To want to live in a tidy home

[Mynameisbetter]

Currently living with my STBX and our 2 children while our divorce goes through and they look for a job. The living situation is not ideal but we are civil.

The only issue is they are a massive hoarder. Forever collecting free stuff from the Internet. I'm happy to compromise on this even though I'm more of a minimalist but it's getting out of hand. There is stuff everywhere, mainly toys. We live in a fairly big house. But because of all the bits piled up everywhere the house feels so small and cramped. Boxes of stuff and clothes just dumped on sofas. Books just left scattered all over the floor. It's stressful.

Their argument is if toys are put away, children will forget about them and they won't be played with. I think this is a rediculous argument as one of my kids just today asked to play with something that had been put away a few weeks ago.

I feel like this is starting to set a bad example for our kids. They don't tidy up after themselves as there is confusion about where things go. I'm not expecting to live in a showroom but it would be nice if things had a place they could be tidied away to. Doesn't all have to be shoved out of sight in a cupboard. Just not left lying around.

The complete opposite is true with toys, kids don't play with things that are permanently out. I use to rotate toys on an 8 week basis.

It's making me twitch reading your post, I need a tidy house or I can't relax.

It’s still a shared house.

Focus on getting the divorce finalised and separate homes.

This isn’t a battle you’ll win whilst you live together. Get into your own space and then make the house rules you want.

I don’t think you’re unreasonable, btw. I just don’t think you can insist on anything much successfully if you’re separating.

Agree with @NoSquirrels . Clutter really gets me down but under the circumstances you just need to get through this period and look forward to having your own rules in your own place. It must be tense enough without arguing about this as well

It must be difficult waiting until you have your own homes so you can enforce your own rules.

But in the meantime is there a room or 2 that you can say no clutter is allowed so you have a space where you can relax.

Also my kids had a lot of toys when they were little but good easy to access storage is key. We had the biggest kallax unit and had pictures on the front of the contents of each box. They could get them out and easy to clear up too! Also clear plastic boxes under their beds and for big toys so easy to see inside. They cannot play if they have no space and there's stuff everywhere!

Tidy up yourself?

Yep, we recently sorted the whole playroom and DD plays in there so much more now that stuff is organised and has a home. Before, when everything was mixed in together and all over the place, she almost got overwhelmed by it. But now we have a dinosaur box, a plastic toys box, wooden toys box, building blocks box, etc. she can easily find what she wants to do. And she knows where her toys go when she's finished too!