My husband and I are newly married (less than a year) and when we moved in together, we agreed on a division of labor. He loves to cook so he cooks and takes care of the kitchen, we do our own laundry, we split doing bathrooms, and I vacuum / tidy / and wipe down non-kitchen surfaces daily because we have three doggos. IYKYK. For anything else like taking out the trash, we have a “if it bothers you, you do it” attitude which might be important for later.
Last week, my work was really stressful and I skimped on the vacuuming. NBD until the weekend when I found a dog hair in my food. I mean, I know where it came from but ew. I made it clear I knew it wasn’t his fault, and this really motivated me to stick to my nightly routine of vacuuming and wiping down surfaces. I also added in a quick pass of the kitchen.
Hubs usually plays video games with his friends while I’m doing my nightly cleaning routine, and last night he came out of the office and saw me wiping down a few places in the kitchen and was confused as to why I was cleaning it and asked me if I was bothered by the way he left it. I told him he did a great job, I was just spot checking and doing an extra pass since I didn’t want to find another dog hair in my food. This is where he gets really defensive and tells me he takes a lot of pride in his food and the quality of it. I said I wasn’t criticizing him for being in charge of cooking, I loved that about him, and pointed out that we live in a house with three dogs and two adults so pet hair is a thing we live with and I’m happy to help keep it to a minimum. He said it felt like it was manipulative to clean right after he cleaned and that’s when I told him I had been making the pass in the kitchen for almost a week now and if I wanted to be manipulative about it, I would have mentioned it sooner. This made him really mad and he said he’d add a spot check to his desk (that I clean) to his list of house labor.
This is when I told him he should know manipulation wasn’t my intention, I like a clean house, and his ego is not my problem.
I thought this would be over by now, but today he didn’t cook dinner and when I asked if we were eating together or if I should make myself something, he said he didn’t want to cook until after I made a quick pass through the kitchen. I don’t think I’ve ever offended him before, so now I’m wondering if I actually am the wrong?