I Need an Outside Opinion
The last two years have been hard on me and my spouse. We got married. We bought a house. My wife, who has a PhD, lost their job when the new administration came in and has been trying to pivot to independent research. We lost our house due to lack of income (my job pays okay, but not great) and we had to move coasts to live with their parents until my wife can get a job in our new state.
My wife’s mother just underwent foot surgery, and can’t walk for some months. Their parents have an extensive garden and some of that work has fallen on my wife’s shoulders, along with their own independent research. I work from 6am to 2pm in a stressful job that my wife hates (but I don’t, and that’s a different argument). In the afternoon my wife wants to hike, or go places in town, or do other activities - they try to fill all of my free time with “fun” stuff, no matter if I’m too tired to enjoy it.
The issues is that I’m drowning in housework and they don’t care. We JUST finished unpacking our moving storage unit and the house still looks like a disaster. They won’t do dishes. They don’t do consistent cat care. They don’t want to clean at all unless people are coming over, and then it usually ends up with me spending several hours rushing around and trying to clean while they cook or disappear. When I ask them to do things I get snapped at, and when I just let it go and don’t bother they either never get to it or snap at me to do it because it’s gross. When they handle things, half the time they ask me to do part of whatever task they’ve chosen.
They think my job is stressing me, but I’ve told them over and over again that I can’t relax when the house is dirty. I’ve tried to get them to clean a little bit daily, but they won’t. I’m exhausted by trying to convince them to care about my needs.
They’re on a research trip and honestly not having to clean up after them is a relief. The only dishes in the sink are mine, and they take a minute to do. There’s no one leaving tissues or food on the table or mugs around the house. I can work on getting the rest of the house in order.
I also miss them. When we’re not in the house it’s great - we chat and do things and it’s fun. Working in the garden or going for hikes is fun! And then we walk back into the house and see the dishes in the sink that they never bothered with and I want to just cry. They remark on the trash needing to go out and don’t do it and I want to scream. They ask me to clean the cat bowl, again, and I just … give up. They weren’t always like this, but every time I step up when they falter it’s like they just mentally foist the task on me forever.
Fights about this lead to them crying and saying they’re worthless, and overwhelmed, and depressed, and nothing changes. Asking them to do more leads nowhere, because they’re time blind and just forget the last time they did it, insisting something that happened a week ago was yesterday. Offering strategies gets me snapped at.
I just… don’t know if I’m asking too much. The house is less than 1000sq ft, with a bedroom, office, living room, and dining room/kitchen. We both cook. My wife washes and dries the laundry, and we both fold our own clothes (I also usually fold the towels etc because I’m faster), does the grocery shopping, and arranges vet visits. Sometimes they’ll vacuum or do a partial fridge clean out, and when they feel like it (usually about twice a week) do dishes or empty the drying rack. They’re also in charge of some garden stuff while their mom is laid up, mostly watering, and sometimes if their father is out of the house prepping lunch for their mom or doing small tasks. They work a few (maximum six) hours a day, and almost never after 2pm or before 9am.
I wash floors, do dishes, clean the kitchen, empty the dish drying rack, clean cat boxes, feed and water cats, brush cat teeth (this is a new task, admittedly, recommended by the vet), pill cats, vacuum, sweep, do general pick up, take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, and do whatever other house upkeep thing I see needs done (like cleaning out the fridge, finishing up tasks they started before the waiting ruins something, ant poison treat the windows, deal with moving clutter) on top of an eight hour workday. Generally if I space it out or stay on top of it most things will take between five to ten minutes, but if I don’t and we have visitors it can take hours. If I leave any part of it to them, they procrastinate until they feel overwhelmed and I take something back.
My goal is just a house that isn’t dirty. You should be able to walk in socks in the kitchen and not worry about sticking to the floor, or be embarrassed if a friend drops by. My other goal is a wife who sees a mess and doesn’t go “someone should do that”, because then that someone is me and I’m tired.
Am I asking too much? Are my standards too high? Or am I just fighting against an entropic force, and should give in to the idea that my wife doesn’t care about my needs and I just need to learn to handle the household upkeep by myself?
Tl;dr Two queer people in a chore war regarding a small house are fighting over division of labor. I need advise on approaching this without them dissolving into tearful self hatred or biting my head off.