Thinking about housework - what happens when one of you wants a super tidy, pristine house and the other doesn't?

[Keztrel]

When both partners do their fair share of domestic stuff, but one of you doesn't have the same standards as the other, does it usually fall to the 'fussier' party to do more of the housework? I know that if I suddenly decided I wanted a show-home standard pristine house, DH would not be on board with that, he prefers the bare minimum approach (as do I). And it would mean that the amount of housework we do would become unequal.

I'm really thinking of two friends of mine, who have lovely tidy houses, most likely cleaner than mine, and who say that their DPs just don't clean to the standard that they do. I think (privately, in my head) that if they could meet their DPs somewhere in the middle they would have less to complain about regarding their DPs not pulling their weight.

I've never been in this situation (with either flatmates or DH)...

Oops posted too soon! Stupid phone.

As I was saying...

If I suddenly decided the house had to be perpetually spotless I would clean it. I wouldn't expect DH to do it, he's not my staff.

DP is happy at a far lower house tidiness level than me. I figure the gap between his view and mine is up to us to manage between us.

I'm in this situation but the other way round. I am slapdash & DP is fucking anal prefers a spotless show home. It is behind my capabilities to achieve it, so we settle for an unhappy medium where he sees his arse every so often about the state of the home.

Well, no. But (I've thought of another example now) my uncle is very very tidy and his ex was incredibly messy, to the point of every room she spent time in becoming a bomb site. It pissed him off massively, but you couldn't say that because he didn't like it, he should tidy up her stuff...that's an extreme example though. And I suppose the fact she's an ex answers my question as to what happens...

Sorry that was a reply to cassiphone.

What does 'sees his arse' mean Arabella?

The one who wants it neater should do it. Or get a cleaner.

My dh is more fussy about tidiness than me, so I leave him to it.

I do most of the shopping, cooking, washing, drying and putting away. The cleaner does most of the cleaning.

Dh can do tidying if it bothers him so much.

What happens is that he does more than me. I'm not a tramp but I do what is necessary so that we have a clean and tidy house but I'm not anal about it. If he wants to do more then I let him get on with it.

My DH has far higher expectations of how a family home should be, both in terms of tidiness and cleanliness. However...... He does not expect to do any of it! We both work, have 3 DC and I probably do more than half the childcare.

DH claims that when we first lived together I agreed to do all the housework while he did the garden. In his dreams! I wasn't born yesterday, there is far more housework than cutting he grass a few times a year.

He pays for a cleaner, but to be fair it is like Canute trying to hold back the tide. Every now and then, when he can bear the mess no longer, he puts it all into black sacks, I then go through it all and put it away or get rid of it. This time he has put he sacks in the garage. About 18 months ago he did it and put the sacks out in the rubbish cupboard, they were taken away before I had gone through. He threw away Christmas presents and a brand new coat of DDs. I made sure I got him back for that one (sneakily) but he is unrepentant.

One time he did it he managed to throw out his own mobile phone, then expected me to find it. I made a lot out of that one!

He claims the mess is all mine, so I have started chucking his left about stuff into the garage too.

I am still holding a grudge about then D Fiancé stating that my cleaning skills were "rudimentary".

He has long been my husband but I still remind him of this dreadful slur from time to time.

It's not that he's a clean-freak and I'm slummy, just that I can tidy/clean the rest of the house (rudimentary style natch) in the time it takes him to clean one room. OK, you could eat the dinner off the floor in the room he's cleaned, but I think there's a better balance to be had!

Fiance&acute = fiance with an accent over the e (why does hat happen?!)

I give up! More gin please!!

Exactly the same as Mintyy here

I would refer to live in a tidier houe. However as I refuse to pick up after people, the house is only tidy whenever we are expecting guests.

I decided a long time ago that I am fine with this.

keztrel gets cross!

What if the clean freak believes that they are the reasonable one & the untidier one is lazy & squalid?! I only semi joke...

My standards are a lot higher than dps, so I just do it but as he works and I'm a SAHM it hasn't really been an issue as if I fall asleep at night with ds1 I would expect him to make it look half decent in the living room and put the toys away but only so I don't have that depressing wake up call to a complete bombsite and start properly tidying in a good mood

Exactly Arabella, one person's skanky is another person's perfectly clean and acceptable! If a DP came on here complaining that the other person never picked up after themselves (as occasionally happens. Ahem.) most of us would think the messy partner should pull their weight more and be less lazy.

what happened to us is time. dh got less obsessed, I stopped being lazy and now we have a fairly tidy fairly clean house and both feel more relaxed.

well, in our case what you can do is have endless arguments about it for years and years. i do make more of an effort with the housework now, but it took some years before I decided that I would try to be more understanding of his point of view, rather than just digging my heels in. And he makes more of an effort not to get irritated if the house isn't as tidy as he would like it to be. it is not ideal, but we do clash less often than we used to.