If your DP suggested this, would you be offended?

[TotallyandutterlyMULLED]

Hi,

I'll try and keep this brief. Just wanting some outside opinions...

DP WFH, FT. I'm currently not working. We have DC and I do pretty much all things house and child care related, although DP does cook a couple of times a week. I think this is fair enough. Seems a good balance for us.

Anyway, DP comes out of the bathroom after a bath over the weekend and says, "I think we should get a cleaner". I said, no and that I felt it would look ridiculous given I don't work (no offence meant to those who don't work and have a cleaner!) and that it would make me look lazy.

I then asked why and DP said there was dust round the corners, near the skirting and round the windows. I said I was offended that they think we need a cleaner, but DP just kept saying, if we can afford it, why not? So not directly having a go, but inadvertently...having a go.

I then felt I needed to up my game and started going over areas in the kitchen I'd already gone over, before getting quite cross and thinking, hang on a minute, no. Just because I don't work, does that mean everywhere should be gleaming without a spec of dust anywhere?! Am I failing? Should I be cleaning to a professional level?!

I just don't know if I'm being silly here....

What do you think?

I would initially be offended. Then I would be all over getting a cleaner!!

Your DH sounds a lot like me. He's fully aware that you do plenty and doesn't think that should/can work any harder, but he would quite like a slightly higher level of cleaning. Like you, DH (who does about 70% of the cleaning) feels this is a criticism of him. It's not.

The compromise we are on track to agree to is potentially a "deep clean", possibly via an agency, once a month or so. Someone who will come in and do the skirting boards and move the furniture and clean all the rungs of the bathroom radiators and vacuum in all the hard to reach corners and do a proper dusting job of ALL surfaces including all doorknobs, bannisters etc. Because when I am cleaning, I do those things, but as the main breadwinner and the person who works full time, I don't have time and so dip in and out of the cleaning.

But DH, who works part time and does more of the cleaning, doesn't have time to do these extra things and, to a large extent, doesn't always even realise they need doing, even if he had time. As he doesn't have time, there's no point in me attempting to "educate" him. I'd rather just hire someone whose job it is to do these things.

Take the cleaner. No issues for me with his comment.

My DH have different views on what is suitably clean. I'm happy that we have a cleaner and I top up the rest. Realistically I will never make things as clean as he wants them, and he has learnt to compromise and not to mention it. Works for us.

I wouldn’t be offended but I’d just suggest he cleans it himself if my standards aren’t good enough , which is actually what my dh would do as he wouldn’t want a cleaner in the house .

I am a SAHM and I have a cleaner who comes every fortnight. I spend some time every day cleaning but the only time the whole house gets done is when she comes. I spent two hours putting stuff away before she comes too, so she can clean all surfaces.

I love Wednesdays when she comes. It is total luxury.

Also I am a pretty inefficient cleaner tbh

i'll have the cleaner if you dont want one

You seem to be taking it unnecessarily personally, and making decisions on what other people think. Will 'people' think you are lazy, does your DH think you can't manage or aren't good enough? I am sure the answer is no.

Though he does seem a bit obsessive, noticing dust round skirting board corners .

But he didn't say 'this house is a mess, you can't cope / you have no idea how to clean / you are lazy' did he?

So if he didn't criticise, why imagine he did?

It really doesn't have to be an inadvertent 'go'

Being a SAHP is a busy job. If you fancy a cleaner, get one.

LTB

(and then send him in my direction - I'd love to have a cleaner!)

Get the cleaner!

My impression is that he wants better cleaning but he doesn’t want to do this and he understands that you can’t invest more into cleaning as you are doing enough already hence his suggestion.

If you don't want a cleaner and you don't want to clean more then just don't? 🤷

OP - I might well take it personally too - only you know him well enough to know whether once you accept the cleaner he’ll start complaining about having to have one !

To be fair it’s quite hard to clean quietly round someone who’s wfh especially if they’re always on the phone !

Accept his offer

Fuck being offended

You are being over sensitive. If you can afford it, why wouldn’t you have one. Who cares what anyone else thinks.

I get why you're offended.
You spend some time everyday cleaning, tidying and making the house look nice and your dh has basically said your effort isn't good enough. Someone else could do it better. I understand that completely.

It's the way he approached it.

Snatch his hand off.

Are you insane ???

Offended?

God no, I wouldn't be offended, I'd be delighted.

@LizB62A

Don't knock it. He's spotted something that bothers him, realises it's not reasonable to expect you to do it as you're already working hard, has thought about a solution (that doesn't include him doing it - fair enough) and has told you what he thinks would be the solution. Him paying for a cleaner.

Sounds good to me.

But I could be biased, as my booking a windowcleaner was met with 'But I can do it, don't you think I'm doing enough?'. He was booked anyway and came every fortnight for five years until he stopped working at the start of lockdown 1 - and in the intervening eight months, the downstairs window has been cleaned exactly once (in May). They haven't needed doing since, according to DP.

If it wasn't for lockdown and the end of his travelling for work, I'd have booked a cleaner as well, as I don't particularly want to do it on either busy work weeks or my time off, either, but I want the place sparklier than he thinks it needs to be.

I’d be thrilled!

I’d feel the same as you OP, and I also wouldn’t want to have a cleaner as a SAHM out of embarrassment. But your dp wasn’t having a go at all, he saw a minor problem that he wanted to solve and suggested a solution that costs him money and saves you time. If you’ve taken it personally and felt offended, it’s probably because the truth stings a bit. It’s not because your dp was having a go either indirectly or inadvertently, it’s because you know you could do a better job of the cleaning.

I think your husband is suggesting a cleaner and you would be mad to not get one.

My father says, If work were that marvellous the rich would keep more of it for themselves...

I'd bite his hand off. Happy for someone else to clean if I could afford it. Spend more time playing with your DC/taking time for yourself. There is no particular virtue in scrubbing your house unless you actively enjoy doing so.

I'd take him up on his offer, as long as he pays

This is literally my sexual fantasy...