r/relationships - My (32/m) wife's (30/f) cleaning habits/expectations are causing a big strain on the marriage. How do I fix this?

"I work 8-6 everyday. I get home by 6:30 most days. Cleaning during the week really isn't at the top of my list. Eating, playing with my son, and winding down are."

Who does dinner clean up and dishes every night? If it's your wife, a good compromise might be you taking on that responsibility. Kitchen clean up takes about 30 minutes per night, assuming you have a dishwasher. You'll be contributing regularly and taking an everyday task off her to-do list. Cleaning during the week isn't at the top of anyone's list tbh, but we all need to do it.

live like you would if you were about to sell your house

Me and my husband rarely fight but if we do, it's usually about chores (so luckily nothing more serious). Before we lived together, he was one of the most messiest men I had ever met. In fact, before we were dating and were just friends, I was attracted to him but thought that I simply couldn't date such a messy guy because I have quite high standard in terms of cleanliness.
Anyway, before dating, we became roommates first because due to certain circumstances I had to quickly find a new place and he offered I could move to his place. When I moved in, I had to do quite a lot of cleaning so that 1) I could somehow live there and 2) that my stuff would fit in there cause it was quite a small apartment. Surprisingly, I absolutely loved living with him and we began dating shortly afterwards.
After some months we then moved into our current, bigger apartment. Every now and then we fought about the topic of chores and his messiness because to me he just seemed very lazy: leaving stuff lying around instead of putting it back to where it belonged / to the trash, vacuuming here and there but not under the beds/couches etc., doing the dishes but leaving water splashes all over the kitchen.
Well, we've had quite a few serious discussions about this and we've concluded that he's something I'd call 'mess-blind'. He can't see mess the way I see mess. Also he doesn't care if it's a bit messy. However, because I work from home most of the time, I care quite a lot.
So how have we tried to solve this issue? Some time ago we agreed that before we go to bed, he always cleans the kitchen so that when I go there in the morning to make breakfast, it's nice and clean and I don't have to start my day with cleaning. That already worked pretty well. We also established cleaning days, when we clean the house in 1-2 hours together, me delegating tasks for him and doing the rest myself. What was especially nice was that he was extremely willing to change his habits and would do pretty much anything to make me happy. I really appreciate that.

To make things even clearer and so that I wouldn't constantly feel as if I was just giving orders to him, we finally created a list of all the house chores, who should be the main person responsible for them, and how often each chore has to be done. As in "cleaning the kitchen: every day" or "cleaning the windows: 1-2 times a year." I think he now has a notification on his phone for weekly or monthly stuff and I have a feeling that stuff will get cleaned without me mentioning it. Fingers crossed!
So I guess essentially messy people can learn to be clean(er) but it needs their willingness and effort. If they don't want to change or understand why it is so important to you, then I don't think there's much you can do unfortunately.