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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

114 replies

SEmyarse · 01/03/2015 15:35

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.

OP posts:
fredfredgeorgejnr · 02/03/2015 10:42

peggyundercrackers that's to your definition of normal of course...

recall · 02/03/2015 10:51

YANBU ( love "joint furniture" Grin )

recall · 02/03/2015 10:52

peggyundercrakers I bet they feel uncomfortable when you go into their house too

minkGrundy · 02/03/2015 11:03

peggy at the end of the night though. That's the key. Ops dh would have stuff put away before it came out.

MissPenelopeLumawoo2 · 02/03/2015 11:16

a table isn't for putting things on - its for eating off In our house it is used for eating, doing homework, craft projects, sometimes I move the laptop to the dining table because it is next to the radiator so I can keep warm when MNetting, I have a fruit bowl in the middle of it- it is used for whatever it is used for. Not everyone is the same as you Peggy. That does not make us messy and lazy and you the superior one.

DeeWe · 02/03/2015 11:39

Df once rearranged dm's kitchen when she was away. He carefully ordered all the kitchen cupboards so that the smallest things were at the front, and the biggest at the back, so all could be seen.
It looked fantastic.

Then dm pointed out that the having to move the christmas cake decorations that were used for 1 week a year (plus several other things) every time she wanted her mixer, which she probably used 5 times a week didn't really make sense. Grin

I think there's a happy medium though. Df is fanatically tidy, and I suspect it's effected me in that I hate throwing things away because we used to find he'd done that at times. But I'd love to have a semi tidy house. I can't seem to motivate myself enough to get it into a state where it's easy to keep tidy, so I'll spend a day tidying one thing, and find it's so depressing because everything else looks worse.

badtime · 02/03/2015 12:23

YANBU, OP. I would find that unbearable.

I have OCD, which is not at all directly related to tidiness (e.g. hoarding is also a form of OCD). I am 'the messy one' in my relationship.

TBH, if the OP's husband's over-tidiness is due to some sort of psychiatric condition, it sounds more like OCPD - people with OCD have insight and are usually very concerned about how their problems affect others, but people with OCPD tend to think they are always right and blame other people for any problems that arise in relation to their condition (like thinking and saying it is the OP's fault for not being ridiculously tidy).

ObsidianEagle · 02/03/2015 12:56

our dining table isnt just for eating off, its our desk and craft table. Its only for actually eating off at Meal time, at which point its cleared and laid, and then the dinner things get put away at the end of the meal, and it reverts back to our desk.

tidying here is always done before lunch and dinner, and then again at bedtime.

I have two kids and a cat in a pokey terrace, its never going to be immaculate!

GymBum · 02/03/2015 13:37

Op we are polar opposites. I really feel for your DH. I can't/couldn't/wouldn't be able to live in a messy or dirty house (I also think there is a difference between messy untidy and dirty --unhygienic- ). I really feel for your husband. One is worse than the other but both situations drive me round the bend.

The only way I can describe how mess/dirt makes me feel outside of gross is imagine having a really itchy spot and trying not to scratch it.

I once dumped a guy really like him in every other way I was seeing because I couldn't live with him leaving mess all over my house. I refused to stay at his because it grossed me out so he spent most of his time at mine. He had to go, I just couldn't live with it. Grin. Thankfully DH likes a clean house to.

PrivatePike · 02/03/2015 14:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Casimir · 02/03/2015 14:59

Hall yes! the whole 'right' thing. The complete non-negotiableness of the tidy/clean person. Absolutely committed to cleaning and tidying to a (to me) pointless and unnecessary level. When I am old and grey I am sure I'm not going to be reminiscing about vacuuming and tidying.

Bunbaker · 02/03/2015 15:25

I am older and grey, and one of my childhood memories is of being ashamed to invite my friends over to our pigsty of a house.

SolidGoldBrass · 02/03/2015 16:06

OK, excessive tidiness and excessive messiness are both, really, likely to be abusive behaviours. Destroying and damaging other people's belongings is almost always abuse. So this man's continuous moving and throwing away of the OP's things and the children's things is partly about him wanting them to be uneasy, unsettled, unwelcome. It's part of him having to feel like the Boss Of The House, the one whose wishes are paramount.
It's just the flipside of the sort of man who deliberately messes things up as away of pissing on his territory, or who won't do any domestic work because his partner needs to be taught that she's a servant and it's all her responsibility.
It's a punishment, and anyone who feels entitled to punish a partner is dubious. Destroying the children's artwork the minute they've finished it is horrible behaviour that will have lasting effects - the children will start to feel that nothing they do has any value and nor do they.

GymBum · 02/03/2015 17:19

Bun I would have done the same. I remember going to a new friends house when I was young and politely turning a soft drink down because of the state of the kitchen. I never said anything. I am one of those people that has always struggled with mess.

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