To ask DH’s cleaner to help me as well

[Suefr]

We are a large blended family with 5 children in total, but no joint children. DH’s children (secondary school) are slightly older than mine (primary school) but we all get on well. His children come and stay with us on alternative weeks and his system works well for us.

As I am a SAHM I do most of the housework and cooking, and I am fine with this. However, a few months ago I became annoyed at the amount of housework I was expected to do and the lack of support from DH. In particular, he was annoyed that I wasn’t ironing his clothes and I was upset at being treated like a maid.
As a compromise, DH hired a neighbour’s cleaner to help. She can only do 1 hour twice a week. She comes to our house when she finishes at our neighbour’s. In these 2 hours she will wash and iron DH & his children’s clothes, and tidy his office and their bedrooms. However, she will politely decline any requests I make for help. I have spoken to DH and he has fobbed me off, telling me that she is helping us out. But it’s obvious, she is there only to help him out and not me.

2 hours aweek isn’t long. Maybe she’s not declining your request rather she is declining additional requests.

This is insane - so he has actively employed a cleaner who has been told to exclusively do tasks that benefit him and not you, and she has been told to refuse requests to do tasks that benefit you both?

I don’t think I could accept being in a relationship with such a petty bastard.

How bizarre. Clearly he has told her to only do his stuff and his kids.

Hire your own cleaner to come on a different day. He can pay for it. Also get back to work and earn your own money - he sounds very controlling.

He sounds mean.

Oooh crikey, the dynamic and intent doesn't sound good at all. Just all seems resentful and nasty given what he's clearly said to the cleaner.

But. If you and your children are fully funded by him to be a sahp, then I'd say with primary aged kids your side of the deal would include all housework.

This 💯

2 hours to wash and iron clothes as well as tidy bedrooms and office is probably about right.
if you want he to do things for you too, she will need to work more hours at your place.

Who pays for her? If it's him alone then fair enough, as he is 100% responsible for ironing his own fucking clothes. I doubt he irons yours?

Oh OP don't put up with this.

You are supposed to be a team.

It is petty, however you say you are a SAHM, how do you contribute financially to the household? If he is paying the majority of the bills for you and your children too, its not unreasonable for him to not want to do your housework too when you are not working 🤷‍♀️

I mean in fairness, you asked him to lighten the load/for you not be expected to pick up after his kids or wash his clothes while you are a stay at home mum to your own kids. And he has hired a cleaner to do those specific tasks as you didn't want to do them and he works full time.

Do you contribute to the house equally financially? Do you own it together? Does he fund you and your children?

I've got an idea for you, OP. Stick a mop handle up the cleaner's arse, so that she can fit even more into her one hour window.

So you are a stay-at-home mother to children who are in school all day and who are also not his children?

I don’t see how she would have time to do additional tasks.

i also don’t understand how you are a sahm if you have no shared children. The absolutely bizarre power imbalance this must create is not healthy.

Wow.

I say this over and over: being a sahm without respect and appreciation isn’t a good idea.

Raising family is a partnership and there are various ways to divide up the responsibilities and labour involved. As equal partners you should have equal access to the finances, equal rest and equal respect.

Why don't you do the stuff whilst home all day every day? Surely that's the deal here, he works outside the home and you do the housework etc.

He's working full time and you're at home? What housework are you expecting him to do? Your kids are in school, so that's 5-6 hours a day being a stay at home mum, without the "mumming" element.

He shouldn't snipe at you about ironing shirts, but maybe he's resentful of being told he's got to do XYZ housework after working all day/week.

What housework are you expecting more help with?

I can see his point. You weren't happy with the expectation you do his housework (and rightly so) so he has outsourced that. For 2 hours a week, and that task list the cleaner is quite right to say no to additional work.

Not the point of the thread, but the financial set up here isn't clear to me. You are a sahm, no joint kids and no kids at home all day (yours are primary school age). It doesn't sound as though you being a sahm is what enables him to work, or that it's working out well given the difference in expectations. What are you contributing and are your kids protected in the event of a relationship breakdown?

You're a SAHM to your own school age children, so he pays for all household expenses, and on top of that for a cleaner to deal with his and his kids stuff? Seems fair to me.

If he's working eight hours a day and I was just stay at home partner that he was supporting financially, I'd be expecting to be working the same length of day. On whatever housework needed doing. His or mine or any kids.

Why don't you feel the need to work all day? What do you do all day?

As a woman with three children who are older and a high earner, if I married a man who brought his own children into the relationship and wanted to be a stay-at-home parent to those children while I supported him financially I would expect him to do everything. But you complained and then he hired someone to take some of the load off and now you're complaining about that.

That sounds like a strange arrangement. But 2 1 hour sessions isn’t much. How on earth does she launder and iron clothes in that time? Our shortest washing machine cycle is 45 mins, then at least an hour in the tumbler…

Hire her for 4 or 6 hours pw so she can do more.

He sounds like wants maids!!

What do you bring to this relationship? What is your contribution?

The cleaner isn’t unreasonable to decline to do more tasks without extra payment. what you’ve described sounds like 2 hours of work and as he hired her, I can see why she wants to stick to those tasks.

I suspect that your h thinks that after the ironing, office and stepchildren’s bedroom are done, the jobs that are left are jobs that you would do if his kids and him weren’t around so should do them yourself because you are a SAHM.