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.

Do you live in a mansion,is this why you're struggling?

But you are a SAHM with school age kids?!?!
get yourself a job and then you can share a cleaner. Ffs.

Your lack of information apart from some strategic 'whip them up into a froth' comments is going to make it difficult for advice. But perhaps that's not what you wanted at all...

The lack of responses from the OP makes me think this is some kind of troll post.

I despise ironing. Should husband decide to pay someone to do it, I wouldn't make any other demands on her time.

Couldn’t have put it clearer myself.
I think you’re extremely unreasonable OP. I actually feel sorry for him.

I think it's very petty for the cleaner to only do his and his kids laundry. I mean are you partners or not?
But it seems you have a very good deal here. You're not married, you don't have joint kids and you don't work outside the home. Presumably he is paying all the bills, including food etc for your kids? Do you have any money or does he give you some sort of allowance?

... but vindictive and very controlling to hire somebody and tell them they're not allowed to help his partner out at all. What kind of a relationship is that?

OP - you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking whether or not you should be putting up with such petty vindictiveness from a controlling partner.

"Controlling partner* ?!?

Are you mixing this up with another thread ?
You certainly can't be reading the same thread as the rest of us.

He pays for housing and funding her children. They are not joint children. His own children come EOW.
That is not the act of a petty and vindictive man.

That is hilarious.

The right question is: "I wonder how long he will keep funding me and my children (plus a cleaner for the housework I told him I don't want to do) if I keep moaning?"

You're joking? Who else is going to do HIS stuff if the cleaner starts helping OP instead?? Oh yes, he'll have to do them himself after work, while the OP has had even more "me time" during the time he funds her to be a SAHM.
OP won't do his shirts or bits for his DC, she just takes his money to do things for her DC. Or help her Mum.
Do you not think this is a really unfair situation?

Imagine the reverse: I'm a hard working professional woman, and live with DH. We both have children from previous relationships but none together. DH doesn't work but refuses to do little bits to help myself or my DC. I fully support him financially. I've now hired a cleaner and he wants her to help him, so that some of my bits get left. I'm exhausted already.

Imagine the outcry of "get rid of the cocklodger"!

Honestly, it's a parallel universe.

And to add, if OP wants to use a cleaner, she needs to get a job and bring in some money.
I genuinely can't see what the DH gets out of this "arrangement".

This, in actual fact what do you bring to the table?

This x100

But did he tell the cleaner that? Or is the cleaner simply telling the woman that she has been hired for a specific time period and is expected to complete a certain amount of tasks within that time, and she either hasn't the time to take on more work or simply doesn't want to take on another hour or two of work?

Nope. The clue is in the word "partner". It's a partnership. She's not a lodger. She's not refusing to do housework. She is clearly feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work for a household of 7 half the time, plus caring for her parents. There could be any number of reasons for that. We don't know their living circumstances/habits/health but it doesn't matter. Whatever the reason, she is overwhelmed, and it's petty in the extreme for the partner to give express instructions that she should not be helped.

I mean, how far would you take it? Should she buy her own food, keep it only on her shelf in the fridge, and not touch the food in his cupboard (except of course when she's cooking for him and his kids)?

My understanding from the way the post is written is that it's not a time issue, but that the cleaner is working on the partner's areas and has declined anything to do with hers. If it's the case that the cleaner doesn't have time to help her out then that would be different but I don't think there's any indication that that's the issue.

Of course it's a time issue. Cleaners are paid by the hour, and OP specifically says that the cleaner only wanted to take on a few hours and already has plenty to do in those. It's far more likely that the cleaner just doesn't want to take on more than that the H has specifically instructed the cleaner to refuse to help OP.

I'm sorry, I missed the bit where she says she doesn't want to do any housework - can you point to that in the post please?

@Pupinskipops but that's the point isn't it? He pays for everything and doesn't ask her to buy her own food or put it on separate shelves. He has willingly funded her to be a SAHM for children that aren't his. I think that's generous and nice spirited. Not petty.
She isn't taking the load for his DC - they are with their DM most of the time it seems.
I can't see what he's done wrong. She's refused to do his ironing. He's employed someone to do it. No drama. This whole post is about her wanting that person to help her, presumably having to leave at least some of his ironing, instead. So his ironing doesn't get done. The whole point of hiring the lady was to do his ironing, not give the OP even less to do.
I sympathise with him.

But there is a clear distinction made between his and hers. I don't think we can say with any clarity that "of course it's a time issue". It may be that on some weeks the cleaner only has a couple of shirts to iron and the OP has asked the cleaner to do one of hers in any time she has left for all we know. Not at all unreasonable. The OP does doesn't sound like an awful person, or somebody who resents doing the housework instead of sitting back and watching TV. She just finds it overwhelming. There could be any number of reasons for that. Who are we to judge?

@Pupinskipops OP's DH hasn't said to her that he isn't funding her being a SAHM has he? He hasn't said not my DC, not funding that. He's generously supported that it seems and there's no complaint about money that I see.
The only distinction is one OP made originally. Not my shirts, not ironing them. He hired someone to do it.
You're making assumptions about OP that you have no info to back up, unless you know her or are her.

I'm totally with you for your first paragraph.

But his kids are with them half the time (every other week) and she does most of the housework and cooking etc, but is overwhelmed. She hasn't said she's refused to do anything.

If he had hired someone for the specific task of ironing his shirts then I'd agree with you though even then, if hypothetically she was hired by the hour and got through his shirts in 45 mins, it would be perfectly reasonable for her to ask the ironer to iron a couple of her shirts in the remaining 15 mins. It seems they've been expressly forbidden from doing this.

But he hasn't just hired someone to iron his shirts. He's hired a cleaner expressly to iron his shirts and clean his area of the house. That's petty. What would be reasonable is to hire someone for the couple of hours in the week to help the OP in the house with whatever needed doing so that between what the OP and the cleaner get done all the household chores and ironing would get done. To aportion it out to his things and her things is extremely petty and controlling within a partnership, it doesn't matter who pays the mortgage (assuming there is a mortgage).

And this argument that he has "willingly funded" her to be a SAHM is nonsense. If it's just a transactional arrangement, then it's a sh1t kind of partnership. For all we know, he could be a multimillionaire who has asked her to be a SAHM so she's there for the kids. Either way, it's unlikely that he's come home from work one day and, much to his surprise, found some random woman living in his home at his expense and he's decided to keep her on as a philanthropic project!

The only assumptions I'm making are from what the OP has written, just as you are.