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Original poster

Advice to get husband to help with cleaning?

64 replies

Popz · 09/07/2019 14:58

Hi everyone, I'm hoping I can get some advice! My husband and I both work at the same company, and travel together, so we are both out of the house for the same amount of time.

I wake up at 5am to get ready, clean the bathroom, make the sandwiches and get breakfast ready, and then tidy the kitchen once everyone's eaten, make the beds once husbands up, then leave the house at 6. My husband wakes up at 5.55 and just gets his clothes on, eats breakfast and leaves. In the evening I cook while he relaxes, hoover the house while dinners cooking, and tidy the bedrooms, dust etc and put on the washing.

I've asked for help but he just says it's my choice to wake up early, and to do the tidying in the evening, and he doesn't care if the house is untidy/smelly/a pigsty.

His family home is like a horders dream, theyve never hoovered, they do the washing up once every two weeks, you can't even see the floor due to stuff, and the bathrooms are covered in a layer of dust. So I understand why he doesn't see cleaning as important as his family never did anything!

We don't currently have any children but are hoping to start a family in the next few years, and I'd like to get the cleaning issue resolved before then? I don't really want to just stop, but I also feel a bit taken for granted that I do literally everything with regards to the house, and he just expects it.

Does anyone have any advice? At my wit's end!

OP posts:
hormonesorDHbeingadick · 09/07/2019 15:01

Ask MN to move this to relationships. You are setting your bar too low if you only want him to ‘help’. ‘Help’ is what our 3 year old does. I would have no idea where to start with a man who thinks it OK treat his partner like a skivvy.

Original poster
Popz · 09/07/2019 15:06

Thanks, sorry for posting in the wrong place lol, do I message someone or just say I want this thread moved to relationships please? Sorry I'm very new!

OP posts:
Akire · 09/07/2019 15:06

Well for a start stay in bed longer, get up 530 get your own breakfast and lunch sorted and stick any of your washing on. He can get up and sort his own things out. If he wants you to do all that sorting for him in he morning then he can pull his weight in the evening.

Different cleaning standards can be hard to find a middle ground, but making own food and washing is basic adulting, just stop.

Quartz2208 · 09/07/2019 15:09

Yes you are his partner not his mother.

Stop with the breakfast and lunch start making him understand he needs to step up. He is partly right its is your choice - so stop doing the stuff that relates to him

DOnt cook dinner either - make that his choice

Itwouldtakemuchmorethanthis · 09/07/2019 15:12

What does he do that you only have to “help” with when you can be arsed?

Lllot5 · 09/07/2019 15:16

Stop doing it. Make your breakfast and dinner. Stop doing his laundry his tidying.
I’d be seriously concerned about having a child because it will get worse.

femfemlicious · 09/07/2019 15:20

How do you need to always clean the bathroom, Hoover etc when you have no children yet. You made it seem like you have several people in the house...stop doing so much.

Chovihano · 09/07/2019 15:25

I'm not surprised he doesn't do his share, you are happy to do it for him. It's not helping you as it isn't your role.
I wouldn't have stood for this for a minute, you must have mug tattooed to your head.
Just tell him he has 50% of chores starting now, although 75% might be better to make up for using you.
God, don't have kids with him, you'll just add 100% parenting to your workload.
You seem to have a lazy dick for a dh Sad

Pretendbookworm · 09/07/2019 15:26

I used to be like your husband - I grew up in a hoarders house, my mum would hoover the gap between the piles of boxes but that’s it. When we moved in my partner taught me to clean, I literally had no idea.

We’d set aside one day a week for cleaning. I would have upstairs, and he’d have downstairs. He wouldn’t do what I hadn’t done.

But I was willing to do it. With your husband start doing your own washing, your own food, your own mess basically. Do not tidy up after him. Do not clean the house unless he helps at the same time. If he doesn’t get the hint and grow up then you need to re-evaluate the relationship.

I can guarantee that once you’re on maternity leave he will expect you to do even more for him and will have no consideration for the fact that you’re busy all day with a baby.

dreichhighlands · 09/07/2019 15:29

I would show him a set routine like TOMM which is sensible and not too fussy. Ask him to do half of the chores on it.
Explain that you aren't willing to do all the housework without support.
I would then be really clear that if he isn't prepared to clear up his own mess then he needs to pay for a cleaner to do so.

Benes · 09/07/2019 15:32

Stop asking him to 'help' for a start. He's not helping you .. .it's called being an adult. Tell him he needs to start contributing to household chores.

Secondly, stop doing stuff for him.

Original poster
Popz · 09/07/2019 15:32

Hi thank for your responses. I come from an exceptionally clean family and suffer quite badly with dust allergies, so probably clean more than most people to keep it under control and to keep the house to a standard I like to live in. Tbh the daily cleaning only takes me about an hour and a half total, including making dinner, it's just his attitude that nothing ever needs done and I wouldn't like some help?

I appreciate the answers about only doing things that relate to me, which I will start doing for lunches and breakfast. For dinners and washing though, it makes far more sense to just do it all at once, as I
cook meals for two I'd either be freezing something or wed be spending money on two separate meals a day, similar the washing would mean running the washing machine twice when it could be done in one load.

I do think the main driver behind his attitude towards cleaning is his family environment. I've tried talking to him about it, I've tried leaving things to get filthy, but he just doesn't see the dirt and I end up cleaning it. The longest I've gone was a month and a half and the place was filthy!

The inlaws don't help as they're always making shitty comments about the state of the house, which I think makes him want to have a slightly more slobish house so they stop saying these things?

OP posts:
luckygreeneyes · 09/07/2019 15:33

I can see why he thinks it’s your choice. Why are you cleaning the bathroom and hoovering everyday if it’s just the 2 of you? Why not cut it down to twice a week- you do one, he does the other. Also stop making his bloody breakfast, have an extra 15mins in bed.

Akire · 09/07/2019 15:39

You don’t need to run the machine twice everyday. Just wait until you have a load for yourself and then do it.

Cooking isn’t a choice I presume he wants to eat every day so he takes turn in cooking or you cook and he washes up.

Benes · 09/07/2019 15:40

I understand your argument about it being economical but if you continue to do everything he'll continue to let you.

There is no way I'm going another adults washing for a start.....and why don't you take it in turns to cook?

I was married to someone like this.....his unwillingness to contribute to general household chores was the reason we didn't have kids and a contributing factor in our divorce.

Benes · 09/07/2019 15:41

*doing

Quartz2208 · 09/07/2019 15:50

We split it into daily tasks and then tasks I like doing daily but can be seen as being weekly

So for you alternate doing breakfasts/lunches for each other or do your own

Evening: with us one cooks the other cleans up and does the bins (99% me cooking him cleaning up) as that needs doing everyday

Hoovering/bathroom clean/kitchen clean he does once a week his way
I do it mine daily - in effect I keep it nice and clean for his weekly deepclean
Tidying/Dusting I do for the most part.

Washing I put on, he hangs up (I dont do it properly!) I take down and put away

Aquamarine1029 · 09/07/2019 15:53

You are absolutely insane to consider having children with this man. You will end up doing EVERYTHING while he sits on his arse.

PurpleGlitter1983 · 09/07/2019 15:53

Ew you're just a mummy he has sex with. Gross.

GummyGoddess · 09/07/2019 15:55

If you're doing it to stay healthy due to your allergies and he doesn't help, he's saying he doesn't care if you get sick.

BreakfastAtSquiffanys · 09/07/2019 16:00

If he doesn't care about cleaning, what about eating?
Delegate the cooking to him. And the food shopping

MNHQ
AnyaMumsnet · 09/07/2019 16:06

Hi there OP,

We're going to move this to relationships for you now.

7yo7yo · 09/07/2019 16:18

Stop doing anything for him.
That includes sandwiches, laundry, dinner.
If you have two bathrooms stop cleaning the one he uses and keep one for exclusively your own use.
Don’t have kids with this lazy fucking manchild because you’ll be back here in a few years.

Shoxfordian · 09/07/2019 16:19

He's not going to change
Let him live in a gross house on his own

StealthNinjaMum · 09/07/2019 16:25

I'm sorry but he won't change. He hasn't been brought up to live in a clean home.

Washing up every two weeks is disgusting, I'm not the cleanest but come on, who loves like that?

I am divorcing a slob like that, whose parents were hoarders, and now going out with a lovely man who lives on his own and cleans the bathroom and enjoys cooking!

I'm sorry to be negative but he won't improve. Leave him.

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