Ask Amy: Toddler-tornado makes a messy guest

[conuly]

Dear Amy: My wife and I recently bought a house and we have decided on a few rules to keep the place as clean as possible.

I invited my sister and her three kids to stay with us for the next two weeks, and while we already explained the house rules several times, the youngest child (he's 3), always manages to create a mess. I don't blame him (after all, he is a child), but my wife gets really irritated and takes it out on me.

I offered to clean the mess, if my wife would let me know. But every time this occurs, we have an argument.

I think my wife feels she's making all the sacrifices for me and my family. When we visit her family, I always try to be open and understanding (they are from another country), and I actually love it.

Today my wife snapped in front of the kids.

At first, she was so excited about this visit, but today she told me that the next time I have someone over, she will go to visit her family because she doesn't want to sacrifice anymore.

This is hurtful to me since my family has always been gracious and generous toward her.

Good Husband

Dear Husband: Three-year-olds are human tornadoes. I’m assuming that you don’t have children (yet), but experienced parents who are hosting children anticipate a period of upheaval and do their best to keep up, while understanding that – where toddlers go, messes happen.

You have asked your wife to “let you know” if there was a mess she felt needed to be cleaned up. But you (and your sister) should take this on without prompting.

At the end of every (long) day, before the kids go to bed, you should lead them around the house for a clean sweep. Set a timer, make a game of it, and lead them on a little inspection parade when you’re done, so everyone can see you’ve worked as a team.

You should encourage your wife to get enough alone-time away from the household, if that will help with her stress, but she should also work harder to be more tolerant. If she truly believed that you were stepping up, she might be able to step back.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2393258?fs

Comments

[conuly]

I can't even with this. "I'm glad to clean if my wife lets me know the house is messy!"

Like... what?

[cereta]

This is really, really not an uncommon thing. My friend had a husband who was like this; wouldn't clean unless she got on him about it, and then gave her grief for "nagging." Hells, my spouse always slept right through the baby monitor, which meant that his "shift" at night involved me waking up from the monitor and then waking him up to go feed her.

"She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink" is a pretty good example of the clueless husband who doesn't understand that he's putting all of the mental labor on his wife.

[conuly]

Oh, I know it's a thing. I just can't believe he's saying it at the same time he's saying he's a good husband. In the time he spent writing this letter, he could've looked around and picked up after his relatives.

[cereta]

Sadly, men have absorbed the cultural narrative that anything they do around the house is "helping," as opposed to "doing their share of household labor." I get told ALL the TIME how lucky I am that spouse does laundry and cleaning, and don't get me started on the narrative around him parenting his own child. So, yeah, I am utterly unsurprised that a man could regard himself as a good husband for being willing to clean up messes when he's made aware of them.

[cereta]

Wow, for once, I agree with Amy. LW needs to step up and monitor for messes (as does the child's mother) and not put all the mental labor on his wife. Wife needs to decide what's more important: a relationship with her husband's family or her house being perfectly tidy 24/7/365. It would help if she accepted that the house is going to be messy for the duration of the visit.

If there's one thing being a parent has taught me, it's that as long as nothing is broken or stained (and even sometimes when it is), messes are temporary and inevitable. We cleaned the play room in our house just before a gathering that included another toddler. Between said toddler and my toddler, it looked like a tornado had hit about an hour into the gathering. But it wasn't that hard to toss toys back into the toy chest the next day. If I'd spent the whole time putting stuff away as soon as they left it on the floor, yeah, I'd have been flustered and miserable. Instead, I just let things happen and dealt with it later.

Maybe Wife can't do that. If that's the case, then visits need to be much, much shorter, and yes, she needs to be able to leave during them.

[green_grrl]

Two weeks of houseguests, including a three kids, one of them 3yo? In a recently acquired new home? It sounds like “I invited my sister and her three kids to stay with us for the next two weeks” really was “I.” Of course the poor woman is snapping.

And WTH does it have to do with anything that he enjoys visiting his in-laws? Him visiting his in-laws doesn’t have anything to do with his wife having to be cooped up with three mini tornadoes for two weeks in what had been her happy, new sanctuary.

[raine]

Exactly!

[minoanmiss]

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, dude. Your family is likely not equivalent to her family : being Foreigners You Tolerate is not the same as being three years old.

And learn to see and clean up a mess without your wife having to be your task-setting supervisor.

[ex_flameandsong751]

"Let me know if the house is messy, k?"

...how do you not know what a mess looks like, LW

[malkingrey]

To be fair, one person's intolerably messy is often another person's merely a bit untidy, and if those two people are living together, there's going to have to be some compromise on the part of the neater person.

[ex_flameandsong751]

To be fair, one person's intolerably messy is often another person's merely a bit untidy

You have a very good point.