To not understand why the tidy person is always 'right'

[SEmyarse]

I'm a scruff. Maybe that's a bad thing, I don't know, but that's how it is.
Dh likes things neat and tidy, and that's fine too. He's the majority stay at home parent so mostly things go his way.

I find it very very difficult to give a stuff what the house looks like, but I really do try not to impact others. So I never leave washing up long enough that it will impact someone else being able to use the kitchen for instance, but I may well leave pots for a couple of hours and do them late in the evening or even early the next morning. If he wants my stuff out of the way he only has to say and I will drop everything and get it sorted, but its not usually my way to be right onto it. Mostly dh will sneak into the kitchen and do it himself which makes me feel guilty if its only my mess, but equally I don't like being dictated to that it must be done right then if there's no need.

I like to have stuff around. Dh gets very cross with this and is permanently tidying my stuff. He got very arsey last night that i had left a book I was reading, and some newly opened post on the dining table. So he tidied my book (and lost the page). I was hunting all over for it, and when I found it in the bookcase I was bloody annoyed, I'd only put it down for half an hour. So I had a bit of a moan at him, and he got all 'the dining table is for dining, the bookcase is for books'. I really don't like being dictated to as to how I should use our joint furniture. If I want to use a surface to put stuff on, then I will.

Well, it turned into a bit of a minor row. He thinks no-one should complain since he does all this tidying, but it's unnecessary and not even always wanted. I like to have a bit of stuff around. I'm not talking piles of rubbish, but I do like a few books around, a jumper, some work bits etc, it feels much nicer. i also like the kids to be able to have things around, but they can't bring toys out of their (very small) bedrooms before he starts dropping hints that its time to tidy away. And if they leave drawings etc around he immediately bins them. Sometimes they have been given to me as a gift and I've put them down ready to display and before I've got chance they've been binned.

His argument is that we should compromise, but I already am! When living on my own my house was miles messier than this. He also says that tidy is a good thing. I understand this concept, but I don't think it has to be absolute. As long as things are reasonably clean then I don't think 'super tidy' is any better than 'reasonably tidy' and is just an extra waste of effort, and makes the home feel completely non-homely to me.

The whole point of having stuff about is that it feels homely. I really dislike the feeling when dh has done a huge blitz and it feels like he's expecting the queen to visit. Quite why people are assuming that messy people tolerate tidy more than the other way round is beyond me.

I can do tidy. When I've worked in (small group) care homes I have been the absolute best at following the cleaning rotas, and keeping everything spick and span. I choose not to though because it doesn't feel pleasant in my own home.

The idea of folding my jumper neatly on the arm of a chair makes me feel a bit squirmy for some reason that I can't put my finger on. I can't see any fathomable reason to object to it draping over the back, and folding it in my own front room seems so anal.

Dh always always cleans the house from top to bottom before we go on holiday, and I absolutely hate coming home to it, it just doesn't feel like coming home at all.

My dp is the messy one and I'm the tidier one where I hate paperwork and random stuff lying about etc and do nip dp about tidyness some times but the moment he tries to say DC couldn't have toys played with or left in livingroom a mess i put that idea right out of the window.
Children should have the freedom of playing in their own homes minus my bedroom and kitchen of course.

"but I really object to giving myself arbitrary rules that I have to abide by."

This says a lot to me. There is a lot of I in your posts OP. I agree with treasureisland further up.

I don't think you would bother to put the crap away that you dump down. As you like to have stuff strewn about, you would just leave it so it was lived in, add more to it and it ends up a mess.

I am a tidier, DH is messy. It's a nightmare as I cannot relax at all in a mess and if things aren't put away. He can chuck as much crap as he likes in own wardrobe/drawers/bedside cabinet/side of the sideboard. Plenty of places for him to put his crap but when it is endless amounts of shit just dumped and left, that I know full well will never get moved/thrown away/tidied up, I am the one who has to tidy it (regularly) because it then ends up a pigsty. I have an illness that makes me exhausted. When I am not well I cannot keep on top of the tiding so it ends up left. The house ends up a shit tip until I am well enough to tidy up because no one else will do it.

The only thing I think your DH is U about is the children's toys. I do let mine play throughout the day, getting various toys out but when they have got yet another thing out even though they already have at least 3 other toys/sets out, then yes they need to tidy up some stuff first.

You are the one who needs to think a bit more. It seems like your DH is forever having to pick up after you which is infuriating.

These people that actually throw their partners and childrens stuff in the garbage, proper stuff like jewelry and shopping bags of brand new stuff are right bastards. If i somehow missed that kind of shittiness while dating and ended up married to someone that arrogant, it would have happened once. That really would have been the end of it. Absolute mental the very idea of binning someone else's property.

my dh goes one further, he starts doing housework thats not his jobs and then implies i'm lazy for not getting to it before he decided it should be done.

he's not my favourite person after such a conversation this evening, it makes me feel unloved, worthless and like nothing i ever do is good enough for him.

i'm angry/upset all at the same time.

The book/jumper example would fuck me right off. How dare he decide that because you have taken a call or popped in the shower that you must be done with your book.

What about agreeing that he is to leave all of your personal posessions alone at all times, but you will put things where they belong before you go to bed? That way at least when he gets up in the morning its to a nice clean and tidy home.

Crapbag just because your OH puts things down and never moves them doesn't mean everybody does. I put things down and sort them later on. I might leave the baby wipes on the coffee table for an hour or plates near the sink in the evening or a jumper on the end of the sofa, but it does all get cleaned and tidied and my flat remains clean and tidy. I just don't often sort these things immediately. Because to me, providing it gets done, the only difference that doing it immediately makes is that it takes me away from DD while she's awake.

By the by, are there really people out there who never bin kids art? We get literally dozens of drawings and junk models every week, and unless they are very special they go on the pile on top of the kitchen cupboard, that despite being constantly replenished, mysteriously never gets more than about 6 inches high.

I don't think it's necessary to keep every scrawl, forever, but it's a bit much to whip a just-completed picture straight from easel to dustbin.

I don't know if I missed this elsewhere, but in case not, balance needs to be struck (well, that's always the answer, isn't it!). I think the 'tidy people win' comes from what someone else said about the noisier people, just in my experience the tidiers kick up more fuss about tidying than the non-tidiers do about not tidying.

I'm the tidier here DH will leave his dressing gown draped over the sofa and I just want to hang it up in our bedroom where it belongs. Everything has a place. After DC go to bed I set to cleaning straight away. DH thought I was being OTT because he would do it, just not right then. Thing is, I wanted to relax when DC are sleeping but I can't relax when it's not all tidy.

We have both made steps towards each other. I leave some things, as much as I can, like I will clear up the plates etc but leave them in the sink rather than doing it all, DH's desk (in living area so in the open) used to get so cluttered so I made a space for all of his things and a container for bits and bobs. The container is a crazy jumble of stuff, that's DH's realm, so whenever I find stuff that he's left elsewhere nail clippers, nail clippers, always with the nail clippers they go in there. And he knows that when I find stuff of his, it goes there so it's not lost to him. The biggest change was an open wardrobe. He's a floor wardrobe kind of person, so I just got clothes rails. Weirdly having it all open means he hangs stuff up as it just sort of makes sense. Sure, all of our clothes aren't hidden away in some secret place but I can live with it as everything is in its place.

I recognise that I would be unreasonable to expect him to just follow my rules, and he realised that I don't like living with what I perceive to be clutter, so we've found our middle ground and now we're both happy all in all.

DP is the tidy one and I know my 'organised' mess drives him mad but he's ok about it, makes fun of it even. He knows I can blitz the place half an hour before his DM (another tidy one) comes over. As for DCs drawings, don't stress, it hurts at the time and feels as if you're throwing a piece of them away but you can't live with 10 years of macaroni paintings! I've got 3 x teens and 3 framed pictures of their finest child work which make me smile.

I'm certainly not one for keeping every picture ever done. I'm talking about when they've literally just done it half an hour before and left it on the table, sometimes just to dry. That's when it gets chucked because he's told the kids that their stuff belongs in their rooms. Dd1 had worked really hard on a watercolour of a flamingo the other day which was still drying. Dh admitted he hadn't even noticed what was on the paper, just clocked it as kids art (which shouldn't be there) and chucked it.

I don't like being told I'm 'not allowed' to put things where I want them. A table is for putting things on, as long as they're not in the way of someone doing something, then why does he get to decide what belongs there in our home? I don't want everything put away all the time, it feels like a clinic. If it's too tidy in the evening i'll usually go out for a walk. He doesn't know this is why I go out for walks a lot.

My ex was like this and in the end I recognised it as emotional abuse (not saying yours is but mine was). He would wash up washing up I'd already done and tell me how disgusting I was because i hadn't done it properly, and would constantly tell me how lazy and messy I was. It really affected me and was like living in a museum! Now I've LTB and can make as much mess as I want, which turns out isn't that much anyway...maybe I'm not so disgusting after all!!

DH and I occasionally have different ideas of where stuff should go, which means I sometimes put something in what I think is the correct place, only to have him come along later and 'tidy' it away to where he thinks it should go.

It's usually nothing more than a minor annoyance, but most frustrating is my dressing gown. I keep it on the floor at the side of the bed, so if I need to get up in the night it's right there and I can grab it as I get out of bed. This annoyed DH as it looks messy, so he put a hook up for me to hang it on - unfortunately the hook is across the room, not on the way to the bedroom door, so I don't use it.

Gosh, I opened this thread thinking I was 'the tidy one' and that everyone would be defending 'our' position! But you can take it too far. DDad was exactly like this, he'd tidy the book I was reading while I went to the loo (and lose the page). He'd bin or damage art projects if I left them in the living room. I didn't realise it at the time but I didn't feel welcome in my own home and spent most of my time in my bedroom. Then he'd complain about that and call me secretive. I think in his ideal world I would have sat tidily on the sofa and watched endless episodes of Dad's Army while breathing quietly. It's taken years of conscious effort on my part to have a meaningful relationship with him, and I always felt it was my fault . A cautionary tale for your DH maybe?
The sad thing is that I've become a bit like this myself since having DD. A new baby is stressful and having the house clean and tidy made me feel more in control. I was already determined not to be my Dad but this has just made me realise that I want a home where everyone is relaxed and comfortable, not necessary where everything is neat and tidy

I think the time has come to quote my fridge magnet: Tidy people are just too lazy to look for things.

I was a SAHM. Dp is tidier and would come home from work and tidy/clean unnecessary bits. It made me feel guilty, then I would feel angry for feeling guilty because I wouldn't have done it if I had all the time in the world because I didn't deem it necessary. In the end I just learnt to let him get on with it. It was his choice if he wanted to do it.

As the years have gone by its evened out a bit. I get annoyed by some of his dumping grounds and vice versa but it's not such a sore issue. We are both united in focusing on the teenagers tidying up their mess

I'm firmly in the fence here...

Lived with ridiculously tidy parents..all room looked like a show home with no personal possessions on show . I was averagely tidy/clean for a teenager. Mum would insist on washing up before we ate and have to reheat food. Father would bin any shoes left tidily in the Hall. So on one ocassion my pal's dirty shoes, which she thoughtfully left away from clean carpets were also binned. All my books I was reading which were tidily stacked l, would be shoved back into one of the many book cases. So loads of library fines! Drove me nuts... Was embarassing embarassing, made me feel on edge, and unwelcome in my own home.

Have shared wirh loads of people since... Verged from similar to my parents to absolute squalor and rank unhelpfulness... No! going on holiday for 2 weeks the morning after you host a dinner party for your 10 friends, (we were at work). Leaving every bit of crockery cutlery dirty and not a square inches of kitchen clean is NOT ok! She was a nurse!...

Is the issue that you don't feel welcome in your own home?

Sounds like you feel as if DH would tidy you and the dcs away given half a chance.

Tidy is important. But this sounds like he is diverting lack of control in one area to excesive control in another.

Re. Work can he not increase hours without going FT? Maybe to 25 hours or something?

and I want to be able to use my things as I wish without constantly having to think about where they're put. it seems reasonable to me to start reading a book, realise I'm too hot so take off my jumper and drape it on the back of the chair, put down the book to answer the phone and come back to find the book still there and not get a jumper waved at me saying 'do I need to wash this or is it going back in your wardrobe?' I really don't want to have to scoop everything in a box because I've gone out of the room for 20 mins.

No one should have to put up with this, its awful, I know a family like this but BOTH parents are as bad as each other the children have suffered.

I think you need to direct him to the doctor, they do say....cleaning is a displacement activity.

Its like this in my pils house and I CANNOT STAND IT. I cant relax having cup of tea because I can feel the anxiety, waiting for me to drink and so it can be dealt with, same with plates and everything really. You feel watched and more than anything, its undermining as if we cannot deal with our own stuff and they use their ultra so called cleanliness as a proof of superiority over others.

its madness op i couldnt live like this, dh and i are deliberate relaxed in our home esp after his up bringing, so its even more infuriating when they come in and crisitse us for a so called dirty home.

I think i read one strategy is not to pander to it, for instance, this is my jumper and its on the floor, its going to stay on the floor for two days and yor not going to touch it, things like that, also must get him help.

Father would bin any shoes left tidily in the Hall. So on one ocassion my pal's dirty shoes, which she thoughtfully left away from clean carpets were also binned good lord I hope your friends and their parents kicked up an almighty stink about this.

a table isn't for putting things on - its for eating off. leavings dishes doesn't make a house seem homely - its messy and they usually smell. I don't mind a jumper lying about or a coat over the back of a chair as long as its away by the end of the night. now if DH puts his letters on the table when he opens them I put them all in his drawer - if he leaves clothes lying about I put them on his side of the bed.

all toys go away at the end of the night - there nothing worse than putting all the lights out walking to bed and standing on a small hard toy in your bare feet.

I don't think having stuff lying about makes a house seem homely - it just makes it look messy and the occupants lazy - I feel uncomfortable going into someone house which is messy but I think out of all my friends/family I can only think of 1 or 2 really messy houses - everyone elses seems normal.