Well, you say there are other (bigger?) issues too, so maybe this is just his way of avoiding a more "serious" issue but still addressing his grievances.
IDK if this will help, but we have the opposite "issue" with housecleaning. I'm a terrible housekeeper, and DH doesn't clean at all until things get really ugly, but even then he's not very thorough. He's more of an "appearance of neatness" freak than a clean freak. I'm all about avoiding dealing with clutter. To the point where I'll pick up the pile of mail, clean underneath it, and put it back. So he's neat/not necessarily clean, and I'm clean/not neat.
He has FITS about the mess sometimes. He says it's a level of respect and that I'm disrespecting him by not being a better housecleaner b/c he works hard to pay the mortgage and I should be honoring that. I don't disagree. But he COULD help his own dishes find their way into the dishwasher, or even into the kitchen now and then if it's really THAT important to him. He's not setting a very good example, KWIM?
So maybe it would help your hubby to know there are people out there with the opposite issue, and that my DH, for one, would LOVE a wife who spent as much time (and more) cleaning the house.
FWIW, you don't spend much time at all, and I'm impressed you get it done so quickly! But maybe things would go faster around here if there wasn't so much clutter...
