I am SO effing sick of this house!

[bunnybopbop]

I have nothing more to give. I'm so burnt out.

Usual household. 1 year old and a husband man child. Everywhere is always a fucking mess. Toys everywhere. I polish and clean and within minutes there's chocolate stains and smears over the telly and coffee table. Toys absolutely everywhere. I've just spend ages scrubbing shit off the floor where DD had an explosion. There's mountains of rubbish where our bin gets emptied once every 14 days. I'll clean every room everyday and it's honestly like pissing in the wind. Sorry for my language I just need to rant. Piles of washing, sort that and there's a pile more by the end of the day chucked in the corner. Washing up!! My god! (Don't have a dishwasher and we rent so can't buy one/no room) I'll wash up. Make dinner and it's a shit heap again. I'll clean the bog, DH will come home and own the throne and have a bath / shave. Hair everywhere and the loo is full of lime scale. Nothing ever looks nice. Mountains of ironing to do. I work 3 days a week and the other days I'm looking after DD, attending medical appointments (recent cancer & on long term medication with complications.) How do people do it? People with more children, or bigger households?

I'm. So. Burnt. Out.
DH is a chronic snorer so I'm on 4 hours of sleep everyday because he won't get his arse into gear and sort it out. We're thankfully moving on 11th to a 3 bed. With dishwasher. I'll probably spend more time in the spare room and it'll put an even bigger wedge on our marriage. And he wonders why I have zero energy for a sex life.

I'm so done. I get zero help. I've tried and tried and it lasts 2 days and that's it. Some days im bed bound due to the medication and nothing gets done. I desperately don't want my marriage to fail. I love the bones of him and it'll be SO hard to cope with it all on my own (mostly because of my complications) I have to plan what days I take what, just so I can turn up to my 3 day a week job.

I'm so lost. I don't know what to do. I'm just staring at the shit heap of last nights curry on the work top. The house stinks of last nights dinner and I haven't even had time to have a shower yet.

How do people do it 😭 I feel so pathetic 😭

Get rid of coffee table it’s just an extra dumping zone.. Lidl have to those boxes at present , you sit on them as well , they hide loads.. accept the house will be hit messy but full of love till your child is in nursery.. it doesn’t matter.. as long as your all fed, and reasonably clean..

Surely part of the problem is the classic mental load. He isn’t contributing physically and now you are also the one trying to solve the problems by outsourcing, creative solutions, mumsnet advice.

I would say everything you’ve said in your opening post either to him, or write it down for him. I would then want him to sit with me and come up with solutions together.

There is getting a cleaner, but there’s also it not being solely your responsibility to find, arrange and liaise with the cleaner. Does he have different standards or is it actually he knows you will default to tidying and can just dump things for you to clear up without consequence.

Practical advice on here has been great, and organising your home, getting a cleaner, a robot hoover, sending ironing out, decluttering and having specific house rules are all great, but you’ll feel the same if it’s all down to you to create, enforce and action.

I haven’t RTFT yet so I need to catch up...

But this:

He keeps saying 'we both need to do more'

...made me really angry on your behalf. How dare he.

Scrubbing limescale off a toilet is nearly impossible, but citric acid is AMAZING and you can buy it in Wilkos. Just chuck it in the loo overnight and it all lifts off.

It’ll all be better when you move house, but make sure that from the beginning you have a new way of doing things when you get there. New house new rules. One person puts the kid to bed, one person tidies. No one sits down until it’s all done.

Also you sound on your knees with exhaustion.

I know what you mean about loving him, but the problem is this kind of disparity in the shitwork of life really does kill relationships.

He needs a wake up call, before it’s too late.

Yes absolutely, do get a cleaner.

Yes get a cleaner if you can afford it ,and also make sure hubby gets his snoring sorted and starts pulling his weight around the house.
You have my sympathies though op as some days my house feels like I'm polishing a turd !

Can I just say re the snoring. When we moved into our house DH (then DP) took the spare room. I thought we were doomed but it really helped. We get on so much better now.

Yes I agree, sleep apart. That’s not the death knell of a relationship by any means, in fact I’m willing to bet you’ll feel 100% better in yourself once you’re sleeping better again, which, paired with him getting his act together in terms of pulling his weight in the household, means you might well come to feel more generously inclined towards him generally.

@bunnybopbop

DD is at childminders tomorrow. I'm off on annual leave so I'm going to sort everything out. Make a cleaning rota so we can share the load and enquire for a cleaner. Its the days where I have to take medication when I struggle. Honestly it's never ending. The ONLY thing DH will do is wash up after dinner. I've tried and tried and he promises to do more but he eats dinner and falls asleep on the sofa. I'd love to do that after 4 hours sleep listening to the war of the worlds in bed all night with him snoring. This isn't a poor me post. I'm just sick of it. He keeps saying 'we both need to do more'

What more can I do!?!?

Wake the fecker up and tell him to go and tidy up

With reference to sleeping in the spare room in your new home - a top tip from another person who was about ready to kill because of sleep deprivation due to snoring partner - is make it YOUR ROOM. A nice bed, decorated in your taste, and it becomes your haven! I love my room, and then I go into our room for a snuggle in the morning.

Can you get help from Macmillan or have a social care assessment because of the impact of cancer and someone to talk to about it all?

Moving house is stressful and presumably you will have to start packing soon so use that as an excuse to get rid of as much as possible.

Ask someone to do a tip run for you or even get your husband to do it to clear the backlog.

Don’t compare your home to someone else’s, it’s really hard at the moment with the trend of showing immaculate homes all the time.

Having a dishwasher will help immensely as it keeps the side clean but it doesn’t deal with the issue of no routines. If he doesn’t scrape plates and clean as he goes to help you the dishwasher will be stuffed to the gills and the sink full as well.

If someone could help with childcare while the husband is at work to give you a day to sleep rest and recharge that might help you to reset and make plans.

I am sitting here after many more years of this same situation and the only answer as someone says here is clear stuff out as much as possible as it’s the stuff that takes over and makes life harder. Best thing I ever discovered with kids was the library borrowed books and took back stopped buying and they also had a toy library so borrowed and returned stopped buying so many toys!

You're not a failure, you haven't failed.

Assuming you're able to be quite spendy as it is all temporary: Cleaner - one who can do deep cleans and is happy to tidy too, healthy ready meals - you can get ones with decent nutrition delivered, declutter when you're up to it and be ruthless.

Replace any clothes you can with low/no-iron clothes. Once you've got a dishwasher crockery doesn't go to the kitchen side, it always goes straight to the dishwasher. The one year old won't be small and messy forever, your manchild however...

@Bluemoononkentucky

I second a previous poster's question.

Do you have a dump nearby?

If so, tell Stig he can pull his sodding bone idle finger out or he can go and fucking live on it.

Until your DH does get organised enough to do something about the snoring, he could try different pillow heights and hardness ( improvise with cushions under rather than spend big money immediately) worked for my DH after some trial and error.

If you can afford it, definitely get a cleaner.

Abandon ironing ALTOGETHER, it is rarely necessary (most creases come out once you're wearing the item) and if your DH wants anything ironed he can do it himself.

The advice I would offer to anyone regarding toys and mess is this...We have 2 kids, now 6 and 9.

When they were young, I thought it was normal to just keep getting things, because I thought it keeps them playing and you can do something.

We also accepted a lot of hand me downs. So we accumulated more and more shit. The worst offenders are toys or games with lots of small parts like counters or shapes. They ended up everywhere as we were in a fog of looking after the kids and working.

Big mistake. If I was starting over, I would be so selective about buying toys and games. They hardly play with anything for long anyway.

When I think back to our childhood we hardly had any stuff and we still managed fine. We had a doll and a few toy cars. We just played with pots and pans etc

We had 2 games , monopoly and scrabble and played them over and over.

I cringe when I think about the amount of plastic shit we have bought or acquired and then struggled to give away.

The less clutter you have the happier you will be.

@VaizyCrazyDaizy

I am sitting here after many more years of this same situation and the only answer as someone says here is clear stuff out as much as possible as it’s the stuff that takes over and makes life harder. Best thing I ever discovered with kids was the library borrowed books and took back stopped buying and they also had a toy library so borrowed and returned stopped buying so many toys!

This

Oh and separate rooms for sleeping.
Definitely this.
I would die otherwise

I have a cleaner, a gardener and a dog Walker! I don’t iron. I own a dishwasher. I have nearby family who help. I have EOW off when DD is with her dad. No one is going to give me a medal for doing it without asking for help!

OP I feel exactly the same as you and I already have a cleaner who comes once a fortnight. It looks nice for 6 hours. I'm also battling damp and mould and we own the flat and can't manage to sell so it's a massive nightmare.
I work four days, have two Dc. I get about 4 hours a night. Both DCs have chronic asthma and our shit hole flat really doesn't help.
I'm so burnt out and depressed about it. DH shares chores but somehow nothing is done. I feel stressed and unwell all the time.
I have no solution. I just wanted to say that I know how you feel. But do get a cleaner

Do you need a coffee table? Just another smeary thing to wipe and take up space in your small home.

Advertise for a Mother's help rather than a cleaner. You want someone who can iron, wipe down, make beds, clean the windowsills etc as well as clean. I have a mother's help; I give him a list of tasks each week.

Playpen for one year old.

Get rid of all baby toys. Ask your parents to store them for you if you want to hand some down to the next baby.

Pleasing with husbands is usually futile. If they don't get it, they don't get it. Throw money at the problem instead and be very clear with your husband why you are doing it (is, because he doesn't do his share and you don't want to do his share for him).

I have a massive house and two teenagers and this is how I cope although it was harder when they were little ones as the toys seem to be everywhere at least now it's only their rooms mess.

First thing to get storage storage storage I cannot stress this enough even if it's a simple boxes to chuck toys in to make a game out of it for your daughter as well.
Storage for shoes and coats is also invaluable.

I do small amounts of laundry every day cut my standards on beds I only do my beds every three weeks on a rotation obviously with little ones you may have to do it more as they spit up and so on

Ironing dry everything on a hanger get everything out of the washing machine or tumble dryer as soon as you can and hang it on a clotheshorse preferably on a hanger then only ironed the bare minimum. With things like sheets if you are in your duvet covers I find it really useful to iron them as soon as they get out of the machine and then hang them on the clotheshorse damp it makes it a lot easier to iron and also they dry quicker as the iron is taken out a lot of the moisture.

I have a massive four bedroom house and it takes forever we also haveTwo cats and a dog and her hair is horrendous I split the house into sections 1 day I will do the upstairs this takes about 3 hours to do it properly but if I am tight for time that week I will just do the basics Hoover clean bathrooms etc
Then the next day or whenever I will do the downstairs on the same principle.

That way I don't get quite so exhausted cleaning a big house from top to bottom on my own.

Otherwise I have a hoover upstairs and a hoover downstairs so no lugging of Hoovers from upstairs to downstairs and I also have just bought myself a cordless Hoover which I intend to use to make life easier once my house is finished it's renovations it's very old and we're doing a lot of DIY at the moment.

Also have a word with the man child and tell him if he does pull his weight then you will no longer be doing his laundry and so on outsource but you can but he lives in the house too he needs to do his share otherwise over the years or you just become more and more resentful of him and your love for him that you have right now will die this will happen so don't neglect that fact and spell it out to him!!

If you can throw some money at it, theres no need to wait to see if your dh has OSA - Resmed have a private clinic and can do everything.
DH has OSA (and he stops breathing no matter what his weight is) and his tiny, silent, CPAP made an incredible difference to his life

@bunnybopbop

Would I be unreasonable to get a cleaner? Surely I should be able to do this as every other family does?

I feel like such a failure :(

Get a cleaner. Other people could live with the sort of mess you describe and not worry about it but it's getting to you. You have high standards and that's a good thing. And sleep apart from your DH. It's sad but until the snoring stops it's the best way to get a good nights sleep. And get DH to wipe up after himself in the loo. You are not his valet.