Date’s messy house and not my style

[lostinbigcity]

We are still early on and it was my first time at his house. He divorced a few years ago and stayed in the house they lived in together with his ex-wife. No children. He is lovely and I like him a lot. The house is amazing location and size-wise. And it’s relatively clean, because he has a cleaning lady coming once a week. But it’s messy to my standards. It looks like a single man’s flat x5. Nothing horrible, but I'm quite an organised person, and it’s very below my standards or what I’m used to. Also, I don't particularly fancy some furniture and style. It’s his house and his choice - no judgment, but I'm thinking how I would take it long-term.

Does it change if men are in relationship? I don’t think I ever faced this kind of a situation. I don’t think I can or should address it, but what would your strategy be in this case? I had a previous history of moving in with a man who was very controlling over how things go in his house. Don't want to repeat it.

I dumped a boy for wearing crap trousers. I was 19 though. But style mattered to me then. It still does, but beneath that apparent superficiality, there was much more to it. We weren’t compatible in other ways. Different mindsets. He was a very nice person and gorgeous to look at, but it didn’t mean he was right for me. Should this be the case for you too? You’re focussing on the flat, but there’s more going on.

Re your specific qus. You are probably not going to change his levels of messiness. re his style, you’d probably have gauged by now how controlling (or not) he is. He might welcome your intervention and/or not really care or notice about his home decs.

But what I take from this thread, is that you have been burnt and you aren’t sure whether to continue with this. Maybe you shouldn’t. style is important to me since it can give insights to a person’s mind.

Anecdotes: My sister was married to a very rich boring solicitor who owned no books, no art, bad decor. She convinced herself they were right for each other, but they are now divorced. Again, the decor was a huge red flag since it clearly showed her who he was. I remember thinking everything about his flat was opposite to her flat. Then again, my dad had no style, and he was lovely and very likeable. BUT my mum used to dress him. And his messiness used to drive my mum up the wall. Ug!

I agree that you need to find out how important furnishing is to him.

Some men really don't care and just leave it to their partner, others want to get involved with every little detail.

I personally couldn't live with a man who wanted to get involved in every detail and it looks like you couldn't either, so you need to find this out before you get too serious.

Op if you find it messy and he has a cleaner you’re both in for a very rough ride. First time my dh did a proper clean and made a sigh of relief that everything didn’t look as filthy it was honestly like a punch in the face as 1) I’d actually just cleaned and 2) I thought it was pretty decent!!!

eta my gut says for both of your sanity I’d say this absolutely won’t work

It does though. You can judge a person as to how messy or dirty their house is at the most basic level and for everything else upwards from that.

If I went back to some blokes house and he had a bunch of mismatched furniture he had inherited from loads of aunties and he rigidly swore he would live with them forever more, that would give me pause.

I had an ex that asked me and my dog to move in with him but it was a nightmare. I couldn't bring any of my things and my dog was banished to the cupboard under the stairs because her hair got everywhere. He was obsessive about his home and everything in it. I knew he was like this before I agreed to move in but I expected him to bend a bit - nope. I left after three months but I lost my lovely cheap renter in the process and had to move back in with my parents at the age of 28.

I would never move in to someone's house. If we were to live together we would fet a place, together. Do people go around just moving in with people.. I can't fathom that,

@Deap I dumped a boy for wearing crap trousers.

Haha! That’s given me my first laugh of the day!

Reminds me of ‘Walk away Renee’ (Billy Bragg): ‘Then she cut her hair and I stopped loving her’.

By and large though, I agree that you mustn't bring this up @lostinbigcity See how the relationship goes. The chances are he has ended up with a load of oddments having given his ex back her stuff and the stuff she wanted to keep and he has just gone with it.

I've been married to DH now for 23 years. He had inherited his mums house on her death and his house was mostly her stuff and a few bookshelves and stuff he had bought for himself.

Neither of us mentioned anything about how we would live. He moved in with me and brought his shelves and personal stuff and we just made it work. The rest he left for the woman that rented his house from him.

Having the experience I had with my ex, I can see where you are coming from but you are overthinking. In your shoes, I would be interested in how clean he is as a person, if he is messy and just leaves stuff for the cleaner and his general attitude to life. You can only find that out by dating and seeing him.

What is your house like?

I think you are overthinking a bit, but also that some people are being unreasonably harsh.

If you are dating with a view to a long term relationship there is nothing wrong with considering future compatibility, and cutting your losses early if you can't see it working.

However, it is just as likely that the house is his ex wife's decor style and that he's never felt the need/ motivation to change it, and if this is the case, then if you eventually do live together he's just as likely to give you free range over interior design as he is too inflict his, in your opinion, poor taste, on you.

The clutter/ untidiness would be more of a concern, i am the only person in my household who tidies and declutters and it is exhausting and grinds me down.

Also, if you are every considering cohabiting with this man you'll going to have to establish whether he thinks you'll just assume the role that his paid cleaner currently fulfills, but then you'd have to figure this out with any man, there are plenty of them out there that still default to housework being women's work sadly.

What makes you think you’d move to his house?

No, he won't get suddenly tidy. You will end up doing it. Run a mile.

Tell you what OP. Make up a mood board, browse IKEA. Next time you go round, explain how you will change everything when you move in. Point out all of the stuff of his you will be throwing out, and all the new stuff you will be replacing it with.

If he goes for it, you’ll know he is compatible with your controlling ways you. If not, there probably won’t be another date and you can find somebody whose house meets your exacting standards.

Show him your post and you won't need to worry about it.

OP, maybe you should consider if his house just gave you "the ick"? If it did, stop wasting his time and yours, and move on.

Well, yeah. Until you decide to move in together, the other person's decorating choices aren't really important.

When you start talking about moving in with each other, whether it's him into your house, you into his, or getting a new place together, then you discuss how that is actually going to work. In the meantime, focus on getting to know the person.

For most relationships, what their house looks like goes one of two ways, either it's a massive compromise, or it's decorated in one person's style because the other person really doesn't think it's important.

Alternatively, you could just do what my Mum and Stepdad did, and never move in together, even after they married. They'd split time equally between both houses.

No it wont change if you move in together he will just expect you to do it all.

Men don't think they should do domestic chores if there is a female living in the same house. They would rather lose half of their assets and see their kids once a week than do a house-keeping chore when there is a woman living in the same house. I don't know where it comes from I really don't.

🤣🤣🤣

Another one!

No, no personal issues remotely related to the thread, thank you. Just found it immensely bizarre, like many other posters.

Exactly! 😆

People are being a bit weird about this one. If you’re trying to work out if you have long term compatibility with a partner it’s totally fine to wonder if it’s a deal breaker if you don’t like the state of someone’s house and their decorating choices, because you might one day have to live with them. The way someone lives in their house and the objects they choose for it tell you a lot about who they are and their standards of beauty, which despite what lots of people seem to be saying, are important to most people.

Unless there’s a big character change, most people won’t dramatically alter the way they live in and decorate their house when they start living with someone, and OP has said she doesn’t want to ask him to radically change his life to suit her if they lived together anyway.

OP unless he’s said something to the effect of “sorry, this isn’t how my house would usually look because [reason]/I inherited this weird furniture from an ex/housemate/etc” (which is what many house proud people who are living with stuff they wouldn’t choose might tell guests), then you have to assume he likes the way he’s living.

If you don’t like his way of living, and it’s just a matter of compromise with style rather than tidiness/cleanliness issues, then compatibility will entirely depend on how happy he is to compromise with you. I had an abusive past ex who would use my wanting to change anything about the house we lived in together as an excuse to either become angry or to make me feel that I was making a personal attack on him, so I get you. Unpleasant people do this. A good partner who knows you dislike something they own (provided you express that in a fair and decent way) won’t take it personally and will be willing to compromise.

If there are other issues to do with tidiness and cleanliness I’d have a think about (and talk about with him) whether you could live with that. People might play it down, but arguments over how clean a house is/who’s ended up doing all the tidying/partners who do the bare minimum pop up here every day, and not having this small stuff sorted makes dealing with the big stuff impossible. Resentments stack up, so it’s good to think about it now - but best of all talk to your partner openly about your worries. If he’s kind and caring he’ll hear your fears and won’t take it personally.

I think first of all establish if he wants a live in relationship at some point he might not
rhwn drop a few hints about how interiors are your thing and you’d only stay or live somewhere that you could do up to your tastes.

This, exactly. When my now husband and moved in with each other we definitely laughed over different styles eg whose duvet cover we were going to use. But I don’t think we gave it a huge amount of thought, it was him I eventually married , and over the years - 40 ! - we’ve evolved our own style. Yes, if I was on my own it would probably be different, but that’s not the point, our home is ours ! We each brought an odd collection of items to our first home, bits of furniture from his mum, and a sofa I actually got from a skip ! I remember sawing it in half when we could finally afford to buy one and finding 1970’s newspaper inside it ! We were so excited to be able to buy a new one from John Lewis !

OP, of course you are reasonable to think and judge.
Such nasty replies🙄.
Some men who own a home wouldn't dream of compromising and moving to a shared home.

My pal was going out a few months with a guy who had inherited his family home with a mix of furniture.
One night he mentioned her moving in and she said absolutely not, the house wouldn't be to her taste, too dark too heavy etc.

He was genuinely shocked as he felt this was his forever home.
She told him the next day she was no longer interested as they weren't aligned.
He was very disappointed and tried to persuade her they would work it out.
But to her, work it out meant her compromising, and she really didn't like the house. It also showed him to be very rigid in what he wanted.

I wouldn't ever move into a house, previously owned by a man.
Rent a new shared space always.
Friends that did regretted it and it always became a sticking point.
The relationships that survived, moved to a new shared home.

Definitely have a general conversation to see where his head is at.
If it's rigid? Move on.

You do realise that this rigidity and obsession with style/decor is what you are doing to him?

I think you need therapy to unpick this and deprogramme you from your previous relationship trauma.

There aren't enough good men in the world. If this one is decent, then for gods sake snap him up and build a life with him, and just suck up his penchant for a tacky sofa.

In the grand scheme of things, what is REALLY important in a life partner?

You are getting stuck on petty shit and potentially sabotaging your own future happiness. Why would you do that? (answers in therapy)

You’ve obviously got the ick about his living standards. Don’t try change someone it won’t work long term. Time to move on and find someone with a home you feel is ‘suitable’.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry. He probably hasn't changed anything since his ex left. Including the sheets if he's anything like my ex husband.