Is it normal that... I am hiding my cleaner from my husband?

This wife is keeping a silly secret from her husband, but it’s recently taken on a life of its own. Should she come clean?

Her name is Marie and I love her.

Hi. You don’t know me. I’m a completely ordinary modern women. I am a mother, a wife and a worker. I eat, I drink. I laugh, I cry. And yet I’m hiding something from my family and it’s starting to make me feel bad.

I have a cleaner who comes to my home once a week while my husband and I are at work, while the kids are in school, while there are no witnesses around. Because I’m ashamed to have a cleaner. There’s really no excuse for me to have one.

My work is only part time, I’m home a lot, I have all the cleaning products – toilet duck, chux, a broom, a mop.

I’m not injured. I’m not impaired in anyway. I just hate cleaning. I hate it with a passion. To mean, cleaning is a huge, gigantic waste of time. Everything just gets dirty again.

I was the dishes after meals and I sweep the floors. I pick toys up off the floor and do my laundry. But I just can’t bring myself to

Now before you start assuring me that having a weekly cleaner isn't anything to be ashamed of, I might need to give  you a bit of a back story.

When I met my husband he was living with a friend and I was still at home with my family. When he first invited me over his unit was stunning. It was simple, clean, tidy and stylish. It turns out he's a clean freak and I quickly realised I'd have to start prioritising cleaning.

It wasn't too long before we decided to move in together.

Except I can't seem to bring myself to do it. So, every Wednesday Marie comes and does it for me.

I didn't mean to hide it from him. It's just that there was no need to tell him. He'd never know and it's not that I couldn't do it if I wanted to.

My first sign I might have a problem was six months ago when my husband had to take a sick day. Usually I have plenty of time to cancel Marie's visits ahead of holidays he'll be home, but this was so last minute that I couldn't get through to her.

I had to wait out the front and tell her in person. I felt terrible. I paid her anyway, because she'd come all that way. Little did I know that my husband happened to glance out the window and see me talking to a woman he's never seen before and he saw me hand her money.

He asked me who she was when I came back inside and I lied. I should have just told him. Instead I said she was collecting donations for starving children.

I'm an idiot. I'm liar. But now that I've lied, fessing up is that much harder.

Look, I'd rather disappoint my husband than every not have a weekly cleaner. He has to understand that cleaning isn't for everyone, that I just don't like it. To me, Marie is an angel, sent to me from heaven, holding a toilet brush.

I haven't told anyone else I have a cleaner either, just in case they let it slip at our next family lunch.

Should I come clean to my husband, or is a this a harmless little white lie?