She Says His Cleaning Doesn’t Count… Because He Enjoys It?!

Hey guys, we got a new submission on the website. Actually, this one came through, uh, via Facebook. And, uh, I mentioned deardso.com. That is a website that you can go to and fill out a form online and submit a story or question. And if it's a good one, I'll create a video out of it. But, uh, I often get a lot of messages via social media, like on Facebook, uh, Twitter, or X as it's called, Instagram, TikTok. Just look for Dad Starting Over. On any of those social media apps, channels, whatever the hell you call it, and there is a message function on there, and you can submit a direct message to me. People do it all the time, and this is a good one. This one comes from a lady. Yes, I get messages from ladies every now and then, and they're always good. In this one, I'll call her Jennifer, trying to keep her anonymity here, but she says, "Hi, Ralph." Well, hello, Jennifer. She says, "I watch a lot of your videos and I really like your take on relationships." Wonderful, thank you so much, I appreciate it. She said, "My husband actually first showed me your stuff and we sometimes talk about the subjects that you bring up." Well, how cool. "One topic caused some drama between us." Oh no. "You had a video talking about women who accuse men of doing nothing around the house." Oh boy. You said that you don't see that in your world with you and your friends. You said guys do plenty of housework, and I agree. All right. My husband has always been a better housekeeper than me. That has never been an issue with us, but there's one big reason why he is such a good cleaner. He has OCD parentheses and also ADHD. Uh, let me pause there. For those that don't know, OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Both of those fall under the blanket of neurodivergence or neurodiversity. Also, they share a lot of traits with people that are on the autism spectrum and so forth. I talk about it often because many of the people, or many of the guys rather, who reach out to me, book time with me, join my men's group, help4men.com, go to helpformen.com/join. We call it the Brotherhood. Join the Brotherhood. Um, it's a private support community for men. Um, a lot of the guys, like a disproportionate large number of men, are neurodivergent. Sounds like hubby here is a part of the club, hence probably why he watches my stuff. Um, he obsesses over cleanliness in the house. I am happy to say that I wake up to a completely spotless kitchen every single morning. Well, that's good, right? There is not a single drop of any kind of dirt anywhere. My friends and family all say that I am the luckiest woman on the planet. In many ways, they are right. He's not just a great cleaner, but he's my best friend in the whole world, and I love being his wife. Oh, that's very sweet. The other day, he shared with me the video you did about wives saying their husbands don't clean, and he said, we don't have that problem in our house. And I said, nope. 'But it doesn't really count.' Oh, oh, Jennifer. He said, 'What do you mean it doesn't count? What doesn't count?' And I said, 'You doing all of the house cleaning, it doesn't count because of your OCD.' Oh, ouch. 'It's not fair to compare that to the guys who do all the cleaning because they are trying to help out more around the house.' He really didn't like me saying that. I can't imagine. He thinks that it doesn't matter, the work gets done. What does it matter if it's because of his OCD? I can see his point, but he can't see mine. What do you think about this? Was what I said that bad? In short, yeah. Um, it's interesting. I'm doing a video on this because this is so, so very interesting, because I hear some semblance of this, believe it believe it or not, a lot from dudes. And I'm trying to— how best to encapsulate this is a lot of men— and this is our, and also my, biased interpretation as a dude, using my dude brain and my prejudice as a dude. My prejudice comes from, uh, talking to so many guys in like your hubby shoes and other guys that, you know, come to me. A lot of neurodivergent dudes, as I mentioned, that come to me asking for help and so forth. Um, so my perspective is colored by all of their experiences and my own personal experience. Okay, with that out of the way, to try and summarize what a lot of us have come to this conclusion is, is that— and I think it applies here— our spouses seem to not really, um, like it if we are not sharing their pain. Maybe that's not the right word. Their stress. Um, like, for example, Uh, this isn't your situation, but follow me here. Let's say you got a gal who works full-time, as most ladies do these days. I don't know if that's true, most ladies do. A lot of ladies work full-time, right? Um, and let's say she has like a blue-collar guy who works 14 hours a day, back-breaking work. He loves what he does though, so he's not unhappy being a bricklayer or something to that effect, but it's, it's hard on his body. And when he comes home, he's filthy, he's exhausted, he just wants to collapse. Dude comes in after a 14-hour day. Wife is, you know, tending to little kids after her 8-hour day. She's really annoyed after being in a house with, you know, a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old after working 8 hours. She's just like, just want to collapse on the couch with a glass of wine and scroll my phone for an hour and just zone out. And here comes Mr. Exhausted in the door. He's filthy, he's tired, he's you know, worked a long 14-hour day, and the first thing he does is just collapse, like, on the kitchen table, puts his stuff up, but he's got a smile on his face, and he's like, you know, "Hey baby, how was your day? How you doing?" And she's, you know, busy scrubbing dishes or something and staring at him as he sits on the kitchen table. And she's just like, looks like she's getting more and more pissed, and he's like, "What's wrong? What is it? What's up with you?" And she's like, "You're just gonna sit there? You see there's things that need to get done." He's like, "Ah." So he gets up and he helps and he does his thing and he's doing all this stuff and he's talking about his day and how good it was and how he loved his work and he did this project for this old lady and she was so happy and the wife's just not happy hearing the happy story because she's very miserable. She does not enjoy her job. She does not enjoy coming home after a full day of work of dealing with a toddler and a 6-year-old and all this other stuff. Hubby's just like, I don't think she's happy unless I am, unless I am experiencing the same level of misery that she is. She won't be happy unless I'm unhappy, is how we— that's how we guys interpret this. Okay, so how does that apply to you? It's like you're saying to him, to hubby, your cleanliness is a byproduct of your disorder. Basically, you're obsessive compulsive, like you can't stand to see a crumb of dirt, so you clean incessantly. I would be happier with you. Maybe that's not fair to say. I would appreciate— that's probably a better thing to say. I would appreciate your work more if I saw that it had an origination of, um, stress, despair, and wanting to genuinely alleviate stress and despair from wife and fix the situation and clean. I want to know that you're suffering right alongside with me. So that's kind of what you're saying, like, dude, all your cleanliness, it's the same motion, it's the same work. The end result is actually probably better than most considering he has OCD. Like, he's like super, super clean. But the fact that there's not a theme of suffering behind it, if you will, there's not a theme of a guy who's like, I'd really rather do anything else but this, but I will do this because I want to help out around the house. I want to see my wife become less stressed and I want to do my part as the partner here, you know, yada yada. No, he does because he has OCD, so therefore it doesn't count. Jennifer, yeah, that's kind of shitty of you. Um, how we see it, we're men, we're much more binary, you know, ones and zeros. Is house clean? Yes. Is it like super, super clean? Yes. Wife, did you have to lift a finger to clean any of it? No. Then shut the fuck up. Sorry, Jennifer, I don't mean to be crass here, but that's, that's how we look at it. Just count your blessings, Jennifer. You have a very good thing. And to throw that in the face of the guy and say it doesn't count because you got a disorder— no, no bueno. I think maybe you need to make dinner for the hubby and say, yeah, sorry about that whole doesn't count thing. I really appreciate all you do, regardless if the origin is your OCD or whatever it is. You do a lot and it's awesome, and you're my babe, and I love you more than anything. Sorry about the whole, eh, doesn't count thing. My bad. And then I guess let them clean up after you in the kitchen. So any of you are watching this, if you can relate to this, that you feel that your wife, your spouse, or long-term girlfriend, whatever it is, doesn't appreciate what it is you're doing because there's not enough suffering behind it. You're not sharing in her anxiety and stress. Can you relate to that? Does that sound familiar to you? I know it does to me. All right guys, thank you for watching. I appreciate it. And again, if you want to submit a story or question, dearDSO.com. And if you're a dude and you would like to join other dudes much like yourself that need help— we all need help, you know, you're not weak for needing help and wanting help— check out the community, help4men.com/join. Help4men.com/join. Or just go to Help for Men and look for the link to the Brotherhood. That's our private community for men only. I'm pushing it because Man, we're growing at a pretty good pace. We got some really big things coming, including BroFest 2026 with some special guests lined up. Just gonna put that little teaser out there for you guys. All right, thank you for watching, guys. I appreciate it.