See, my DH gets praised to heaven by my female relatives and mom. He does the dishes. He does the laundry every day. He puts laundry away. He vacuums. He irons. He cooks tasty and nutritious meals. He tidies the kitchen. He declutters. He attempts DIY. He pulls weeds from the front garden. And he mows the lawn.
Between the two of us, I'm the slob. My ability to even see, acknowledge, and tackle a mess has improved dramatically over my relationship with him.
However, his neatness came at a price. He has overbearing critical parents who used to let themselves into his house unannounced and inspect it. He was in his 30s when they were doing this. If they saw something out of place or not done, they would criticise loudly. If they really weren't happy about the pace of a chore being handled, they would intervene (for example, taking the entire household's dirty laundry away to their house to wash and dry without asking if that's ok... because that's "helping"). So, my husband's habit of neatness doesn't come from a place of being an egalitarian modern man, as much as it does a place of anxiety. He is Gail Waters-Waters when we have company coming.
When I recognise a pile of dirty dishes, which may not be as quickly as DH would recognise them on a given day, but which are recognised nevertheless ... I just do them. They're dishes. If we want to eat, eventually they need to be cleaned. Such is life.
If DH gets to that pile of dishes first, there's a good chance he'll sigh and rage-clean them, because he's having to do them in the first place. That's not an unfairly put-upon modern man. That's a guy who wants the dishes to be done for him already, and is anxious about being judged by an invisible critic.
We're getting there. Besides me being more proactive with household stuff, which I knew long ago I needed to be, he's trying to let go of the need to have a show home. I think we are both happier, compared with where we were when met.