I (44M) spent four hours deep cleaning parts of our home last week. My wife was at work and I was off, so I decided to clean around the house.
After sweeping, I mopped our tile floor. I had a visitor, so I had left the items moved out of the area to another room. While we were in my basement talking, my wife (41F) had come home from work. After I saw my visitor out, she asked me why were all the items moved off the tile. I replied that I had mopped.
Now, we have been going to counseling- and I was already preparing for the worst (our counselor uses Gottman methods and I knew I was starting to have negative sentiment override) so I took a breath and just heard her out.
She replied that she thought I was mopping. Then she said “You missed a spot.” I didn’t know what to say. I just put the stuff back up, I didn’t know how to take it.
Later that evening, I told her how what she said made me feel totally feel like crap. Her reply was along the lines of “I’m sorry- but when you do that stuff it makes me feel bad”. She decided to sleep in another room that night.
To be honest, our marriage has been rocky for a while, and we have been seeing a counselor for nearly a year. I am hoping that maybe some outside perspective can help me evaluate the entire situation.
36 comments
I would be pissed and definitely feel underappreciated if my spouse said this to me after cleaning all day. I don’t understand why SHE was the mad one and slept in another room. It’s almost as if she was punishing you for saying something about your feelings. Back to counseling. My husband’s first thought is always something negative too. He’s trying to work on it by saying something positive first but it’s hard.
Sounds like this is something to discuss with your marriage counselor. Good luck.
>but when you do that stuff it makes me feel bad
Why? Is she guilty for not helping clean?
Yeah that shit pisses me off my woman does the same thing I also do 99% of all the cooking and she will sit there and tell me how to cook . And I cook way better than she ever has . I get so mad sometimes I just look at her and say the. You can come and do it be my guest .
You communicated in a civil way of how you felt over her comment and her response was to comeback with another snarky comment and sleep in a separate bed, over cleaning the floors? Why didn’t she open up or communicate about “what else makes her feel bad” instead of just shutting down and sleeping in another bed, that doesn’t seem like moving forward and childish (I’m not against sleeping in separate beds to calm down, but this situation seems trivial of her). If something as minimal as this is setting her off and you’re the only one who’s taking initiative from counseling, why else are you staying together?
Did you ask her what her intentions were in saying “You missed a spot”?
Im sorry, but when you do that stuff, it makes me feel bad?
What was she referring to? You cleaning or you telling her her comment was hurtful?
To be honest, it looks like you’re just supporting some therapist in a really good life out of the kindness of your heart.
Your wife pretty much got offended that you mopped the floor, and instead of saying it looks good, she decided to be mean and tell you that you missed a spot. And then, to teach you a lesson for trying to communicate with her, she slept in another room.
What’s that saying, beating a dead horse?
She was as trying to cut you down to make herself feel less inadequate. She knew the floor was dirty and you had left it because she wants to be more involved in the process. Which is a lie, she doesn’t want to clean, she wants to complain about not cleaning.
If your virtues become vices that mean she can be the victim. You’re to neat, too orderly, too clean, and you talk to her calmly which left her no ammunition so she ran. That’s why she slept by herself. I think it’s called DARVO.
Never stop saying please and thank you to your partner.
when you clean, your wife interprets it as a passive aggressive insult. she’s very aware she could have and should have cleaned the mess, and she is mad at herself for not cleaning it, so she assumes you’re cleaning it because you’re mad at her, so she insults you- in her mind, she’s firing back.
of course, you haven’t actually insulted her, and you don’t actually care that you had to clean the mess, so all she’s done is shit on you for being a good partner.
>we have been seeing a counselor for nearly a year.
I am a big believer in marriage counseling, but sometimes counseling is helpful to get people to the point of realizing what’s broken isn’t getting fixed, and walking away as amicably as possible.
What is it you are looking for when you complete a task? A thank you? You could tell her you need to hear some appreciation. Criticisms & commentary are fine (*you missed a spot)*, but they are heard better after a positive reaffirming statement (*thank you so much for your hard work! There’s a corner that needs some help- I’ll fix it, etc. etc.*) and the information hits differently. Tone goes a long way.
If this is someplace you’ve both been before and it keeps happening anyway even after honest communication about both your needs, you may be getting your answer.
This is 100% a her problem. She feels guilty because she’s slacking on cleaning, so she has to tear your efforts down to make herself feel better. Even worse, she withdraws affection from you, to punish you for making her feel bad. She’s also not taking ownership or personal responsibility for any of her actions, or inactions. It’s absolutely not fair of her blame-shift all her internal negativity on to you to “own”.
Ask your counsellor how to set your own boundaries about what treatment you will accept from her. “You missed a spot” give me a break – she missed ALL the spots when she chose not to mop the tile floor either, for several weeks. Totally unacceptable thing for her to say, to look for the 1% failure, so she can binary your efforts into the “failure” checkbox instead of expressing gratitude that the chore was 99% complete. And it’s a floor. It’s dirty again the second you put the mop away.
It’s exhausting living with someone like this. I’m sorry.
If you doing stuff makes her feel bad, then she can easily fix that by helping you with the house. It’s that simple.
However, your wife has decided that being a snarky toddler is the way forward.
Until she can take responsibility for herself and stop with the passive aggressive remarks, your marriage is going to stay rocky. I personally could not handle being married to someone who can dismiss their spouse’s feelings so easily. It’s disrespectful and selfish.
this isn’t about the cleaning.
what prompted the counselling?
What has counselling achieved in your relationship? Any last changes or improvements? A year is long enough to be seeing some progress.
If you’re not, that could mean it might be time for a different therapist, a different type of therapy, or that both of you aren’t putting in equal effort to become the partners you both deserve.
17 years is a long time to get accustomed to someone’s attitudes. Did you react poorly to her lack of cleaning in the past? Is she expecting you to feel the way that you used to, when now you’re feeling something totally different? You’re allowed to grow and change. It’s an important part of growing old. There’s going to be bumps and growing pains, so it needs to be Us. Vs. The problem, not me vs. you.
How openly are you communicating with her? How deeply do you express your feelings? Do you share emotional intimacy?
It sounds like you want this to work out, the only way to do that is to have the hard conversations, to discuss big feelings. To honour your needs and voice them openly.
You deserve a soft life full of love. You are worthy. I hope things get easier for you soon.
Passive aggressive response and then she turns the situation to make it about her. Doesn’t sound like a good partnership to me.
If that her responce, tell her if she doesn’t appericate it she can do it herself.
Umm your wife is a bitch
If she feels bad because she doesn’t do enough, then she should do more. It’s not your problem to regulate her emotional well being. Therapy may help, but at some point she simply has to take responsibility for her own emotions, there’s only so much you can do.
Waiting for weeks to mop your floor because you’re afraid that doing so will upset someone is absolutely bonkers to me.
Absolutely bring this up in therapy. She does not get to be mad, cut you down then storm off into another room and not answer any questions and think it’s resolved by a hug. WTF she’s not 5. 🤦♀️
Actually I take that last comment back. Even my kindergartener knew better than that.
If she “feels bad” about you doing chores then make a list for each of you with set dates or days it’s to be done by. If it’s not getting done then tell her in therapy she’s not pulling her weight and you don’t want to live in a dirty house so she needs to relent or get it done. Essentially put up or shut up. (Saying this bc you mentioned it had been several weeks since one of the items you were doing had been done)
So did you move all the stuff and then mop the floor, then not finish the job until she got home? Also, when she said you missed a spot, was it because you had and the job wasn’t finished.
I ask cos there’s a few things that could be happening here. One of which is she was annoyed you’d half done a job and not finished it but we’re expecting a pat on the back. I’m wondering if this is possible?
I don’t really understand the feeling bad bit.
Ask your self why am I still married? Ask yourself, would either of us be happier if we were bo longer married?
As much as I want to provide a positive view of this, as someone that has been in a rocky relationship where communication was our biggest issue, sometimes the talking it out can only do so much – there may be so much history woven into everything that some of these obstacles may not be something you can overcome (which was a lot of the case for me). I truly wish and hope you can, but just remember that there comes a point where ‘making it work’ does not work anymore. I know that is a large chunk of your life, but you only get so much time on this earth and if you are both unhappy, you should have a really honest and hard conversation about what you want from each other and if you are going to be able to provide that. Starting over at 40 sounds so daunting, but imagine how much happier you could be.
Hmm. You have been married a long time. Thinking outside of this exact situation. I know that resentments, stonewalling, criticism, defensiveness happens when people arent happy and obviously that’s probably a big reason as to why youre in couples therapy. (no judgements, that was my marriage but were divorced now)
Was your wife always the one who cleaned up earlier in the marriage? And are the kids grown/out of the house? Did she never clean before? Did you never clean before? Just trying to think about why she would say that after you cleaned. Just seems hurtful and I am curious why. There is probably more to it, but this situation is just what made it “bubble to the surface.”
What did you want from her and why do you think cleaning your own house is a favor to her?
Leave her. This is ridiculous. If your marriage has gotten to a point where you can’t even do some cleaning without hurting each other’s feelings, then it is most likely beyond repair. You will both be a lot happier, not having to navigate that minefield every waking moment.
Honestly. Your wasting money going to therapy. She’s checked out.
Maybe you should consider a trial separation. Maybe it could help you find your next path? Be it come back together or it being the end of the relationship.
Can I ask why did you do this? Did you do it simply as desire to have a clean home, or did you do it so you could one up your wife and use it against her at some later date? See my ex used to do stuff like this. I distinctly remember one time he deep cleaned the entire upstairs which I thanked him for, but never asked him to do, and quite frankly did not need to be done. Then when I asked him a few days later if he could pick me up at the airport he threw in my face that he had deep cleaned the upstairs so he did not have to pick me up. If your wife feels like you do this things only to later hold them against her or make yourself look like the “better” person despite failing in other areas of the relationship I can see why she reacted that way.
Honestly devoid of any other context its feels a little unwinnable for you OP.
If her response to her feelings about you doing chores is to nitpick and be rude it also seems like to further punish you for expressing yourself.
I used to clean up the house when my partner would visit her mom. Floors, kitchen counters, bathrooms, getting through all the laundry.
She’d arrive home and look around and then start acting annoyed. The place looked ‘fine’.
In therapy she claimed that I was trying to embarrass her, by being the sole income earner and still doing all the chores. I was trying to respond to the countless complaints of me never helping.
Turned out she was having an affair and she was just trying to make my life so miserable that I would leave and so every time she saw me proud that I had cleaned the house it pissed her off because it was *’back to square one’.*
>Later that evening, I told her how what she said made me feel totally feel like crap. Her reply was along the lines of “I’m sorry- but when you do that stuff it makes me feel bad”. She decided to sleep in another room that night.
On the small amount of detail, she feels guilty, lashes out like a child, responds to criticism of said lash out even worse.
I am not sure when people stop going to couples therapy but IMO a year is just way too long unless it’s once every other month. Life isn’t this complicated.
Sounds like a self esteem issue on her part, not a communication issue…you both communicated with each other clearly.
If she’s not doing her own therapy to work on her own issues, it’s time to go…
I’d tell her if she feels she isn’t doing enough that she should do more. And if she feels bad she isn’t doing enough, she doesn’t need to criticize you for picking up her slack.
I really want to comment but 250+ comments in I don’t think you will read mine.
I actually know your situation. And I can’t advise to anything.
8 years ago my son was about to go to school. Where I’m from, this is a really big deal. I invited my immediate family and all of my hubbies kin. At the end, about 20 persons were to attend, 2/3rd from my side. Knowing the expectations from my mom, I deep-cleaned our apartment.
I cleaned everything. Just everything. I’m good at cleaning, I have THE eye for it.
My mom turns up on my boy’s special day and instead of a greeting, she stated: Well, you cleaned everything except the dirt.
My wife and I have the same dynamic. I try and help out with chores, and it makes her feel like she is not doing enough, so she criticizes. If I don’t try and help out she will feel overwhelmed.
The trick is not to take it personally. What worked for us is a more defined division of labor. I will do floors, bathroom, pots/pans and yard work. If I see her falling behind on her stuff, I let her get to it on her own time. If it bothers me, I will always ask if she would like a hand before touching anything.
Its helped a bit.