Stay at home spouse, am I being irrational?

[KwwB]

I'm back after reading almost every comment. I very much appreciate the support and ideas you all have given me.

 

Since my last post I talked to my wife again about having maids come over to help clean the house and she was once again, wishy washy about it. Many of you have suggested I just hire them myself and let her know they are coming but I really do fear the consequences of that action.

 

She does truly seem overwhelmed, ashamed, and depressed because of how our home looks. I think it is truly time that she and I get counseling to help work things out.

 

As I mentioned before my sister said she would be willing to help do what she called a "clean sweep" where she would come over on a Saturday or two and help our family get things organized and cleaned. I suggested this to my wife and after thinking about it for awhile she said she didn't want to do that. "I would rather work on it gradually than get it all done at once because if it's all clean and the house falls back into the same disaster then I will feel worse", was her response.

 

There have been a few times where she has completely cleaned one area of the house. Like the kitchen or our master bathroom. Over our 8, now nearly 9 years of marriage I have seen this numerous times. Each time it devolves back into chaos without myself speeding it there. The prime example of this is our bathroom (our children are rarely in here). I'm hardly ever in there and when I am I clean up after myself. The last time she totally cleaned the bathroom I watched it. After a few days it was only her clothing and her toiletries cluttering the place.

 

To touch on chores for our older children, they do have a few chores, but I feel that they could handle more. The very real and serious problem about that is while I'm at work she tends to fail in enforcing their chores. It then turns into myself getting upset, which can swing one of two ways. I suppress it for the sake of our family and kindly remind them to do their chores, enforce them in a loving manner and sometimes even help them, OR, I turn into the "Bad Guy" who strictly enforces; dealing out punishments such as grounding, privilege removal ect... It's truly disheartening and soul breaking to have to come home from a full days work and be the "Bad Guy" while mommy is perceived as the "Nice Guy" because she is lax in her duties.

 

One poster commented on our toddler spilling milk. When I'm there and I see it I do end up cleaning it in general. Only on really bad days do I just say to myself "**** it. The house is already a disaster this spill won't even be noticed." The problem is when I'm not there. Our carpet is unbelievably stained. I've had carpet cleaners come in once already and it helped... a little. Our carpet is at the point where if we decide to move and sell our house, the carpet will have to be replaced.

 

Sorry for the wall of text. It has been a severe rollercoaster since my last post and I'm about to break. Once again thank you for your help. If anyone has any more suggestions, especially ones in how do deal with my wife's depression over our situation, please post.

[hoping2heal]

First off I'll state my complaint. I don't feel like my wife does the complete job of a stay at home wife.

 

Now for some background and information.

 

My wife and I have been married for almost 9 years now. We have four children who are the following ages: 8, 6, 3 and 19 months. My wife and I are young, I'm 27 and she is almost 27. Both of us are in good health. (Except for the pounds we both have put on since being married )

 

I work full time M-F and she is a stay at home wife. Before our first child was born she worked nearly up until the due date and since then she hasn't had a job that provides financial income.

 

Growing up my mother kept our home virtually spotless. The house was always clean, laundry didn't sit around for days, she cooked almost every meal for me and my two older sisters and my mother transported us around for school and recreational activities. Growing up she never worked outside the home. She is what I feel a stay at home wife should be. Albeit how spotless the house was I've come to find out is a little neurotic.

 

While dating my spouse I never entered her parent’s home. She always mentioned it was because she was uncomfortable with how much her brothers fought with each other. I took it at that and never thought anything about it. After being married for ~6months I entered her parent’s home for the first time... yikes! I couldn't tell what the carpets natural hue was supposed to be and there was garbage piled along the hallways and just sitting in rooms anywhere from shin to shoulder height. Every room I could see was a complete disaster. There were even rooms I couldn't even get into because of the clutter.

 

So, we both grew up with drastically different definitions of what "clean" means. Day and night if you will...

 

I appreciate the work my wife does do currently and I know I could not do what she does without several weeks of adjustment but I feel that after I got adjusted I would be able to keep a much cleaner and smoothly run home that she does right now.

 

Generally in my home right now, our couch that can comfortably sit six adults when empty can only fit one adult because of all the laundry piled on top of it. The dining table 90% of the time still has dinner on it from the previous night. It's not uncommon for the dining table to have dinner and or various other meals left on it from two, even three days ago. The carpet is so badly stained throughout the house that if we were to ever move I would replace the carpet completely. (It was pristine when we moved in) The kitchen 95% of the time is messy from various objects just left there by the kids or by my wife. Getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom is dangerous and I've suffered quite a few injuries whilst trying to do so. Our bedroom is one of the places that just gathers things and those things are generally there for days, weeks, months... I have to weave my way between boxes, garbage bags filled with various things, toys, dishes, ect... to make it to the bathroom.

 

I could go on and on and on with lots of other examples, feelings, how I try to coupe with this mess, what I've done to try and help, what I've done that has hindered ect... I'm curious to see what people say. If you have something like this going on in your life. Could you give me any tips? Insight?

 

What should a stay at home wife do on a daily basis? How clean should the house be? Am I being irrational?

 

Well there's a few thoughts I have,

 

How old were you and your sisters when the house was so spotless and wonderful?

 

It is amazing how messy and exhausting young children can be 6, 3, and 19 months? Eeek.

 

Now, the house sounds like a diasaster area and that can be disconcerting, but the fact that your children are so young and there so..many of them, I can kind of understand how that might happen.

 

Of course, it is likely she has poor time management skills too and she was raised in a home wehre that kind of mess is "acceptable" so there is that too.

 

How involved in the childrens' lives is she? I didn't see you making complaints like she is always sitting around watching TV or on the computer.

 

Have you guys had a switch week? Where you do everything she is expected to do for an entire week? You might really come to understand and appreciate what she is going through.

[hoping2heal]

I'm back after reading almost every comment. I very much appreciate the support and ideas you all have given me.

 

Since my last post I talked to my wife again about having maids come over to help clean the house and she was once again, wishy washy about it. Many of you have suggested I just hire them myself and let her know they are coming but I really do fear the consequences of that action.

 

She does truly seem overwhelmed, ashamed, and depressed because of how our home looks. I think it is truly time that she and I get counseling to help work things out.

 

As I mentioned before my sister said she would be willing to help do what she called a "clean sweep" where she would come over on a Saturday or two and help our family get things organized and cleaned. I suggested this to my wife and after thinking about it for awhile she said she didn't want to do that. "I would rather work on it gradually than get it all done at once because if it's all clean and the house falls back into the same disaster then I will feel worse", was her response.

 

There have been a few times where she has completely cleaned one area of the house. Like the kitchen or our master bathroom. Over our 8, now nearly 9 years of marriage I have seen this numerous times. Each time it devolves back into chaos without myself speeding it there. The prime example of this is our bathroom (our children are rarely in here). I'm hardly ever in there and when I am I clean up after myself. The last time she totally cleaned the bathroom I watched it. After a few days it was only her clothing and her toiletries cluttering the place.

 

To touch on chores for our older children, they do have a few chores, but I feel that they could handle more. The very real and serious problem about that is while I'm at work she tends to fail in enforcing their chores. It then turns into myself getting upset, which can swing one of two ways. I suppress it for the sake of our family and kindly remind them to do their chores, enforce them in a loving manner and sometimes even help them, OR, I turn into the "Bad Guy" who strictly enforces; dealing out punishments such as grounding, privilege removal ect... It's truly disheartening and soul breaking to have to come home from a full days work and be the "Bad Guy" while mommy is perceived as the "Nice Guy" because she is lax in her duties.

 

One poster commented on our toddler spilling milk. When I'm there and I see it I do end up cleaning it in general. Only on really bad days do I just say to myself "**** it. The house is already a disaster this spill won't even be noticed." The problem is when I'm not there. Our carpet is unbelievably stained. I've had carpet cleaners come in once already and it helped... a little. Our carpet is at the point where if we decide to move and sell our house, the carpet will have to be replaced.

 

Sorry for the wall of text. It has been a severe rollercoaster since my last post and I'm about to break. Once again thank you for your help. If anyone has any more suggestions, especially ones in how do deal with my wife's depression over our situation, please post.

 

Well, there is certainly a lot going on here. One thing I noticed is that you come across as though you feel the way the house looks is entirely your wife's fault. It is not. You two are married. You are working for the same team, and you both equally stand to prosper or the opposite. Now, it is pretty clear you both grew up with different family structures. Hers was obviously a very casual, laid back setting with likely very little structure at all. You, on the other hand grew up in a very structured family setting. The problem is it is difficult to build a home with tools you do not have.

 

This is akin to what your wife is facing. It seems the problems are not just about keeping the house clean either, you have mentioned things about discipline. Imagine trying to bake chocolate chip cookies with no flour, no eggs, and no chocolate chips. It would be difficult, wouldn't it?

 

That is what it is like for your wife now trying to manage four young children (again, all so young!), keep a tidy home, and meet your expectations. She likely did not learn things like good time management skills, or how to effectively discipline children from her growing up period much less how to keep a clean house. I am sure she feels very, very down in the dumps and low about herself. Imagine how you would feel knowing that every single day, you are dissapointing her? Would that make you feel good?

 

You, on the other hand are more likely to have learned about structure and discipline at least from the example of your mother.

 

Now, when it comes to managing kids the best possible thing you can have in your home is an effective, constructive, positive discipline system. All of the children should know what their expectations are, and the expectations should be reasonable and age appropriate and consideration should be made for who they are as people too. Their punishment should teach them a lesson and the right one; which is doing what is expected of you leads to rewards and fun things. Not doing what is expected leads to no rewards and missing out on fun things.

 

You both need to be on the same page as far as parenting and rather than lopping it off onto her that it's a failure, you need to see where she is struggling and see what can be done. She is making things 20 times more difficult on herself by not having an effective discipline system in place..I can't even imagine! One suggestion may be that the two of you sit down together, and you need to build that bridge across to her. Let her know you love her and support her , not judge her. Let her know that you want to be her partner and work together to make this family unit run more smoothly. Then the two of you could come to agreements on what should be expected of each child and what the rewards/punishments will be. Then, the hardest part of all..following through! It can be heartbreaking not letting them to go to the circus with the other kids because they broke the rules..but it's got to be done! In real life, consequences happen and no one holds them for us..it is important they learn that now.

 

Then there is that house cleaning problem. You are going to havein to be creative on how you can help and be a support to her about this. You need to communicate in a non judgemental way that you would like the house to be more clean but also, you need to know as her husband what you can do to make that happen.

 

Just because you work the job, does not mean you should not be expected to pull weight in the household as well, especially when there are FOUR children around. There are many mothers who work a job, come home and take part in the household responsibilities, too. She is not your mother, she was not raised with the same "tools" as your mother was, and she has more children than your mother. You are part of this family too, you are her husband and while you certainly should not be expected to do everything around the house - you should be expected to do some things.

 

You two need to start working as partners on the same team.

[IfWishesWereHorses]

Have you two checked out the flylady.net site? It truly gets rave reviews.

[kuma]

Have you two checked out the flylady.net site? It truly gets rave reviews.

 

I love flylady! OP, you and your wife both should try flylady. Your wife can't do it alone. Just spend 20/30 mins. cleaning every day. Use a timer. I'd also recommend installing hardwood/laminate floors. They're easier to clean and more sanitary than carpet.

[frozensprouts]

I'm a stay at home mom with three kids and I know how overwhelming it can be sometimes. My three kids make enough mess ( or so it seems to me sometimes) for 12 kids and sometimes it drives me nuts. Two of our three kids have ASD's ( our youngest is autistic, our oldest has Asperger's syndrome) and need therapy, speech therapy, etc. as well, and for some reason, like many kids with autism they don't seem to engage in a whole lot of "imaginative play" but rather "let's take it apart to see how it works and leave a mess all over the floor" or" let's collect scraps of junk and hoard them" kind of play.

 

My husband works from around 7 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, and is often away for weeks or months at a time ( he's in the army) , so, like it or not, 99% of the responsibility for the housework, etc. lies on me. We both knew that going in, so I am okay with it.

 

Sometimes, if a stay at home parent (mom or dad) is at home and doesn't get out very often they can almost seem to stop seeing the mess. Is it possible that this is the case with your wife? If you think it is, try encouraging her to develop some "outside interests" that give her something in her life besides the house and the kids. She may need to spend some time around other adults outside the house... is there some way you can encourage this?

 

It's also possible that she is telling the truth that she never learned how to care for a home. Maybe she needs a little help to learn. Like anything else, no one is born knowing how to do housework If you could see your way to hire a maid to get the house in order so she can see how good it can look, maybe this will help.

 

is iy also possible that she may be suffering from depression? I know that may sound far fetched, but sometimes people with depression can just stop caring about things in their external environment. She may have also stopped caring about her appearance, etc.- this may not be a good sign.

 

Whatever is going on, you need to sit down with her ( with no kids around) and have a frank, honest but non-judgmental discussion about the condition of the house and that it bothers you. Let her have time to explain to you why she lets it get to the state that it is ( but realize that she may not notice it's gotten so bad, and she may not even realize why she allows it to get that way). Exlplain to her why it bothers you and see what she has to say. See if you can come up with some kind of solution together.

Good luck!

.

[tinktronik]

Hire in a part time maid to do some of the heavy lifting. If you wife is caring for your children she is probably at capacity. I am speaking for experience of having several small children at home at once.