Does the messiness of your house fundamentally affect the happiness of your household?

[Goders]

I’m SO frustrated. Over the last three months I was working away from the house for part of the week. And let’s just say the house became unkept. It certainly wasn’t a bomb site. But they all expressed how the state of the house in that state was annoying to them. Dh is particular. He said it was even depressing him! When I came home at weekends I had no interest in doing deep cleans. We could have got a cleaner in but I thought it eas a bit ridiculous tbh.

I am back to being a SAHM (I was helping DH with his business when working away, I used to work in the industry pre kids). And now I have the house back to a pretty immaculate standard everyone is much happier. You’d think I would find this a good thing. But it’s extremely frustrating. Why is my husband so bloody affected by the state of the house? That can’t be normal. The kids are even being nicer to one another. Things just overall feel less tense. The kids are happier too. My youngest said she didn’t enjoy the disorganisation! And I’m thinking have a bit of bloody resilience.

I do like a clean house but I don’t think I’m that anal that I’ve given my kids issues. I’m an easy going person

One of my friends admittedly has a messy house. Stuff everywhere. But they are a happy household. I’m jealous of them. That a bit of mess does fuck up their household.

Are we a bunch of weirdos?

If they hated the messy cupboards etc they should have done it? Not cleaned a bit and been upset it wasn't up to standard?

I work my socks off to keep my house immaculate, because it does affect me mentally; if it slides for a few days and I see dust, dirt, crumbs etc it will irritate and annoy me. My extreme attention to detail made me quite good at my job, but on the other hand, I’d never expect anyone else at home to be bothered/annoyed about it to the extent that I am, or do the amount of cleaning I do. Everyone has different standards.

Surely it is WAY more likely that they have become less out of sorts/unsettled just because you're back?! The "mess" probably became what they put it all down to with a bit of projection, but, if youre usually a SAHM then it was your absence that caused the weirdness.

To actually answer your question my living environment massively affects me so mess would drive me mad. But I doubt that this is what was really going on here!

NB I think it's good you worked away for a bit - always good to change things up for a while!