A messy wife and children

[Stu01]

Hello,

This is not a new problem. Every solution I’ve tried has failed and left me feeling more and more powerless.

So to the context - my wife and I are full time professionals who do the exact same job. Our hours are mostly identical. She does an extra half hour or so of work more at home in the evenings than I.

We’ve been together for all of her adult life and most of mine. This is not a new problem.

My wife loves to clean - she genuinely gets a buzz out of it (no idea why) but doesn’t do it- and she is very good at remembering birthdays and clubs and knowing day to day things. She is an excellent mother - phenomenal. We have two children, 10 and 7, and the youngest is a challenge. I find myself ignored and derided by my youngest and my choice is to walk away because otherwise I shall be furious.

My wife has been brought up by two loving parents who did everything for her. Her mother did wish me luck when we moved in together. Ever since I have known her, her life has been filled with clutter and love.

In contrast, I have scraped myself out of several challenging home lives and have lived in pressurised, immaculate homes. I was taught from a young age to clean, tidy, iron and take responsibility for myself. I didn’t lack in love, but I knew my mess should be dealt with.

Our houses have always been full of work and possessions. As the children came into our lives, we declutterred and she stayed at home to cook, clean and raise our children. Here is where it began.

For ten years now, our houses have deteriorated into a constant day to day clutter-fest. Children’s toys, shoes, paperwork, washing, clothes, bags, books and whatever else.

I have handled the laundry, half the ironing, cooking and most of the day to day clean up since the children started school. But as time goes by I’ve seen that she and the children don’t really have the tidiness of the house as a priority. I on the other hand find it hard to manage mentally and practically in a messy and disorganised house.

Laundry I have done can be left unmoved for a week until I snap. Ironing I have done is discarded on the floor and crumpled within days. Toys yearned for are trodden and broken. Meanwhile, the TV is on non-stop, the noise grows and I oscillate in a corner.

I’ve raised my feelings, suggested things and even done everything in a passive aggressive fury. No change. I’ve let the carpets be covered and trampled all over it. No change. I’ve bagged it all up and threatened to throw it away. No change. I’ve bagged some up and actually thrown it away. No change. My current approach is to only pick up whatever I have interacted with and deal with my own washing (excepting school uniform). My wife likes it when I iron her clothes - they are quietly languishing.

Resentment builds, I retreat into myself and find the only clear space to sit down and read. But I can’t concentrate. Our communication has deteriorated and she feels lonely.

She’s lonely mostly in the weekday mornings because I get on and organise myself. She on the other hand cannot find the children’s uniforms (we take responsibility for ironing and storing half each in a designated place) or water bottles (we have about 30), can’t decide what shoes to where (48 pairs), makes their breakfast (both children can do it themselves as we’ve taught them), does her hair and make up, and personally dresses our 7 year old (who refuses to do so) who miraculously can do it themselves on weekends. I just can’t bear to berate or dictate to them anymore - I’m just so fed up and isolated.

So I’m back from the gym at 6.45. She’s dressed by then. I eat breakfast, shower and change, and then I wash up and tidy up and wait. If people can’t find things, I tell them where I saw them last (on the floor). If people aren’t doing anything, I point out what is needed. I teach 10-11 year olds and know what they are capable of. The house descends into a fury of lateness and panic - I am still and seething and my children are dawdling around barefoot.

I fear I am being petty and pedantic. I fear we are babying the children. I fear I am unfeeling and not setting them a good example. I fear my expectations are too great and hers too low. I fear I am not being inclusive. I fear for my marriage. I fear for my sanity.

What do I do next?

@AbsentosaurusRex

not everyone wants to relax and live in a pigsty. Wife and kids need to learn how to tidy up after themselves

Does your wife use Mumsnet? I would love to see her side of this.

My family were very messy growing up but it was simply not tolerated other than in bedrooms, where my mum would just shut the door.

You both have to work together, you both have to be firm in house rules. If the children keep leaving things, keep putting them in a bag until there's nothing left if need be. Be persistent and the message will get over to the children, no children want to clean, it's boring! As for your wife and her being messy, she needs to understand that constant mess can affect mental health and it is really getting you down. If she doesn't listen to you and make an effort then am afraid she's not showing you much respect.

Don't be afraid to throw stuff away (who needs so many water bottles?!) cut back on some clubs etc, do things together. My partner is incredibly messy, but I put an album that we both like on loud, tell him to get up as we're going to have a bleach party. Works well. I wonder if something like that with your children may help, kinda like a cleaning party? :-)

What a good idea about the loud favourite music to charge the ‘bleach party’. You have turned the possibility of conflict into the opposite. Your username suits you!

Wow, the way your post is written!
Well, I understand. I view other humans in my home as contaminants.
😄
(Huge secret).
When you practically can, walk away.

“She is an excellent mother - phenomenal. We have two children, 10 and 7, and the youngest is a challenge. I find myself ignored and derided by my youngest and my choice is to walk away because otherwise I shall be furious.”

So you have a challenging child and you have the luxury of walking away in case it makes you cross?
Grow up. Parent your children and stop leaving it to your wife.

If you do the ironing or laundry then despair because it’s not put away for a week then do it yourself - you’re an adult living in the house, it’s supposed to be a partnership.

If she’s doing the bulk of the difficult parenting stuff (which can be soul destroying) then pick up more of the load rather than sitting back, observing and criticising it.

My ex was like you. Happy to see the mess pile up whilst I struggled with our dc, happy to walk away from our rude (autistic) child, but not able to pull his weight and equally parent or pick up the slack.

You can't do anything about your wife other than tell her how you feel and how it impacts her. You can however train the kids to put their weight and not leave the place a mess and should expect back up from your wife on this.

You need to show up and teach your own kids, set them up to succeed.
You can swan back from the gym, note the bathroom's a mess because three other people have already whirled through and then go down and tut at the abandoned cereal bowls.
Or you could stay home and pick a battle to set them up to succeed with. If it's breakfast, you do it in stages, empty the dishwasher absolutely first thing so bowls and cups can go straight in and be there to model good behaviour, help them kindly, then eventually just in good humour remind them.

I am married to someone like you, enjoying his beer and crisps after a hard day of focused DIY whilst I'd burnt myself out multitasking whilst I whirled through the house, parenting and responding to everyone's emotions. Rarely being able to focus singly on a task. Not even getting the chance to cook without supervising homework, screen time and the constant management of stuff. I loved cleaning but it comes after parenting, work and short term crisis stuff management.

I am a bit like your wife. I really don't notice mess much and I am a terrible procrastinator. I use up all my will power at work and find it impossible to "make" myself do things at home sometimes. What has worked for us is that I do all the earning and DH does everything else pretty much. I cook at the weekend and do most of the organising DS at the weekends.

I am sure I still drive DH nuts sometimes but then I sometimes really resent having to carry all the financial burden. Hopefully we can both take a breath and remember it's probably pretty fair overall.

op you choosing to walk away screams at me- if both parents choose to walk away nothing gets dealt with (as a wife of a dh who consistently walks off and doesn’t mention anything later about the fact that everything has been sorted). As for the laundry, a good rule from mn is you don’t leave things down, you put them straight where they need to go so ironing away, clothes put away. Look at what you find most stressful and talk to your wife about it, see if you can both meet in the middle. (Ps she sounds like me, I can’t get my you know what together but have learned not to let it break me, to clean as much as I can but I can’t get it close to what most people I know would in the same timeframe, this means our house isn’t what a lot of people on mn would like but like your house is full of love).

Also your wife obviously does not love to clean, this is something you both tell yourself!!

@Notmycircusnotmyotter me too. My ex used to complain about the house not being clean/tidy while doing absolutely nothing to help. Meanwhile I was running round after two small kids.

It sounds like your kids don’t have the right strategies or coping mechanisms eg knowing that every thing has its place, a system of declutter, a system of routine knowing you tidy after you finish playing. They aren’t being modelled it by you both consistently plus then you get cross and threaten to bin stuff, which is a lot of pressure on a child who may not have the skill to ‘just sort it out’ (although I get why you’d be frustrated)!

id probably have a sit down meeting with all of them (once your wife is on board) and talk about how too much stuff/mess is scientifically proven to affect mental health, come up with some new house rules together. Then do it for a few weeks trial and meet again.

could be that school bags are emptied by children and put away or packed for next day- 10 mins
play room tidied every night so no toys messed - 10/15 mins
declutter each week til you’ve done a lot- you don’t need 30 water bottles, its just 30 things to have to store and tidy. Everyone needs one/2 max. If they lose it, break things- age appropriate consequences to help them learn a bit of pride and respect in their belongings. But if the adults aren’t treating the belongings like that, its unfair to expect the children to do it.

😂😂😂😂 Aww you sound delightful. Lucky people to live with you! 🍀

She's doing the majority of the cooking, parenting and carrying the mental load.

You can do the tidying and cleaning.

If you divorce, who is going to deal with the 7 yo when you walk away because you can't handle them, or remember the birthday parties?

You have 2 primary aged kids, the house won't look like it did pre-kids.

In 10 years, all the barbies and plastic dinosaurs and Polly Pockets will be long gone and you'll be wondering why you wasted this time stressing about a bit of mess.

Messiness isn't something that you can unlearn and it's not inherently superior to tidiness. It is who she is. Seething and being passive aggressive won't help. Instead of sitting and waiting whilst everyone else is dealing with the morning chaos of getting ready maybe try picking a few things up instead of whining about it.

@Stu01
I worry you're my husband slightly changing details!

I am the messy wife. I was worse when we met and he was more hung up on tidiness to an extreme when we met. We both slightly moved closer to centre (I'd say I moved more but that's because I had further to go)
Our two kids (the youngest of whom is more of a handful than the eldest) do not tidy after themselves. They don't see it. Because I don't see it.
After some serious conversations about how it impacts on his mental health, and some couples counselling we are closer to better but it's still really hard for me to see the mess. I think probably because someone always tidied up after me as a kid. Which makes me more determined to raise my kids better.
However- i honestly have to stop in a room and say "what would bother him here?". Which I probably don't do enough. There's been a huge box of stuff I was going to sell in the sitting room for a month now. I walk past it multiple times a day and dont even see it. The spare room is a tip and even though I work from there every day I don't see the mess. I could go on...
But I love him. So I do try. It just doesn't come naturally to me and every so often I think "come on, it's not a big deal". And its not to me, but it is to him. Its just really hard to genuinely see it. I set aside time to focus on this every day and its really still not enough. I appreciate all he does. But he needs order for his mind.
I guess our house is probably tidier than yours. Because I respect and love my husband and value his mental well being. I don't get it right most of the time. It still gets him down. But I am aware of and value him and what matters to him. I feel like that's the part youre missing. Does she appreciate you and value things because they matter to you? Or does she think "it doesn't matter to me so shouldn't matter to him" ?

Adhd and divorce (which she will not like)

You shouldn't be trying to change her, and she shouldn't be trying to change you.. punishing her for being exactly who she was when you got married is horrible to be honest.

It sounds like you have a storage issue to be fair or WAY WAY too much stuff, if you have that much clutter, then you will have a messy house, it's just how it is, if you both tackle the amount of stuff you have back to minimal you may find the issue sorts itself out more anyway! It's not your wife's responsibility to organise that single handedly, you are a team and it is up to you both to organise your house properly so everyone can find what they need when they need it.

Why have your children got 48 pairs of shoes?? why do they have 30 water bottles?? You're both making this so much more complicated than it needs to be, no wonder the place is a state and the kids can never find anything!!

It actually sounds to me like you see your wife as the primary caregiver and you as the tidy upper/cook with no parental responsibility, why are you leaving all the parenting to your wife then blaming her for not doing a good enough job teaching them to be tidy, why are you walking away from your 7 year old instead of working on the relationship.. you're the adult!! Start acting like it. You sitting there in the morning while everyone panics around and only doing exactly HALF the kids uniform and leave the rest to your wife is just some weird passive aggressive nonsense.

Stop punishing your wife and kids and sort your fucking house out!

I agree with pps. I would bag and bin the lot. It seems harsh but property should be respected.

Also stop ironing. No one needs to iron.

The first step is to have a massive declutter or else everything will fail. Everything needs to have a designated place and everyone needs to know where things go. You need to set up a day to day rota for everyone’s chores. The rota sets out what each individual is responsible of and when. You need to sit down as a family and agree to it so you can always refer back to the rota if any issues. Chores need to be carried out before any fun time/down time/tv time.

The kids should prepare bags, water bottles, clothes in the evening so no one has to look for anything in the morning. These are examples of chores the kids should be doing throughout the week: make their on breakfast , tidy, clean and hoover their bedrooms, empty/fill dishwasher, sweep the floor, wipe kitchen table down, put their own clothes away, wipe down cupboard doors and mirrors in the house.

It could be a relief to have a break from being the default parent. He will have to step up and actually parent his challenging child instead of walking away. He will have to complete jobs instead of doing half and waiting for someone else to finish it for him.

I completely understand and empathise. This level of chaos would push me over the edge.

Now is a perfect time of year for a de-clutter. Your DCs, with supervision, should be able to have a proper clear out of their rooms and pare everything back. We did this every October half term without fail. If this doesn’t happen, then there’s nothing new for Christmas. Older, decent toys can be donated, broken ones chucked. Then use the hanging panic cubes from Ikea (recommended up thread) and put Mon-Fri clothes in there. This becomes a mandatory 10 minute job on e.g. Sunday morning going forwards.

Once their room(s) is tidy, take another room and work together to declutter and sort - keep, chuck, donate. If you’re keeping it, it gets put away.

With the ironing, TBH, if you’ve gone to the trouble of ironing it you may as well take the extra 10-15 minutes to hang it up/put it away. I know you shouldn’t have to, but this isn’t a hill worth dying on and prevents your ironing time being wasted.

As a family of four, I had a very messy, chaotic husband and child, and then there was me and our other child who were tidy and reasonably organised.

Everyone had to meet halfway on improving things for the sake of family harmony. The untidy ones needed help and guidance because they just didn’t ‘see’ the problem, so to avoid arguments and husband feeling patronised, we had a local person come in and help (she advertised on local Facebook pages). It was worth every single penny.

It won’t get better overnight but between now and Christmas if you all work together - without blame and arguing about how it’s got like it is - it can be a lot better with a good routine in place to continue to keep on top of things.

I hope things work out well - you sound overwhelmed by the mess and clutter and your wife sounds like she just doesn’t know how to improve things (which would also be overwhelming, not knowing how to even start).

Get a housekeeper, someone that actually sorts the mess, organises the chaos and keep the cleaner

you get to live in a house that is tidy and calm and they get to not know were their stuff has been put, but they don't know where their stuff is anyway - although they could learn as it will be put back in the same place each time

Reduce the children's clubs to one each per week. Look into what every is going on with the 7 year old - the fact that you both seem unable to parent them (that not a criticism, just an observation), declutter - it sounds like you have too much stuff (nobody needs 30 water bottles).

I fi d your post quite confusing. She is amazing and loves to clean but somehow everything is cluttered, a mess and the washing you did is left untouched?
She is working the same hours than you but she stays at home with the dcs?

If I’m getting the situation NOW rightly, you’re both working the same number of hours.
she is great at cleaning, not that much at tidying up.
You have an issue with the clutter/untidiness.

So separate tasks as it works best for you two.
She cleans, does the washing. You leave it to her and stop getting resentful she hasn’t folded up the washing.
You want the house uncluttered and tidy - you do it. Enroll the dcs as see fit. Deal with the tantrums if they happen. Don’t walk away from your youngest.

Fwiw I suspect you’ll find that ‘making the dcs tidy’ isn’t as easy as you think. But this will be on you. Up to you to find a solution rather than being ressentful of your wife for not making it happen to your expected level.

You need to work with your wife and cut out the judgemental stuff.
I think it sounds like she has adhd tbh, and probably your youngest child too.

I think if youre both working full time professionals, as well as trying to raise kids and keep a house clean, then I think getting a cleaner that helps organise too might well save your marriage.

Being cluttered or messy or disorganised doesnt make someone a bad person.
Youve both created this family. If youre sitting down watching everyone stress out because you consider yourself to have done your bit, then thats a bit mean. Your routine is the gym and the dishes and hers is whatever drama unfolds that morning, and that could be anything. You havent picked up the shoes or anything. Youve noted where they are so you can passive aggressively mention the mess that you wouldnt have allowed if it were up to you?

I dont think you are being a team