Is your DH the same? Guest prep

[Leothebear]

Every single time we are prepping the house for guests, here the things my DH thinks are absolutely essential and starts to do tirelessly:

Clean the toilet? NO
Prep the food? NO
Dust? Hell NO

Clean the kitchen drawer no one will open? HERE WE ARE
Reorganize the file cabinet? SURE THING
Vacuum the garage? YES YES YES

Is my DH the only one? And Why???

Every spring my DH prioritises cleaning outside the windows even when we could tidy our bedroom or the dining table for example. Given he tidies ok but he gets so excited to bring out a contraption he bought which extends to a long pole cleaning high up several floors.

This is me and I’m the DW.
My DH is the one doing the absolutely essential, priority things (hoovering, toilet, cleaning kitchen sink).
I start super glueing a vase that broke 5 months ago.
We talk about it a lot and for us it’s to do with our minds working differently. My DH has a real sense that time is limited and you have to prioritise. I am hugely ambitious but not realistic and burn myself out before the important stuff can get done.

Yeah, they're all fucking useless twats

I can relate to so many of these....definitely @rosiebl !!
My OH always prioritises "tidying the workshop" and sorting his bikes out!
One day in thr really hot summer weather we were going to a family occasion. Luckily we decided to stay the night before the party. I said we should go early to avoid travelling in the hottest part of the day and enjoy the weather at the nice location we were staying. He "just wanted to finish" something in our bedroom that he was decorating. Then I heard him shout cos he knocked a pipe on the radiator and water was coming out leaking through the ceiling of the newly decorated living room! We ended up running up and downstairs bailing out tubs of water while we waited for an emergency plumber.
We left when it was v hot and arrived in the evening....

Mine spray painted the spare car wheels and washed the cars in prep for a trip away recently. Barmy!

On DDs birthday (she was 4, DS was 1) we had family coming over for lunch, so I spent the morning cleaning/tidying/cooking ....but also trying to play with DD as she was excited about her new toys, and look after both DC.

DH decided this was the ideal morning to collect his new (although 2nd hand) car that day from 1.5 hours away. To add insult to injury when they arrived, MIL started making sympathetic noises and comments about how tired DH must be after driving all that way!

Hahahaha... this is me sorry

Buy him a copy of the book How To Take Care of Your House Without Losing Your Mind. That was fairly life changing for me and taught me the rule: Start with the most visible place first.

The author is brilliant at teasing out the faulty thinking behind many of these illogical things that naturally messy people tend to do to the bafflement of their less-messy friends and family. Whether it's just that he's never had to think about being tidier or mess doesn't bother him, the faulty thought patterns tend to be the same.

The thought process behind this one tends to be a combination of:

1. That (visible but commonly needs doing) task is so frustrating/overwhelming because every time I do it, it just gets messy again. I'll choose the task that has a chance of staying done.
2. A faulty sense of time. Rather than mentally calculating, OK, I have X amount of time so I ought to prioritise the most relevant areas, he assumes that he will literally have time to clean everything.
3. When visitors are coming, you need to clean the entire house. Clearing out storage areas such as drawers, cupboards, garages feels like a logical place to begin because it leaves space to put things that are cluttering up the rest of the house.

The missing piece of info that has not been considered in this case:

1. There will not be time to clean the entire house. That's a huge project that can be achieved over the course of about 2 weeks of sustained effort, but not in an afternoon before people come over.
2. Therefore, you have to prioritise.
3. Those tasks that constantly undo themselves are not really tasks, they are ongoing maintenance and should be seen differently. They must be kept on top of or the other stuff is completely pointless. It also makes a huge difference if they are done and only slightly undone vs not being done at all.

Another instance not quite the same but also unexplainable!
We had another emergency plumber issue a couple of weeks ago when our boiler started leaking and had to turn off all water and heating. It was -5° outside. OH discovered the problem when I was at work and called me to say don't come home we'll have to go to a hotel. He said he would bring my PJs. Due to train strikes I had a nightmare journey inc a 40 min wait in the freezing cold for a bus. He came to the hotel with a small rucksack with his PJs, and a T-shirt and a soft toy for me cos he couldn't find my PJs?! And that was it!

I'm a bit of a panicker and had been carrying around all week an emergency toiletry bag with deo, hairbrush ,spare toothbrush and paste, phone charger and spare knickers due to to the train disruption and pants weather! He seemed amazed /relieved that I had all this (basic overnight) stuff!! I had also bought him a pair of Pjs for Christmas the same day which I had with me. I spoiled the surprise by wearing them myself as I was so cold!

Omg I'm so glad it's not just mine!

I have a houseful arriving at 1pm and I need the living room, kitchen and downstairs loo cleaning (I'm disabled so need help with these things).

Where is "D"H?? Gone to sodding B&Q to buy lift insulation. Followed by a trip to the barbers. Because that had to be a job for today apparently. Even though he isn't back at work until Tuesday.

@BertieBotts thanks for your post. This bit That (visible but commonly needs doing) task is so frustrating/overwhelming because every time I do it, it just gets messy again. I'll choose the task that has a chance of staying done. actually really resonated with me. It's a real bugbear of mine that I can tidy up and seemingly within minutes the rest of the family wreck it! If the book can help me change my thought process on this one I think I need a copy!

I appreciate that this thread is supposed to be light hearted but it's so depressing. Why are you all putting up with/enabling this?

My DP was a bit like this and didn't help when family came. So the next time his family came I didn't say or do anything. No bed making, no cleaning, no meal prep. It was quite funny to see his 'rabbit in headlights look'. The thing for me is that I don't see these things as a reflection on me and this seemed an equal balance.

So next time his family or friends come mirror his behaviour - go out and do something that needs doing, don't be there when they arrive. Because obviously this is acceptable behaviour! Why should women have all this expectation on them all the time, unless of course they actually like it .........

DP thinks that once you've cleaned that's it for several months. This is partly due to not being able to see muck.

He was busy cleaning records whilst I was tidying and cleaning before Christmas. This was allegedly related to cleaning his office, which was an absolute shit tip and someone will be sleeping in there imminently. It looks little different to me at the moment and he claims it will "just need a hoover". My arse will it just need a hoover...

To be fair he does come and ask what he can do to help and I've sent him to Tesco for something I didn't buy enough of yesterday whilst catering for the masses and trying to get as much done in advance as possible.

I am fairly certain dh has ADD so a lot of this resonates but he has got a lot better. He still gets distracted easily - goes upstairs to clean the bathroom and finds himself in dad's room hellingnher set up a new drawing table, even though gusts are arriving in 10 minutes! But overall, I can rely.on him to.do.the tidying and cleaning while I am doing food prep.

But the one that used to drive me absolutely barmy was music. I would be running around prepping food, laying tables, tidying etc and he would spend 30 minutes prepping a bloody play list!

I did come down the other day to find him in a complete state. We needed to get ourselves and kids ready for something and he had gone down to make coffee etc 45 minutes kater he hadn't drunk any coffee but was panicking about the part we need for our washing machine. I think he aas grateful when i snapped him out of it.

Tbf my husband is the cleaner and tidier one out of us day to day, and there are a million things about him which make him a wonderful man and procreator. Him tidying the conservatory rather than hoovering for example I found amusing, much in the same way I say I'm going for a run and he finds me sat on the stairs organising my bank accounts.

My DH can be like this including the annoying variations of

gathering up ‘a mess’ (a pile of things that need to be put back into their homes or thrown away) and sticking them in a bag for life in the garage. Where only he will know they are and out of sight out of mind he’ll immediately deny any knowledge of anything that might be in the pile.

extremely thoroughly cleaning a small area and making it seem like he’s the only person who’s ever cleaned it ever, how could it BE so dirty, surely “we” need to keep on top of it better (will not clean it again for a decade, of course)

claiming ludicrous things like he ‘would do the floors but he doesn’t know how to use the steam mop’ - he learned very quickly in fact as soon as he dared to utter that one…

Ugh. I know there are better domesticated blokes out there but mine is frustratingly not one of them. Although he is ‘better than he was’ it is a glacial improvement. I’ll look forward to him being perfectly competent in retirement I suppose.

I’ll look forward to him being perfectly competent in retirement I suppose.

I seriously doubt it. Retirement for these blokes is never lifting a finger to help ever again.

Ha! Pretty sure he knows my feelings on whether he’d be having a lonely old age if that was the case

I used to have this problem. We solved it by my writing a list of things that needed doing, and asking if anything else had to be added. Then no extra jobs are done until the list is ticked off. Works a treat for us.

XH never worked out the correlation between him efficiently doing housework/prep for guests and me wanting to have rampant sex with him.

DP, on the other hand, is far more intelligent...

Ha! Reminds me of hearing someone on the radio, Jane Garvey (?), saying men don't realise that sometimes they don't have to wine and dine you, loading the dishwasher and doing some dusting will do just fine.

This!!

I have three things that I don’t put ‘away’ as I use them on a daily basis. My headphones and running belt and my handbag. These are the only things that I leave ‘out’ on the hall table as that is where they live. Everything else that I use is put away in a drawer or cupboard immediately.

Dh and kids wonder through the house leaving all of their random crap in their wake. Shoes, coats, bags, mugs, sweet wrappers. Literally everything. If dh ever tidies, it is always my three things that he goes to first. He has genuinely tripped over his own left out shoes trying to get to my stuff to put it away before.

Fucking knobber.

Yeah same here. No initiative or sense of priority. Can complete tasks to a high standard when given specific instructions. So long as he’s not off doing something else “important”!

I thought I would come back to update this thread on my husband's prep for our nye party. Today he has hung the iron holder on the wall (in the utility that nobody will see), sorted out 5 years worth of greetings cards (from a drawer that nobody will see), he's currently clearing out the hat and glove drawer (that nobody will see) and sorting out the baby monitor that we've not used for 3 years.

I've also discovered DP won't just have a go at something he hasn't done before without tuition. He's perfectly competent and could figure it out himself if he tried. Sooo frustrating.

Yes. I have one drawer of "memories", DD's baby book (she's 26 now) various photos, pictures she drew, hospital tags, her first socks, school reports, my first teddy, my grandad's medals, Nan's needle case etc etc just sentimental stuff I've accumulated in one place so I can have a pick through if I feel down.

When DH gets the urge to tidy he always says first "what's in that drawer, let's sort the crap out" and wonders why I'm anti him even touching it. He'd just bin the lot without thinking. I keep it locked so he can't. He's aware of what's in there but it bugs him.

He has 3 rooms of his hoarded belongings. I have 1 drawer. That key stays on me always.