Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Arguing over cleaning

27 replies

BoredAdminGirl · 22/07/2015 13:59

As the title suggests, myself and my DP have been arguing a lot lately (a lot this morning) about my crap cleaning skills.

Apparently leaving my hair spray, brush etc in the living room is causing dp great stress.

I admit, she does do most of the cleaning but then I do most of the cooking.

I dont want to argue over these things, any advice on how I can train my lazy arse to be a better person!?

OP posts:

arsenaltilidie · 22/07/2015 14:01

Maybe don't leave hairspray, hairbrush in the living room!

Why can't you just clean up after yourself!

bloodyteenagers · 22/07/2015 14:10

Clean up after yourself.
Stop leaving your stuff lying around

maybebabybee · 22/07/2015 14:12

...it's pretty uptight to be annoyed because someone left their hairbrush in the living room. IMO.

GraysAnalogy · 22/07/2015 14:12

Oh god I couldn't imagine not being able to leave something out of place for a while in my own home.

That's nothing to do with cleaning. I'm clean, I do most of the cleaning but leaving a cup on the side or a brush isn't a big deal.

Is this all you're doing? because if your DP is really greatly stressed as you say it sounds like there must be more.

pocketsaviour · 22/07/2015 14:14

Does your DP suffer from anxiety/stress in general? How long have you been together/living together?

FriendofBill · 22/07/2015 14:15

If that's where you use your stuff, can you get a nice box or similar to store it there?

YouGetNOTHING · 22/07/2015 14:17

I know how you feel, DH and I have argued about the cleaning for 16 years

I was a massive slacker but I am massively improved. If you use the brush and hairspray in the living room could you get a nice basket to put it in? And make sure you put it back there every time?
It is a case of forcing yourself to do it I'm afraid. Half the time I just don't see the mess.
Another way of thinking about it is that if you don't do it no one else will so it will stay like that forever. For some reason that helps.
I also imagine an unexpected visitor and I do tidy more just in case.

Just start with hairbrush and go on from there

Velociraptor · 22/07/2015 14:18

I think you need to make a real effort to not leave stuff lying around. I am also messy by nature, and I know it is not as simple as it should be to just not make a mess. I solved the problem by marrying someone who is also messy, which means we live in happy chaos most of the time, until things get bad enough for one of us me to feel the need to tidy up. Could you maybe create a space downstairs for you to dump stuff, so that the rest of the room stays the way your DP likes it?

Original poster

BoredAdminGirl · 22/07/2015 14:33

Thanks for the understanding replies!

Sometimes I dont see the small things that DP does, being super tidy does not come naturally to me.

We have a spare room so have told her that I will put all my hair things in there and get ready in there, that way I just have one room to keep tidy.

I think she is extra annoyed because she is on annual leave and feels she is spending it all cleaning. I do think she is over reacting but then I don't know how she feels about mess really. I have never noticed.

We have lived together for a year

OP posts:

Fingeronthebutton · 22/07/2015 15:05

Why do you do your hair in the living room?

Original poster

BoredAdminGirl · 22/07/2015 15:14

Because it has a large mirror in it and dont like to disturb DP in the bedroom

OP posts:

shovetheholly · 22/07/2015 15:17

If you cooked her a meal and she poured bleach into it and wrecked it so you had to start all over again, how would you feel? That's the equivalent of what you're doing when you're making her nice tidy rooms untidy again!

Three maxims taught to me by a family full of nurses used to tidying wards:

Whenever you leave a room, check quickly whether you need to put anything away before you leave.

Whenever you go from one room to another, take something with you that needs to be put away at your destination, and do it straight away.

Doing a small amount often is a lot easier than doing a big tidy up once in a while.

OnlyLovers · 22/07/2015 15:20

In all honesty I think she's got a problem. I can't see what's the issue with having some hairspray and a brush in the living room. She certainly doesn't need to tidy it away. Unless your living room is so small that these two 'extra' items mean you can't sit or put things comfortably in there.

GlitzAndGigglesx · 22/07/2015 15:23

My DP is very messy. I don't get so annoyed by it now because I've come to realise no amount of nagging will change that but it does piss me off to the high heavens when rubbish or a glass is still there 3 hours later. It takes 15 seconds to put them in the correct place. For some reason I can't leave a cup sat until say a TV show is finished I have to put it in the kitchen as soon as I'm done with it or it irritates me

maybebabybee · 22/07/2015 15:31

Um, the OP is not emptying bins all over a clean room.

She is leaving a hairbrush out.

Seriously.

googoodolly · 22/07/2015 15:33

If you regularly do your hair in the living room, why not keep your stuff tidied away on a shelf or in a drawer? It makes sense that you want to keep your stuff in there if you do your hair in there everyday, but just keep it out of the way and not lying around.

PushingThru · 22/07/2015 15:33

She's overreacting. I mean, a hairbrush?! I was in a relationship for six years with a woman who was very particular about housework & cleanliness. Is she my ex?

googoodolly · 22/07/2015 15:34

no it's not. She's leaving her hairbrush and hairspray out, not emptying rubbish all over the floor!

PushingThru · 22/07/2015 15:37

Most of us prefer to live in a tidy & ordered environment but I'm surprised more people aren't calling this a tad extreme.

maybebabybee · 22/07/2015 15:48

I also think that some people who are massively tidy are also not very sensitive to those of us who aren't massively tidy by nature.

I'm not, for example. I'm not a messy slob, but it doesn't come naturally to me to put all my things away tidily in a drawer. If someone was looking over my shoulder getting annoyed every time I left my hairbrush in the living room I'd be feeling really on edge and like I couldn't relax.

My DP is pretty tidy (tidier than me) but he is also very chilled out. I make an effort to keep our shared living space tidy but he respects the fact that, for example, the top of my bedside drawer is cluttered and messy - that's the way I like it, and it's mine.

Zillie77 · 22/07/2015 16:10

I am one of those people who would dislike having hair spray and a hairbrush in the living room. I would find it unappealing to look at and distractingly out-of-place. That having been said, when my DH leaves things in a place I consider out-of-place, I try to keep the nagging to a minimum and just put them back myself. For example, he often takes of his tie after work and leaves it in the kitchen. He has a right to use our space just as much as I do, and there is no law about where things need to go, so if I want things a certain way, I take care of it myself. It only takes me about 3 minutes per day.

That having been said, I also do most of the general cleaning so tidying up seems like a natural extension of that to me.

Zillie77 · 22/07/2015 16:11

off his tie, not of his tie

Joysmum · 22/07/2015 16:13

Tbh in with your partner on this. It's bad enough doing the lions share of the housework but if you have to tidy away after people before you can even start cleaning that's even worse.

I expect tidiness, but am not so hot on the cleaning side of things.

Zillie77 · 22/07/2015 16:14

This is going to sound sexist, but if my partner were a woman, I would probably expect her to pick up after herself, though. I think I have a lower expectation of men when it comes to those things. Perhaps you and your partner can have a clear discussion of what her expectations are with respect to cleanliness and how close you can come to those expectations. That is all you can do. She will have to learn to live with the difference if those two sets of expectations are not in accord.

chelle792 · 22/07/2015 16:54

I think you guys need to come to some sort of agreement. I'm naturally messy and my ex was naturally very tidy. He hated it and I was stressed because I was never 'tidy enough'.

I'm now with someone who is equally as naturally messy as me although we both like a tidy house so are forever tidying up our mess which we seem to make in every. single. room. that. we. go. in. even. for. one. second!!!!

Flip

1 2