It’s not of the ordinary sort.
One husband has taken to Reddit to share his resentment towards his wife because according to him, she doesn’t clean enough.
“My wife does not help clean, not unless I practically beg her, and even then she does minimal work, like pick up the living room or kitchen a little bit and vacuum one of the rooms, she might do dishes,” he writes.
“I can’t remember the last time she did laundry, or even put away laundry that I asked her to. We both work, I make considerably more than her, and work longer hours. We have two children, 3 and 9,” the husband continued.
He goes on to explain that he is not a ‘neat freak’ but hates that his wife doesn’t take her dirty dishes to the sink, throw her rubbish away or put laundry in the hamper.
What bothers the husband the most is, “She leaves all kinds of wrappers and rubbish wherever, she doesn't really drop them on the floor, but they'll end up there. She leaves cups, plates, bowls, etc wherever. On the coffee table, table, counters, end tables, next to the couch, and it doesn't matter if there's food or drink left in them. Shoes get taken off wherever.”
It seems to just get worse from there.
But when he confronts her about the cleanliness issue, his wife gets upset and says she refuses to spend all of her free time cleaning to make her partner happy.
Rough.
His requests don’t seem that unreasonable either. “I just that she clean up after herself, help me clean up after the kids, do an equal share in the work. When she's not working all she does is watch TV and play Facebook games. Time that could be much better spent providing a better environment for us and our kids and after providing the environment, it could be spent interacting with the kids,” the post reads.
What the husband wants to how is, is he wrong? What should he do?
“She asks me if I'm happy, I say yes, mostly to protect her feelings and avoid a huge fight, she has a tendency to overreact, threatening to take the kids and leave,” he concludes.
What advice would you give to this husband?
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Top Comments
I feel your pain, mate. I understand that she doesn't want to spend her free time doing house work but the house work needs to be done and - in my opinion - shared equally, especially if you're both working.
You can try to sit down with your wife and work out a house hold schedule together. Make a list of all the house hold work that needs to be done on a daily basis, weekly basis and monthly basis and then, together, put names behind each item.
Good luck
Wow, sounds familiar. I know in our situation, my wife has a tendency to pass on the cleaning up portion of things, be it laundry, bedding, dishes, housework or yardwork. She would prefer to leave the house to do something fun or read a book, drink and play on her phone. I get it, different priorities in life, complicated by different standards for their living space. The problem is, when adults are sharing that living space, they need to work together to accommodate each other and find a balance. Requesting help from one's spouse, should not be something that leads to anger, retribution, emotional withdrawal or threats of abandonment. The mature thing to do is to sit down, talk about where each is coming from and find that happy medium. That being said, there are folks who cannot do that. In our situation, I am the stay at home parent, with five children, the youngest being 3. My wife works hard in her career, and for most of the last 14 years, I had felt like a single parent, sperm donor, maid, fixer, repairman, assumed childcare provider and a host of other labels that encompass doing the things that need to get done to make a family and household run (by the way guys, I am an Infantry, Combat Veteran, retired now ten years - being home with kids, all I can say is that being shot at in the jungle was easier - if your wife is home with kids, take this guys word for it, it is a challenge and can be really hard work). The comes into play when we are both home, and there is housework that needs to be done. It is like pulling teethe, with anger, resentment and withdrawal. I'll leave my personal experience at that. For your situation, you may have your work cut out for you. If communicating directly, sharing how you feel and making clear requests for more help around the house are unsuccessful, I can think of two options: 1, figure out what you can live with if there is no change, accept them and stop complaining about them. get some third party help in resolving the things you cannot live with. Ultimately, people only change when they really want to, and that is usually because they find themselves dealing with more pain than they can bear. As it stands, it sounds like she is just fine with her habits, and you are the one in pain. Good luck to you.