I asked h to tidy his office this weekend. He’s so untidy – his office is full of crap. He has to step over stuff to get to the door. We have two garages and they’re both full of his crap. He never sees mess or suggest tidying anything – I always have to nag him into doing it.
Anyway, he was looking for spare xmas tree light bulbs today in a small drawer and found some of my old credit cards and random cards (eg garden centre points cards, that sort of thing) that I’d put there to lighten my purse before a holiday a couple of years ago. He started to sort through those and asked which he could throw out. I said, ‘don’t bother about those, they’re mine. I’ll go through them when I’m ready.’
He then got in a huff, saying it was pointless putting them back in the drawer when I didn’t need them and could throw them out. I told him to get lost (OK, maybe I shouldn't have said that, but I was frustrated) and why didn’t he focus on his own stuff? Why throw out something of mine when he has all his own stuff to tidy?
He’s been in a sulk since, saying I was rude and he’s upset. But this is clear to me: he was wrong. The cards were doing no harm in a drawer. Why didn’t he tidy his own stuff away instead of focusing on mine, that wasn’t even in his way??
I can honestly count on one hand the number of times in 20 years he’s thought about tidying anything.