How to handle partner’s messiness and debt affecting family life?

[CPPP]

I need opinions. My fiancée is the messiest person and I am constantly picking up after her, to the point that when I tidy something she makes it messy again straight away. I cannot help but tidy and we have a 3-year old daughter so I am coming in from work straight into tidying everyday, she is now forgetting to lock the car everyday aswell. We live in a compact 3 bed house and I am wasting time spent with my daughter playing to constantly keep on top of the house inbetween other responsibilities. I have tried to talk to her about this but I feel like I am talking to a brick wall and it’s making me miserable as it’s our main problem. On top of this, my partner stayed at home with our daughter for the first 2-3 years and now we are heavily in debt. It feels like I am just working and tidying with no reward or fun anymore.

She isn’t going to change, sadly. You either need to learn to let it not bother you or leave, or else you will continue to be miserable.

Mess isn’t the end of the world though, although it’s frustrating. Dirt, however, would be totally unacceptable. Are you a neat freak? What do you consider mess? Are your standards far too high and her standards more relaxed, or is she happy to live in a total pig sty? Are you able to relax your standards a little to come to a compromise?

If you’ve tried to talk to her and she’s making no effort to change at all then she doesn’t care enough to, but that works both ways if you’re too uptight and aren’t prepared to relax your standards. However, before anyone leaps in with things like this being hard for neurodivergent people (although you don’t say she is, but this is MN after all), I live with someone ND and have several others in my family. It’s perfectly possible for the majority of people to put systems in place to adapt and not live in chaos.

Is your partner now working?
Is she depressed?
Is she so unhappy she is purposely messing things up immediately and leaving the car unlocked to annoy you so you do split up?

Maybe DC can go to grandparents or somewhere for the day and you and DP can go somewhere on neutral territory alone to sit and have a serious talk? Good luck.

I think we need to meet somewhere in the middle in terms of the standard of tidy/untidy we both consider acceptable in the household. I’ve always been a tidy person and she is more relaxed in that sense. I totally agree that it works both ways and maybe we need to compromise.

She has been working PT since September, although we have had a bought of illnesses due to our daughter starting pre-school at the same time so we are just starting to see an improvement in our joint income, despite the cost of living.

The debt accrued due to unpaid time off due to illness, car repairs ect, combined with the fact we were living off of one income for 2-3 years and my partners spending continued whilst she had everyday at home with our daughter (not an easy job I admit and easy to overspend when overwhelmed).

It has led to £30,000 in debt now and I am worried about my employment due to the in-depth background checks they complete on an annual basis.

Plenty to work out here.

As the other poster said it sounds as though she has undiagnosed ADHD possibly borderline personality disorder and these things whilst manageable she can’t help
Just from previous experience myself, I would strongly recommend you don’t have any more children. It gets worse not better.
And as soon as the little one goes to school, she needs to return to work full-time and cover the debt before it has real life changing implications if you’re not at that stage already