Mess. Clutter. Stuff. If I had a crystal ball, I would have done so many things differently. I didn’t realize how bad the issue would get.
Before marriage, my husband ran his own household, did his own laundry, cooked his own food, and tidied his own apartment. His clean home was attractive to me. I was never afraid to enter the bathroom for fear of what I’d find.
When he first moved in with me, he cleaned; he picked up after himself and kept things neat. Then, when we both had decent salaries, we indulged in a housekeeper. Our jobs exhausted us from long office hours, and we didn’t want to spend our limited free time cleaning.
Skip forward a few years, I worked from home, and my three children are the center of my life. Without my income, we could no longer afford the extra set of hands. I tried to balance working, childcare, and our household. When my husband got home, I tended to him too.
To be clear, I was not a submissive wife following him around like a 1950s homemaker. Even with my feminist, independent view, I was still pulling more than my fair share of family obligations.
I get it; I was home. It was my “duty.” The trouble was that my job never ended. There’s always a mess somewhere with little ones, plus children don’t stay out of the kitchen!
Gone were the times of him doing any laundry. Instead, I got notifications it was time to wash a load of whites because he didn’t have undershirts. I couldn’t depend on him to cook. Rather, he cooked for special occasions and when he got a specific craving. Cleaning? What was that? Although, my youngest daughter could count on him to clean her room instead of her doing it herself.
As time passed, I felt like I had four children instead of three. I was working harder and more hours.
When confronted with this, he responded with, “why didn’t you ask?” Yes, I could ask. And yes, he would “help.”
And here lies the problem. He would “help.”
“Helping” implies that I do the mental work to understand our house needs and then assign and delegate tasks.
“Helping” means he doesn’t have to assess his surroundings and decide what’s on the to-do list.
“Helping” means he has no responsibility to take the lead.
I didn’t need help; I wanted a partner. We built this family and household together; I was not alone.
I wished for someone who would see dirty dishes in the sink and wash them or load the dishwasher! I did not need someone who sat back and watched while I schlepped myself into the kitchen after a long day.
How do you have a conversation about looking at things that they did not see? He would step over the same pair of shoes in the doorway several days in a row until I either picked them up or said something.
I had to sit with it. Specifically, I paid attention to what he ignored: the overflowing laundry, the growing pile of dishes, and stuff left on the floor. I wanted to confirm that I wasn’t crazy, and it wasn’t my imagination. I watched where he tried: guiding the children in their room clean up, straightening up the bathrooms, shuffling boxes in the garage.
Then Covid hit! My major project shut down, his employment set him up to work remotely, and all the kids went virtual. Total lockdown meant the five of us were trapped in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house ALL. THE. TIME. Without a break to tidy the entire home.
Priorities needed to change ASAP!
I had to have a heart-to-heart with my husband sooner than I expected, and we had to set some guidelines. We decided we would each have primary duties: we would either clean ourselves or create a system to keep that area clean, including delegating to the kids. He chose what he wanted to be responsible for, and then we put together a schedule on how to make sure everything got done regularly.
A couple of roles were easy to designate. Cooking is his thing, so he maintained a cooking schedule and alternate cleaning between him, me, and our eldest son. I love laundry, so I’d stick to that weekly. The rest became a team effort. We’d clean the house as a family on Saturday. Nine months in, and so far, so good.
I wish I had stepped up earlier to get on the same page about household duties because it’s so much nicer to relax together.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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