I need some help in making this relationship work

[Triathlete]

Background: oldest of three boys, grew up in a family where there were lots of chores and responsibilities. DW is single child and Russian. DS is 9 months old.

I work, she looks after DS. I'm out of the house from 7am til 7pm. He's an easy child to look after - happy, healthy, good-natured. She's a great mum with him.

DW is lazy, and I feel that having DS has given her the excuse she needs not to do any housework. Before anyone gets up on their high horse - I know how much work it is to look after a child, I was doing it when I was twelve. I have always done as much as possible in the parenting.

There are key issues. One is vacuum cleaning. We live in a old dusty house - garden, allotment, walks in the countryside. If we don't keep on top of the vacuuming, it becomes intolerable really quickly. I wake up coughing in the night. Practically this means 30 mins vacuuming 5 or 6 times a week. Not a big deal, very easy to knock off after breakfast. When I was single, I used to do it before going to work.

DW will do what she likes around the house - sorting out wardrobes or cleaning the bath. To me, the wardrobe is a marginal issue

Last weekend, after ANOTHER row in a 3 year series of rows, we agreed (again) that we'd write a list, negotiate and agree who does what, and stick to it. This weekend, I'm coughing in the night again, DW hasn't started the list as it's obviously up to me to sit her down and do it, and I had to finish off the washing up that she said she'd do.

I know this all sounds like it's about getting DW to do more housework, but it's not. It's about levels of commitment to making the relationship work. I feel like I have to be the manager, checking, delegating, telling the workforce what to do. That's not how I want the relationship to be. (I fucking manage stuff all day at work, I don't want to do it at home). I plan and do the shopping, I plan and do the meals - even if she cooks, she phones me at work to ask me what and how to cook. I plan and do the outings, and just about everything else.

This also isn't about male chauvinism and housework. My mother trained all three of us really well. I used to iron my own shirts as a teenager, we all had jobs, roles, responsibilities. We all learned that work doesn't go away, and the quicker you do it the quicker you are free.

I need some help in non-confrontational ways of helping DW to understand how important this is to me, working together to deal with it, and being adult and respectful of each other. I don't want more rows (actually there's another issue in conflict resolution - I come from a "let's identify the problem and agree the way forward" perspective, she has a "I must win this argument at all costs" approach). I want us to be able to work together and make our family a success, but I don't think she shares that vision - it feels like she just wants to be looked after.

Please help

It sounds to me, like you want proof your DW values you, over the baby, and the form you want that proof to take, is for her to happily willingly vacuum every day so you do not wake up coughing in the night.

But unfortunately she is at home with the baby, it doesn't sound like she likes vacuuming, and it's not really reasonable for you to think you can pick the way she shows she values you.

I don't think that necessarily follows tbh.

There are deeper issues here and they need to talk. A lot.

Has your wife got a fat arse? If she has I would trade her in for someone slimmer and more into hoovering.

But Swedes, if he could just get this wife to hoover more, then her arse would tone itself. Two birds and all that.

OP, haven't you posted this exact same thing before?

I think you need to do the hoovering.

I also think you need to stop trying to manage your wife. I would react very badly to being managed by my husband. I would resent being told to make lists and enter into formal negotiations about household tasks. I know it works for many people but it doesn't work for me and it doesn't work for her.

I think all your planning and formalising of the household chores are actually a bit inhibiting. You plan the shopping and you plan the cooking etc.

I think perhaps rather than formalising everything even more, you need to relax a bit and perhaps your wife will find that that home environment suits her working style better.

What a pity. Up until about 15.20 we had sensible posts from people trying to engage with the issues and offer me their thoughts and help. For that, many thanks.

After that, fat arses and mail order brides. For the record, we met when I was studying Russian foreign policy in St. Petersburg. My Russian is fluent. I am now reminding myself that the only qualification for access to this forum is owning a computer, and that indeed my standards are probably too high for some people.

I posted again here in the hope that I get a more helpful response.

This isn't about hoovering. This is about recognising what's important, working through issues together, making a commitment and a plan, and generally communicating in an adult respectful manner.

I could do the hoovering myself. It would be at 0650 before I go to work, as I used to do when I was single. It would wake DS and DW up, and she likes to sleep late, so I haven't done it until now. Perhaps I should start.

Perhaps I am too controlling. I have asked myself that before, and have watched what happens. The answer is "not a lot". Bare minimum to tick the house over.

DW behaves like a teenager in some respects - will do a job poorly so that she is not asked to do it again. That's a bit pathetic in someone who is 33, speaks several foreign languages and has 3 degrees. She was like this before DS was born too.

But perhaps I made it easy too - as the oldest boy on a smallholding with goats, fowl, vegetables, and a heap of house chores, I had a lot of responsibility that my brothers didn't. They were smaller, younger and less willing. So when DW doesn't do something that she has committed to do, it goes straight to that angry 14 year old who knows that the goats need milking and feeding, and knows that his brothers aren't going to help.

Some roles devolve to me. The big shop is mine as she can't drive - keeps failing her test. I'm a far better, more inventive cook than she is, so it's easier for her to leave that to me, although she is making more effort now. We didn't live together before we were married, and I did see her family - her mother did ALL the housework, and I was quite clear I didn't want that from her.

Perhaps she is mildly depressed. She's always tired, always. At the children's centre the other day, another mum said "Oh don't tell me you're tired AGAIN".

I would like her to change - I'd like her not to blow up ever time we have a discussion, I'd like her to understand that some things are important, I'd like to feel that she takes me seriously.

Could you not turn hoovering into an enticing sex game? I believe Miele are working on a Rabbit attachment for the S2150 model.

Is DS crawling yet ? I struggle to do vacuuming because dd just follows me round, plays with the wire, gets in the way etc etc. Just on a practical level, its difficult and there is no way on earth, I would vacuum 5 or 6 times per week. Once a week - at the most (with a quick vac of bits after meals etc. with a hand held vac)

I agree it sounds like possible depression. Being with a small child 12 hours a day can be very difficult. If she's unable to drive and doesn't have any family/many friends around, I would imagine she feels incredibly isolated.

Yes, tiredness is a sign of depression.

I think you are controlling. Does she know that you think she is "a better, more inventive cook than she is"? I bet she does.

I think she is different to you. I think your lists and target setting and management are driving her into herself. They would me. My DH has tendencies in that direction himself, but he knows that actually, it isn't the most effective way to manage me.

Get a cleaner. That's a lot of hoovering you're after.

Hoovering every day is surely not necessary?

someone said it already but you need a cleaner.

no point rowing and thinking its an integral problem in your relationship when its only a difference in how to live in a house.

Triathlete, she does sound depressed, from the little you have mentioned.
And I hope you give her love as well as expectations.
And FWIW I feel for you too. You sound frustrated and your title post suggests that this impasse is possibly a relationship-breaker. Not a minor irritation by any means.

FWIW, you aren't the only person with brains and a few degrees in here. But you know, challenging responses can be thought-provoking, and in a way you in your turn are blowing up a little because you are not getting your own way. It might be worth taking what has been posted at face value and really really questioning things, for a change. Certainly from what I have seen here there is an instinctive rush to defend the SAHM by others doing the same job, and why not? It's tough work, and often underestimated by the partner who works. (I speak as the one who works, FWIW).

If you have posted about this before, have tried the same approaches and got nowhere, then you need to do something different if you want to effect change. Don't know if you have read Stephen Covey's 7 habits of highly effective people, but if not, one of them is "seek to understand, rather than to be understood". Maybe, just maybe, you are not always 100% right. Consider that your wife's standpoint might be every bit as valuable as yours in your relationship, and ask her really what she would like you to do to change things for the better. You might be surprised by her response.

See, Alfreda's nice

And her advice is sound I reckon.

I'll try and be sensible.

What is it that really bugs you? Is it the dust? Or are you resentful that you work a 12 hr day and your DW is at home and not keeping it to your "standards"? Are you obsessive? Are your expectations realistic? Are you asking her to hoover the whole house every day, and do all the washing and ironing, and look after a 9-month old? It's not impossible- but she needs motivation to do it and also maybe help with time management.

If you have discussed this calmly with her, is there any possibility that she is being passive-aggressive-in other words, taking out her anger with you by NOT doing what she knows you want- to make a stand? Is she quietly rebelling- and if so, why?

It seems to me that this is NOT about hoovering- it is about power and control in your relationship. If she cares about you, and dust makes you ill, she would hoover.

What is she trying to tell you? How is your relationship in other ways- are you close? are you having sex? do you have fun together, or are you both bogged down with work and the baby? and BTW, don't underestimate the legacy of childbirth on a woman's body- it can take a full year to feel good again- giving birth is hard work, and so is breast feeding and looking after a baby.

My advice is- be honest- is this about more than hoovering? Is it you being demanding and her rebelling? Is she depressed or unhappy inthe UK? If it's not, and you can afford it, get a cleaner-life's too short to argue over who does the hoovering.

Lots of questions- what do you think?

nicely put girlnextdoor

Triathelete - I think you have more insight than you give yourself credit for - that bit about feeling 14 and angry.

To have had the responsibility you have had as a child has prob left you with some issues that you need to sort out and talk through. Maybe not with your dw. Maybe with a close friend. Maybe with a counsellor.

I would guess some of the angst you feel when things aren't done is (at some level) to do with those 14 year old feelings that if something is not done a disaster will occur; with needing to be in control or the dam of emotion will burst; your anger will overflow and you will never stop crying or raging.

You are obviously a very intelligent man who is looking for a solution. The problem is that IMO there are rarely solutions of the kind you are looking for. The "if I do X, Y will happen".

There is a possibility of deeper understanding between to two of you but it will need working at.

Can I suggest that to make a start you talk to your dw and see if she could be feeling lonely, isolated and depressed.

And then think about yourself - does the same apply?

Any chance of a baby sitter so you can both go out together (an old cliche but it can help!).

And seek out some time to sort out your issues with control and expectations - I really feel there is a furious older brother in there somewhere - and it's not really fair to your wife that she is at present the catalyst for these feelings - when their origins are possibiliy nothing to do with her!

Find a counsellor - a man if possible.

And then the big thing you are then going to have to deal with is that as your baby grows up he will become on eof those younger brothers who never pulled thei weight - he'll be a lazy little s*d who won't do what you expect of him. And you are going to have to deal with that.

And other MNetters - be kind. Just because the OP sounds a control freak doesn't mean he doesn't have his issues.

If the genders were reversed in this scenario (lazy slob of a husband) there may have been a kinder response to complaints about "just sitting around all day when I'm at work so when I get home I have to do everything"! Sounds very familair to me.