I disagree here. Judging your own action/inaction differently than others’ is basic human nature, because you very much conscious of the constraints governing your own actions, but unaware of a large part of the constraints that others operate under.
Only having people marry who are totally self aware at all times would be a pretty high bar.
The Cleanliness Debate may speak to a larger dynamic that’s frequently in play in relationships:
The result can be an ever-worsening cycle.
I understand what you’re saying, but in my case “unwelcome” is a bit stronger than I meant to convey. But I’ll admit there have been times I felt like a guest in her house. This is one of the reasons for ensuring I always have a place to go. Boat, hunting lease, RV, poker club, etc. I like retreating to some place that I control, or at least with fewer rules.
My feelings on this are not quite the chest-thumping “I’ll do it as I see fit”, but more “Let me finish, then feel free to point out actual and measurable shortcomings that may result”. If my load comes out clean, then the insistence on arranging it differently is merely aesthetics.
You’ve kinda proven my point. Both scenarios you postulated are “wants”, not needs. If both of us agree on once a month, is that OK? If so, then it’s obvious the twice-a-week demands were merely a preference, not necessity.
If I decided the car needs washed twice a week, she would tell me to do it myself, as a slightly dirty car is usable and I have no right to impose this extra work on her, just because I like it that way. If some type of road construction or other event makes the filth so extreme as to limit visibility or safety somehow, then it’s OK to press for partner’s help in doing it.
Ha! Got a good chuckle out of this one. 
Pretty sure the @msmith537’s would be aghast, finding themselves with Texas prepper/gun- umm- “enthusiasts” who were more interested in their weapon choices than their political party. The missus and I should probably stick with people of our own caliber.
Excellent reminder. I will print this out and pin it to a wall where I’ll see it every morning.
My spouse and I have different levels of tolerance for dirt and disorder. Fortunately, she enjoys doing the extra cleaning. It’s her “therapy” (and physical exercise). She gets VERY angry if I suggest she relax and spend a little less time cleaning.
She’ll still critique me sometimes about my tolerance level – and, I happen to HATE the sound of a vacuum cleaner, which she uses ALL THE TIME – so it’s not all peaches and cream…but at least the “divvying up the housework” isn’t much of an issue.
Sorry to overstate your case. And yes, “I’m a guest in her house” is a better way to say most of what I experienced.
Sorta.
I had the same issue w ex-wife. Despite 30+ years of experience operating a dishwasher successfully before we got together I was doing it wrong.
Her argument, once I was able to tease it out of a lot of specific seemingly arbitrary rules, was essentially statistical. Her way reduced the likelihood of breakage by some nebulous but nonzero amount. Her way reduced the likelihood of something not coming fully clean by some nebulous but nonzero amount.
As such her way was Objectively Superior and all else is Inferior.
She may well have been right as to statistics. But IMO, losing a glass or leaving a dirty fork once every few years is not a hill to die on. My way wasn’t careless or reckless or haphazard or inefficient. It was simply different.
And in fact, the disagreement wasn’t about dishwashers at all. It was about immutable absolutist thinking that brooked no dissent. The specifics of what was preferred didn’t matter. It was that it was preferred that mattered.
I have no problem shooting guns all day as long as we keep political talk to a minimum.
Some of the stories above are pretty sad, and you wonder why they got together in the first place.
I am reminded of the speech I made at my daughter’s wedding where I said that she was fortunate to have found someone with the same tidiness threshold as hers. Their house is a mess. Not dirty, but even by my low standards, very untidy. The point is that they and their children are happy.
Either way, the points are:
Partners, like good spouses are supposed to be, don’t answer to each other in that way- your wife doesn’t get to reserve judgment and demand you re-do the laundry because it doesn’t meet her standards. She can do it herself if her standards are so very different than yours.
If someone’s responsible for it, they are responsible for it. And as a partner, you have to trust that they’re doing it adequately. Maybe that requires a discussion of why she doesn’t like the way you do the laundry- she wants fabric softener, you don’t like it. Meet in the middle- maybe do it on everything except towels or something like that.
If someone feels like they have to “check up” on the other person and then starts griping about their mental load or whatever, they have a lack of trust/issues with control for some reason. They’re not allowing that other person to be responsible- they’re directing and demanding, and all that stuff. Sometimes when you give stuff up and trust others to do it, it’s not going to be done how you might want or expect.
And you have to be ok with that, or you have to be ok with having to direct them, and basically be responsible yourself.
That’s what I see a lot is people who are very particular about something, expect their spouses to conform to what and how THEY want something done, then gripe when their spouse does one of two things- refuses to do it that way at all, or requires excessive direction and hand-holding to get it done the way the first person wanted.
Yes, although I also think that housekeeping and other life-management collaboration in relationships benefits from some exchange of mutual humility and trainability.
The BossyFussy types with their “You have to do it my way because my way is The Right Way, and if you aren’t doing it up to my standard then you need to do it better” are very annoying, true. But the IndifferentSlackers with a chip on their shoulder about “Hey, I’m doing it in a way that’s satisfactory to me, and if you don’t like it then you need to do it yourself or guide me every step of the way” are no great prize to deal with, either.
Maybe it’s just that I was caught young and trained hard by both parents to be aware of procedural precision, and expected to be able to learn how to do things “The Right Way” and follow the guidelines correctly without subsequent supervision. But whatever the cause, I don’t see it as a huge imposition if partners are expecting each other to basically serve an apprenticeship on certain maintenance tasks, based on which partner has the more rigorous standards and the biggest investment in them. Even if the procedural preferences are fundamentally arbitrary, it’s not an unreasonable ask.
So your spouse feels very strongly about the “One Right Way” to load the dishwasher, or whatever, even though its actual measurable impact on the relative safety and cleanliness of the utensils is basically negligible? Then learn the “One Right Way” and just do it. So you’ve got some complicated “One Right Way” organizational system for storing utensils or tools or books or whatever that you don’t like being disrupted? Then your spouse can learn the “One Right Way” and henceforth put in the very minimal mental and physical effort to stay in compliance with it.
Be trained, people. You’re (generic “you”) intelligent adults and this shit ain’t difficult. In a fraction of the irreplaceable time of your brief precious life that you’ve devoted to resisting and squabbling and dragging your feet and grumbling that a spouse’s “One Right Way” approach is arbitrary and unnecessary and not in any way measurably superior to the way you prefer to do it, you could have just learned the “One Right Way” properly and acquired a bunch of spousal merit and domestic harmony by following it thereafter.
(Okay, that was overly sweeping and not directly pertinent to any specific individual situations described by posters in this thread. But I am basically serious about the principle that spouses should be willing to take turns flexing their egos about bossing the way things are done. And that the spouse who’s currently taking a turn at being able-seaman instead of captain should be willing to take orders and do what they’re told without getting their back up about it.)
Kimstu gold.
I have a saying about this one “For most of us, the only person in the world from whom we utterly cannot learn … is our spouse.”
Sadly, IME, there’s some truth to that.
If only it were that simple.
Unfortunately my wife’s “way” is to just let shit pile up until we have no space to move. That’s not sustainable.
But every time I broach the subject of cleaning our living space, it more or less results in a fight. Really her saying “I’ll take care of it” and me calling her out on the fact that she does not, in fact, ever take care of it.
There’s more to it. I can get into specifics, but the overall theme is if something falls off plan, she basically has an anxiety attack and quite frankly I don’t really know how to deal with it.
That’s not all of it though. Inevitably, if the house isn’t up to par when guests or service people come in, it’s the woman who is going to be judged - and judged harshly. Nobody will ask whether she has a full-time job, or makes more money than her husband. Nobody will hold him accountable in any way, even if he says he is a stay-at-home Dad. There are still a great many people in this world who will judge her worth as a human being by the cleanliness of her home and how much they like the food.
Women have to face this all the time. If the man has agreed to clean up the living room each evening and then doesn’t do it, she could be the best Mom in the world, but people will see her as neglectful if he doesn’t do his chore.
I’m not saying it never happens that the messy person is the woman, I happen to be a female slob myself. But we are quite rare, and quite broadly condemned.
Doesn’t the same thing happen to men if the yard is a mess? If the leaves haven’t been raked, the grass is overgrown, and the car hasn’t been washed, will anyone hold the woman accountable?
Maybe this is a consequence of having had quite egalitarian parents, and of only being in same-sex romantic relationships, but in couples’ households, I attribute cleanliness and disorder to the couple, not to the individual who is socially and stereotypically associated with a role. Example: I don’t assume the man in a male-female relationship does the yardwork.
'Zactly. I find @TruCelt’s last comment to be 50 years out of date.
Who is doing the judging? I know this leads to even more pointless resentments, but I’ve observed that just as women seem to have a lower tolerance for disorder in their own environments than men, they are also more inclined to notice and judge the shortcomings of others (at least regarding domestic order).
As with all averages, they can’t be applied to the next person to walk through the door.
I’m not doubting the assertion, which I see a lot, but saying it’s not universal and using myself as an example. Lots of comments in this thread about how men vs. women are. I don’t think it’s universal, and it does raise the question of how these dynamics play out in same-sex relationships. Gottman Institute’s research says they still happen, but obviously based on factors other than gender. Some dynamics like over- and under-communicating can be more amplified in same-sex couples, but not always.
The USA is going back there quite quickly, which is in itself evidence of the number of people who still think that way.
“The internet says” is not a data point. The first search result from Google is generally not considered the final authoritative voice on any given topic. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
(the argument, paraphrased)
This is fine as long as it’s just one particular way on one particular task where one person has a particularly strong attachment to their way.
But over-indulging this sort of thing can also lead to a situation where one person assumes theirs is the Right Way for any given situation, including some new thing that neither party has prior experience with. A conversation is needed to make sure the dynamics aren’t being trained in that direction.