, "Yes", he was probably just talking off the top of his head.

A one off clean would not break the bank; sometimes when a place is clean, there is a will to keep it that way.

(If other people in the family were prepared to pitch in, a 'spring clean' by professionals would be a nice gift.)

It really sounds like this man thinks cleaning is something vaginas do and no matter what the circumstances he would rather shunt those duties onto a woman than do it himself.

This.

I would say this is a big job but let me check with my husband whether he is free. Then say you will both come round for 2 hours and help your BIL to do it as a one-off. Say you expect your BIL to help out with the cleaning. During that time, have your dh hand your BIL the hoover and dustcloth and make him do it.

That would be a real help to your sister to train her husband that this is not woman's work and a decent man does do it and knows how to do it.

Then leave after 2 hours.

Exactly what supremedrreamz said. If single parents can manage childcare and keep a house clean/shop etc then I,m perfectly sure a grown fully functioning man can do it too. Hes even had the offer childcare to allow him to do it.

I think YABU because ypu'd offered to help. However YANBU for not wanting to clean the whole house. Could you help with a room- kitchen or living room to get them started?

You're not wrong to say no, when he is able bodied and could clean himself. If you really want to help, offer to pick the DC from grandparents on a Sunday morning and take them to yours for Sunday lunch, he can pick them up from you in the afternoon, that gives them Saturday evening together, then he has all day on the Sunday to blitz the house. Just be honest and say to him between cleaning your own house and cleaning your dad's you haven't got it in you to clean a third but will help him have some time to do it himself.

Reading you last post sums it up for me..

He is for all intense purposes has another person to look after at the moment.

You say it yourself, one baths the kids one tidies up.. 2 nights a week it is one of you.

There are many things you could do to help, rake round a nice cotttage pie he can just bung in the oven..

Take it round one evening you and brother clean whilst it cooks help him get on top of thinss, have tea together.. looking after someoen with depression is emotionally draining.

if that is not allowed ( i did read you are in local lockdown)
offer to take the kids out for tea whilst he has a clean round ..

Take all the kids to the park whilst he cleans up..

I personally wouldn't do it evety week but yes to help him get on top of things,

I as a single parent here quite often if I can help in anyway.. I know the ones that will and tose its just words.. At the moment its just words.

*He can't clean the house himself because he has kids to look after. So...a reasonable person would take the OP up on the offer of childcare and clean their own home. Not pick the task they clearly prefer and shoe horn the other off on the person offering to help. Surely people get that?

If I didn't have time to get my shopping done and scrub my kitchen floor and you offered to help me, which task is it reasonable to offload onto you?*

great post @SupremeDreamz

OP ask yourself if you were the one struggled and the DB's household runs smoothly (wife not depressed, house is clean), would he help you? think about it.

You have a lot on your plate yes but that is not even the main reason, how about fairness and not being used by other people? your time is valuable and should not be given freely to people who don't appreciate you. You can sit and read some magazines at home if you choose to than helping someone who is not very nice to you and thinks that it is your obligation to do things for them for free.

starlight she has offered to take the kids. It doesnt have seemed to have entered his head that that would give HIM time to clean up. he doesnt see cleaning as his job. Many people manage to clean and look after kids and the fact the house is 'like a bomb site' means he hasnt been cleaning and because his wife isnt capable atm then it obviously hasnt been getting done. I wouldnt be enabling this behaviour but I would provide childcare to enable him to clean.

Why not offer to pay for one-off cleaning?

@Illena

Why not offer to pay for one-off cleaning?

It’s not just cleaning though is it? The house is a ‘bomb site’. I’ve never had a cleaner but aren’t you supposed to tidy the house for them?

Only the DB and SIL know where everything goes,so DB needs to step up.

OP. You are clearly a lovely, kind person.

Offering 'anything I can do' is a normal thing... your DB could easily have said "it would be great if you could have the kids for the afternoon so I could sort the house out".

Thank god he didn't ask you to re-grout the bathroom!!!

I'm sorry this is playing on your mind. You have enough to do with all your caring responsibilities, by the sounds of it.

I am not saying that the OP shouldn't set boundaries. My view is that the problems start when people assume theirs are the same as others. I can understand why she is frustrated but also that her brother may be genuinely confused about what he did wrong.
I think this may well be true. It is okay for him to ask you to do X and it is okay for you to say, sorry I can't do X, but would U help. Additional information complication here because yeah, I strongly suspect there's some gendered shit going on here too.

I'd be pro the, 'I'll come around and help.' But that means him doing it too. For a start he knows where things go. And it's time for the kids to step up too if mum is ill. They are a family. Families pull together.

@justanotherneighinparadise

So you had cancer OP? Did your brother come and clean your house for you during chemo?

suspect he might consider sending his wife to clean. It is woman's job after all. But then he would need to mind the kids when she was in OP's house so that's a no too. If only he had several wives, how handy that would be? women are very useful creatures to have around.

People are deliberately misunderstanding you Rose because baiting OPs on AIBU, especially kind ones like you, is a bit of a sport for some people. They really take pleasure in upsetting people and making them feel shit

So much this.

I'm sorry this is playing on your mind. You have enough to do with all your caring responsibilities, by the sounds of it.

OP you are a giver and people pleaser. Please do consider about only giving people headspace/time/energy/effort if they are worth it.

Also trust your own judgement more, you sound like a very reasonable and lovely person. It is generally accepted that generic offer to help does not mean anything and yet when posters here said "you offered" you started questioning your own judgement.

Even if your DB has their own interpretation of *anything" you should be confident enough to say: "this is my interpretation of anything, so no" there is no need to justify it (either to him or in your mind) with the list of chores or responsibility you already have. You choose not to be used and that's good.

You offered to help SIL.

Not to enable her husband to still excuse himself from doing more than letting the kids watch CBeebies and chucking some pizza at them when he remembers.

Bet that means all he's really bothered about is her 'slacking' on the tasks he doesn't think are his responsibility.

This thread has taught me that people are a lot more literal then I am. Going forward I will offer concrete things I can help with and no more.

That's a good lesson to learn.

I spent years when I was younger being disillusioned because people said one thing but either didn't mean it at all or had lots of caveats (like you).

I think as a compromise you could offer to come and help them on a Saturday night... Maybe not the full house but say downstairs. Depression is shit but SIL needs to have a motivator and feel achievement. I've been there and know it's hard but once she gets started and if she has help she would hopefully get the endorphins going. She has to help herself or else she will just go deeper and deeper.

YANBU OP they can clean there own house how cheeky. She only works part time and they both have every Saturday kid free, utter piss take.

Their*

This is such a cheeky request from them. Offer to have the kids for two evenings a week after school so he can clean the house regularly and not let it get into a big mess. Then when you drop them off, send them home with a meal cooked for your brother and SIL.
He sounds lazy.

He couldn't do housework because when he wasn't working, I practically demanded that he sit on the bed with me so I didn't feel so lost and broken and alone. This isn't unusual for people with depression.

That sounds abusive and I say that from a place of experience.

Not a good reason to draw others into caring in ways they don't wish to.