Messy people always get their way

[Wellthatsit]

If you're a tidy person living with messy people, you never get to live in the environment you want, because the messy people always mess it up.

AIBU to feel this is unfair?

Indeed. DH lived in a very messy and dirty house when I met him. You couldn’t see most of the living room carpet because of ‘stuff’ everywhere. It was awful.

He loved my place. It was clean and fairly minimal. He wanted to move in together. I said no way. We are too different. He argued that he preferred my flat and wanted to learn to keep things clean and tidy. Before kids it kind of worked. Since kids it’s been a long and bitterly fought battle but it’s ok now. I had to threaten to leave though. It wasn’t a threat.

Not true. There's nothing worse than living with someone who is constantly tidying away stuff that you want kept available, or who can't sit and relax because they have to be tidying, or who is always hoovering and dusting all around you because they have some self-imposed rule about cleaning everything frequently.

Well equally if you're a messy person living with a tidy one, you could say you never get to feel fully relaxed in your own home because your know the other person is irritated by your stuff being about. I think the person who 'gets their way' is whichever is the stronger willed. I know a number of naturally messy people who have been forced to be tidy because their partner has insisted.

I had a ons with a guy, who folded his clothes and neatly put them on a chair before we had sex. This gave me a bit of an ick, which I pushed aside for the anticipated pleasure. Let’s just say 7 times later for him and not once for me… compatibility was low…

My dh is pretty tidy. Me less so and he does help me. I’m not talking about leaving dirty clothes, cups and plates everywhere. I don’t do that, more stacking the dishwasher and wiping down the sides. I also do a lot for him. Swings, roundabouts.

I once lived with a pathologically tidy flat mate. I'd barely finish a meal and she'd be chiding me to clear up my plate. It made me feel like even existing was being untidy. What a horrible way to live.

I can clean the kitchen, walk away and come back in 10 minutes later and I find cupboard doors open, a drawer left open and a folder of recipes left open on the worktop. He also takes sauces back to the fridge and leaves them by the fridge. I often find the sink with a couple of inches of used washing up water left in. 🤦🏻‍♀️😱.

It really does my head in!

Why is it on threads like this that posters always describe people at extreme ends of tidiness/messiness?

I grew up in a messy and not very clean house and hated it. I am a tidy and clean person. However, I am not as fastidious as the posters I read about on the cleaning threads. The house gets dusted and vacuumed roughly once a week (no pets or small children).

I don't rush around cleaning and tidying all the time but you could probably describe my house as "visitor ready" most of the time.

My dad is the untidy one and my mum is the super tidy one and going to their house is exhausting, if you so much as put a magazine on the coffee table she exclaims “it looks like a bombs gone off in here” where as my dads collection of stuff it taking over the spare room and garage.

When I left home to go to uni she threw everything away out of my bedroom without telling me, including the bed, because she assumed I didn’t want it because I hadn’t taken it with me.

I don't think the issue is on one type of tidy person or the other. Surely the problem is people who can't compromise? Nobody should live with others if they can't manage a bit of compromise. A very tidy person who expects others to live to their exacting standards is a pain in the arse. A very untidy person who expects others to live in their mess is a pain in the arse. Just meet in the middle surely.

Define “normal”. Why is there a “normal”? It implies other ways of living are “abnormal”.

Emerrald - this is the sort of thing I was referring to in my OP. I get how being pathologically tidy around someone isn't relaxing, but putting things back in the fridge and shutting drawers/cupboard doors seems like a bare minimum to me.

Both people I live with (spouse and adult child) can turn the kitchen into a bombsite making just a cuppa and a bit of toast.

I'm not mega tidy or a clean freak, but it is ridiculous

I would have the most beautiful house if only I could persuade DH, DS and DD to live in the garage.

This.
Fortunately I'm child free, but cannot wait to live by myself again.
In the process of planning....
😐

YANBU. Being tidy requires effort, it requires being conscientious and actually caring about your living environment and those who share it. Being messy requires absolutely nothing except leaving your shit wherever you please and not giving a fuck about whether it makes a space less pleasant for anyone else or if some other mug has to clean it up.

I like a tidy house (not excessive levels but "wouldn't be embarrassed if I had a visitor" level). My DH is fairly tidy, not to my standard but bearable. But having 5 of us in the house, it is almost never as tidy as I would like.

My mother is so untidy. She came on holidays with us a few years and I was so stressed out as I couldnt cope with her mess. I spent hours on holiday tidying up after her.

She is coming with us this year but has her own apartment. She takes food out of the fridge, makes lunch but leaves all the food out on the counter. Throws dirty dishes in the sink and lets them pile up. Leaves lids/tops off things she opens, scatters all her belongings around the place. Her house often looks like its been ransacked.

My kids have a massive issue with me.. I'm the tidy one!

I'm guessing they don't have an issue with you being tidy, but with you expecting them to be the same

Yup. Imagine expecting them to just tidy up after themselves!

My ex was a mess and a clutter bug just stuff all over the place i ended it with him i just could not stand it anymore.
Took me 4 hours to clear all his stuff from my home and still had more he forgot about it went to the tip.
Im a minimalist even when my children were little i had a spotless home still do.
I grow up in mess and chaos and clutter we didnt need i just hate mess.
I came to learn that having less is much more and it makes me so happy to wake and have nothing to do in the mornings.
No piles of laundry no clutter just space.

Another person would say that they waste time looking for things in a tidy house as instead of something being to hand it has been put away..... somewhere.

Thankfully DH and I rub along nicely, though he does have an annoying habit of piling everything up on the edge of a room instead of sorting / putting things away

My friend stayed the weekend once and said afterwards I was an angel for living with my dh because she had seen him do a few of the most minor things (imo). I secretly thought her dh was amazing to live with her, although they are very similar, she had literally guided the whole weekend. I love her to bits and we get on great but will definitely never go on a holiday together- we would KILL each other!!! I’d say she sighed a huge sigh of relief when she got home😅😅😅

But if everything has a spot in a logical place you never have to look for things? They are always in the exact same spot.

Exactly

DH keeps putting things down in random places instead of their logical home and then literally spends hours looking for them - usually glasses and keys.

I'm tidy naturally. It's not a virtue, I just am. My daughter and her partner are not. That's fine. I'm lucky enough to have my own living room which is always tidy.

The compromise my daughter and her partner make is that, mostly, shared areas (bathroom, dining room and kitchen) are fairly tidy. The compromise I make us that it's Not my kind of tidy, but not their kind of untidy either. So that's the compromise.

It's not an issue with us about who wins, it's about how much each of us can bend to accommodate the other.

I agree with this, so much.

I have OCD. It's hell, and it does not make me tidy.

Our house is way too tidy because my wife is excessively (well, in my view) tidy, so no, messy people don’t always get their way. There’s a big difference between being clean and being tidy. She puts things “away” meaning “not out” in places they don’t go, then gets annoyed when people can’t find them. It makes others uncomfortable and I can see the kids getting stressed about constantly being asked to tidy things up. For context my view is the room where all they toys etc are is fair game and as long as they tidy it up at the end of the day it’s ok during the day. We’ve had many an argument about not having to live in a show home.