Relationships

‘He never cleans’: Frustrated wife fed up with husband’s laziness

Nov 07, 2018

A peeved wife said she's fed up with her husband, who refuses to pick up the slack and lend a helping hand. Source: Getty

While it may seem harmless to some, a lazy husband can become quite the nuisance as one frustrated woman has laid bare.

Writing to The Washington’s Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax, the peeved wife said she’s fed up with her husband, who refuses to pick up the slack and lend a helping hand around the house.

“I do much more housework than my husband — maybe 70/30,” she revealed. “When I complain, he says he doesn’t mind grimy bathtubs or piled-up paper, and since I do mind, then I should do the cleaning.”

The distressed wife added her husband thinks it’s unfair for her to “unilaterally” set house standards and then force him to live up to them, adding: “The solution could just as easily be for me to do less, not for him to do more.

“I’m not asking for a daily baseboard scrubbing, just a weekly vacuum, bathroom cleaning and laundry,” she continued.

Carolyn advised the woman to hire a cleaning service for the weekly vacuum and bathroom cleaning, and split the remaining jobs evenly.

“To prevent his ditching of his 50, make sure it affects things he needs or cares about. Food, clean clothes, etc,” Carolyn added.

It didn’t take long for the comment thread on the article to turn into a slanging match, with readers detailing how their own husbands rarely lend a helping hand at home.

One commentator said her husband is completely oblivious to any mess in the house. “The only way we have been able to keep from killing each other is that we clean the house together once a week,” she explained.

Another added: “My spouse’s idea of housecleaning is to sweep the room with a glance.”

However, according to the latest data from the University of Melbourne’s long-term HILDA (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) study, Australian men think they do their fair share of household chores.

The study found that men and women are increasingly disagreeing with statements about traditional arrangements for parenting and work.

Women in de facto relationships were least likely to be in favour of traditional gender roles while married men were most in favour of such arrangements, study co-author Inga Lass said.

Nowadays men spend an extra hour a week on housework compared to 2002, but their 13.3 hours is short of women’s 20.4 hours. However, the study showed men spent more time on employment (on average 35.9 hours a week in 2016) than women (24.9 hours).