Not sure I can live with DP - mess/disorganisation

[Menelope]

I love my DP we do not live together, we can’t afford it as we both have our own kids so we decided to just save up where we can for the future one day. We swap around sleeping at each others houses on various evenings but both of us prefer our own homes and we spend less and less time together, not sleeping in the same place very often. Do you think we are incompatible? How do you manage this?

I have a cat and DP is mildly allergic to it. This is why he doesn’t stay at mine as much although my house is bigger. My house is generally clean and tidy as it helps me focus, I don’t like not being able to find things. I don’t ever nit pick at him for anything if he is in my house but he acts like I do, afraid to mess anything up. I have no problem if things get messed up, kitchens get messy when you use them and I just clear it up after. After dinner I would clear up then sit down for the evening. He would just leave everything and intend to do it another time. My kids have messy rooms which are their responsibility but we all keep our communal areas reasonably tidy together. If he’s at my house he would help me clear up the kitchen if we cooked together. I like to start my weekend by getting up early and doing laundry/cleaning for an hour or 2 then I have the whole weekend free to go do things. He never does this and lies in bed. He works less hours than I do so has more time than I do.

DP’s place is so chaotic it feels claustrophobic, it’s smaller than mine so all the things everywhere make it feel tiny. I have no space for anything at his house and if I did, I would struggle to find them each time so I never leave anything there. He never puts laundry away, it’s just piled up all over the house. He has papers and stuff everywhere on every surface. He can often go weeks not tidying anything up at all so it looks like a bomb has gone off. His kids never clear anything up either. They drop everything on the floor or throw it somewhere. He doesn’t mind this although he always seems stressed and can’t find things and often has to ask me where I have seen something (and I usually can remember it weirdly). I did used to try to help him out, but he says I don’t need to do now I don’t. He isn’t ‘dirty’ as in he will change the sheets and he does laundry so they wear clean clothes. His fridge and cupboards though everything is gone off or falling out onto the floor.

I don’t think I could live with him like this, coming home to an absolute mess caused by him/kids and he doesn’t really think it’s important so they wouldn’t clear it up, even though he can never find anything and is always stressed about it, or him being afraid of me getting annoyed and not really being happy living with me judging his mess. Would I just end up endlessly stressed? Am I too uptight? No one really likes housework I get that, but he almost seems to be adverse to the concept of it actually benefitting your life. I don’t even think there is a compromise although I would settle for a set day a week where we tackled mess and cleared it up, I think this would soon slide and it would be me doing it for my own benefit. 😞

Sounds like he would happily let a woman do it though!

All you can do is honestly say, if it ever becomes an option, they you will never considered living with him until he can look after his own house to a basic standard with no complaining and fuss for at least a year before you would contemplate living together.

often has to ask me where I have seen something
He can't be arsed to put in the effort either to pick things up or to use his own brain or eyes to look for it when they get lost as a result.
Ugh.

It’s not even this, he just seems to live life constantly chaotic. He will come back from shopping and just tip everything out into the kitchen diner area, put half of it away, start cooking, the kids never help so they are playing in the chaos leaving a trail of things behind them. So when it comes to them going out, no one knows where their shoes/sunglasses/hats/sun lotion are because it’s spread around with things on top of it and then everything else gets tipped upside down looking for all the elements. The kids literally take off dirty clothes and throw them around so if I was to go into their room I wouldn’t know what was clean or dirty as it’s all mixed up with toys all over the floor.
He lost his passport and I had seen it as I had picked up a pile of papers from the bed (to be able to sleep) and put them on a dresser which he then added 3 loads of laundry to

I'm sure someone will come on saying he has ADHD, but ADHD does not mean it's OK to frequently get your partner to clutter her own mind with petty nonsense such as where your keys are. He needs to deal with his own issues, or do you want to become his mum?

If he likes living like that then he likes living like that. I am not sure there is much to do accept have a frank conversation with him about your concerns that it means you are incompatible living together.

I think of an old boyfriend who lived like that. It genuinely wasn't a case of being deliberately bad so 'the woman' would do it for him. He grew up with crazy strong woman all around him who never ever put up with that kind of attitude. It was just how he lived when he was an adult.

We actually did manage to live together ok for a bit, but only by agreeing to a regular cleaner to help prevent arguments between us over general tidiness.

We split up after a year and a half - over something else - and I suspect if that hadn't done for us, eventually the house thing would have. We'd have reached a point where the cleaner wouldn't be enough. And we were young and less stuck in our ways. We'd have got older and more cantankerous

Even reading your OP makes me what to get the hoover out - I certainly couldn't live with someone like it now.

My ex DP was like this. I was lulled into a false sense of it all early on by the fact that our homes were of similar periods and Iliked his taste in some ways. However... his paperwork was horrific, his fridge filthy and he didn't really clear up after himself ie loads and loads of old empty toilet rolls in the bathroom. Living with him turned out to be very stressful and I had 14 years where I was largely left 'in charge' of any sort of standard or regarded as 'a bit OTT or nag' for attempting to share the load. I made many attempts to put systems in place so that things would improve eg buying a cupboard for work bag and related paperwork, set up folders for house paperwork etc He simply didn't use them or the mess expanded to other area as as well. In your situation I wouldn't live together. Cleaning, if he did it, was done in a loud and grumpy way. He was always losing everything. You would prob end up chasing not only him but his DC, and being resented for it. Your workload would more than double because they are not used to living in an organised way. The mess and stress would no doubt affect your wellbeing and by default that of your DC. As another poster said you could say that you wouldn't live with him until you could see he could manage to live tidily but he may just brush that off... or do it half heatedly for a short time. I wouldn't want to be with someone that wasn't able to function as an adult. That dynamic feels like parent and child not partners, if you get stuck in it.

It would give me the ick/ lose all respect for him I’m afraid.
He’s meant to be a partner, not another burden.

@80s
I don’t even think he would ask his mum! His parents have a cluttered house, the whole family do not like to seem to throw things away 😂 but his parents house is reasonably organised so this absolute mess is a DP thing. When we first met he would always spent time clearing up to make it nice when I visited but now he’s got comfy I am greeted with 6 weeks worth of complete crap on every surface when I visit. I don’t even think it’s ADHD, he just doesn’t think it’s important. He believes he is spending time doing other more important things with his life and clearing up is not important. He has kids half the time so he does actually have no children at home part of the week. I talked to him about it being important that children learn about normal life skills and working as a team (clearing up after dinner for example) and he will agree with me but then he just lets them go play after dinner and they all get up in the morning to last nights dinner still on the table then eat breakfast around it, rinse and repeat. He will then spend an hour in a frenzy sweating his ass off cleaning up old food and frantically washing plates as he has none left or the place has begun to stink.

@barlie this is what I think too. I would become a nag and feel burdened by it. I also don’t like that he gives kids zero responsibility and this doesn’t bode well with me for the future. I would be living with all 3 of them not listening to me. I have a few times attempted to engage the kids in a tidy up session of their own mess to help him out and they acted like I was talking a foreign language

You don't have to live together,I certainly wouldn't as it won't get any better.

Don't do it

Yep 'frenzy' and 'frantic' sounds familiar. It's stressful living around this once you are invested and sharing space. He may well be a lovely guy but if you don't like living in this way, and with this around you, then sharing a house is a nightmare. He sounds like someone who is genial and likes to live in the moment. If you are a planner who thinks forward then this is a nightmare! I swear from my experience that disorganised people like this tend to gravitate to a partner that can then prop them up. I have several friends living this dynamic and they are moaning all the time!

@barlie yes also to the loo rolls. All his bins are always overflowing he keeps shoving more into them. When I have a bath I always end up knocking over 10 empty bottles of stuff into the water with me. The shelf in his bathroom is absolutely gross he never cleans it. If I try to help him he gets insulted and annoyed and tells me to stop. He goes on a clear out sometimes and will then leave all the bagged up stuff for the dump/clothing bank on the floor in a room or hallway for months on end, you have to walk over it to get around any of the areas. The kids end up either kicking it around or taking the stuff out of the bags so it never leaves.

FWIW When I look back now it is the loo rolls that make me think 'I should have raised my standards' in what I was willing to accept in a relationship. My bar was too low. It's probably worth a rethink OP to decide if you want more than this rather than wasting time and energy if what you want is a permanent relationship where you live with your partner.

I wouldn’t care how nice he is, that filthy house and lazy attitude would turn my stomach and put me right off.
Whats the point of continuing with the relationship when you will never be able to live with him unless you take responsibility for and are happy to pick up after him every single day.

It's odd - the memories that make you look back and say 'I should have known'!!

I don’t know how you can bear to go round there, it sounds like a plague pit.

I would say bin him, but the bin is full…..(and overflowing)

Don’t honestly, I will probably out myself but the thing I hate the most is that he uses a carrier bag on the floor for putting old food in, many times I have trodden on this bag and got old food on my feet because there are various bags, crusty cloths etc everywhere and it’s not obvious what it is. I asked him to use a food waste caddy he said no, the floor bag was fine. This is cos he has a system where he takes the food to the bin daily, so he doesn’t have to empty the other bins. So the wet/smelly things go into the floor bag and then the other bins full of recycling stuff which just builds up and up. He will get annoyed if I can’t find the floor bag and put something wet into the normal bin because it’s not in his system. FYI where he lives, he has no waste separation everything goes into huge bins, there are plenty of them and no specific food or recycling. I remember visiting his previous house and he did have a food caddy bin and it was completely overflowing and stank. So perhaps he has improved. He talked about getting a dog and I talked him out of it because I don’t think he could actually look after a dog and it would be dangerous. He also talks about having his Nan with dementia living with him and I said it would be a health hazard for her too!

Wrong thread!

My mother could have written a lot of these posts about my father! They did split up after about 20 years. Our home was neat and tidy and clean but that was down to mum's nagging.

I only ever stayed over at my father's once or twice and it was the chaos that just meant I could never relax.

Op, this relationship isn't going to work. You are too different (clean and tidy) to him.
His level on cleanliness and tidiness sounds rank.
You will never be able to live happily with him.
For me it would be time to move on.

I'm sorry, op, but raise your standards. This man is disgusting.

No matter what you choose to put up with for yourself, please never, ever expect your children to live in these sort of conditions with a man like this.

This so reminds me of my ex. As soon as we got together, he never left and more or less just moved in with me. At first I thought he was so lovely as he’d constantly be making me drinks and food but he’d absolutely trash the kitchen in the process creating more work for me. He had incontinence and would leave his urine soaked clothes on wooden floors and his pads would just be left on the bathroom floor. His work stuff would be strewn about my living room. His car was absolutely revolting. He was badly disorganised and looked to me to help him with it. I felt so disrespected and like my space had been invaded by his mess.

I couldn’t live like that op. If you’re still keen to be in a relationship with him, I think you need to enforce some boundaries. Refuse to stay at his house unless he cleans up. Do not move in with him unless you’re content to be constantly picking up after him. It’s not worth it and the resentment will kill the relationship.