My wife is so untidy what can I do

[DadofDD]

would really welcome a female perspective on this, my wife is so untidy. She leaves clutter everywhere. I wipe the worktop down come back it’s got crumbs on it. Every surface in the house has stuff pilled up on it, cupboards brimmed with papers and stuff.
We have argued over this for many years our DD is 8 and each year it’s gotten worse. It causing me serious resentment towards her. She’s a very emotional person I tried to tell her how I feel and it was a whole night of upset tears argument….I love my wife and family so much, when we’re not arguing over we get on really well…but I feel this is really pulling us apart ..what on earth can I do.?

To be honest things have got so bad that I cook,wash my own clothes, my daughters sometimes…I mostly clean the house as and when I can….it’s all a bit gross because I work so many hrs in the summer

This statement is telling. It's got "so bad" now that you have to cook, wash your own clothes and your daughter's "sometimes". And clean the house as and when.
I appreciate you are working full-time and a lot of hours and your wife works less, but you should also be taking some of the weight off her all the time and not just when things get "bad".
I think you both need to change tbh, not just her. She's obviously got a hoarding problem if she can't part with things, but you aren't really pulling your weight either.

Maybe she isn't a hoarder with ADHD and she is just fucking sick of doing it all and has given up.

This is what I'm like and I hate it. I'm sure (having done a couple of courses for work) I would be diagnsed with ADHD. It's so hard - I wake up every day with good intentions and I fail daily. I'm working on it. The realisation that there might be a reason for the way I am really helped. I was lying in bed last night thinking if I died in my sleep it would be so embarrassing for anyone to come into my bedroom (busy head at night that fires off in random directions). Baby steps - a timer and 10 mins, pick up 5 things and deal with them every time I go in a room... In my not at home life I'm organised and effective and cover up my problems. I have a brain dump book - I write any old nonsense in it and it helps. Clutter just accumulates around me - it's overwhelming and freezes me into doing nothing which I then beat myself up about. I'm definitely not lazy.

I'm ashamed to say this sounds exactly like me and my poor partner. For us it's ADHD and I'm working hard to get a handle on it. It's hard to express how overwelming it all is - especially the lack of object permanence in that if something is hidden from a view in a cupboard, boxes, loft, it might as well not exist so our storage spaces are full of stuff I've forgotten about because I can't see it but as soon as I recall it I insist we NEED it.

Difference is, I'm taking responsibility for it. But it has taken me years to get here and a lot of that was working to strip away layers of shame and denial about how I was, before I could take control over the chaos. I think this is a journey your wife has to go on herself, you can't force her but you can express how intolerable it is for you. Even if she 'can't help it' per se, she needs to understand that your feelings matter too. I think working together to find actual workable solutions for you both is the only way this will get sorted. But if your wife is this resistant to addressing it there may be little you can do that doesn't make you miserable one way or the other. I'm concerned that she deflects your attempts to discuss this by turning it all into an attack on her you have to back down from.

My DP leaves wrappers all ov My DP leaves wrappers all over the place and doesn't close cupboards.... drives me nuts but I try and pick my battles though I do more of the household items.

This thread is peak Mumsnet. If a woman posted about being fed up of cleaning up after her husband, you can be sure most of the answers wouldn't be about undiagnosed ADHD

Right! It would be leave the lazy bastard, he’s doing it because he knows you will do it, he doesn’t respect you as a person, pick it all up and throw it outside blah blah blah. Not one single person would be like, awww maybe he had adhd bless him. Maybe you should just do it for him. How much do you actually do around the house?

such bullshit.

Tbh OP you need to do what my dad always did and just chuck stuff if it's left in a mess in places that are inconvenient and not moved.

It was very frustrating for me as the messy one but I soon learnt to keep stuff in better order.

No and the OP isn’t cleaning up after his wife.

OP my husband does have adhd and he’s a nightmare for this. He gets 3 chances to move things when I’ve asked him and then he knows it goes in a bag and it goes in his shed. Then that’s his problem as I don’t go in his shed. You’re mental health is EQUALLY as important as hers. I appreciate that my husband had a disorder but he also appreciates that mess triggers mine!

You sound like my husband and I sound like your wife

I have a formal diagnosis of ADHD

This book helped my husband and I greatly

I really do advise you to buy it and read it and your wife

It's for both sides

No amount of nagging is going to change her, and she isn't doing it on purpose, she honestly doesn't see what you see

The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1886941971/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_68E7736SSDTJE7DC2C8V

But he’s not cleaning up after her.

He’s not cleaning up after the kids, either.

He’s busy at work, doing his own washing (& maybe a few of his DD’s clothes once in a while) and he doesn’t ever cook a family meal or empty the dishwasher.

It runs in families

My mother , me and my son all have it.

I saw a really good talking technique that a therapist taught to a couple on a TV programme about a lady with a shopping addiction that night work for you op.

Example convo (how therapist wanted it to be laid out)

Man: is now a good time for us to sit down and have a talk?
Woman: yes
Man: I've been feeling we need to look together at our household outgoings and come to some agreement on budgets and work together to save money in all those areas.
Woman (asked to repeat back what he said - not an emotional interpretation - but what he said)
I hear you say that you want to work together to come up with a budget for thr household that will allow us to save money.
Woman: I feel I need you to work less so that I don't feel lonely when you are always away and fall back to shopping habits as comfort.
Man: I hear you say you would like me to look at reducing my hours or adjusting them so that we have more time off together so that you don't feel lonely so much.

Point being to stick directly to repeating back to them what they have said. Showing they've veen heard and not getting emotional about it. Just taking turns to listen and also, put your needs across.

How about

“I was wondering if we could have a bit of a clear out together of the kitchen cabinets? When I was emptying the dishwasher the other day I realised it’s getting harder to put stuff away and I think there’s probably stuff we don’t use much. But I don’t want to throw out anything that’s DD’s favourite plate or you use all the time to cook with the girls or whatever so we could do it together?”

I would start small with the training. "Could you just wipe that surface down when you've finished, please?" I do this with my (adult) DS, and once he realises he's BU by leaving crumbs he learns fast, but admittedly it's easier with a dch than a DP who doesn't want to listen.

Never fell out of use in Ireland, Scotland and I'm guessing parts of England.

I would start small. You in the UK correct so you have a extra long weekend so do you have the time to start this weekend? You need to word things differently to your wife so she understands, take deep breaths and don't get emotional. I remember an episode of Kirsty and Phil's love it or list it, the wife wnated to move as no space and he wanted to stay. When Kirsty went in she said you have space its just filled with clutter, She took every mug out of the presses and lined them in the garden. There was over 100 mugs, she told them to pick 20 and they were kept - could something like this work for your wife? If she sees everything laid out she might realise it, once you start in one area and see how well its done it might work to do rest of house. I would also look at marriage counselling

wanting to live in a tidy home does not mean you have “ a little ocd”. Ocd is a serious condition impacting someone’s ability to function properly in everyday life. You can’t have a “little” ocd.

You might also usefully reframe your thinking about this by changing your language i.e.

Our family is so untidy…
Our house is so untidy…

Not ‘my wife is so untidy’.

It’s easier to have a discussion and find solutions if you don’t feel personally attacked.

Because they are speaking very old English which was taken across the pond and never changed whereas it was dropped in the UK except in forgotten, begotten and maybe other odd words. It has returned via US TV etc..

Maybe purchase some files so the paperwork can be filed away rather than left on the side. I don’t know about the rest because my DH is like your DW and I’m more like you. I used to let strong resentment and bitterness build up but now I just do really petty things which bring me great joy. For example, I used to endlessly pick up his dirty washing off the floor but now if it’s not in the basket I don’t wash it. Instead, I collect all of the dirty linen (including his wet towels) and put them on his side of the bed under the duvet.

If she's very distressed at the thought of getting rid of things then it sounds like both ADHD and hoarding. It means thigns that seem like rubbish end up having a lot of emotion attached/there is a lot of fear/anxiety around throwing them away that makes it very distressing and paralysing to do. There are people that can come in and help with hoarders, providing a neutral presence that helps them sort through things. I'll be honest getting good NHS help for hoarding is a very long process as there's often trauma there. I would really recommend you possibly write down how you feel and then give some time for her to process it, but it sounds like you are really miserable and don't feel like you are a team. It is often difficult when 2 people have different standards of clean/tidy but there needs to be an agreed minimum standard. I'm a lot messier than my partner, but then I also don't have any space in the house that is 'mine' (he has an office).

One thing that really helped me is having very simple ways to make the place look tidy - she's never going to be super organised - but having boxes that stuff can be thrown into and big drawers that stuff fits in and then big clear outs when things don't fit anymore is how I manage it. But I grew up with a hoarder and am determined to not turn into one, and can't handle my own mess when it gets to a certain point.

Can you hire a cleaner? For a deep clean? I would not put up with a dirty home.

also your wife needs to declutter by the sounds of it. I know you said it results in an argument but have the argument then get a black bag to hand and start clearing out the junk

Training? You think this man need to train his wife to clean the house which he also doesn't clean?