My wife is the only woman I’ve lived with who behaves this way. I’ve lived with my mom, my aunts, my sisters and even women I dated before I met my wife. No one behaves the way my wife does when it comes to housekeeping. You may ask if I didn’t see it while dating and I will tell you I didn’t get even a glimpse of it.
We have only two children who are four and two years old. They keep themselves busy without much trouble yet my wife can’t keep our house neat. There’s often food left out in the kitchen. Dishes would be left in the sink overnight. When I travel for a few days, I would return to see days old dishes in the sink.
As if that’s not disgusting enough, she would leave dirty diapers sitting around the hall or tucked somewhere in the kitchen. You tell her and she will say, “Oh I was about to dispose of them ooo.”
It’s hard for me to handle. I’m wired the opposite way. I need cleanliness and order for me to function well and this environment we are in now makes my skin crawl.
Every weekend turns into a marathon of cleaning and laundry for me. I will scrub, mop, wash, and keep every item where it belongs but before we start a new week, everything would be back to default. Come to our bedroom and see the mess. Clothes she had worn have taken over the chairs and even our bed. You’ll see a bra hanging on the sofa and a wig lying on the center table.
I’m exhausted, and honestly, part of me feels like walking away or renting a new place for myself where she would be banned from entering. Whenever we have conversation about cleanliness, I’m the one she calls names. I become the one whose standard of cleanliness is too high even goods of hygiene can’t match. She would cast insinuations and make me feel bad for talking about something basic as cleanliness and order.
You should enter her car and you’ll feel you’re sitting in a trotro that hasn’t been cleaned after a day’s work. Plantain chips on the seat, looking ancient and miserable. Yoghurt wrapper lying somewhere on the floor. Empty water bottles everywhere. You ask her to take it to the washing bay and she would tell you it’s too expensive.
After six years of marriage, I think I’m sick and tired of it all. The excuses never stopped and she seemed to suggest I should learn to live with it like that. What can I do to turn things around? Is there a school where married women are taught to clean after themselves?