I am the breadwinner, my wife is a stay-at-home wife. We have 3 kids so the house is a little too messy oftentimes. My wife does her best to keep up with the cleaning and keeping the house tidy and I feel for her, I really do so I told her she doesn’t have to clean up all the time since the kids are running up and down all day and making huge messes, I did tell her that she only has to make sure the house is clean when we have guests over and she agreed with me.
Well, the other day I brought over some friends from work and when I opened the door all I could see was an utter mess, food and toys and clutter everywhere. I was shocked I was embarrassed and just mortified that my friends saw my home looking like this. Also I have a couple of guys who came over for the first time so the first impression must’ve been horrible to them.
I took the guests into the least messy part of the house and my friends kept giving me weird looks and making indirect comments about the state of home.
I was livid, I waited till they left then went into the bedroom to see that my wife was actually sleeping, I woke her up to ask why she didn’t tidy up the house knowing I was going to bring friends over. She said she didn’t know but I sent her a text letting her know and she said she didn’t see it. I told her it seemed like she did see the text but decided to ignore it? She said no but she wasn’t feeling well and had a headache so she thought of getting an hour long nap. I told her that it was so so embarrassing that the house looked like this when my friends came over and that this was avoidable had she cleaned up and prepared the house for the guests.
She argued that first of all, the kids are the ones causing this mess and second of all, it was my fault for not checking twice with her and making sure the house was ready for guests. I thought that was ridiculous because she was basically blaming me for her own actions (or lack of) which I didn’t appreciate so much. I told her it was embarrassing and yes she gets part of the blame for the house looking like a complete mess and being out of control like that. She called me a jerk then walked out of the room and avoided speaking to me about it insisting that I’m the one at fault in this situation.
Am I?
I feel like more relevant context is needed here so 1. The reason I only texted was that this is our usual way of communication so it seemed unusual that she didn’t check her phone for any texts.
My kids are under 10 and my oldest is basically glued to her tablet and does nothing to help out.
My wife and I rarely argue about the guests coming over since we would at least have the living room ready any time someone shows up.
