In addition to the factors Chotii laid out, I’d have to point out that some of us are shitty housekeepers because we find nothing relevant or fulfilling in housework. For us, it’s pointless drudgery. We don’t get any sort of happiness out of a clean house or neatly organized closet. I’m like that. I tried the Flylady system for a while, and I was explicitly promised a glow of pride and accomplishment when I looked at my shining sink. It’s been almost a year, and I’m still waiting. The sink is so clean it shines. Whoop-de-fuckin’-doo. For some people it’s probably a source of joy and pride, but I’m still wondering why I’m supposed to give a shit.
I can spend all day cleaning and mopping and scrubbing, and not feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Yeah, the house is clean, but I haven’t done anything enjoyable or important or meaningful in any way. I’d have been as well off to spend the day online or watching Jerry Springer. The idea that household chores, wiping noses, and changing diapers were the most meaningful things I had to contribute in life would make me want to curl up somewhere and die.
You also need to be prepared for the possibility that she’s not going to react well to the suggestion that she’s depressed. A lot of people have the idea that depressed = crazy, or that it means you’re sick or defective in some way. Also, depression has its own inertia, and you just want people to go away and leave you alone and quit yapping about all the things they think are wrong with you. Even if you don’t think depression means you’re sick or defective, it can seem like the people urging you to get help think so. I remember looking at Dr.J one time while he was going on about how depression doesn’t mean you’re broken (and I have to tell you, it felt like he could discuss the topic for roughly five billion years at a stretch), and thinking, “So if you don’t think I’m broken, why the hell do you keep trying to fix me?”
I think a big part of the point is, that he’s not happy, and possibly she’s not happy, so whatever the solution ends up being, it needs to be found. Simply shrugging and saying “Well, that’s how she is, and I have to accept it” isn’t going to lead to anything but resentment and increased anger down the line. Believe me, I know how it is, I could easily be his wife in this situation. But I fully accept that it was a major contributing factor in the downfall of my marriage.
I guess all I’m trying to say is, there is a problem. It needs to be fixed. And the solution has to come from both sides. And it’s absolutely unfair to D.E.S.K. to say that he should maybe accept it and forget it, yet maybe she shouldn’t have to change her ways at all.
I dunno, I’m just getting a sense of some being highly defensive of his wife, when in reality, I don’t think he’s expecting that much at all. FWIW, it’s taken me 3 years to come to the point where I can accept it, and not blame him for the entire thing.
Oh, one last thing… Fear of her reaction to the suggestion she might be depressed is absolutely not a reason not to broach the subject with her. You don’t ignore symptoms like this (and to me, they are symptoms) for fear that she won’t like it. People have tried that before, and with disastrous results.
First of all www.flylady.net. Annoying as hell, but every few hours she sends you an email “do you know where your laundry is” “do you know what you are having for dinner.” Actually very nice if your avoidance mechanism is the computer. None of her tasks take longer than 15 minutes - she just gives you about six of them a day.
Next, little kids are tough, and if they don’t nap, or don’t nap at the same time, its possible that she just hasn’t master the combined skill of childcare and housework. Its really frustrating to put the books away four times during the day and perhaps easier to get a basket than a bookshelf for them to see you through the next two years. Put away in boxes everything you don’t need - that way she won’t need to pick it up. Regularly declutter (which is a big flylady thing). And, if you can, find a friend who will take your kids for two hours a week while she cleans the bathroom and mops the kitchen floor (in exchange you can watch hers).
Another thought is that, if she is employable at a decent wage, put the kids in daycare and hire a housekeeper. As CanvasShoes says, not everyone is cut out for SAHMness - and its no shame to say that you aren’t.
If you are doing the housework when she has already spent all day with the kids, propose trading. You take the kids to the playground for an hour each evening which is her clean up time.
These suggestions are assuming she isn’t actually depressed and does want to change.
DESK, whether you like Dr. Laura or not, you are doing yourself and the Mrs. a disservice by rejecting a book you’ve never even read just because of the author. It’s a good book, offers a lot of practical advice and for once shows a man’s side of the story. I learned a LOT of things about my DH (and men in general) simply by reading the book and then asking him “Hey honey, I read yada yada, is that true?” I never knew it took so little to keep a good man happy.
Do you have to agree with an author’s politics 100% before you will merely glance at a book that could benefit you? If you’re worried about putting money in Dr. L’s pocket, check it out of the library. Take what you like and leave the rest.
FWIW, I don’t think you’re in the wrong. You would be if you expected a picture perfect house, but you obviously don’t. She should have dinner at least started most nights you get home, and the house should look decent.
It could be depression. Could sheer laziness. Could be ADHD (I was a terrible housekeeper before I got on medication). Could be that she’s addicted to the net and once she sits down at the computer she loses all track of time. Could be all or none of the above.
I like the idea of you taking the kids somewhere, which would give her the chance to clean while you all are gone. It’s really hard to clean when you’ve got kids underfoot. Do you think she’d go for an idea like that?
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that “that’s just the way she is, and he should just accept it”. What people are saying, is that there is a possible reason, other than her not caring, or being lazy for her BEING the way she currently is, and that in order to “fix things” he may need to address that, rather than just “hey, it IS your job to clean up”.
NOT that he said he was going to approach it that way. But to know INSIDE, that it may not be that she doesn’t care, or doesn’t WANT to pull her own weight, may help him once he approaches her with it to talk about it.
And to know that the cause may be depression, isn’t to say 'oh, she may react this way, so don’t approach her". It’s to say, “here is how she MAY react, be prepared for it, it’s normal for a person who is actually depressed”, so as to give him warning on what to do in that instance. In other words, forewarned is forearmed sortof.
D.E.S.K If you do in fact think it may be a bit of depression, you might want to arm yourself with some information on the subject first, on how to approach her. I wish you the best on this, you sound very sensitive and tuned in, I’d wager that if you keep the lines of communication open, that you’ll get through it just fine.
flylady.net has made a huge change in my housekeeping skills. My big problem (and the one addressed most often on that site) was perfectionism: I don’t have time to clean everything perfectly, so I won’t do it at all. I’ve completely changed my attitude, and working on just a little bit of housework at a time (and getting rid of a bunch of crap), I can have my house company-ready in under an hour, and fairly neat in 15 minutes. It’s true that this site addresses a certain subset of people, but if your wife would like to change, but just doesn’t know how, flylady might help her.
Tell Me, I’m not saying that he should just suck it up and live with it, or that he shouldn’t broach the subject of depression. I am saying that the problem probably isn’t so simple as her being lazy or depressed, and that as a general thing, people don’t fall to their knees weeping and kissing your hand, crying “yes, that’s it, you’ve been an immense help!” when you suggest that they’re depressed.
If she is depressed, Flylady is one of the worst possible things she could get into. Her stock response to letters from readers who are quite obviously depressed is “quit whining,” which is completely counterproductive for dealing with depression, and imo borders on mental abuse. And I’ll tell you from personal experience that when you can’t seem to manage the stuff that “anybody can do” it just makes you feel even worse. The Flylady/SHE organizational system is pretty useful, but Flylady’s self-aggrandizing little sermons are bad, bad medicine for someone who’s depressed.
DESK, if she thinks it’s something she’d be interested in, I’d be more than happy to be her online housekeeping buddy. If nothing else, it might do her some good to have some adult contact, especially with someone who doesn’t have a dog in this particular fight and understands some of where she is at the moment.
There’s a book called Is There Life After Housecleaning by Don Aslett, it tells how to clean and do chores in the least amount of time possible. It helped me because I never really learned how to clean. I spend way less time on housework than anyone I know and have the cleanest looking house. You would have to decide how to get her to read it, it’s a short book too.
Now I can rush around and clean for an hour right before my husband comes home from work and he says “wow you were busy today” because everything looks so nice.
I had an abusive mom who got even more so when the house was a mess. Needless to say, I learned to associate messy house with physical, or more often mental, discomfort. I work all day & the wife stays at home with the horde. The house is always a mess when I get home, and I still slip into panic mode every night. Within 30 minutes the kitchen is shining, the living room is put back together and dinner is cooking.
My wife stands back in awe as I transform myself into Mary Poppins and get all this done. She then outs with, “That’s why I don’t even bother trying to clean up! You do it so fast and so well that my time is better spent doing other things.” Well, like what!
In all fairness, my wife is somewhere between a genius and a highly motivated person of above average intelligence. I am, well, an idiot. Her mind can handle 20 different things at once, but she can not see any closer than 60 minutes–she really seems to have no concept of “right now.” As a consequence she has trouble prioritizing telescoping tasks like housework: load dishwasher, fire & forget; load dryer, fire & forget; load washing machine fire & forget; spend the next 45 minutes wiping down the bathroom, maybe mop it; have coffee & kid time; empty dishwasher; empty dryer; load dryer, fire & forget; load washer, fire & forget; play with the kids while making lunch… When I kick her out of the house for a day and make her take Wife Time this is pretty much my schedule. I’m not smart enough to get bored. She is.
She took antidepressants for a while–it only made her not care that the place was a mess and that she wasn’t paying the bills.
I’m a housewife who agrees with you, D.E.S.K. But good luck convincing your wife. Some specific suggstions for your talk with her: First of all, do try not to be so accusatory. I realize that you are just blowing off steam in this thread, but you really don’t want her to get defensive. Try to use “we” in your arguments rather than “you” – in other words, say, “We need to find a way to run our home more efficiently” rather than “You need to get off your dead ass and do a little work around here.” One exercise that I’ve seen people use is to take a week with both parties journaling their days. You would write down everything you do from arising until bed time. This can be an eye-opener – it’s interesting to see exactly how much each of you is contributing to the upkeep of the family. You may find that she does more than you think – or, if she really is sitting around on her dead ass, then you’ve got that documented. You should be pretty specific in the journaling, BTW, no fair you writing down “8:45 - 10:15: worked at computer” when you actually spent 45 of those minutes surfing the SDMB. And no fair her writing “8:45 - 10:15: played with the kids” when she was actually watching Rickie Lake while they played in the corner. If this journaling reveals what we expect it to – that you are putting hours a day into either housework or your job, while she’s spending most of her day watching TV or playing on the computer, then, unless she’s really a bad person (not just lazy and unmotivated like so many of us), she will want to make it right. Once you’ve got a handle on exactly what you’re both doing all day, then it’s time to get organized. I found url=“http://www.shesintouch.com/”]the Slob Sisters methods to be pretty helpful when I was learning the ropes as a housewife. I’m not so familiar with the Flylady stuff, but it sounds similar, if somewhat more mean-spirited. That might have been helpful, actually… the Slob Sisters were a little too peppy, frankly. Anyway, it would help if you had some kind of a schedule – personally, I’ve always done all the housework, cooking, shopping and laundry, but then my husband typically worked 12 or 14 hour days. You may come up with a different division of labor. Maybe you’ll keep the laundry as your main ‘at home’ job, and also agree to get the kids up in the morning, feed and dress them before you go to work. Then your wife could keep up the day-to-day cleaning and do most of the cooking. Maybe you could agree to have one night a week where there is no cooking – everybody just eats leftovers out of the fridge off of paper plates, or you go to get fast food, or whatever. Once you’ve got a schedule, then you should also discuss what you’ll do if her day gets away from her. For instance, if you come home and find that the house is a mess because she’s had a sick kid all day, or some other unexpected thing, you could agree to take the kids out of her way while she catches up.
The really important thing, I think, is to get this out in the open before it festers. Good luck and let us know what happens.
Jess, FlyLady is based on the Slob Sisters system. Marla Cilley (FlyLady) developed her own Slob Sisters-based system, and started sharing it with others, and got their blessing to start her own website to teach the system. I don’t really find her to be mean-spirited, but it’s like anything else: you gotta find what works for you.
Oh god yes. Same thing here. I have plenty of things that have to get done, but nothing that has to get done today, so they just sit. This is not a good thing.