UPDATE: Professional maid service costs $300/month, but saves a couple's marriage: 'Weekends are actually relaxing now'

Turns out, a maid was all they needed to save their rocky marriage.

Chores are often a weak point in a marriage. After years of partnership, and despite our best efforts, sometimes couples struggle to get their significant other to perform their weekly duties as expected. Cleaning the house is more work than you'd usually expect, and on top of the other pressures of life, like paying the bills, doing the laundry, and shoveling the snow out of the driveway, cleaning sometimes takes a backseat on the priority list. Especially when your relationship has discrepancies in cleanliness standards, this can lead to long-standing rifts between two people, tearing apart the household, one dust bunny at a time.

My least favorite chore has to be laundry. Endlessly piling up, laundry demands a lot of time, effort, and folding skills to accomplish. Frankly, in the increasingly busy times of our age, I've been starting to understand why celebrities and the uber-rich folks in society just buy new clothes instead of washing the old ones. However, many adult chores would have merited at least an allowance back in our childhood years, but now garnish nothing but guilt and stress. Cleaning the tub, scrubbing the bathroom, scaling the water heater, and raking the leaves are just a few of the annoyances that are constantly requiring our attention.

If only there were some way to get those things done without lifting a finger?

"Eureka!" a tired couple cried! After several years of marriage, this duo found that the touchiest touch point in their relationship revolved around the chores. Stressed out by cleaning on the weekends and pressuring one another to maintain a pristine house, the dirtiest of chores brought out the worst in both of them, threatening to dismantle their marital foundation.

It had never occurred to them that they could simply hire a service to clean their house, because they weren't born in that kind of tax bracket, but after realizing that they were spending hundreds of dollars on stress-driven takeout meals post-deep-cleaning, they decided to put that money towards another endeavor: Professional cleaners. Now their house is crisp and clean at all times, they never get stressed about chores, and they've finally found a way to relax and recharge on the weekend. Finally, a marriage story that has a happy ending, and a sparkling clean kitchen counter.

Best money they ever spent.