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?

I'm sorry OP but I think as you offered to help them YABU to then say no. Don't offer if you don't really mean it.

I think your reasons for not wanting to do it are very valid, but again don't offer to help in any way, if you don't mean it.

"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."

It's perhaps a good idea.

But (imo) most people wouldn't ask for a house clean
a)when offered help
b)when they already know how stretched that person is.
c)when they have enough hours on a Saturday to have kept on top of it anyway!

YANBU and I havent read the thread but wtf are people on about saying YABU. He should clean his own fucking house! I manage to clean mine with a couple of health conditions that make me super, super exhausted, a daughter with really serious mental health difficulties, a 45 hour a week job and 2 other kids.

He is being a cheeky fuuuuckkkkkk

OP, you are as you say, a people pleaser.
you need to reign that in, or you w
ill get burnout, and put strain on your own marriage/family.
you need to redraw your boundaries, also to be more considered in what you say, be simple and clear. be limited. accurate.
read up on co-dependency; it can be a snare.
you are v defensive, the way you detail all your time and tasks, to prove that you cannot do his cleaning for him.
you cannot take it on, and that's that.
accept your limitations. just be straight about it. your agonising may confuse people.
you don't have to do anything. just do what and as much as you choose to do. set your own priorities.
"to thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." Shakespeare.
good luck.

You asked if there was anything you could do!?! You obviously didn’t mean it! Would you feel differently if SIL was suffering from a physical illness that you could see?
If you can’t do it and they cannot afford a cleaner could you pay for a cleaner for a few weeks?

If I asked if there were anything I could do, thinking, maybe, okay, it's a bit of a stretch for me, but I can manage to fit in doing the school run, or taking the kids overnight, and got told, well, yes, you could come and clean our bomb site of a house from top to bottom (which would take how many hours for that size of house), when I was already run off my feet doing my full time job, being in recovery from cancer, wrangling my own very young children, running my own household, cleaning and shopping, as well as doing the same for my elderly father, I think I'd be saying, hang on, that's not what I'm able to offer, nor did I think you'd be such a cheeky fucker as to ask it of me. I'd also be wondering if my brother had ever got his eyes out of his own arsehole to see just how fucking busy I was, and all this without having anyone take my kids for hours of a weekend.

"Would you feel differently if SIL was suffering from a physical illness that you could see?"

Op would still be doing as much as she already does & SIL would still have a husband with the free hours that he has!

Despite what many are saying, I think you should absolutely stick to your boundaries and say you'd be happy to have the kids overnight while he tackled the cleaning. What about a Friday so, as they're at their grandparents on Saturday, he gets a good run at it. As someone said, if you were his brother he wouldn't ask for this particular favour. As he doesn't do anything for your father, it seems he thinks this is 'woman's work'. Not right.

I can see why you resent that you didn’t get much help when you needed it.

But your brother is struggling, you offered to help, he asked and you said no because it wasn’t the type of help you had in mind or you don’t think it’s desperate enough a situation to warrant asking.

Sounds like he thinks it’s the most helpful thing you could do if you want to help. So don’t offer if you don’t mean it.

I'd offer to have the kids on Saturday and drop them at their grandparents after so that he can get all his cleaning done and it'll be easy for him to keep on top of it each day.
If he chooses not to clean on that day well you'll know not to offer again.

Do NOT clean the house, He can clean the house. You offered to take the kids etc not clean. You offered more than enough help. 🌺

Actually I take back my earlier post - he’s your brother. I would text back something like “actually I kind of meant I’d take the kids overnight then drop them at granny’s so you can tackle the house? I really don’t have time to do that for you, it’s enough to keep on top of my own house”.

Not read the whole thread but why can't you have the kids then he can clean the house and get things in order?

So is this thread proof that Mumsnet are crammed full of cheeky fuckers? It might explain why so many of you fall out with friends and family constantly

He is a CF.
He sees cleaning as a woman's job.
He's a bit of a lazy git.
What is doing when his children are being looked after one night EVERY week.
He needs to get his act together and not expect his sister to come to his house to skivvy.

OP,
Stop offering.
You have more than enough on your hands.
Would your brother come and clean your house...like hell he would..it's women's work.

It might be the most useful thing from his point of view, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily within the purview of what the OP realistically has capacity to offer.

She has offered the help she does feel able to (still at some inconvenience) offer, which would still be very useful and valuable. Particularly if said brother got off his arse, made friends with the Marigolds, and set to, to clean his own bloody house, in all the childfree time he could potentially have, if he also took OP up on her offer.

Yabu. Very.

They are struggling and you are judgemental. You won't help clean because your household didn't need cleaning help when you were ill - your dh did it. If he's so fabulous and your brother and sil are just shit (which is how your post reads), then send your fabulous dh over there to do their cleaning. Surely you, being the capable person that you are, will not miss your dh's help when he goes to spend the day cleaning at theirs. And no feminists will have to have a tantrum over a woman cleaning for her brother as your h, the man, will be doing it.

Poor fuckers. Whatever the reason/s they clearly cannot manage. You offered help and then refused because you think they should do it themselves. I am genuinely perplexed at this. He's told you the most helpful thing that they need and you have judged it not to be.

You've stated what you deem to be appropriate help. You don't know - they do! They are the ones living this nightmare.

@Woundedadmiral

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.

Wow not sure who wrote the bit in bold originally, but that's quite frightening--was he allowed any respite or down time? To sleep, eat? What did you do/say if your demands weren't met?

@ekidmxcl

Yabu. Very.

They are struggling and you are judgemental. You won't help clean because your household didn't need cleaning help when you were ill - your dh did it. If he's so fabulous and your brother and sil are just shit (which is how your post reads), then send your fabulous dh over there to do their cleaning. Surely you, being the capable person that you are, will not miss your dh's help when he goes to spend the day cleaning at theirs. And no feminists will have to have a tantrum over a woman cleaning for her brother as your h, the man, will be doing it.

Poor fuckers. Whatever the reason/s they clearly cannot manage. You offered help and then refused because you think they should do it themselves. I am genuinely perplexed at this. He's told you the most helpful thing that they need and you have judged it not to be.

You've stated what you deem to be appropriate help. You don't know - they do! They are the ones living this nightmare.

AKA how dare women set boundaries. They should do whatever the men in their lives tell them to do.

@I8toys

Not read the whole thread but why can't you have the kids then he can clean the house and get things in order?

She has offered that but only vagina cleaning will do

@justanotherneighinparadise

So is this thread proof that Mumsnet are crammed full of cheeky fuckers? It might explain why so many of you fall out with friends and family constantly

ha ha @justanotherneighinparadise! Before reading this thread I did not realise how lucky I am that none of my friends/family/colleagues ever asked anything remotely close to cleaning their houses when I offered a generic offer to help.

@mbosnz yep I can't believe someone can be so self centred that when his sister with her own family to take care of and ongoing health issues offered help, he managed to think..."hmm what would be the most useful thing for ME, oh I know!" and then come up with such request. Did he not even for one minute consider his sister's life situation?

The OP's dh has no vag and the OP says that he's a good cleaner. I'm sure his cleaning will do the job for the poor struggling fuckers, who, by asking for cleaning have offended feminists.

WTF is vagina cleaning? A douche!

I guess you did say 'anything I can do...' and he's taken this at face value. But actually you don't want to do that, and that's fine YANBU. A bit U of you to weigh up whether he needs the cleaning help or not, SIL depressed/not cleaning - him working FT with kids, and irrelevant whether you managed it. But totally ok for you to say 'I was thinking more x, y, x help - I'll have the kids over for tea and you can get on top of cleaning'

@ekidmxcldi do you feel big and clever talking like that about a woman who was in hospital due to cancer?