What she says and what she means

[atelier]

My missus works three days and I work five. We have two children: DD2 DS6

She says she needs more help to run the house and I've agreed to give it. Not for the first time.
But when I say I intend to do some cleaning she puts up objections.
Not on Friday night, that's our romantic time together
Not on the weekend that's family time
Not in the week because the children are asleep

That doesn't leave any other time.

I'm wondering if this is me being a lunk and failing to understand the non-literal meaning of what she says. Can anyone translate please?

She also refuses to be specific on what more I should do. We are a team, she says, and we should be working together.
So I can't have clear, set jobs like cleaning the bathroom once a week or hoovering.
And sometimes when I ask she says 'use your eyes'.

I must sound like a terrible chauvinist. Part of the problem is that very often when I attempt something I end up being lambasted for 'doing it wrong'. Or she'll contemptuously tell me she's just done it.

I'm good at the 'man's jobs' like mowing the lawn and re-roofing the shed, which are useful. And I enjoy anything with the kids, from feeding and bathing them to taking them to the park.

But I'm floundering when it comes to sharing a bit more of her turf.

Willing but confused.

You are both responsible for housework and so you need to get on with it and do it properly.

Who gets to decide what "properly" is? In the OP's case it seems to be his wife has set herself up as the sole arbiter.

Basil - that's correct. But she shouldn't be so critical and dictate what he does on every single hour of his free time.
She's saying get on with it but only when I say so, only what I want done, and only to my standard.

If you want that control you have to advise him or loosen up and work as a team of two capable adults

As for standards - they are a real battleground. But it may help if you ask yourself something like "would I be happy if my hotel room was cleaned to the standard I just cleaned my house?" "Would I be happy to eat in the restaurant off the dishes that I just washed?"

She's decided she's in charge... de facto leader... because she's determining what is and isn't acceptable amount/quality of help. It may be out of necessity, I have no idea the back-story here. But the principle is that if you have a large, complex task and a team of people with differing approaches to completing a task you'll get the best outcome by using everyone's strengths.

Well, regardless of who decided what, the word "help" needs to be culled.

Honestly, anyone who gives a poster who calls his wife 'the missus' the benefit of the doubt (and what's more takes the opportunity to criticise his wife) needs to seriously review their own attitude towards women.

If she doesn't want you to do housework on Friday nights because it's couples time, how about as you put the kids to bed, you run her a bath, tell her to go chill for an hour whilst you clean the kitchen floor and do all the washing up, etc? Then you have your couples time

I don't know if this helps, but my husband and I used to have these kind of ahem discussions. I ended up buying a chalk board and every night we have to achieve what's written on that board. So Monday is bin night, Tuesday is bed change, Wednesday is clean bathroom, Thursday is all floors mopped, Friday is hoover, sat is family time and Sunday is relaxing. We don't always stick to it 100% but it does mean that we both have responsibility for completing that task and it does usually get done. Obviously there's things like dishes, cooking and clothes washing which are things that take place all the time but since the introduction of the chalkboard, my dh has really started to get more involved in those things as well. One disclaimer- your friends will laugh at the board and accuse you of being whipped.

I think she wants you to clean up shit you see around you as you go along. Or maybe not create mess as you go along so clothes put where they are supposed to be (Laundry basket or the wardrobe or the washing machine) and kids mess cleaned up when you see it needs doing.

it is rather pointless you saying you want to do it all at a specific time if she's just generally pissed off with your lack of everyday help.

She shouldn't have to ask and you shouldn't have to allocate cleaning time to an hour on a Sunday afternoon.

Oh god. I used to be like this. What I wanted was for Dh to take some of the stress off me. I was struggling looking after 2 dc full-time and studying and running a business. What I wanted was for him to do something that helped me. That requires thinking about the other person's needs.

e.g. He'd go off to work proudly announcing that he's put a load of laundry yet the kitchen table would be covered in crap meaning I couldn't do any studying until I'd tidied it and then I had to sort out the laundry he'd helpfully put on. I would much rather he'd thought "I know, I have 5 minutes to do a job, what would be most useful to crafty? Well, seeing as she wants to do studying I'll clear the table so that she has space to work."

Do you know the answer to these questions?

When did the bedding last get changed on the beds?
What things do you need to put into the bag for the two year old when you take her out?
How many laundry baskets are there in the house and how many of them are full?
When was the toilet last cleaned?
What's in the fridge that you could cook for dinner tonight, how about tomorrow and what about Sunday?

I'm just speaking from experience here, so apologies if this is not you, but...my OH would also swear blind he is "helpful" and doesn't know what more he could do.

I think...

1. what is the point in cleaning the bathroom once a week when you have to ask me where the cleaning stuff is, and when you piss all over the seat every other day of the week and don't clean it up?
2. what's the point in cooking the dinner when you turn the kitchen into a bomb site?
3. what is the point in doing the dishes to "help me" when you leave dirty water in the bowl and don't even wipe the sides?
4. what is the point in you taking DS out for an hour so I can get some jobs done when I have to get him ready and pack his bag?

What is the point in doing any of that when I have to spend the rest of the day thanking you?

Again, sorry if that is way off the mark but if it was me, I would like OH to just change his mindset. In the morning, instead of thinking what he needs to do to get himself out of the door, what do we all need to do to get us all out of the door? And so on

This has actually got me thinking about my own situation and the way I speak to OH and if I am "setting him up to fail" but it's not about that. It's not always helpful to have set jobs at set times. If the house is a tip and I try and get OH to pitch in by asking him to do specific Jobs, he sits down when he's done them. Would you do that when you had finished cleaning the bathroom? Sit down because you've done your bit? Things change by the day.

I think this is the hub of the problem:

"But when I say I intend to do some cleaning she puts up objections.
Not on Friday night, that's our romantic time together
Not on the weekend that's family time
Not in the week because the children are asleep"

Some questions:

1. when you say "do some cleaning", are you intending to put on the rubber gloves and become a dervish for two hours? Or just sweep the floor in 5 minutes, give the bathroom a quick rub down and put all the kids stuff away, fold the laundry - half an hour and done, time for a nice film etc? In other words, does your cleaning become an activity in itself?

2. When you want to clean when the kids are asleep, are you doing something incompatible with sleepy kids, e.g. hoovering, or clanking around in the bathroom next to their bedroom? Are there other things you could do that would actually be fine?

It sounds to me like you need to think of housework, as others have said, as something that happens as you go along. I often sweep the kitchen while the kettle's boiling, for instance - it doesn't take long unless you live in a mansion! When you've had a pee - chuck some cleaner down and swirl the brush around, then flush.

"Who gets to decide what "properly" is? "

Both parties do - they both have to be happy with the finished standard.

It's really not difficult. Unless you live with Monica from Friends, normal people should be able to fulfil each other's expectations of how clean their house should be.

Who cleans the car, OP?

If it's you, just transfer the standards you have for that to the house and unless you're very unusual, chances are the standards will be high enough.

OP- it's perfectly acceptable to insist your wife is specific about what she would like you to do. She is being unreasonable and passive aggresive by saying 'use your eyes'- everyone has different standards and expectations, and if something matters to her, she should let you know.
Luckily some couples have similar tolerances to mess so it works ok inthe main. For example in this house we have a fairly high tolerance, noone complains about when the bedding's been changed or ironing done, but we try and keep the kitchen clean. And we take weekly turns with cooking.
I think some posters are automatically critical of men on here, maybe because of majority have non equal partnerships or both partners are not working full time.

Any way you are both part of a team and it is only fair that you are both clear on responsibilties and expectations

I am a bit like your DW, but am learning to back off a bit. I am a bit of a control freak and would much prefer to have the time to do it all myself. But as i don't my DH needs to do his bit. Yes he chooses inappropriate times and yes he goes into manic spring clean mode ( pulling furniture out etc - just fecking hoovr!!) but i am working on it.

Seems to me that men generally just don't get it. I would happily give him set jobs - or set rooms, then it means i don't have to worry about those things.

Only men who don't want to get it, don't get it.

Decent men who don't feel that housework is beneath them, get it.

oh it's a lot more complex than that BBE - 'decent' men don't have to absorb a particular 'standard' to be 'decent' IF working as a team means anything. The OP appears to have a realistic issue about this - 'I wish to do my bit, but only on your terms seems the only criterion' which does not make him either chauvanistic nor unwilling.

the other thing of course is a very mixed message at times, which runs along the lines of 'she' wishing 'he' to 'do a bit more' but then reacting poorly when, on some level, sees 'him' edging into 'her' domain.
The word 'communication' is the key but that can take a v long time to establish who means what exactly.

OP, housework and the like is NOT her turf, nor is you doing it helping. It is both your responsibility. I bet you don't call it her helping when she does the hoovering, or books the children's dentist appointments, and so on, do you?

You've had a lot of good advice on here, and I hope you take it. The poont about housework being a 'flow' is very important, and it is not just about obvious things like gardening or the washing-up, it's about knowing what to put in your child's bag, what yoghurt they like or don't like, what shoe size they are, what their teacher is called, who their Dr is and at which medical practice, are you running low on milk, bread, eggs, and so on.

None of this comes naturally to women, you know. Our ovaries do not bestow us with magical powers that get blocked by the penis in a man!
We have to THINK, we have to NOTICE, we have to PERCEIVE, we have to PLAN. We need to think about multiple things and multiple possibilities and see a wider picture, and not just what's happening or needed right now. And the complex aspects of all that is why it is so fucking insulting and cheeky when men simultaneously act like housework is no big deal and yet then purport to find it so hard/baffling.

Women have to LEARN how to do the stuff involved in running a home and family, there is zero reason why men can't and shouldn't.

It will also set an excellent example for your Dc to see you pitching in more.

Oh, and YY to what Basil said. The only people who don't 'get' it are choosing not to get it because it suits them not to. Most women would love the luxury of being able to bullshit that they don't get this stuff.

No they don't have to absorb a specific standard to be decent Pan, but they do have to absorb the standard that the other people they live with, find comfortable.

Adults who live together, whether they are partners or just housemates, try and ensure that they don't make the home environment of their living partners uncomfortable and depressing and that they don't dump on them by shirking their fair share of the boring chores.

It really isn't rocket science. I'm a slob, but when I've lived with other adults, I've done my best to ensure that I don't allow my slobbishness to infect the communal areas of the home, out of respect for the people who shared that home. And now, I try not to be a slob because I'm conscious that it's my responsibility to teach my DC's good habits and also, that it's not fair on them to make their environment as chaotic and uncomfortable as mine used to be.

Nothing to do with absorbing standards - all to do with absorbing what the other people in the house find comfortable and liveable with.

I don't think it is fair to imply that someone who doesn't 'get it 'is not decent. Ready to accept cultural norms or stereotypes in his favour...perhaps....but not decent is a massive overreaction.

Seems to me that OP genuinely wants to play his part, get educated about what that looks like. This could be the start of a big shift in his perception of society/ self. Don't crush it.

Which invites the obv question, 'why not go along with "my standards" as uncomfortable as that may be for you?'
It's a matter of communication and all of that, rather than a marmite world vision, surely?