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???

Omg op is this a thing? My dh does this and it absolutely gives me the rage. Every Time we have guests over I tell him everything that needs to be done (ie all the stuff from your list) and then what does he do? He tidies up the study (that we keep the door closed to so kids can't mess up our office work), tidies up the shoes cabinet and sorts out the Tupper ware drawer. Every single time.

(In his defense he is an excellent cook and does a lot of the cooking) but uggh....every time we need to first have a serious talk about priorities.

Disturbed to find my mum is one of these men. The Christmas Day fridge clear out or DIY (and we are all forced to get involved). The house full of her stuff littered everywhere but a beeline is made to put away the two things I’ve had the cheek to hang up (coat and bag) and so on.

was feeling quite smug about my extremely helpful husband while reading this thread til I got to the bit about toenails - yes!! Why??

i took revenge by doing it when we were leaving the house a couple of months ago. I could hear him outside the bathroom wanting to ask wtf I was doing but realising he really had no right to. He’s not done it since though!

So....back to this thread.
not entirely the same scenario but along the same theme.
going to a family wedding today (DH family)
DH has ironed his trousers (despite me asking twice earlier this week what he was planning to wear and did it need ironing)
Getting ready to go, have we got card, present, smart jacket, overnight bag, given the cat it's medication etc? Me and teen kids sorting this out.
What is DH doing...? Quite leisurely watering/tending to, a half dead basil plant on the kitchen windowsill...🙄🤣

Mothers day last year, my mum and sisters coming for tea. He jet washed the back garden!

YES. Me and DH are actually quite a good pair though as I literally only do superficial cleans - chuck everything into certain cupboards which then spill out in a giant tidal wave of clutter whenever opened and he onl does large scale reorganisations and decluttering. Also we both have low standards and no shame.

Sorry haven't RTFT beyond the first page and also sorry as this isn't exactly the same thing, but this year my DH spent over an hour washing the car on the morning we were going on holiday because he didn't want it to be dirty sitting in the long stay parking (OUTSIDE for 10 days!!!). Obviously during this time I was running around doing things that were actually, you know, essential and important for our holiday.

I sometimes just simply say "important, not urgent" to him when I find him doing stuff like this as I know he's done a time management course.

Haven't read the full thread (didn't there used to be a 'find on thread' button?) so don't know if it's been mentioned, but my DH's critical preparation for any event where guests are coming (especially one where shopping, cooking, cleaning and /or preparing a spare room is involved) is to... create a playlist.

@Leothebear put him in charge of the shopping and the food (including the menu). I learnt early on that my DH loves his food, so can always be relied on to do a good job - in fact my own cooking skills have (conveniently) deteriorated since I handed over the reigns. He does the weekly online shop and cooks most evenings (or buys easy shove-ins for the days I'm cooking). I just have to remember to hold back on commenting negatively if he does things differently to me.