How to train a man to do housework

Q: My spouse sits on the couch and watches me cleaning like a cave girl high on Windex. Does he move? I wish I could hook him up to a battery charger. I just want a clean nice home, you know, one where I can open the door to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and my mother in law. I am searching for a formula that will work. There must be one. Am I fighting a losing battle? Should I surrender to the mess? — Seething Windex Wife

Dear Seething Windex Wife:

I hope it’s somewhat comforting to know that what you are going through is very common. Nearly all of the married women I know struggle with the same problem. “My husband is a hopeless slob” ranks pretty high on most women’s complaint lists, with “he can’t get his lazy ass out of bed to deal with the kids” and “he communicates his desire to have sex with me by rubbing his boner on my thigh” running a close second and third.

And there’s hope. I once had the same experience as you. I’d spend hours scrubbing my husband’s pee off toilet seats and removing his dirty underwear from the hallway floor. He’d occasionally look up from whatever was on TV and say things like, “Thanks for cleaning the house, honey,” assuming he noticed at all. Now, he unloads the washer, runs the vacuum, and picks up our daughter’s toys without being asked. And when he sees me cleaning, it’s an automatic trigger for him to get his butt off the couch and help.

Here’s what I suggest.

1. Try to see things through his eyes. He probably doesn’t see or care about the mess. Asking him to care about a clean house is similar to him asking you to care about the color and height of the grass in your yard. Women notice dust and fingerprints. Men notice crabgrass and yellow spots. It’s just one of those weird genetic differences between the sexes.

Most women are taught how to clean from a young age, too. My mother, for instance, had a dust rag in my hands by age 10, and she supervised my work. I also happened to work as a hotel maid one summer between my junior and senior years in high school.

My husband? His mother did everything in that house, and no one lifted a finger to help her. He did not work as a hotel maid, or any other job that would have taught him how to clean fast and effectively. I once showed him how to make hospital corners when making the bed. He stared at me as if I were from Mars, wondering why the heck anyone would care about making perfect corners in a set of sheets.

Cleaning makes many men-especially those who have not been taught how to do it-feel inadequate. It’s similar to how we women feel when we have to dispose of a rodent caught in a glue trap. Sure, we can do it, but we’ll avoid that poor critter for as long as it takes, in the hopes that our lovely husbands will take care of it first.

I’m not saying that you should just accept his slovenly lazy ways. I’m only saying that, if you learn how to understand it and see it from his perspective, it might help lower your anger a notch, so you can address the problem more civilly.

2. Understand the Law of Household Entropy. All houses naturally fall into a state of chaos over time. You simply cannot keep a house clean and orderly every moment of every day, especially if you have children or pets.

Because of the Law of Household Entropy, you must be willing to come to a compromise with your spouse. How much chaos are you willing to have? Do you want your entire house clean once a week, with it gradually falling into a state of complete disarray by week’s end? Or would you rather always have one room that is clean and presentable (that you clean up daily), and others that you let go most of the time (cleaning only in the moments just before the mother in law visits)? What types of household chaos bug you the most? Perhaps you are okay with dust but you really can’t stand having mold in your toilet. Once you understand what bugs you most, you’ll more easily be able to ask your husband for the help you need.

3. Think about why you value a clean house, and go beyond jokes about Jehovahs. How does a disorderly house make you feel? How does it affect your mood, energy, and sexual health? Being able to put this into words will help your husband to understand your point of view.

4. Hold an intervention. Sit down when you are calm (probably not while or just before cleaning). Talk about how a clean orderly house makes you feel: happy, stress free, calm, like having sex. Explain how you feel when you clean it up while he watches TV: unloved, taken advantage of, exhausted, angry.  You might say, “I don’t like feeling taken advantage of. I don’t like feeling this way about you. I really want us to have a good relationship, and I really want to feel calm and stress free in my house. Can you help me with this?”

Then, get solution focused. Maybe he takes on some chores and you do others. Maybe you clean together. Be creative. Whatever you do, make sure your solution is specific. Remember: he’s blind to the mess. He needs an instruction manual, as in, “I would like you to pick up everything on the floor-including your empty beer cans, socks and banana peels-every night before you start watching TV.” Leave no room for misinterpretation.


5. Whenever you notice him cleaning, reward him.
 Hug him. Say, “Thank You.” Jump his bones. Make him want to clean again.

Tips for Training Really Stubborn Men

So, let’s say you do all of that and your man resists. Let’s say he claims, as my husband did initially, that he already does plenty of housework.

Hold a contest. Create a big chart and list all of the indoor and outdoor chores. Over a month’s time, check off which chores you complete and how long it takes to complete them. At the end of the month, compare results. I did this with my husband and it really blew him away. He truly thought he’d been doing more than he really was doing.

Here’s another excuse that might pop up. He might accuse you of being too uptight. For instance, he’ll whine, “I work hard. When I come home I just want to relax. What’s wrong with relaxing? Why do you have to always be working?”

This is when you tell him that you want to relax, too, and you just can’t when your house is messy. Ask him to help you come up with a compromise that will make both of you happy and relaxed. Maybe, for instance, the two of you clean the house while you are dressed up as a French Chamber Maid. Then, once the house is clean, the good lazy boy gets a nice reward.

Just saying. It might get you a really clean house. In fact, your husband might want to clean the house every night.

Do you have advice for Seething Windex Wife? Leave a comment.

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26 Things No One Told You About Life as a Parent

What no one tells you: Babies rarely look like this!
  1. Many, many mornings at 5:30 a.m., you will spend inordinate amounts of time bargaining with God for just one more hour of sleep.
  2. here is no painless way to extract a baby from a womb. You will spend lots of time arguing with other mothers about which is less painful, a C-section or a vaginal birth. In reality, they both hurt more than any other hurt you’ve ever experienced in your entire life. But it’s the kind of pain that’s worth it, for the most part.
  3. You will become so used to touching your child’s bodily fluids-snot, urine, poop, spit, and blood-that they will no longer gross you out.
  4. You will become an expert at the art of “poop reading,” which is the ability to tell whether your child is sick based on the size, color, shape and frequency of his or her bowel movements.
  5. You will develop a condition known as “momnesia” at the moment of conception. Experts say it lifts about a year or two into parenthood, but any honest mother will tell you that it lasts a full 20 years, at which time you will develop senility instead.
  6. During pregnancy, you will find all sorts of crud in your underwear, crud that makes your worst yeast infection ever seem very, very, very tame.
  7. After you give birth, you will begin to hate your spouse and wish he or she would just drop dead.
  8. Your child will embarrass you on a deeper level than you’ve ever been embarrassed in your life, especially when you are standing in line at a store and your 3 year old exclaims, “Whoo-wee Mommy, you farted! It stinks in here!”
  9. Your boobs will look Pam Anderson fantastic during breast-feeding. Love it while it lasts. As soon as your child weans, your boobs will deflate faster than a balloon with a hole in it. And they will get saggy, too. This is the single most common reason why many women decide to have more than one child.
  10. Not long into parenthood, you will trade off your goal of being the “perfect parent” for the goal of “just help me survive this experience.”
  11. There will be a day at some point after parenthood when you find yourself out in public and realize any or all of the following: a) your shirt is inside out b) there is food on your shirt c) you forgot to brush your teeth… and your hair d) you forgot to put on your pants.
  12. All of those expressions you learned from your parents that you swore you would never repeat? You will say them to your child, and you will say them many, many times.
  13. If you did not curse before parenthood, you will afterward. If you cursed before parenthood, you will curse even more.
  14. Your child will start to manipulate you starting around 4 months, a process that will last until your funeral. You will learn to see this for what it is: how your child displays his or her love for you.
  15. You will find yourself Googling all sorts of oddities, from, “How to teach a kid to poop on the potty” to “I have a crush on my pediatrician. Is this normal?”
  16. You will ask yourself, “Is this normal?” many, many, many times, and you will never really know the answer to that question. For instance, while eating dinner at a restaurant, your child might slip his or her hands up your shirt and exclaim, “I’m touching your nipples!” Is that normal? I’m still not sure.
  17. You will realize just how much you really do not know, especially when your child asks you, “Whose head is on the quarter?” and “Why do Zebras have stripes?” and “Why can’t I put my hands up your shirt when we are out in public?”
  18. You will constantly worry that someone will call Child Protective Services on you, even though you are truly a good parent. Your child is just clumsy.
  19. Time will become your most precious commodity, and you will haggle with your spouse over it as if it were gold.
  20. You will learn to fear birthday invitations.
  21. Grocery shopping will never quite be the same experience again.
  22. If you had extra money before you became a parent, you won’t have it afterward.
  23. Diapers cost more than you would ever imagine. Daycare costs even more, and don’t even think about the cost of a college education. If you do, you will probably decide not to have children.
  24. The expression, “All shit stinks” is inaccurate. The poop of newborn breast fed babies doesn’t stink. Poop only starts to stink once babies start eating solids, and some solids make it stink more than others. You will soon become an expert at sniffing poop and knowing exactly what food led to that precise odor.
  25. You will find yourself throwing away all sorts of things that make you feel guilty, such as your child’s artwork.
  26. The day you give birth, your hair will start to gray and you will start to grow a mustache. It happens to the best of mothers. Thankfully, there are plenty of cheap hair removal products, not to mention dye.

For more momspiration, check out the Best Mommy Blogs over at Andrea Howard’s Parentise site. By the way, her site is a very cool place to go for reviews of various services and products that all parents need.

What did you learn about parenting after the fact that you wish you had known before? Leave a comment.

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9 stages of an unhappy marriage

If you are making this for him, you’re probably still in Stage 1.

This morning, I woke up before my husband, looked in the fridge and found only three eggs. I eat eggs for breakfast nearly every morning. So does my husband. This was a problem.

I did something that surprised even myself. I made myself a frozen waffle and a smoothie. Later, my husband, who was having a very difficult time getting out of bed, asked, “Are there any eggs?” I said, “There were only three eggs left, so I didn’t eat any. I saved them for you. You know I love you now.”

He smiled and said, “I do.”

Now, let me be honest here. Not long ago, I would have eaten all three eggs, and I would have done it while I thought, “If he got his lazy sorry ass out of bed on time, then he would have beat me to the eggs. You snooze. You lose.”

It made me realize that there are 9 distinct stages of marital disharmony. In these stages, I’m using eggs as an example, but it might be chocolate or English muffins or something else that you and your spouse both love and also tend to run out of before it’s time for the next grocery store run. Note: I’ve written these stages from the female point of view, because, after all, I’m a female. For the most part, you could insert “he” for “she” and “she” for “he,” except in a few somewhat obvious places where you just can’t.

Stage 1: Dating

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You drive to the store to get more, so you can make you and your special love interest omelets. You want to prove to him that you have special kitchen skills because you are hoping that, one day, he might want to marry you because of your special kitchen skills.

Stage 2: Serious dating

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You stare at them for a while. You think about eating them. You don’t. You leave them all for that special guy who is sleeping upstairs, because any day now he might get a notion to pop the question. You don’t want to do anything to dissuade him from that notion. See? Aren’t you marriage material? You leave the last three eggs for him! Who wouldn’t marry a woman who does that?

Stage 3: You just got home from the honeymoon

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You sigh. You wake up your husband and explain the egg situation. He says, “Oh, honey, why don’t you eat them? I’ll just have a slice of toast.” He’s under the misguided impression that he’ll get morning sex for this gesture. He may or may not be disappointed, depending on how many weeks have passed since the honeymoon.

Stage 4: The honeymoon is definitely over

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You split them with your spouse, but you are not happy about it. You stare longingly at his eggs the entire time he’s eating, thinking that any moment now he’ll turn back into that man who once gave you his eggs. You pledge to never have sex with him again, no matter how excessively horny you might become.

Stage 5: The honeymoon is so over that you can’t even remember why you ever wanted to travel with him in the first place

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You eat all of them nearly raw. You weren’t even planning on having eggs this day, mind you. You eat them so he can’t have them, because he doesn’t deserve them.

Stage 6: Marital therapy

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You throw them at your husband.

Stage 7: Martial therapy just might be working

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You eat them, but you feel guilty about it.

Stage 8: Wow, marital therapy actually worked!

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You make something else for breakfast.

Stage 9: You have achieved the much talked about but rarely experienced state known as “Marital Enlightenment”

You wake up. You realize you only have three eggs. You make something else for breakfast. You make the eggs for your spouse.

Note: I have not reached stage 9. I’ve only heard about it. When I again walked into the bedroom this morning (yes, he was still in bed), my husband asked, “Are you almost done making my ham and eggs?”

I said, “I don’t love you that much. Get over it.”

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