Member- wannabecleanfreak
- 4 years ago
- Wedding: January 2012
Okay, regular bee going anonymous here. Not that it’s a shady topic or anything, but I’m pretty open under my active username, ie lots of personal details and pictures. And it would be just my bad luck someone I know would see this post, and mention it to my DH, which I think would hurt his feelings.
So our house is a pig sty and I cannot stand it one second longer. It’s literally the ONLY thing we fight about any more. We’ve never been able to come to an agreement on this, but I know we have to. I know it should have been something we worked about before the wedding, but it’s not a deal breaker and we had so much other stuff to focus on… so it just fell off the priority list. That’s also why I wanted to post anonymously I think – it’s embarrassing we didn’t address this sooner!
The thing is, neither of us are neat freaks. On the scale of total slobs to neat freaks, we’re probably somewhere left of center. However, the ways in which we are not clean are very different. He hates clutter but is happy for the toilet to be full of mildew, whereas I can tolerate a little bit of clutter but hate dirt. He also is happy for the house to be a mess all week and then do three hours of cleaning every two weeks on the weekend. I would rather spend 20 minutes every day picking up and deep cleaning one room each day, then putting up with mess all week and sacrificing my weekend to clean.
What made me finally ask for help was what happened last night – I had a migraine so had crawled into bed at 4pm and didn’t come out until this morning. I knew he was on a cleaning spree last night, and yes the place looked decent this morning. BUT it was the clutter that was picked up, nothing was CLEAN – no vacuuming done, the kitchen counters were dirty as all hell, bathroom still disgusting. But there was a pile of stuff by the door to be thrown out. This is something else that DRIVES ME CRAZY – he throws my stuff out when he goes on these cleaning sprees. This time it was a magazine I hadn’t yet read (had only arrived yesterday!), a small food processor that he must think I never use but I use it at least 3-4x a month, and a wine glass that came from my parents bar. We only have one of that glass and it’s blue, so it does stand out – but it has sentimental value to me and he should have asked first!
I have tried talking to him about this so many times, and we cannot compromise on this. I tried doing a monthly schedule where we each have goals for one month to try and meet to help us both get better at this. Like mine for one month was to not let my paperwork pile up and his was to wipe down the bathroom sink every morning. But, neither of us followed it (obviously my fault as well). I’ve also tried telling him how much having a clean house means to me – our house was a disaster growing up and I hated it. It was so embarrassing! But he doesn’t understand.
Some of the other things he does that make me so upset are leaving all his breakfast food on the counter all day – like the cereal box and even milk!! When I make breakfast, I put everything away before I go to eat it. Then I put the bowl in the dishwasher before I leave the house. I come home from work before him and I find everything out on the counter and the bowl on the table! He also leaves his clothes on the floor IN THE HALLWAY! Right now, there are a pair of boxers and two shirts just lying in our hallway. And he hangs his wet towels over the banister instead of, oh I don’t know, IN THE BATHROOM. WTF?
To be fair, I know it drives him crazy that I have a pile of bank statements and unread magazines on the kitchen table at a given time, or that I take three days to fold clean clothes. So I am far from perfect.
Help bees! Sorry this is so long, just wanted to get all the info out there. All advice is welcome! I’m desperate.
