Hi,
First world problem incoming.
Background - we currently hire an agency cleaner to clean our house every fortnight. DH wants to up this to weekly. I don’t really want to have a cleaner at all, and we can’t agree on what to do.
If relevant, we are early 30s, married, no kids, pretty comfortable financially but not loaded. We work a comparable amount of hours, although he works a lot of his from home.
His reasons
- We can easily afford it so why wouldn’t we
- He values the time/not having to do the job more than the money, so would rather outsource it to someone who values the money
- Knowing he will have to clean makes him dread/feel depressed about the weekends. He has diagnosed depression, although in treatment and doing better lately.
- It means we get to do more fun things at the weekend instead of spending half of Saturday cleaning
- He has floated the idea of hiring a friend (who does house cleaning, gardening etc for a few clients) rather than an agency - this would save more money
My reasons
- I think cleaning your living space is something adults do - we don’t outsource cooking, laundry, wiping our arse etc.
- We can afford it, but it means we are deprioritising other things. I would rather live as simply as possible with few outgoings in case work situation changes.
- Privacy - I don’t like a relative stranger, however trustworthy, being in my space. I have Aspergers and home being ‘safe’ is important to me.
- I worry hiring someone we know would be even worse as I wouldn’t want our friendship to be affected by employer/employee dynamic or her being disgusted at our sloppiness, etc
- He doesn’t tidy pre-clean, and doesn’t seem to understand that the cleaner is a cleaner not a tidier, so putting things away so she can get at the surfaces tends to fall to me. Once I’ve done this I might as well clean as well.
We fell out over it, I said he sounded like a teenager who missed his mum picking up his socks, which he really didn’t like. He told me I couldn’t make unilateral decisions and I wasn’t being fair or reasonable. I felt shouted down and was having a hard time articulating why I wasn’t happy so I ended up agreeing to a trial of weekly cleans by our friend.
The only other way forward I can see is that I do everything, but that doesn’t seem very fair either. I don’t actually love cleaning, I just see it as something that needs to be done.
I guess I also have some thoughts about sexist dynamics and women ‘liberating’ themselves by dumping the shit work onto a lower paid woman, which doesn’t sit right with me. DH argues that our friend is self employed and sets her own rates, and we would treat her well and not exploit her - which is true, but I still don’t really feel comfortable about the situation.
It is not making me admire him very much, which is why I feel it’s a relationship problem rather than AIBU - although I am prepared to be told that I am.