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.

why don't you use some of this to pay for an extra hour of the cleaner?

So smashing the patriarchy means being kept by a man? And not having to contribute anything to the family?

Why are you bringing a cleaner in to do the ironing? Drop it off at a service, pick it up. Then the cleaner can do the cleaning.

But… you’re a sahm being supported by a man who is not your children’s father. So he paying for you and your kids, and you only have to look after his kids every second week. So half the time, it’s just you and your kids and you’re at home all day every day. But you don’t want to do the housework? That’s sort of your job.

Given he's such a mug for the OP that he's fully funding her and her kids, I don't think you can cast aspersions on this man's previous marriage.

Yea this is kind of where I'm landing on this.

Normally I think it's bang out of order to expect the woman to do all the work but this is slightly different... you're a stay at home mum to kids at school. You set the tone saying you wanted to keep things fairly seperate and not do jobs for him/his kids. Fair enough. Two hours a week really isn't loads I'm sure her time is full just with the bits he's outsourced to her.

Unless there's more context it sounds like what's his is shared (money) and what's yours is yours (time)

So this man is financially supporting you and your children who aren’t his and you’re mad that you’re asked to look after the home?

YABU.

He's financing you being a SAHM for kids that aren't his?! Why on earth aren't you doing the cleaning and ironing whilst your kids are at school?!

I think you need to give your head a wobble. He has hired a cleaner to sort out his laundry and his kid’s laundry, and to clean up his areas of the house. So, @Suefr you don’t have to sort out all his stuff anymore. Yet, he is still fully supporting you and your kids.

Maybe stop complaining and do your own housework. Or get a job and hire a cleaner for longer.

I think the situation is more than fair to you. Your DH supports you so you can stay at home with your own kids and pays for domestic help to ease the burden of chores for him and his children. It sounds like a good deal to me.

OP, what was your story before you got together with him?
Did you struggle with life then too?

@suefr are all the comments telling you 'you are being unreasonable' helping you to see things from his point of view? Do you agree that you are being unreasonable?

Im sorry OP but you aren’t a ‘SAHM’ if the kids aren’t his, you are simply unemployed. It doesn’t really matter what other commitments you have on your plate or how unfair it is they’ve fallen to you…etc because they’re not DH’s kids, not DH’s parents…etc he’s funding your life purely for the pleasure of being married to you and in all honesty you sound a bit entitled and ungrateful from my perspective.

I wasn’t. I was casting on ops.

I’m a SAHP with two preschoolers and a baby. I told someone at playgroup last week that I’m not working at the moment. She said “You are working very hard at the moment, you just don’t earn a wage for it.”
A survey here in Ireland recently estimated that a SAHP contributes in the region of €57,000 to their family over the course of a year, by doing all the jobs that would cost a packet if they were outsourced.

Christ you're out of order!

It's a weird arrangement, but I actually can see his point I think. If the agreement is that you would do the housework during the day as a SAHP, then he hasn't hired a cleaner "to sort out the house" but he has hired a cleaner "to reduce your workload". So it doesn't matter whether she does your stuff or his, because if she doesn't do it would fall on you anyway.

I guess the issue for me is that he is disenpowering you from making decision about the house, when it's meant to be your domain.
I think the compromise is that the cleaner should continue doing his ironing because that's something you wouldn't do, but you should be the one who decides what she does the rest of the time.

Or, go to work and hire a cleaner more hours. That would definitely be my choice!

But her children are at school! She isn’t saving on childcare! She is sitting around expecting far too easy a life

This is so insane, is it actually true? He's funding you and your children while you are a SAHM to another man's children and you can't iron his shirts? And then when he organizes to pay someone to do it for him, you also want her to do more so you can do even less? I don't know how anyone thinks you are being even remotely reasonable

I'm so confused - Hasn't he solved the issue you asked him to solve?

How are you annoyed, he's paying her to do what you said fairly enough wasn't your job to do.

It may seem petty? But I think it's genius, I'd be delighted if been listen too and not only that he found the solution, put it in place and is paying.

Honey, they're not his kids.

So your DH works full time, pays for a cleaner to do a chunk of his chores (quite reasonable) and pays all the bills etc?

If you want a cleaner to do your share of the chores too you could always go to work too? Part of the reason I went back to work was to pay for a cleaner!

Exactly!

@Suefr

dont let cooking be one of the reasons why you can’t work and be more independent of this man OP! Kids don’t need amazing cooked from scratch meals every single night!

Set limits around how much you help your parents (you would have to if you worked)

Plan simple quick to cook meals (a simple healthy family meal does not need to take long to cook)

Ultimately you are asking him to work full time to support you staying at home, so that really does mean picking up the housewife stuff

Exactly!