When Love Smells Like Pinsol

The majority of married couples report that their biggest source of tension is money.

DH and I have never once in our marriage argued about money.  

We don’t have much of it to argue about, and DH doesn’t really care what happens with what we do have. 


For a man who’s biggest expenditures are when I force him to buy a new pair of combat boots, there’s not a lot to fight about.

That’s not to say DH and I don’t do our share of fighting uselessly about crap that doesn’t really matter.  Our biggest battle is just a little different.

Cleaning.

Dh lived with his parents until he joined the army as a teenager. His super clean mom may be the definition of perfect military wife, I like to call her the definition of unreasonably high expectations.  She keeps an impeccable home.  Sparkling floors and daily vacuuming (sometimes more than once), windows always washed, everything constantly dusted and even that little cupboard under the sink is clean and organized all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother in law, she’s the perfect military mom to have because she’s been where we are and she knows the best ways to be supportive. I just can’t compete woth her house. I don’t even try.  


Thing is, Dh he joined the army and shortly thereafter married and moved in with me.

I am not dirty, but I am no clean freak.   When we were first married he would go away often and our little house would go to ruin.  I would keep it clean enough, but definitely not tidy. If I’m busy, I can do things like live out of the clean laundry bin without ever putting it away.

 I like to think being flexible like that is a gift.

DH did not agree.

  And many times we would be loudly arguing while he was sweeping, bed making or doing some other chore that he felt was important and couldn’t understand why I didn’t.

And oh, did we fight.  I would get all self-righteous about it not being ‘my’ job, even though in reality I was the one home all day, and he would get all frustrated that he would have to come home and do it himself.  Then I would argue it was him that cared if it was done and not me, and he would stomp off in a huff that I didn’t care enough to do it for him. 

Eventually, he mellowed. But I changed, too.  As the haze of sleepless nights, crying babies and angry toddlers lifted, I was more inclined to make beds and actually put away folded laundry.  I feel like I take a little more pride in the state of my home, and I keep it presentable…. most of the time at least.  I guarantee nothing if you stop by unexpectedly. 

Most of all, I realized that DH felt respected when I did a few, specific things each day that showed pride in our home and our life together.  He wasn’t expecting me to scrub floors when I was nursing sick kids or  wash walls while trying to keep toddlers from killing themselves.

He just needed, deep down somewhere, for me to sweep floors and wipe counters and do other little things that might not be important to me, but were to him.  And around the point in my marriage when I realized it wasn’t all about me, I also realized that was not a bad compromise.

So we reached our happy medium, cleaning wise. All was good in the relatively tidy home of ours.

Then a few years ago a friend started selling antibacterial, chemical free cleaning products, and I stocked up.  I liked the idea, it was easy and I helped support a friend’s business.  The house was still being cleaned, but it didn’t smell like anything.  Other than a little vinegar here and there,  there was just the fancy antibac clothes and no cleaning product there to help it smell clean.

While DH never complained, he seemed less enthusiastic about the house. For years I cleaned that way and he said nothing, but I could tell he didn’t much like it.  I tried to convince him, showed him how clean things were and how it didn’t need to smell to be clean.  I argued and reasoned and tried to convince him that it was completely irrational that a fake fruit smell equated clean.  That natural cleaning products were better for us.  I knew I was right, and I was stubborn about being right, even when it was something dumb. I didn’t care about it even a little.  I cared about being right.  

DH learned to get used to it.
And life went on.

Then the other day our dog brought home a few fleas from a farm, and I went a little crazy with the cleaning.  Everything had to be washed, sprayed, scrubbed.  Half a dozen loads of blankets, carpets and bedding in the washing machine.  Curtains and couches with every last crevice vacuumed.  Floors and baseboards washed.

For this cleaning, I called out the big guns.  I took a Costco sized bottle of Pinesol and went to work.

When DH came home that evening, his whole face lit up when he walked in the room.  It smelled clean.  I know that in reality, it smelled like slightly toxic chemicals, but to DH, his house smelled clean.  He loved it.  Just watching him come inside and look around beaming I realized something.

A clean house is his love language.  And Pinsol is the way to communicate it.

When such a small change wouldn’t hurt me in the slightest, why did I feel the need to refuse to make it.  The best way is not necessarily going to be the way that proves I am right.  Sometimes, the best way is the way where I do something else for someone because it means more to them than it does to me.

Choosing to replace the cloths with the big bottle of a run-of-the-mill household cleaner and a cleaning rag wasn’t abandoning a cause. I still like those natural products and there are other ways I could still use them.

The truth is, making my house smell like ‘clean’, it’s not giving up anything.
It’s gaining a grateful husband who cares more about the ‘smell’ of clean than I ever will.

It’s love.

Doing something not because he makes me, because obviously he does not, but because it makes him happy.

Sometimes, love is hard choices, desperate tears and furious anger.  Sometimes it is hard work and sleepless nights.

But sometimes, sometime love is as easy as the whiff of artificial lemon scent when you open the front door.

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