in thinking that if we have monthly income of £3700 net we could spare £120 to spend on a cleaner?

[effedorf]

3+ years posting here, namechange for obvious reasons.

But, seriously, what do you think?

The income all comes from dh and I am sahm. We have two primary school age children. I truly hate cleaning and I do 95% of the food shopping and cooking and 100% of the laundry and 95% of all the other things that makes a family tick over.

Or am I being unreasonable?

Lenin - in which case, I suspect the refusal to discuss it is the clearest indicator that there's a deeper issue here. It's clearly not the case that the family have oodles of spare dosh, her DH is blissfully happy in his job and happy to spend on a cleaner. it simply isn't. It may be that he has underlying financial worries. It may be that he genuinely thinks his wife's part of the deal is to do all the domestic stuff herself. It may be all sorts of things, but the point is, there is disagreement.

Another way of looking at it: the OP has presumably spent the last few years doing the houswork - she's a SAHM and her children are now school age. She now wants to re-negotiate. Fair enough - we all want things to shift and change, that's life. She's had enough and she wants to stop doing it. So why doesn't that re-negotiation carry through to going out and earning enough to pay for a cleaner? As I said, we're not talking a full on career here, we're talking a few hours a week, so that she's contributing for the thing SHE wants. Wanting a cleaner is a unilateral thing - her DH doesn't. So the obvious step is for her to act on it. I'm not saying she should 'have' to earn the money to pay for a cleaner. it's more a case of 'Why wouldn't she WANT to', given that her life has moved on, she's fed up of going housework and wants things to change?

How do you know they haven't got oodles of dosh? Maybe they have no mortgage.

Agree with Lenin that it's joint money.
Also agree that they need to talk together as a couple to find out why dh feels so strongly about the cleaner. Or does he? Was it a passing comment. Does he know how strongly op feels about a cleaner? Perhaps if he did he would be happy for her to go ahead anyway.
It sounds to me as though the op is unsure whether she's justified in getting a cleaner or not. In which case everything might possibly resolve once she's made up her mind.

I think people get insanely jealous about others having cleaners and remarkably censorious about what people do with their own time at home as if being a SAHM/P means you SHOULD do the cleaning as it's part of your job

get one if you want one, there really is no harm in it

tbh, I think having a cleaner is an enormous boost to people's mental health, I really do. It gives you the satisfaction of a clean house without the bloody chore of doing it yourself (not that we have one at the moment grrr!).

YANBU - Get a cleaner.

there is more to being at home than cleaning.
the op didn't give up work to wait hand and foot on everyone.I am in a slightly different position in that i have a 2 year old at home with me but i certainly don't do all the housework-why should i?
I am part of a family-i am not anyones slave.
I have a good 2.5hours a day where i could be mopping floors and scrubbing grout but i normally use that time to eat lunch,drink a hot coffee,prepare the evening meal/go for a wee without having company.
I outsource the drying and laundry to a laundrette as it takes half my week and makes the house look like a jumble sale, i tidy the kids toys away and do the pots from that day but certainly don't do more than dp in terms of housework.
If the op is fortunate enough to be able to afford a cleaner and really doesn't like it why do you think she should do it herself?
I assume she'll still be doing washing/cooking/all the other life sapping CRAP that needs doing....

Reading on I think you should get a job and perhaps get a little job that you would enjoy...

Sorry - get a cleaner and a little job

If we had a cleaner it would be for 3 hours a week but I would still spend I guess 20 hours a week on laundry, shopping, cooking and the dishwasher. My dh does very little of this because he is physically not here. Put it another way, our disposable income is about £400/week (sorry to be crass) and I am proposing spending £27 of that on a cleaner. DH would probably prefer not to spend the money but he would never do anything as draconian as put his foot down as he knows his working life is very much easier because I don't work full time. As Lenin says, I am just gathering opinions. Thanks all. I will go back and re-read but I think the overall opinion is ianbu.

Sorry but lol at "little job". I am not yet stripped of any ambition ...

I don't know why people keep having to hammer the point home that it isn't a lot of money. Not the issue is it?

Maybe the mortgage is low, there are no childcare costs, and perhaps just one car. Who the hell knows, it would certainly leave enough for a cleaner.

Affordability isn't the issue, I wish the op had just said we can afford it, dh earns enough. Not because I think it's crass to mention income but it would stop all these you are not wealthy enough posts (blurgh).

x posted with you effe.

Agree on the 'little job' thing. Knew that would come up.

I'm not arguing about specifically whether she should get a cleaner or not - I'm simply saying that a partnership is about negotiation. All through our lives we're making adjustments, and so what the OP needs to do here is negotiate why her DH doesn't want to spend on a cleaner.

At some point, presumably, the OP gave up work to have children and stay at home. That was negotiated with her DH - presumably the deal was, he became sole earner, and she took care of the children and home stuff. So far so good. And I totally accept that having two preschool children (which she would have done unless she had a huge age gap) is full on, hard work. Then their life moved on, one child started school, then the other. Those are fairly major re-negotiation points, so I assume the OP and her DH discussed it, and his view was that he's still happy with her staying home to organise the home side of things while he earns. Now the OP is re-negiotiating again, and saying 'I've had enough of housework, I want to outsource it'. Fine, no problem with that - I don't much like housework either. So she needs to discuss with her DH. It's a JOINT decision. And it may be that he feels this is one step too far - that he's been happy to be sole earner while they have pre school kids, and even when those kids start school, but he doesn't think there's a need to have a partner home all day AND pay a cleaner. And he's entitled to that view. That's all.

I still think the obvious solution, given that the OP hates housework, is for her to earn enough to pay for it so that it has absolutely no impact on the overall family income anyway.

OP: YANBU.

If spending that money allows you to feel better, be happier with the children and more relaxed with your dh, all without compromising your normal standard of living, then it is a perefectly respectable "investment".

For those of us who are fortunate to have truly disposable income, then we all make choices as to how to spend it - wuth it be putting it away for a rainy day, buying nice lipstick, buying Boden for the kids or ourselves, buying books, going on fancy holidays - or on a cleaner.

lenin,i wash and drop it to the ladys in the laundrette at the end of the road,collect it dried and folded the next day...
it's revolutionised my/our lives-costs less than a tenner a week and there are 4 of us-i dry bedding/towels/sweatshirts/hoodies/jeans all the heavy 'takes 2 days to dry and makes your house untidy' stuff...

YANBU.
If you'd posted saying AIBU to spend £30 a week on salsa lessons, I doubt everyone would be getting their knickers in a twist.

So Not Cleaning is your hobby. It's a good hobby.

Say OP got a "little job", 16 hours p/w, £7 p/h. That'd be about £450 per month. Pissing in the wind compared to the DH salary, and for them, probably wouldn't be worth the disruption caused to their family life.

Get the cleaner. I am hugely jealous. Life's too short to spend it doing crap if you can pay someone else to do it for you. Have fun, study, read, paint, cook, whatever. You can afford it so why not?

When I was a SAHM I was a SAH 'Mum' not a bloody skivvy. I outsourced the ironing and most evenings my DH would come home from work and cook dinner.

I think it's shocking that people really believe that the homemaker should be filling their time with 'tasks' so that the great provider 'knows' that wifey isn't wasting her time.

And do people really spend 'hours' a day cleaning? Seriously? What a waste of life!!

nostrilla- I think your post is quite rude. I know several mums who have to WORK as cleaners to contribute towards their household income as well as do the ironing, look after the children, etc.I doubt they would appreciate you telling them they 'wasting their lives'. Lucky for you that you don't have to be 'a bloody skivvy'.

get the cleaner. If you have the money and it is not needed elsewhere in the household, go for it.