What happened when you stopped picking up after/putting away for your spouse?
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Anonymous
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You know what actually helped? I stopped asking/reminding saying anything at all.
I kept picking up the house because I cant stand clutter, but whenever he left anything laying around (socks, mail, etc) it went straight in the trash. If it was on the floor, on the couch or any other communal area, it went straight in the trash. No discussion, no warning. My DH has an office, so any dishes that he left on the coffee table lying around went on top of his desk. His office is one area of the house that I don't pick up at all and don't care how filthy it gets. If he asks me if I've seen anything, I just look confused and say "you want to me go through the trash?" One time he spent hours going through the trash because he'd left an important document on the floor and it got thrown away. He stopped leaving things out pretty soon after that. But there were a few weeks where the only mail that was lying around was junk mail or things he didn't care about much. |
Anonymous
| I might pick up some of my DH's stuff, but I will NOT put it away or in the laundry. |
Anonymous
| My DH is this way, too. He will leave dirty clothes literally 2 feet from the hamper. Those don't get washed. He's now traveling frequently, and even with 3 young children, I am able to keep the house so much cleaner when he's gone. |
Anonymous
Me, too. I'll pick up in the very visible areas, but only move to the floor on his side of the bed, his desk etc. He eventually gets around to it. Works well enough. It is important to acknowledge the different comfort level point and find a way to work with it. |
Anonymous
NP here and I'm not sure what escapes you. You can't force someone to do something they aren't willing to do. I've quietly (loudly, softly, repeatedly) told DH that I won't tolerate his being a slob. It works for maybe a day or two and then back to dirty clothes lying all over the house, dirty plates, cups, napkins, papers, junk all over everywhere. If I don't pick it up, it doesn't get done. And to answer the other pp's question - no, I didn't see this level of grossness before we married. we've been married now for about 15 years and we lived together for 1 before we got married. He put forth the effort at the beginning. And it wasn't like a light switch that went from clean to slob overnight. It happened gradually (in our case) where socks are left around but dishes/cups picked up. Then other clothes, then he stopped bothering with the dishes. And trust me when I say I would constantly tell him from the beginning. Pick up after yourself. Then it just got worse after kids. now that the kids are older, it's just laziness. Oh and here's the gem. When i get on him about all his hundreds of messes around the house, he'll point to (for example) one coffee cup that's on the family room side table from the same morning and say "You leave a mess too. See your coffee cup? You don't pick up after yourself either!" So, basically I have to be perfect and have no trace of a mess from me before I can "judge" him. |
Anonymous
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I would always do all the laundry in our house. Sort, wash, dry, fold, deliver to rooms to put away. It worked for many years. DH never helped. Many times, he would just have a pile of clothes on the floor for weeks and the clean would get mixed in with the dirty. He didn't care. And about once a month he would just say "wash it all" because he didn't know what was clean or dirty. And so I'd sort, wash, dry, fold, deliver again. Then I got fed up. We had 2 kids, so I had to take care of their stuff but I'd be damned if I was going to wash another clean piece of his crap because he was too lazy to do anything with it.
Fast forward to today. He just has a pile of clothes in the laundry room of varying degrees of clean vs dirty. He treats the washing machine like his hamper, and will just throw clothes in there with no intention of actually running the machine. Our kids are old enough to do their own laundry, and they do it. If DH's clothes are being stored in the washer, they get thrown onto the floor (not run with the next person's load). If he magically had run his own load and moved those to the dryer, they sit in the dryer for days. If his clothes are in the dryer when someone else is moving their laundry around, DH's clothes get thrown onto the floor. It's goddamn ridiculous but he doesn't do anything about it, and then has the nerve to make comments about no one taking care of his clothes. So, when I stopped doing it, it just didn't get done. I don't care about it. He is a grown-ass man and can take care of himself. |
Anonymous
This. And he started buying things he already owned, because he couldn't find it. |
Anonymous
| My house would become a mess. I would never do that. |
Anonymous
I thought that he'd be less of a slob after marriage out of respect for me and the kids. |
Anonymous
I'm a pp and OMG I totally forgot about this too. Yes! It would drive me insane. He'd re-buy things he already had because it was easier than cleaning up and looking for whatever. AGH. Drives me nuts. It's like I have to take care of everything otherwise it seeps into other areas of life. |
Anonymous
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I stopped picking up after H. HE never started doing things for himself. Now he is my exH (for reasons other than his slovenliness). I have full custody, and when he comes over to spend time with his kids, he STILL leaves his things for others to clean up or put away.
Some people never change. He remarried and found someone to do these things for him. I can tell you our 16 y.o. daughter is unimpressed by a 55 yo guy who can't put his plate in the dishwasher. It has damaged her relationship with him because it's one of the many, many ways he demonstrates his irresponsibility and self-absorption. |
Anonymous
+1000 Both my 16yo and 18yo DC's absolutely notice all the crap DH leaves around, and the irony is not lost on them when he goes into a rage about whether their rooms are clean or not. DH wonders why his children don't respect him. We are headed down the road to divorce in the very near future for many issues as well. |
Anonymous
+10000 I am the OP from the recent clutter question in the home section. You name it, it is strewn about. Picking up after everyone, with no help, when they are slobs, is exhausting. I am trying to avoid buying duplicates, because I am the only one in the house that can see things that are right in front of me, apparently. Exhausting, I tell you. |
Anonymous
Assuming you've talked and talked to no avail, put his stuff in one big corner or room. Do your own laundry and cooking. Clean but hire a weekly service. |
Anonymous
DH here, but same for me. First, neither of us is a slob; we both more or less agree on the level of tidiness and cleanliness (these are not the same thing) that are acceptable; we were visiting my sibling over Xmass and had to leave early because we simply couldn't handle the tornado zone (and filth) that dominates. My sibling and IL are both slobs and their children are basically unschooled in cleaning up after themselves. That said: DW does not care about certain things, or rather, I care more than she does about certain things; an example: I always make the bed. I hate to get into an unmade bed. DW would go for the full two weeks between the cleaners (who change sheets and make the bed) with an unmade bed. And because I care more about these things, and she's not unreasonable, I wind up taking responsibility for those. That's mostly kitchen cleanup, but DW will let DS smear food all over, and I police that. Yes, I do the majority of the household cleaning not handled by the cleaning service (every 2 weeks), but that's OK. Ex-DW (I am remarried) was on the edge of OCD, and I was the less obsessive person in that relationship (I'm quite certain some of my now obsessive behavior like bed making comes from), and I know how much it absolutely sucks to get nagged incessantly about doing chores purely to please someone else. I do think, like with sexual compatibility, that there's no clear "right" or "wrong" about how to be, or rather, a broad range of acceptable, but you ought to be on the same page. DW and I are pretty close; my sister and her husbands are on the same page (epic slobs). That said: there have been a couple of times that DW, despite being the one who gets cut more slack on the neat nick stuff, has carped at me about some things; my response is to immediately drop the rope and let the consequences flow. This is a good reminder of just how much I do - above and beyond - and how nasty things (the kitchen in particular; DW will leave dirty dishes for days, never wipe down counters; I knew this before marriage) will get very very quickly when I really do "slack off". And instead of getting nagging, I get appreciation, which goes a long way to preventing resentfulness and bitterness. My advice: don't so much go the P-A route of "stopping picking up", but instead be direct and confront about these issues, and be reasonable in your expectations and demands. |