Hi Bells- I do very much agree that happiness and respect are the most important things and those things will shine thorough for your children, I'm sure.
Hi Droile. You're right- I love my partner very much indeed, yet I know I upset him by not doing as much as I could about the house and I often do feel terrible because of that. I think the root of it is that I just don't care about tidyness and cleanliness to the same extent as many people I know and, to make matters worse, my prefered tidying style is circular- ie I like to sit on my bum and let the place get really messy and then clean it to within an inch of its life where upon I will sit on my bum again for a good while until it seems to need a thorough clean again. If I lived alone this is exactly what I would do with no qualms whatsoever. Since I don't live alone, I do accept that this isn't on and I do try to help keep the place as habitable as I can manage day to day, with varying success.
The fact remains that I find it extremely difficult. I've never really learned how to manage a house, I guess and I'm quite lazy and not very skilled at it. I hate doing things little and often which seems to be a key thing with housework. If there are a few dishes by the sink, say, it just wouldn't occur to me to wash them up because it doesn't seem worth the effort until there are LOADS and the fact that they're there doesn't in itself offend me- or even register half the time. I've never really related to that "Oh I couldn't go to bed knowing there were dishes in the sink" attitude. I'm utterly adept at working around what I consider a comfortable amount of mess. I have loads of other things I like doing more and little self-discipline. But, unfortunately, these selfish ways upset my partner and my failure to even notice that the kitchen has disappeared- or worse, my capacity to notice it but not do anything about it quite yet (but I will very soon honest) because right now I want to play with the boys, cook, write something, prepare some plans for work or college, or absolute worst laze about with a book or on the internet- all of which I consider more important than cleaning- understandably drives him to utter distraction.
I think I also fail to notice when he does little bits and pieces round the house- like the few dishes- and we therefore have disasterously different perceptions of what we each do- I remember back to my last grand tidy of the kitchen and think I'm doing loads. He remembers washing up small amounts for two days running and thinks he's doing loads. We confront each other and are mutually incredulous... When he then challenges me or starts sulking, I feel that my whole way of approaching life is being critisized, that he doesn't love me enough to accept my faults, that there are more important things in life than cleaning, that I was just about to do it anyway but now I'm not going to because he's a nagging b*, that he should do more himself because he cares more and is in any case hardly prolific in the tidying stakes himself, that he's expecting me to do the bulk of the work because I'm the woman- in other words it opens a right can of worms and I am unfair and mean and upset about it and so is he, though he has slightly more cause. I think that "slightly" is important though- we really aren't as polarised as some on here sound and obviously there are other areas where it balances out- eg I spend slightly more time with the boys, have slightly fewer lie ins etc. It's not a situation where he does everything and seethes, more that neither of us do quite enough and he seethes more than me because he cares more about it.
I think the bottom line is that we're working at it- he knows that it's never going to come easy to me and I really do take on board that if he cares about it then it's important. Full stop. Translating that understanding into practice is the hard bit for me though and always will be. Better go and do those dishes, I guess.
I don't know if this has any similarities with your situation, Droile, but I've enjoyed wittering on about it and I hope it helps somehow.