How do you deal with a DH who is genuinely helpful but not in the way you want?

[FuckYouSheRa]

I don't know if I'm just being controlling and arsey.

We both work ft, Dh leaves at 6am. I do the morning shift with the dc and generally get a load of washing on or empty the dishwasher, as well as get me and three kids out of the house for 8am.

I often come home for lunch so I can do little jobs. Dh does the afternoon school run and cooks dinner for when I get in at 6pm. And then we have stuff in the evenings most evenings.

So it's just all go really and mostly we muddle through. We recently moved to a house twice the size as our old house though and although in a lot of ways life is made easier by this, there is obviously more to do.

So we hired a cleaner, and she came round yesterday to do an initial assessment. Because it's half term, dh had been at home with the kids all day. I came in at six and she was right behind me.

I am not exaggerating when I say the house was revolting. Downstairs wasn't too bad but she actually yelped when I took her upstairs. All three kids had tipped the contents of their rooms out, there were wet towels and dirty undies on the floors, the loos were filthy and there was just stuff everywhere.

I could have died. The cleaner (not the actual cleaner , she owns the agency) was visibly shocked by the mess. I kept apologising and she patted my arm and said, don't be embarrassed, this is why you need us. And I thought, actually , I just any someone to run the Hoover round, we don't generally live like this.

I've barely spoken to dh since last night, I can't even look at him. He knew she was coming and it didn't occur to him to either pick stuff up or get the kids to. He bathed ds2 last night and in the fifteen minutes or so I tidied EVERYTHING away. Not because I'm some super speedy tidy freak but because that's all it took, toys in boxes, dirty stuff in laundry etc.

He just doesn't get why I'm cross. When we've talked before it became clear that he genuinely thinks he does more than me around the house. He does a lot, I'm not saying he doesn't. But he takes so long about the jobs he does that he doesn't actually get much done.

I'm so miserable at the moment. Having a cleaner is going to ease the burden, but I am the ONLY person who ever tidies the house (other than moving stuff from one pile to another) and I don't know how to get him and the kids to start actually tidying shit up.

This may be just a rant, well done if you've got through it.

Isn't it just different expectations? I probably wouldn't have thought to clean up before a cleaner came around - surely the point is that they clean. If you show them a hyper-perfect version of your house then what is the point.

I think it depends where your "normal" is. For me the house is normal if there's a bit of mess around, everything isn't perfectly straight, the floor is clean but maybe not mopped, the washing is hanging up drying etc. For DH that's slipping into messy (a tip) and he considers it normal if the sides are clear, everything is straight, etc. For me that's making a special effort and more of a "we have guests" thing than every day.

She's not the cleaner, she's the owner of the cleaning firm. I liked her a lot. She's going to find me someone amazing.

I would just rather not have had to explain away the hideous mess she was faced with. And we genuinely don't live like that usually.

It is kind of in the cleaner's interests to make the person hiring her feel really bad about the state of the house... it's not like the place is dirty, is it? Not how I'd have wanted a cleaner to see it, though, either. (I've never had a cleaner, but don't they just do dirt, rather than mess?)

Did your dh grow up in a messy house, so that he just doesn't see that as especially messy? People do have different expectations. Or did he just grow up with the woman doing most or all of the cleaning, so that he feels as if his doing any job is already a big deal?

Hello op. I can hear the frustration radiating from your posts!

Can I just address the issue of the cleaning agency woman. First of all, I can 100% guarantee that she will have seen worse. Much, much worse. So don't worry about that.

Secondly, it's best she sees the house as it is normally. Not some artificially tidied up version. Otherwise she won't know what the real job is.

I have a cleaner. She comes on a Friday and me and the kids have a massive tidy up on Thursday night. Like three tidying maniacs. I try and do a bit of light tidying in the week but we have a blitz on Thursdays. In general it's quite tidy. Our cleaner are says it's the tidiest house she cleans anyway!

Good luck with getting to a place where both you and DH are happy with the situation. I don't live with anyone (apart from the kids) so I don't have this problem.

Cleaners do dirt, but they can't Hoover without moving stuff on the floor out of the way etc.

We have a cleaner that comes on a Monday morning and - pinching entirely from corporate 'clean desk' policies - we operate a 'clear floor' policy. So things can be on beds or on chairs or whatever but the floor has to be fully visible by Monday morning. That works for us

Well, don't take my advice because 1) no kids and 2) you know I'm divorcing partly because of this stuff.

But. I think you need to sit him down and tell him that this stuff is not an level playing field. He does not catch half the flack you do for a house being a shittip. In this world, we all grow up being prompted to feel ashamed if our houses are a mess, and men don't. He probably doesn't feel the same way you do about it, because very few people would automatically look at a messy house and guilt-trip him. Most people will look at a messy house and guilt-trip the woman who lives in it. Dull, but true.

So, he needs to recognize that, and he needs to realize it is not ok to 'just not get it'. His genuine reaction is probably 'so what it was messy?' DW shouldn't let herself get upset'. It needs to be 'so what it was messy? I didn't get upset, but I'm not a dickhead so I recognize DW did get upset and felt shit'.

This isn't about being nasty to him, or seeking out some bogus 'objective level of shit we can both accept'. It's about him recognizing that you're not being irrational to mind, and he's not being lazy not to mind, you're just both responding to different conditioning.

I'm actually a bit surprised by the cleaning agency woman being so blunt. Every cleaner Ive had has said don't worry if you don't have time to tidy up. I am sure she has seen worse! I make sure the floors are clear b4 our cleaner comes, but if I haven't then she would tidy as she goes or put things in piles.

My advice on sharing the chores is you need 100% transparency and agreement on who does what. Identify absolutely everything that needs doing and divvy it up between you. It's a pain but necessary if your DH has that selective blindness to mess....

I totally understand.

I think I see a pattern on MN where partners, when they do contribute to housework, tend to do the really active stuff -- cooking, shopping, taking out the bins, DIY, maybe hoovering.

But they often seem to duck out of actual cleaning, which let's face it, is the most thankless, tedious, annoying part of the housework. And often the most combative, because people have different levels of cleanliness, and why should someone do more cleaning than they think necessary?

So I think in a way, you have to really spell this out. You can appreciate all the great stuff he does do while still being frustrated that a whole sector of housework (cleaning) either gets ignored or is done badly. To take cogito's analogy, it's like a colleague who is great at their job but terrible at admin -- it's okay to try to improve that one bit.

Have a serious talk with him -- why doesn't he ever clean the loo? Does he think it doesn't need it, or does he just forget, or does he just prioritise other things? The answer will determine the way to improve that. Why does he take so long to clean the kitchen? Is it because he's disorganised? etc.

I'm not saying you should accept having to organise all this stuff going forward, just that having one big in-depth discussion may point to some solutions. You also need to come to an agreement about what 'doing' a task actually includes, like giving the baths includes tidying up afterward.

I also totally agree with getting your kids to tidy up each evening, they may make less mess going forward once they understand they have to clean it up too.

Oh and great post from LRD

Housework is often not just about housework -- there are a lot of dynamics at work within it.

Thanks dreaming.

FeministDragon has a good point. I quite like it when people don't clean up - take it as a sign that they are much less bothered about appearance than me (a good thing) - but I would no doubt see a bit of mess as saying something about the woman, and less about the man. Rubbish, isn't it? Not sure that would be an easy point to get across, though.

Could you write a list of all the household jobs, broken down in as much detail as is needed to recognise everything done and who does it. Allocate them as normally done. Include a column for time, so you write in how long it took you to do it. Fill it in for a week. Essentially you are auditing household work.

Then swap a number of the tasks for a week. Not everything as not practical of course. This will help demonstrate the difference in what you do and how ling it takes each person.

Then discuss.

If you break down a task into components, then he can see what you mean when you say 'do bathtime' and that you do in fact do all if this, to his half, when you do it.

If further demonstration is needed, you could do only what he would do for a week, expecting him to fill in al the gaps (as spelt out) that you would, so actually swapping roles.

Personally I think expecting someone else to pick up after you, as a one- sided regular thing, is degrading to both people. Adults do not need to be picked up after.

Is he this ineffective in other areas of his life? I don't get why some men seem incapable around the home yet can function in other areas adequately.

The worrying thing is that he also seems to think he is doing more.

It's a rubbish example for your kids if you have to go behind the family to do things properly.

I would have one very frank discussion and I would henceforth expect improvement.

The missing element is initiative. Again, taking it back to the workplace, some people are self-starters, some need lists of instructions and others won't do anything that isn't strictly in their job description. Some are competent multi-taskers that can take on extra work like a sponge and others can only cope with sequential clearly defined tasks or they get stressed or mixed up.

So if you're the multi-tasking self-starting type with bags of initiative you're 'seeing' stuff that needs to happen without being told. If he's the sequential type that needs a diagram and doesn't think outside the box you have to find a way to make sure he has both the diagram and the box. Then bollock him if it doesn't get done.... obviously. :)

I'm in sales, he's a software engineer. You definitely have something there...

If he is a software engineer then get him to flowchart what he thinks cleaning is, and what tasks are required to get housework done. When you develop software you have to list all the components and their relatedness and dependencies - so a successful bath time means you have a clear floor after - he is only seeing core tasks of: kids in bath! You need to review the steps and tasks and put in all the ones he is likely to have missed out.

Break it down into - bath - cleanness, empty bath, put toys on the side, pick up towels, check floor is clear, dirty clothes in laundry.
I would break down all tasks in this way and I'd go further - I'd see which bits the kids could do, if both parents work then kids should be able to clear up after themselves. They should be capable of understanding that bath towels go on a rail, not the floor.

Also, it is generally expected that women should do domestic work and if the man does anything it is like a "gift" or "favour", this should not be the case (but dominantly is), so if things get missed you are blamed for not telling him - well if you have charts and task lists then he knows what needs to be done and you don't have to keep nagging - there is a chart of tasks which needs to be learned.

I would also suggest that to begin with you don't impose massively high standards on him and tut tut or anything (I don't know if you would do this anyway?) as effectively he is trying, he just hasn't been taught, or had to learn. Housework is a learning process and people think because women do it, it must come naturally but it doesn't, you had to learn and teach yourself, and now your husband needs to learn.

My DH grew up in a very messy household, or really one where they were able to be as messy as they liked as his mum went round after them tidying whatever bomb site they'd left behind. So for us, it was a problem until we sat down and went through a step by step of what a job within the house actually involves.

So for example we agreed that bathing DS involves -
The actual bathing and washing, putting dirty clothes in basket, hang towels up, empty bath and rinse it out, quick tidy of toys in DS bedroom (with DS), pjs on and teeth brushed.

This now means that when he does bath DS he does all these things automatically as they are part of "the job" and cut down a lot of arguments as it would just not have occurred to him to do them and I would get annoyed at the mess he'd made.

I'm not at all making excuses for "men", I know plenty of women as messy as he was, I think you just need to reach an agreement about what needs to be done and realise that if he has grown up in a messy house or one where things were done for him, he may not actually realise what is and isn't acceptable to you.

Dh is great around the house but he is the same in that he fells no embarassment about mess. As a result he just doesn't notice a lot of stuff and/or sees no necessity to do it. After many arguments and me getting really upset, I gave it some thought. My first marriage broke up partly because of issues like this and I really didn't want this to happen again. Especially since dh is so willing to do stuff, he just isn't as good as me at seeing what needs doing.

We had tried lists but they weren't really flexible enough to cover all the stuff that needs doing. Dh would do exactly what was on the lists whether they needed doing or not! This annoyed me as he would then not do stuff that obviously needed doing as it "was not on the list for that day"

I started by making a list of every task that is needed to keep the house clean and organised, by room. Then I transferred the tasks to coloured index cards in an index box divided into 31 day sections and 12 monthly ones. Daily tasks are written on Yellow cards (I put several on one card for the daily lists). Blue cards are weekly tasks. I have some of these in weekdays but most are in Saturday and Sunday as that is when the main cleaning gets done. White cards are monthly/seasonal tasks which are in the monthly sections, but as each month arrives I spread them throughout the "daily dividers" I have

Then when we have time, either dh or I check the current day and do as many of the tasks as we can. As they are done we move them to the next day/month when they will be due to be done again. If we can't do all the things then we carry them forward each day until they get done. I tend to do what needs doing and then check the box each week and rearrange tasks a bit based on what I I have done and what still needs doing but dh just does what is on the index cards each day.

The main effect it has had for me is to get rid of the resentment I had that if I saw something that needed doing, I either did it or had to make the effort to tell dh it needed doing. Now, if the task is on an index card in the week I know either I or Dh will do it at some point but it won't always be me who does it and I don't need to remind dh about it . I sometimes add tasks the box if they are new ones I think of.

It took me nearly 2 days to do set this up this but it works. Nowadays when I think "I haven't cleaned the fridge/changed the beds etc in a while they probably need doing, I find that about 50% of the time it has been done as h has checked the tasks in the divider for the current day and done it!

I go the idea online, here are some versions
wantingwhatyouhave.com/2013/04/my-index-car-file-cleaning-schedule-system.html
or another here blackflipflops.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/sidetracked-home-executives.html

My system is similar to these (I use the daily version in the second link) but I have tweaked it for me. Also it is not as pretty as I just scribble on the cards but it works and that is the main thing

This did only work though because dh is willing to use the index cards and does so quite religiously. He is someone who quite likes routine!

Nice bedroom doors, SheRa

Also one final point, tasks can be allocated to individuals (just put their name on the card) so they can be pulled out and given to children to do on the appropriate day. They can bring the card back to you when they are done . Saves making individual chore lists for each child and is more flexible if you want to change what they do on some days.

I know why you were mortified, I also know why your husband wasn't, mine actually wouldn't care that the place was messy and usually if my husband is home for the day with the children, it is quite messy. I have to be honest, though, I hate housework too and my dd's bedroom looks similar to that.

Time to sort out how this new cleaner is going to fit in to it all- and the children can tidy their own floors.

I think with regard to the cleaning woman you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Obviously, her cleaners won't be tidying as well, and she should be able to spot the difference between a messy house and a dirty house - I'm actually quite surprised at her response, and I would keep an eye on her, she might think she can start charging you a bomb.

If that had been me, I would have rolled my eyes and said 'of course, the house won't be in this state when your staff come to clean' and left it at that. And then I would have got the DC to clean up their own rooms at once.

Only you know how much of an issue this is in the grander scheme of things. But with regard to this one instance I think you are making too much of it.

I think LRD's point is crucial - about the DP not acknowledging that his partner was upset.

bumbling ah thanks for that! I'm going to do this in our house as dd and DH do nothing!