Nobody else sees the mess

[Sunshine187]

Hi, thanks in advance for reading. I really need to offload to strangers as I'm being made to feel like I'm insane in my real life! I'm just feeling so so down about having to be responsible for every single part of day to day life. I feel like I literally spend all my time at home just wandering round with things to do, tidying, cleaning, washing, sorting, life admin etc. 3 of us live in a 4 bed house (me, h and 11 year old.son) and it is bursting at the seams as Im the only person who ever tidies and gets rid of stuff. I'm a supply teacher part time so I understand that I should.take on the bulk of the house work etc. but I do it all including every single but of life admin. When I tell my husband I'm.feeling overwhelmed he tells me there's something wrong with me, that I get like this every month and I need to keep a diary so I can look back on how I say the same old thing every month. This has just been said to me minutes after I've rushed up to the shops to get his mother a bday present as he's completely forgotten about it. I'm in physical pain today from hours of gardening alone as I'm desperately just trying to keep on top of things but have overdone it so my body is in agony. Am I being unreasonable for wanting to have a lovely, tidy, presentable home as being made to feel like there's nothing to.do and I'm just making up.jobs to be a martyr? Do I just need to lower my standards or suck it up?

You can’t please everyone -at the moment you are pleasing them - when is it your turn?

I definitely get your point of view but with my son's toys for example he has so many now that he can't play properly as there is just no room left to put anything away properly. I'm all for sentimentality etc. but it's meaning he can't enjoy anything iyswim.

My DH has cupboards full of clothes -it’s a problem because the clothes he actually uses are piled on a chair -fortunately we have a big house

I walked into a room yesterday which had large amount of toast crumbs, dog piss and play doh on the floor. My DH had been in the room for over 5 mins and failed to notice ANY of the 3 horrors.

he in fact dropped the toast crumbs and was annoyed I asked him to clean it after he walked through it the second time.

no answers.

But your son is the one playing! So he's either happy doing it with stuff everywhere, or he'll get so annoyed that he'll actually do something about it. A bit like my daughter did when it was no longer possible to enter her room without stepping on clothes. You are projecting your thoughts about the way things should be, onto him.

Honestly sounds like you need a massive clear out as a family. If you’re doing the majority of the cleaning, you have the right to insist on minimal stuff. It sounds like you have high standards. We’re 2 kids, 2 adults in 3 bed house and it’s easy to keep clean as we are very strict on what gets kept. Especially now we’re not having more kids - anything too small or toys too young are gone. And get a gardener or change to a lower maintenance garden if you’re struggling. We both work full time and don’t find housework to take that much time

You don’t need to lower your standards, you need to raise your bar and kick both your useless DH and DS up the backside. Why are you running yourself ragged while they sit on their dumb arses? Just why?

Sounds like you’re being bossed about by your son as well. I had a good clear out of any toys not played with, or worn out or broken, before birthdays and Christmas. Didn’t really care what my now adult son thought tbh as he didn’t have any say in it, although obviously he was looking forward to new stuff. I didn’t get rid of anything he was really attached to. Still got a few things in the loft though, I’m not totally heartless!

Yes, this! Today I was asked to wash his pants, which is fine 🤣 but there were all clothes chucked on the floor too so I washed those as well. Later, when I expressed my overwhelm, he said that some of those clothes on the floor were clean and I was just making work for myself!!! How the hell was I supposed to know that? Surely most adults don't chuck clean, wearable clothes in a big pile on the floor and expect their wife/slave to know what's clean and what isn't?!?

OP you need to take some control here. Get your husband to either do his own washing or to put his clothes in the laundry basket. Preferably both.

Your son is 11, you're the boss. Bag up his stuff and take it to the charity shop. He'll get over it.

You're being a limp lettuce.

I have sympathy. I live with a messy DH and a messy DS (22).

I wouldn't worry too much about the stuff in their rooms/drawers. So what if DS room is full of cuddly toys - its his room. So what if DH has drawers full of clothes he doesnt wear. It's his drawers.

What I would do (and cue lots of eye rolling and cries of "not her again with those sodding plastic boxes") is getting some see through plastic boxes with lids and some sticky labels. One box for DH's stuff and one box for DS stuff and label them accordingly.

As you find stuff around the house belonging to either of them, chuck it in their box. When it's full, put the lid on and start another one. You have a spare bedroom - store the full ones in there. You don't put the stuff away, you just allocate it to the owner.

If either of them say "have you seen ..... " just refer them to their boxes.

Do not put DH's clothes away after they have been laundered. Just leave them on his bed/his side of the bed. You can say "there is some clean washing to put away, but you have so much stuff in the drawers and wardrobe already, you need to do it"

If you have very high standards, then try to apply them only to the bits that affect you, stop trying to applying them to where you don't need to.

Get a gardener if the garden is too much for you. Even if it's just to cut the grass once a month.

And keep that diary!

Just seen your update. Get him his own laundry basket. Only wash what is in the laundry basket.

Try picking up all the discarded socks and particularly the pants etc and putting them tenderly on their pillow. Every time.
It caused a huge fuss but they got the laundry basket message.
We graduated to If they don't carry it downstairs and put it in front of the machine it doesn't get washed and now its... if you want it washed, put it in the machine and hang it up after. Mind you, this took a while.
And I had to ban DH from ever washing my things ( puts white tee shirts in with black jeans) or on the wrong program, or uses fabric conditioner with fleeces etc.

I do feel for you OP. It sounds like they both walk around the house, trailing crumbs etc in their wake. This is the kind of thing you can't fix overnight. With your son's toy scenario.. you could try making it a regular thing to be together in his room (soften him up with a snack or a comedy show on audio or something) and bring a big bag, focus on a corner and no more and just go through the stuff, bin, give away, keep. Just for 10 minutes. Each day you will have more stuff cleared. You can chat to him about how he'd like to decorate his room, what posters etc. Make it a friendly chat time, rather than a tidy up time. BBrush teeth together and make him pick up and put away in the bathroom at the same time, but in a routine kind of way.

Your DH is setting a really bad example to your DS. and he's basically sitting around moaning "Oh Women and their periods". What an idiot. I don't know what the answer is here really, if he doesn't listen or pay attention to anything you say and he doesn't help. Except start asking for specific jobs to be done. He doesn't notice the mess because he doesn't want to. And it gives him a chance to make you feel guilty about it. Make a list of everything you do, make a chart and ask him to do just one of the jobs on it. The next day two ect.. but it sounds like he will be resistant. So maybe marriage guidance?

I love the idea of putting all their stuff in a box for them to put away. And ending up with a spare room full of boxes. Its their stuff, they can't gaslight you on that! ha ha.

Stuff that isn't in the wash box doesn't get washed it's as simple as that.

Pick up clothes from the floor?

Why?

He if cba then sure as hell I can't!

How many hours do you normally work. 30h or 15?

You do come across a bit of a martyr. You are now off for 6 weeks, only looking after an 11 yo that should be mainly self reliant and you feel overwhelmed?

If your son wants his toys in his room, and he is happy he has enough room to do what he wants, let him be.

Often things that come up for us as issues when we are premenstrual are things that are issues but that we manage to shove down for the rest of the month, so please tell your husband from me to fuck off. He sounds like a pig. I have no doubt that this annoys you every day of the month.

I did it for years. I had a box in each room for DH. He was dreadful for putting stuff down and just leaving it. My personal cut off was 10 days. If it was still sitting there after 10 days, it went in the box.

I can report that he has been so much better at putting stuff away over recent years, he currently doesn't have a box anywhere!

Can you do less?

Could you not just remind your husband of his mother's birthday and let him deal with that as he chose? And did the garden really need hours and hours of work? Could you have just...done less?

I have a friend who is always needing to rush here and then dash there. It is tedious to hear about and much of it seems totally unnecessary to me (however my home is no show house).

I have done - and thrown them straight in the bottom of his wardrobe. I refuse to have clothes on the floor in my bedroom. But I’m not washing them either. In his wardrobe they go - just open the door and chuck/ram them in.

Oh OP....

If it's not in the laundry basket it doesn't get washed. If he can't be bothered to put it in the basket then he gets to wash his own pants. It really is that simple.

Get a basket or bin liner and put all his stuff in it, clean or dirty, and dump it his side of the bed. Do this every single time you want to tidy or hoover. He will either sort those bags out or stand on them to get into bed. Calmly, and without a word, keep putting them back his side even if he gets enraged and shouty.

Same with DS, bin bag any downstairs mess and dump it in his bedroom. He can clean his own room, or not, on the understanding that no food or pots go in there, and he changes his bed when asked OR he tidies his room so you can. It's his choice but the bed gets changed when you say. Or actually you strip it and then he has to make it 😉

Use this time to throw away anything broken or not been used in two years. Anything without a "home" goes next to their bed. You can do this.