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February 2012 Moms
kristin172429
member
FACEBOOK FEB 12 BUMPIES ADMIN - POST & PM ME TO JOIN
Someone help me explain this to DH... (LONG)
kristin172429
member
Okay, ladies. I need your help. I have been having an issue with DH. Maybe it's him, maybe it's me, so I will try and just tell you what is happening and you tell me how I can deal with this. So, the issue is the upkeep of our house. I deal with most of it, but ask him to help out. I could definitely use more help than he is giving right now and we are running into obstacles trying to come to common ground. Hopefully this doesn't get too long:
Areas we are dealing with:
The kitchen: I hate cleaning the kitchen. I do all the "family" cooking, but he will cook/use pots/pans/dishes. All I ask is that he unloads the dishwasher. This makes a big difference for me because I can go in and just load the dishwasher and get to work cooking. When I have to unload and load the dishwasher, I am already tired of the kitchen by the time I go to cook! He hates unloading the dishwasher. I think that it is a fair compromise because there is nothing else in the kitchen that he is willing to do. Offering to help elsewhere in the house doesn't seem like a fair trade off on this one for me.
Right now, he takes out the garbage, handles the litter box, and does his own laundry. He comes up with ideas on how he can help around the house, but it is the easy stuff that doesn't really help me. The best example I have is the laundry: the hard part of the laundry is the folding and putting it away. He keeps offering to wash/dry. Tossing it in the machine and the dryer is not where we have a problem. Our clean laundry is piling up and our dirty laundry is backing up because I hate just washing laundry and adding it to the piles. I'm not even asking him to deal with my laundry, but helping put away Ben's and the household laundry (towels, sheets, etc) would be great.
What happens in scenarios like these is that he offers something that is pretty much not helpful and when I try and explain that while I appreciate the offer, it isn't really going to help, he pretty much takes that as me turning down his help. I'm not turning down ANY help, I just need something different than what he is offering to do. He'll look at me like, "Well, that was what I was willing to do, so I guess you're out of luck" (that sounds a lot jerkier than it is - he is trying to make an effort).
Any tips here? What are your thoughts? Anyone successful in getting the DH's to help out in a helpful way? Is it me? Is there another way to think of this that I am missing? It's driving me nuts and even though we are pretty good communicators, we are just hitting a wall on this one. And a fun side note: we both hate cleaning, so that doesn't make this any easier.
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Re: Someone help me explain this to DH... (LONG)
I would make a list of all chores that have to get done and how frequently they need to be done. Then sit down, go over the list together and assign stuff. If I leave H lists he's good about getting stuff done.
My H is good about helping, but in the moment. So if I say "hey, the girls are going to your mom's for a few hours and we need to clean" he'll spend the next 3-4 hours cleaning with me. He'll do whatever is asked and might grumble about cleaning in our free time, but he'll pull his weight. However, it will be a cold day in hell before I come home to a condo that's cleaned from top to bottom.
H got an SSD drive for Christmas. He's not great with computer stuff and sent me links last year to do research on how to ghost write his other drive to this one and I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. He said to me on Christmas "I sent these to you last week, you haven't looked at them yet?!" and I said "Since you sent them to me I have finished Christmas shopping, bought cards for everyone, wrapped all of our gifts, started preparing food, sorted through their old stuff, cleaned out their closet, made up a birthday party list, ordered invitations, all on top of the normal, every day stuff that I do. I've been a little busy.". Yesterday when I got home with the girls he had gotten home 45 minutes before us and he had put away all of the laundry and cleaned the whole kitchen. That won't last, but after spelling stuff out for him I usually get a few days of an extra helpful husband.
It will never, ever stop annoying me that he is incapable of looking around, seeing what needs to be done, and doing it instead of waiting for me to ask. It's the only thing that consistently annoys me about him.
When it comes to laundry I do it all. But what I'll do is take 2-3 loads of laundry throw them on the bed and ask my DH to come in and help me. I give him an option he can fold or he can hang. He always takes the hanging. Once everything is hung we divide up what's his and mine and we put everything away.
I like it cause I'm there so he can just put stuff wherever becuase he doesn't know he has to ask me.
My DH is a neat freak so I don't know how you can get him to pitch in, I just let the house get real bad and DH pitches in.
Do you think a schedule would work so he knows what he needs to do and when?
What worked for us was just assigning certain tasks to each person so we know what we expect of one another.
If you find a good solution then please pass it on. We hit the same wall about once a month. DH likes a really clean house...like vacuumed, sharked, dusted, laundry put up, kitchen clean, bathrooms spotless, no clutter, etc. I, on the other hand, am fine with a picked up house. I SAH and he works two jobs basically. He owns a business that literally has unending "business hours" and then he works a really laid back day job. He says he gets frustrated when he comes home and the house is messy and not clean. I know I could do better at keeping things picked up since I have more time than he does, but its not exactly easy with Lyla at my feet 100% of the time. As I put up her toys she is taking them back out. As I fold laundry, she unfolds it. As I load the dishwasher, she tries to take the knives out. I don't think husbands will ever understand what its like to SAH and take care of the kids and the house until they have to for more than just a day.
I read an article one time about what a SAHM "should" get paid based on what she does. Ex. nanny, nurse, chef, personal shopper, housekeeper, chauffeur, dog walker, etc. I don't know if there will ever be a good compromise, but we are only a 10 months into this so maybe in the next 18 years someone will have a good solution
Where is your LO when you are doing this? Doing things as a team might be possible, but with Ben so gosh darn mobile, we normally trade off watching him if we are doing something that takes our attention away from him.
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Yeah, that is how this all started. I keep saying I can't do it all and most of Ben's stuff. So, he offers to help. It just happens to be in an incredibly unhelpful way. I keep trying to explain to him that he doesn't just get to pick the stuff he "likes" to do. They wouldn't be called "chores" if they were fun!
He is a touch OCD, so with the dishwasher - any rinse water trapped on dishes or stuff stuck on grosses him out. To that I say: dude, I deal with the dirty, stuck on yucky dishes before they are cleaned! Get over it! He seems to think that if he thinks it is icky, he doesn't have to deal with it. Sorry, but that is just not how life works!
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This is us, too. It is annoying to constantly direct everything, but that's the best I've got. I will ask him if he'd rather do x or watch the kids while I do it; either option is OK with me but not doing it at all is not.
I usually just tell my DH thing 1 needs done and so does thing 2. Which do you want to do? I'll do the other. Kinda like letting one kid cut the sandwich and the other one picks makes it all fair.