Squalor

[Fluandseptember]

I don't know what to do. DH has always had low standards on tidiness and house cleanliness - his mother did everything for him, and he just doesn't seem to care or notice if things are grotty. This was just about bearable when there were the 2 of us, but now there are 5, it's a total nightmare. It's impossible to get the kids to keep things clean and tidy and nice if their dad is worse than them.
I'm at the end of my tether about it all, and have just lost my temper in a pretty unreasonable way.

I'm completely fed up of living like this. I feel tense at home all the time. I can't relax and switch off because things are disordered and dirty. And I feel totally taken for granted, as when I do tidy everything up, he doesn't notice and then messes things up again really quickly.

What can I do? How can we change this?

There are all sorts of other problems w our relationship, which we have actually finally started to make a bit of progress on, but this is real flashpoint.

He does do all the washing up (we have a dishwasher so it's pots and pans/lunchboxes etc.) and puts the washing on most of the time. I'd say that he did (after years of nagging!) pull his weight with the 'big' jobs; it's just the daily round of keeping things neat and tidy and clean that he doesn't get. So he'll not open his post for days, and then when he does he leaves letter, inserts and envelopes all lying on the floor, in different places...

No helpful suggestions, sorry, but I (man, 40s) totally feel your pain!

My adult DSS lives like this and it makes my skin crawl when going to his house. His DP is just as bad, though, so I guess they rub along ok.

I had an ex like that. In the end, I made sure that EVERYTHING had a home, and if it wasn't put back in it's home, it went in the bin.

Not overly helpful I’m afraid as it’s wuore passive aggressive but I have been known to put DHs crap (empty envelopes, clothing, other non spill items) into his side of the bed as he just doesn’t seem to notice it unless it’s physically in his way.

I have a zero tolerance policy for muddle. DH has OCD tendencies about keeping the garage and his wardrobe tidy, but leaves clutter and shit everywhere else. So if it's still there after 24 hours it goes in the bin.

It's very effective.

ugh. I've certainly been guilty of the passive aggressive piling up of stuff - but it's no way to live.

What's miserable about this is that I AM NOT A TIDY PERSON. When I lived on my own, I didn't have a spick and span place at all. But being messy just doesn't work any more, not with lots of us, and I've had to learn - painfully and bloody reluctantly - to do things in a different way. But DH just won't. If he uses a teaspoon, he leaves it on the side. If he gets out a spoon and then doesn't use it, he leaves it on the side. Paperwork everywhere. Sides never wiped.

What is making this all so painful is that he KNOWS this matters to me a lot, and yet he won't do things differently.

I think that I do just have to start throwing things away. But aargh, I just bought him a (VERY) expensive new shirt, and he's left it lying around - I guess I just take it back to the shop rather than chucking it... but there's plenty of pricey stuff that I just can't bin...

I had one of these. Because his mum did everything when he was growing up, and I was a SAHM (to five kids under eight), then EVERYTHING in the house was my job 24/7. I tried leaving the mess (he called me lazy), I tried just leaving his stuff (which just resulted in me having 20 times as much to do in one go when it reached horrendous proportions and he purported not to notice it), I tried arguing, nagging, losing my temper, everything.

He wouldn't have it. Housework was my job, regardless of who made the mess. He came home from work, put his feet up, his dinner plate on the floor and fell asleep til bedtime.

I divorced him. It took the kids until they went off to university to learn that the housework fairies don't come, and women don't automatically love housework.

Im not sure you can change someone who is naturally "dirty". There is a big difference between a messy person who needs to remember to put things back, pick all clothes up etc, To someone who doesn't care about things being grotty and doesn't see a problem with it.

You'll be fighting everyday, you have my sympathies growing up my sibling was like this and i wanted to blow my lid everyday at the grimness of it all

Get him to read THIS ARTICLE
No idea if it will sink in but it's got to be worth a try?

Five plastic crates one for each of you. If not put away after one week, Chuck. Everything not put away goes in the crate. Throw out/donate any clutter.
Shoe racks. Basket by the door for letters.
Get ruthless.

My Fil is exactly like this. He has always been like this and he is now 90 and it's still a huge weekly job to keep on top of his crap. He just doesn't notice the food spilt on the floor or the piles of magazines/books or the state that he's left the toilet in etc. He had Mil running around after him for 50 years and once she started on the downhill decline of dementia she gave up and everything was so cluttered and dirty that people stopped visiting and we would no longer allow the grandchildren to visit. It made no difference to him.
Eventually, we did get things cleaned and 'tidied' - we put 'important' stuff such as decades worth of hobby magazines into plastic crates and filled the shed up. It's all out of the way and we weekly battle the ongoing tide of 'stuff' and dirt that Fil creates and acquires. It's exhausting.

You have three choices: leave things as they are and suffer; leave your DH and separate/divorce; or manage it by getting rid of everything you/he don't need (dump, gift or charity), clean and then manage unwanted/unnecessary things as they enter the home by giving him a week to put away, use or return. If he fails to comply, then bin/charity the item and tell him why. Hopefully he will 'get it' in the end. If not, consider whether you can live with his habits any longer.

I hear you! My H was away for the weekend and the house was so much calmer, cleaner and quieter. And that was with me having the 2 kids and a guest staying!

The worst thing about mine is he thinks he is a tidy person!

I think getting ruthless may be the only way to get any results.

@hellsbellsmelons it’s a great read! I sent it to him a couple of years ago - but I’ll try again.
Was digging around on that site and found this one which maybe speaks to me even more
mustbethistalltoride.com/2019/05/09/would-you-leave-your-spouse-over-dirty-dishes-a-lesson-on-conflict-management/

OK, so the more I think about it, the less this is actually about MESS. I mean yes, of course it's about mess. But even more it's about the fact that he knows I mind about this, and that I take A LOT of time keeping family life going. But - as that article above says - he makes the choice, time and time again, to leave the mug on the surface ABOVE the dishwasher, rather than putting it inside. Even though he knows I mind about it.

That article is brilliant - I'd read the dishes-by-the-sink one before, but this list...wow, sums up the problems in my relationship:

'When romantic partners (too often the men in male-female relationships) dispute, challenge, reject, insult, minimize, invalidate the expressed experiences of the other, they are communicating the following:

My beliefs are true; yours are false
What I feel is right; what you feel is wrong
What I think matters more than what you think
Because you’re wrong, and I’m right, I’m never going to change my behavior
You say that this hurts, but I don’t feel hurt by it so you must be crazy. I’m not going to help you stop hurting because you’re wrong for hurting.'

Incidentally, one of the things that drives me crazy, is coming home after a day at work, and being able to see the detritus of every single thing he's eaten that day, while working from home. but if i raise it, i get told that i 'never notice' the days when he doesn't do that, only when he does. But it feels like he does it a hell of a lot...and I'm not even asking him to wash up all the plates. Just to not leave the butter out, and wipe the crumbs away; to not use a different tea strainer each time he makes a cup, but clean out the first one; to put the bread board away; to throw away the empty crisp packet; to put the bloody tea caddy back in the cupboard. WHY IS THIS ALL SO HARD?!

For me, it’s that people say YOU need to get on top of this. YOU Ave ruthless. YOU go through all the kids things and throw this away and that away. YOU put all his things in a crate and throw it. People have said to me for years - just bin it, he’ll never notice.

Why is HIS mess up to ME to sort out. I am expected to spend the rest of my life dealing with his shite. No one puts pressure on the messy one to change, they try and find ways for you to accommodate them. When I am dead, who will take over the job of managing all this bollox. The problem isn’t mess.

Ah yes, the bread and cereal left out and open, so going stale. The butterdish lid off, empty packets.
‘Can you put this away’
‘Yes, I was going to’
‘But you didn’t and you never do...’

Does he see it as a problem?
If so, could you move some of the bigger jobs to him, like laundry/food shopping/cooking, but have you in charge of tidying?

CursedDiamond, are you me?? This was all triggered today by EXACTLY that.
More and more I realise that DH and I are really compatible when it comes to big things (ethics, money, values). But we seem to be completely incompatible in all the little things.

Evilmorty: yes. Exactly.

Pullingmysocks - we've had a go at this, and he does (theoretically) do a chunk of the laundry now (quite a bit of the folding etc. is done by our lovely cleaner, so it's not a massive task).

Cooking: he does lots of this, but a) he gets home way too late ever to feed the kids during the week; b) he won't think ahead, so the 'what are the kids having for tea when we're both at work' question always surprises him and he doesn't plan for it; and c) mess mess mess.

I think things have got a bit better on the sharing out of big jobs (though he hates it - he has less time now than he's ever had) - it's the bitty everyday drudgery that he keeps on ducking out of.

For the 'food being left out on the side' - the kids used to do this (even after their messy crappy father had gone).

Then we got a big dog, who could reach the side and clear the food off when nobody was looking, and used to eat full packs of biscuits left on the floor.

The kids learned to put stuff away really fast, once they got past the 'the dog's eaten the bread!' stage and I stopped replacing the biscuits etc.

He turned into a great dog, who gave up stealing food at the age of two years. Then we got a cat who'd eat all the butter left out on the side and tip over milkbottles. And the kids learned to keep food put away.

Of course evilmorty you’re right. I wish I knew the answer.

@Fluandseptember - honestly, this is just one of the small things. There are bigger problems for us, exemplified by that list. We’re trying to work through it all, and I’m by no means an innocent party, but OMG this has driven me insane for over a decade. And like you, I’m not a super-tidy person. But he takes it to whole new levels...