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Post by scribbliz on Jul 18, 2012 13:36:38 GMT -5
oh...and i am not aiming for.perfectikn (though hubby mught be....) i am aiming for just good enough and that helps me.get it done faster
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Post by PaperGrace on Jul 18, 2012 13:45:58 GMT -5
That sounds really frustrating.
He probably IS psychologically incapable of seeing the work you've done. Living in clutter messes with your perception. Just like one can become blind to the mess, or stop seeing things as individual items--merging them into one pile too daunting to tackle, maybe he can't see the improvement. He may be a very black/white sort of person who sees either mess or not mess, nothing in between. (I don't know him, you'll have to judge this for yourself.) This happens to a lot of the people here on the site who are doing the work themselves! That's one of the reason you'll see 'Write it down, post it!' as a theme all over the place. Often someone can spend the whole day cleaning and come out of it feeling like they've made no visible progress. Looking back at a list of what they've done is needed to 'show' the work.
Even in the non-squalor world housework falls into that irritating place. No one notices when it is done, but they really notice when it is not.
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 18, 2012 13:57:01 GMT -5
so what can i do? i am tired of him treating me like i do jothing.just because he doesnt see it?? will a list posted on the fridge help?? like i stick a piece of paper there and after i finish each yask wrige it down?
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Post by PaperGrace on Jul 18, 2012 15:41:45 GMT -5
That depends on what is really going on here: <snip> for some reason my husband says when he went into the living room at eleven this morning it looks (to him) like it did before he went to bed last night. How did this conversation start? Did he out of the blue decide to be disparaging? Was he on the defensive from something that preceded it? Is he normally gruff? Did he think he was being funny? (My Dad is famous for this last one, ugh.) Was there any sort of argument or demand on his part that got you moving in the first place? <snip> meanwhile i swept the carpet, took out two more bags of garbage, washed a table and one chair, swept and spot washed mh dining room floor, swept and hand washed (with wipes) my kutchen floor. ran the dishwasher, put the dishes away, washed two loads of pots and pans, swept and spot washed my entryway, fed my girls, cuddled with them, and have cleaned two bathrooms..... Poor dear, so many of these chores are invisible, and while we here tend toward the baby steps, progress is progress model, people who haven't come to realize that there are bigger things going on than just being Elword have completely different expectations. In my opinion getting something done good enough for now and moving on to the next thing is a GREAT idea, you'll get to the bottom of things soon enough, and you'll be teaching yourself how to maintain it as you go. As for your husband, he just doesn't understand that you're going to need to change habits and ways of thinking, so he still expects it to magically look better and then stay that way. "Binge Cleaning" does make a difference in how things look in the short term, but it isn't a lifestyle you want to embrace. You'll always be a yo-yo household. If he isn't on board with what you're going through you can expect more of the crap you got this morning. <snip> and yet it looks the same??? its like he is.physically incapable.of.seeing the work i do.....no wonder he thinks i'm the l-word.... I suggest telling him that it really hurt your feelings that he couldn't find something nice to say about all the work you did, and explaining that you aren't in a 'just clean it up' situation right now. Tell him your house didn't get dirty overnight and it isn't going to be perfect overnight. With children it is always three steps forward, two back or something similar. The dishes are a good example to give him of something that is a cycle rather than something that can be 'done' and finished. If he comes home and the kitchen looks the same or even just a little better than when he left then that shows that you have done a tremendous amount of work. Things were cleaned, used, cleaned again etc... You and the children are LIVING IN and USING the space while you're cleaning it. It isn't going to look freshly cleaned all at once. My Dad pulls this BS on Mom all the time: "My Mother did it." Guess what? He's wrong. Yes, he remembers their house being tidy and all the food freshly made from scratch and so on and so forth. He doesn't remember that his sisters lived at home until they were married and were expected to help out. He doesn't remember that it wasn't as neat and tidy when he was a toddler as it was when he was a teen. He doesn't remember that not only did his mother not work outside of the home, but she also wasn't expected to run the roads like more modern mothers are expected to do. They didn't have a zillion extra things going on. They didn't have checkups every few months, they didn't go to enrichment activities. His father wasn't gone from the house for several hours a day with a long commute, he was on the property, running the farm, or working in town close enough to make it home for lunch. They smoked and drank to relax, and they died young.  (Sorry to rant--back to your situation...) Is it possible that there is more to this than him thinking you're Elword? That seems like an awful lot of the blame for you to bear. If the house WERE magically clean by the time he got home today would he be more encouraging? I suspect there are other issues at play. He may be oblivious to the way it makes you feel when he talks like that. He may be a poor communicator. He may be upset about something else, but has this very visible, obvious thing that he can criticize you for. Before you get mad at him though, make sure that you've let him know how you feel, and what you feel you need from him in order to be successful. Tell him you feel like you need to keep a list to prove that you've been productive all day and that it isn't a healthy way to be made to feel. |
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 18, 2012 16:57:55 GMT -5
typically if he is under any stress (for example, a bad day at work, or, like today, a sudden suite inspection) then he tends to be overly critical of the house. and your story about about what your dad says to your mom? Yeah, I hear that all the time. And it frustrates me because he doesn't remember what it was like when he was five; he remembers as a teen ager.
this morning it pretty much came out of the blue. he was grumpy last night because he decided to come check on me at like 2:30 in the morning. Unfortunately he came out right at the time that I had decided I needed a break and something to drink. I had been sitting at the computer on facebook for 2 minutes (i know because I was timing myself...I was giving myself 5 minutes for a break, and that was it) and he decided that I hadn't done anything at all, he figured I had just been playing on facebook. So this morning when he got up and couldn't see what i had done (though what he thinks happened to all the garbage that I chucked I don't know....) he decided that I had just played on facebook all night and hadn't done a thing.
now, just so you know, I like my sleep. very very much. I don't get enough of it as it is, and tomorrow I am going to see my sister....a 5.5 hour bus ride....so, it's not likely that i'm going to stay up just to play facebook.
I'm not sure why he was so upset, and he's not normally gruff, except when it comes to cleaning. He has really high standards and he leaves it all in my hands. He works full time and I am a stay at home mom, so he figures it's all my responsibility. I am not only picking up after myself and my girls (though I am starting to teach them to pick up after themselves) I am also picking up after him. A LOT. And I guess I was also getting frustrated this morning because yesterday he wanted the washrooms cleaned before the inspection. so i was doing that this morning and he's yelling at me about it. I felt like he was treating me like an idiot, and he was barking orders and such; I ended up very angry because he expects me to clean, but he expects me to do it HIS way. I can barely keep up doing it my way (ok, until today, I couldn't even keep doing it my way but it was better than trying to do it his way...I'm not him. I'm sure his way works better for him, but it doesn't work for me)
And now I think I'm just venting. I don't know how to talk to him about stuff like this because he gets very defensive and starts to point fingers and I have to fight to NOT get defensive and as much as I try, we always seem to end up in a fight. This sounds like he's a bad guy, and he's really not. He's a great guy; we just have bad days. And this was a very bad day, so I needed to vent. I do know that him calling me *** and refusing to believe me when I say I do something is not healthy. I just don't know what to do about it...or how to bring it up without starting a fight.
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Post by Ally on Jul 18, 2012 17:14:10 GMT -5
I think we have been married to the same guy! Way back for those few months when I was a stay at home mom anyway. My thoughts: He's probably upset about something else, and is venting on you. Usually in my situation it's been that way anyway. Although, sometimes something I did or said upset him, and that's his way of getting back at me. You can vent here all you want. We all need to do that sometimes. Usually getting defensive doesn't work. Usually it's better to wait until he's in a better frame of mind to have an open, honest discussion about your feelings. "When you said ___, I felt ___. " I think most guys have no idea how hard it is to be a stay at home mom, with kids making messes, getting into trouble, etc. I also think it might be wise to talk with a counselor, both of you together if possible, but he won't go, just go by yourself. I feel like this is really poorly written, but I hope you get something from it ...  Ally |
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 18, 2012 17:53:21 GMT -5
I had to laugh. You suggested talking to a counselor "both of you together if possible, but he won't go" and you are SO right. I actually have been to a counselor; well, actually it was my pastor who counselled me. And it made a bit of difference. but the biggest difference really came just by both of us deciding that no matter what we were staying together. After that things seem to have improved, but every now and then we have a huge blow up
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Post by boyswillbeboys on Jul 18, 2012 17:56:58 GMT -5
See Liz, we aren't alone. Thanks Ally, that at least helped me.
Liz and I married men with very similar expectations, and very different personalities, but we often end up with the exact same frustrations with them, at different times.
I KNOW my husband is remembering from a time where his sister was helping out, and he was about the age our kids are now, but he just remembers mom doing it all, though in the next breath he talks about the chores he had to do, and how strict his step dad was.
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 18, 2012 18:05:13 GMT -5
yup, scott was the oldest and he remembers things like his gradma potty training him, not his mom (his mom had MS) and yet, in his memory she was the consumate housekeep....it's odd how memories change like that. I've talked to my mom about it a fair bit, and I don't ever remember my mom's house being as bad as mine is now...and yet she tells me that yes, when i was little her house was a bad as mine is now....i don't remember that at all. She tells me that she didn't really get past it until we all moved out; I remember clutter, but there were my mom, my dad, and my three older brothers and I all living in a three bedroom house...you cannot avoid clutter then. oddly enough, I just had a memory of when I was about ten I used to hide things, like cake mixes, in my bedroom closet (did you know a dry cake mix does not taste that good on its own???)......wow, i guess there was clutter that I just don't remember....
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Post by PaperGrace on Jul 18, 2012 18:09:07 GMT -5
I am extremely fortunate. My Husband knows staying home with the boys is WAY harder than his job. We still have blow ups like you describe when he feels like I dump the kids on him when he gets home so that I can finally get the dishes done. That's almost what I feel like we should do, each of us watch the kids while the other does their job... now if only we could convince the children! "Mommy is at work, pretend she's not here" while I log in my hours as housewife.
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 19, 2012 0:07:40 GMT -5
So, my first day here is done  I just wanted to thank everyone who replied to me or offered me support and encouragement and advice. I really needed that today, and it means a lot to me. I will definately be coming back here, and am going to be adding this forum to my tablet, so I can access it where ever I go |
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Post by messymimi on Jul 19, 2012 10:22:11 GMT -5
A belated welcome to Boyswillbeboys!
A suggestion for all who find themselves in the situations like this is to play a game that was invented by Pam and Peggy, The SLOB Sisters.
They played games to help get their homes clean, and taught their system to others. One game was the House Fairy, which has become its own website, and is very good for people with small children, or even older ones who will play along to keep the younger ones playing.
Another game involved getting those little dot stickers people use to price things for garage sales. You can get them in different colors if you like, but you don't have to.
The first week, every time you or anyone in the house sees something out of place in the house, you put a sticker on it with the date, time, and initials of the offending person who left it there (or use color stickers, a different color for each person). The person has one hour to remove the item, and then you take the sticker off and put it on the chart on the fridge by their name.
At the end of the week, everyone will be shocked, especially husbands, by how much they contributed to the messes in the house by leaving stuff lying around. A pair of shoes counts as one item, but someone who leaves a whole outfit where he/she changed clothes on the floor, each clothing item counts separately.
The first week is for practice, and after that, at the end of each week the person with the lowest number of stickers by his/her name gets a quarter from each of the others for every item that person left out. Example, if mom wins because she only left out 6 items to get tagged, and dad left 10, he owes her 10 quarters (or dimes, or pennies, if you have small children who just get change as an allowance or commission for chores).
Additional rules include that the kids cannot tag each other in their bedrooms, otherwise they would be continually digging around in each other's rooms to look for tiny items out of place so they could run up totals on each other. Parents only tag in kids bedrooms for 4 things -- unmade beds, trash overflowing the trash can, clothes on the floor (clean or dirty), and dead food/plates/cups/utensils. Parents tag each other in their own bedroom.
This is the game i recommend to get husbands to realize just how much their leaving stuff lying around all of the time for others (read: mom) to clean up contributes to the mess. It would take a personal servant following you 24 hours a day to clean up after you if you didn't pick up some things after yourself, and that is true for everyone. Once you are out of the infant stage, and can toddle across the floor and toss a toy in a box, you no longer get that privilege. 
BWBB, it's good to have you here.
messymimi
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 19, 2012 10:35:08 GMT -5
Hey mimi; ya know that game seems like a great way to get people involved. How well would it work for small children (my girls are 5.5 years, 3.5 years, and 3.5 years)? And what would you do with a play room??? Typically I haven't pushed them to maintain a tidy play room, but once every couple days they do need to put all the toys away and look for laundry/garbage and put it where it belongs. Is that a good idea?? I do enforce that toys that are brought out of the playroom are put back as soon as they are done with them.
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Post by messymimi on Jul 19, 2012 12:07:43 GMT -5
Scribbliz, make the game your own, modify it any way you want. The playroom could be on a separate game, setting a timer to see how fast they can pick up trash or toys. Or just play with your older daughter and husband at first, let the little ones observe and get them excited to be big and play along.
Change it up any way you need to, the "rules" were how Pam and Peggy played with their families, but no one says it always has to be that way.
messymimi
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Post by scribbliz on Jul 19, 2012 14:32:41 GMT -5
thanks mimi I'll definately look into it when I get back |
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