I have a feeling this is going to be a very controversial post and I am not looking to ruffle feathers or cause fights. I am just genuinely curious of other wives’ mindset on this topic.

Do you pick up after your husband, and see it as just part of keeping the home clean? Or do you ask and expect him to at least just clean up after himself?

I know every home is different with how household tasks are shared. In our home, husband and I both work full time (he is 6-3, I am 9-5) and we have a 4 year old daughter. For the most part I am ok with the laundry, dishes, sweeping, mopping and cooking (I make supper 4-5x a week so we also have lunches to pack) being “my” jobs. They are important things to me to keep up on. Husband does the outside work; mowing, chickens (sometimes I need to do this too though) and weeding the garden (I mostly help harvest). Where I am getting fed up and drawing the line though, is literally picking up after him. When he’s finished eating, he leaves the plates, cups and wrappers at the table or on the couch. Never takes them to the sink or throws trash away. If he finishes a drink, he leaves the empty bottle wherever he sat it down as he finished or puts it on our island. Never throws it away. His clothes; most of the time those are left where he takes them off too. Back of chairs (living room and dining), bedroom floor, or sometimes by the garage door. If he happens to be home during the day and I’m gone, I can basically tell every area of the house he was in and everything he or our daughter ate bc it’s all still out.

I normally just go about taking care of it when I’m cleaning up everything else but I am getting so fed up with it. Our 4 year old even knows her dirty clothes go in her basket and dirty dishes in the sink. And I don’t just suffer in silence. I tell him that I would really appreciate if he’d just clean up after himself and I’m happy to take care of it from there.

These last few months we’ve both been extremely busy with work and our daughter and I’m just fed up with the extra take of having to clean up after him too. The last week and a half I have stopped. He has piles of clothes on the back of one dining chair, our bedroom chest, and some socks by one of the doors. And I have just been cleaning around it. If he has dirty clothes in the laundry basket I still wash, dry and put it away. If he puts dirty dishes in the sink I take care of it. But like today he left 2 dishes on the couch and I’m just leaving it.

Part of me feels bad, like it’s petty revenge. And sometimes i wonder if most other wives just count that in with their basic pick up (if that’s one of their household tasks: again I know every home is different), and don’t even think anything of it. But I am frustrated with him making extra work for me. And am basically protesting right now but taking care of it anymore.