About DH and housework

[Daisiesandducks]

So should prob be in relationships as am feeling a bit unhappy just at the moment.

I’m in my 40s and have only been with DH for three and a half years. Before that, I lived alone and so I suppose I was used to doing my own thing when I wanted to. I’m not one of those Mumsnetters who see that as living the dream, in fact a lot of the time I was lonely and unhappy, but it’s probably relevant as in some ways I’ve struggled to adapt to sharing a house with someone.

DH has decided that Saturday mornings are clear up times, where tbh I’d rather chill a bit. But even if I felt like I could I can’t as he constantly asks me about things and also (I find myself getting so irrationally angry about this) messes up stuff I’ve done. So I’d folded some vests of DCs and some clothes she’d outgrown. DH says are these outgrown and picks up all the vests, so have to fold them again.

I’m starting to feel a bit like a lazy teenager who needs to be given chores and it makes me feel resentful.

He can fold them back up

Resentment, oh dear. The word that kills relationships.
You need to have a chat about housework and come to an agreement about when it will be done and by whom.

He has decided? Well let him crack on.
Enjoy your Saturday however you want..

Well yeah but that’s just the thing … I don’t really want to be living my life according to a rota, if I’m honest. It feels so joyless and like I say, makes me feel like a child. But it’s also possible that it’s normal and I just haven’t adapted because I’ve never really lived with anyone before.

@GeneLovesJezebel

Resentment, oh dear. The word that kills relationships. You need to have a chat about housework and come to an agreement about when it will be done and by whom.

^ agree with this. Maybe you can find another time in the week you agree on , but TBH lots of families clean up on Saturday morning- we did growing up as means whole family is on hand to split the work

Maybe you could look on this positively that your DH actually does some of the cleaning too instead of you being saddled with it?

I don’t think it’s normal to have a cleaning rota within a relationship, unless there’s a backstory of someone not pulling their weight. Do you both keep the house clean and tidy and do the washing etc anyway?

If I’m honest mi wouldn’t say the house is typically clean and tidy. We have a young child who creates carnage. However, I don’t think I create more mess than DH. Typically, I sort the dishwasher and laundry,the problem is when this isn’t done it’s noticeable and I feel it gets commented on. For instance yesterday we both left our pyjamas on the bedroom floor, but DH said to me my side of the room was ‘a tip’, presented as a joke but I don’t think it was.

I’d be annoyed if my kids left their PJ’s on the floor too. They know better than that.

OK, but I’m not his daughter.

No you’re not, but you said yourself that you’re starting to feel like a lazy teenager. Perhaps he feels like he’s living with a lazy teenager.

Perhaps he does and maybe I am being totally unreasonable, this is why it’s so hard to know. I suppose I feel in that case like a lazy teenager who lives with an equally lazy parent who tries to be purposefully irritating and a bit hypocritical.

I don't think either of you are being unreasonable.

DH used to have Saturday morning as his "housework time" but it drove me mad as I prefer to get it done little and often through the week and lie in at weekends

We don't have DC so though it's a little bit different.

I suspect you both have different ideas of what clean and tidy mean. I personally couldn't live in a mess, for example, whereas I know it wouldn't bother DH.

Well the problem is you want to live how you’ve always lived and without consideration for others (I mean that genuinely not as a dig at you) but now you’re living with someone else you’re forced to consider how he likes his home to be too and it doesn’t sound like you like that. I think as part of a partnership you should sit down and agree way forward, as it sounds like he isn’t happy with how things are and is trying to introduce these Saturday cleanings as a way to subtly address it without telling you off? Hard to judge just off this though.

But re the vests thing - why didn’t you just say “oh I’d just folded those! Could you refold, thanks”

So, you do ‘the dishwasher’ (does this mean empty & load every single day?) - who cooks & cleans the kitchen after cooking?

You di all laundry - the whole household? From dirty laundry basket through to putting away (& sorting outgrown kids stuff)?

What are your DH’s regular daily chores?

How is the hoovering/dusting/cleaning bathrooms situation shared?

Is one of you more naturally tidy than the other?

Thanks. It’s hard to know. I doubt he’ll stick to the ‘Saturday schedule’ but I think that’s what gets me down, when I clean I just do it, when he cleans he completely spoils anything I’m attempting to do such as watch TV or read, and I do resent that.

I’d folded some vests of DCs and some clothes she’d outgrown. DH says are these outgrown and picks up all the vests, so have to fold them again.

He could fold them. In fact, you could say ‘Yes, I was meaning to get a bag for the charity shop/a box to store them in the attic - could you fetch one please?’

But from his POV you having folded a pile of things is an incomplete job, I guess - why aren’t they in a drawer or in a bag/box?

No one’s right or wrong on that one, though I appreciate seeing folding being undone is annoying! But either he asks you (annoying) or he unfolds to check size (annoying) so the answer probably is finish the whole job and put away once folded (appreciate this is also annoying!)

No one cooks.

The laundry is pretty much exclusively mine and DCs, which is why he leaves it to me I think. Of course he shouldn’t, because DC laundry is a shared responsibility but somehow it never seems to work like that.

Hoovering and dusting etc is more shared … I was off with covid a couple of weeks ago and I deep cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. It needed doing, I dread to think when it was done before!

But he does often do some cleaning if/when I’m out with DC.

@Daisiesandducks

Thanks. It’s hard to know. I doubt he’ll stick to the ‘Saturday schedule’ but I think that’s what gets me down, when I clean I just do it, when he cleans he completely spoils anything I’m attempting to do such as watch TV or read, and I do resent that.

Ah ha! So this is a new schedule he’s decided on ‘to help’ (?) and he’s doing Performance Cleaning?

Or he could leave things the fuck alone

I have pj's and a few toiletries and shoes down by my side of the bed... Not for my dh to comment.
If he did he would be organising a new address right now.
If he told me we were tidying today I would be laying a new patio.
With a nice crevice to park a bike..

@Daisiesandducks

Or he could leave things the fuck alone

True! But this is in fact unreasonable in a shared living space so unfortunately you’d lose that one.

Are you doing half a job? Like folding the clothes then leaving them on 'the chair' or the back of the sofa or whatever?

Why not just put them away so they don't need dealing with?

He's probably checking whether they need to be put away or thrown as they've been left out.

I can't imagine your house is messy enough that it'd take the two of your more than 20 minutes to have a quick tidy.

Why does his cleaning spoil your TV watching? Is he loud and annoying or because you have to watch the child? If it isn't done on a Saturday morning when does it get done?

Back to the vests. So two piles of clothes. You'd folded then and left them for days or was mid job? He picked the vests up and then what? Threw them back on the side, put them back but not perfectly? Why weren't they put away? I think the scenario probably says alot about the problems but you've been v vague

No one cooks? What do you eat? And why doesn’t your DH have laundry - does he not wear clothes, or use towels and bedsheets

Surely you’ve already told him you’d rather relax quietly? He can clean all he wants, doesn’t mean you have to join in, tell him to put the clothes back how he found them. Obviously.