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?

Sadly its the kids in this situation suffering..

I hope you made it perfectly clear how unacceptable your brothers behaviour is..

Next timene

OP you are a wonderful person. You helped and you got them all involved.

I hope you get some time to yourself soon and some time with your DH.

Now don't feel guilty anymore. You've done lots. The only thing you can do to protect yourself from feeling guilty in future is to be more precise with your offers.

Do you and your DH have any annual leave you could take? What about taking a day/half day just the two of you and do something nice?

My DH and I do that occasionally- we call it playing hookie! It's all official though we're just playing truant from normal life and responsibilities.

sorry posted too soon. Next time tell him to get off his lazy arse

Well he’s blown it then hasn’t he. No need to bother again. I was in the camp of you offered and needed to follow through.
Just concentrate now on your own family and helping your Dad and leaving another perfectly capable adult brother to sort out his own family.

Well that was pretty much as expected.

So sorry @Rose789 - I'm sure you knew this would be the outcome but the handmaidens on here guilted you further into taking this step, and look how well your brother behaved.

At least you got him and the kids doing something to help, but seriously - what a wastrel fucker he is. How DARE he just sit on his arse and get drunk, and waste all that free time when he could have done SO MUCH. I'm disgusted with him.

I hope your DH isn't pissed off with you though - you're lovely and your brother is a CF.

I would call him & give him an earful

How upsetting for you, Op.

Well you know now-well you probably did before!

A whole house needing doing can be daunting, but one wash?

Does he get pissed every Sat eve I wonder?

If he saved that money he could probably afford a cleaner!

Hmm, I also can't help thinking that he may not be the cause of his wife's problems-but sure as shit he probably isn't helping!

So, you & your husband had his kids 10 til 5(?) & you still ended up doing housework as well!

Men are very good at prioritising their me time aren’t they?.

SIL has reactive depression due to being married to a lazy decker??

There is zero way I would have helped him on my return. And he'd be under no illusions that I was impressed or going to do the same again. He blew it.

He really sees cleaning as women's work doesn't he.

Well Op, I can understand you doing something & you can think of it as being for the kids rather than their dad.

I think you need to take some time to reflect on how much time your spending away from your DH and DC due to you feeling the need to help out your family. Sounds like your DH has had enough. If you dont take stock and make changes you may find you are damaging your own family

A lot of this is quite judgemental in my opinion. Everyone has difficulties but asking a family member to clean your house is a big ask! And quite embarrassing really! If the person can’t physically do it, that’s a completely different conversation but I bet everyone on this thread when asking whether they can help with anything don’t expect their family member to ask them to clean their house.
That’s unreasonable!
I agree with the advice of paying a company to do it as a one-off (I did it for my parents once as I knew they had loads to do and having a clean flat when coming back from their professional trip would make them very happy).
I would help with the kids, run errands if needed, cook a nice meal, but not clean their house.
YANBU and the fact that you resent having to tell no to your brother shows you’re a caring person.
Say something along the lines of “I’ll be happy to help with your food shopping or take care of the kids from time to time. I know cleaning can be so annoying and stressful especially when you have loads on your hands. I’ve used company X in the past and they’re great, would do a much better job than any of us in a few hours!”

If this was a reverse and we had a woman run ragged because she's doing everything on her own because her husband is off helping a lazy arsed relative, poster's would rightly advise that she put him straight and tell him she won't put up with it.

No matter how nice the OP is, and she sounds like a woman who does far too much for too many, that doesn't mean she can't be wrong.

She can learn from this.
Which I bet she will.

Her brother is making his choices and will have to live with them.

He chooses to go on the piss rather than do what's right for his family.

The OP has cleaned his house rather than do what was right for her family.

I appreciate she did what she thought was best in the moment.

I think she can and will learn from this.

Why shouldn't she tell her husband "sorry that you have had a crappy weekend because I'm helping my brother who couldn't give a damn about anyone, including his own children".

I certainly would go through a sibling who behaved like that and I wouldn't be doing it again.

But likewise I wouldn't put up with a husband who thought it was ok for me to do everything at home because he was helping a lazy sibling.

Screw that.

You asked if there was anything you could do to help, so you should clean the house on this occasion.
Don't offer in future or be more specific about what you are offering.

@biddybird

You asked if there was anything you could do to help, so you should clean the house on this occasion. Don't offer in future or be more specific about what you are offering.

Yes op, you should definitely clean the house while your brother goes on the piss during his 24 child free hours and when you have a baby and already clean for your dad

@AlpineSnow

Yes op, you should definitely clean the house while your brother goes on the piss during his 24 child free hours and when you have a baby and already clean for your dad

There are lots of people on this thread who clearly have not read past the first post, and even then, were hard of comprehension.

@Lucilia, @biddybird - clearly it has moved on since then. But no doubt the OP appreciates the passive aggressive tone. Only it works best when the "helpless man" has not rained on your parade.

There was plenty of posters on this thread that were hard of thinking regardless of whether they’d read it partially or in full.

I can only think there’s some quaint little village out there full of naive Mumsnetters who’ve never come across a chancer, a CFer or a feckless twat in their lives. Most of the advice was absolute tosh.

Look, the plus side of this is that you and your husband did a lot for your brother and he totally took the piss. You can throw your guilty feelings in the bin and concentrate on making time for yourself. If he asks again, give him a mouthful about responsibility and taking care of his wife and children. Good grief, the shite that gets loaded on to women!

I think you are being harsh! Go and help them out. They are probably overwhelmed by the mess. Be the bigger person because at the moment you sound very uncaring!!

@Denny53

I think you are being harsh! Go and help them out. They are probably overwhelmed by the mess. Be the bigger person because at the moment you sound very uncaring!!

JFC!

At least read Op's posts even if you cba to read the whole thing.