I hope you can convince her. Honestly, I was depressed as a SAHM. Hard to admit that because you're supposed to be so in love with the job. The house is cleaner and better organized in spite of less time because I have more pep and motivation. There is something else in my day I'm going to be doing BESIDES clean house, do laundry, discipline children, etc.
It was hard to get motivated to do what needed to be done to go back to work. The evil cycle of depression. No energy or motivation to do what needs to be done.
Maybe you and the W need to have a serious talk then? There is no reason why the kids can't keep up their own property upkeep. Somebody has to make them keep to the business of everyday cleaning.
Several years ago I lived with one of my best friends (after her divorce). We experienced a similar problem with the kids not picking up, not cleaning up etc. This is what we did that worked for us....it can be costly, but it worked. Every now and then (once a week or so) we would go through the house and pick up everything that belonged to the kids that was obviously not put away or where it should be...dump it all in in the middle of the living room, then tell the kids they had 15 minutes to get it picked up and put away where it belonged...or it was gone! This really worked well for us. We only had to do this a few times before we began to see results, and it's amazing the improvement it made when the kids lost a few of their treasures.
Naturally we didn't permanently get rid of some of the costlier items (but they didn't know that.) There were some things though that they did lose that really made an impact...and every now and then they had to re-do homework (rarely, but there was a few times.)
This really did help to get the kids to understand that we meant what we said. I wasn't their mom of course, but they had to respect me too since I was the responsible adult in the home at night (she worked nights).
I know some people might view what we did as drastic and/or mean...but sometimes you have to take drastic measures to get people to take you seriously.
This really did work for us. I fully intend to implement this with my kids (of which I only have one right now) as they get older, if this is a problem for me. IT WORKED!
I went for long periods of time trying to get my son to take care of his things. I remember one time we went round and round for weeks about the state of his room. He had trash and clothes and his belongings all over the place. When told to clean it up, all he did was move it around and stuff things in drawers, including dirty clothes. I finally got really tired of it. I went into his room took everything that was all over the place and dumped it in a big pile in the middle of his room and told him to now clean it up. It took him all day but he did clean. Years later I picked him up from the house where he lived with 2 other guys and the house was not a total mess but it was not too well kept. When entering his private room what I found almost shocked me. It was the most clean, well kept room I had seen for a young man. He just hugged me and said, "See Mom, you taught me one thing" I beamed with pride.
Choc, I know what you are saying in that W will take it as a personal affront if you get involved with the kids discipline but if it is affecting EVERYONE'S quality of life (the lack of order) then it is time for someone to take a stand. They will all thank you in the end.
I think they are never too old to be shown that their parent loves them enough to not allow them to behave like turds. Trashing perfectly good things and refusing to pick up after themselves is turd-ish but not the end of the world. I even read an article one time that cited a study that showed that children have prefer order to chaos, even if they are the ones creating the chaos, lol.
As NOPkins says, be the man of the hour and take a stand. Sure, everyone will fight you at first, but there will also come a begrudging acceptance, eventually.
I sympathize with your wife. It is a hard row to hoe, this SAHM gig, but you can help her be successful (or to increase her current success) and improve her self image by taking charge of the areas in which she may be weaker.
I have tried this, but -- like the SSM ultimatums -- you can't offer something that you're not willing to back up with action. My wife simply isn't willing to follow thru.
This affects every area of our lives. DD18 is CONSTATLY late to things, and can hold up the whole family waiting for her to finish her make-up, do her hair, etc. My position is "you have five minutes, and then we're leaving," and then I'm prepared to DO it. My wife simply won't, DD knows she won't, and thus the bad habit continues.
I have no doubt I could run the household this way, and while it would be 30 days of sheer hell, it would then improve. But as she has said, this is "her job," and feels it's her responsibility to do it effectively. My attempts and imposing some sort of solution have ended up looking like criticism and meddling, and she then feels even more ineffective and depressed.
but he did clean. Years later I picked him up from the house where he lived with 2 other guys and the house was not a total mess but it was not too well kept. When entering his private room what I found almost shocked me. It was the most clean, well kept room I had seen for a young man. He just hugged me and said, "See Mom, you taught me one thing" I beamed with pride.