Anyone divorce over the house being a disaster?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the housekeeper suggestion. I'm a woman, maybe just slightly 'better' about it than your husband, but I'm kind of the same.

A cleaner, even every other week, forces me to straighten up. I have to consolidate the books into stacks and all the other crap before they come, so they spend their time really cleaning and not just making piles and moving piles around. Eventually, I got tired of stacking papers and receipts and puzzle/game boxes etc and learned to not keep so much (because I was confronted with it every other week during frantic pre-cleaning cleanup). I could go on, but you get the gist. I also really liked having a sparkling clean house and not having a panic attack every time there was a possibility that someone might drop by. It took a few months, but I did learn to pick up something if it fell on the floor and put things away somewhat.

Wellbutrin helps me "see" the things I used to not acknowledge.

If your reply is that he wouldn't bother to help clean up at all before the cleaners come and he wouldn't even try to learn to do a better job as your partner, and if that's 100% true, then that's a huge issue that goes way beyond absent-mindedness. I have ADD but I'm also married (to a type A) and a person has to work at making it work if they want it to work.

We have house cleaners every other week, but that’s for things like scrubbing toilets, not filing paperwork or finding a lost soccer jersey. And unfortunately, in some way the house cleaners make things worse because the night before they come is the one time DH will “help,” but his help consists of throwing things in piles on shelves and in cabinets/closets, so then it’s even more work to find something because it could be in the front hall closet, the sideboard in the dining room, or the dishwasher. Perhaps even the oven (because yes, he once put a stack of papers in the oven to get them off a counter, which I didn’t discover until I fortunately accidentally hit the oven light button while turning it on to preheat).

[Anonymous]

House cleaners and housekeepers are two different things.

[Anonymous]

OP takes lots of photos now. If possible, get DH to discuss his messiness and refusal to treat his ADHD in writing such as a text. You’mnbe So happy for this evidence when it comes to getting physical custody of the children. Judges dislike kids living in squalor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: But it still means I have to sort through everything to figure out what’s his (he also puts zero effort into getting the kids to clean up their stuff when he’s on his own with the kids, which means I have to be the bad guy who rides them to do it after I get home) and then things that are joint (like tools, tax papers, etc.) that I don’t want to lose, I still have to take responsibility for cleaning up and putting away.

NP here. Are there housekeepers who sort through their employers' papers, tools, and other personal items? Do they charge a higher rate than housekeepers who only clean?

Yes, and yes.

[Anonymous]

Not everyone with ADD is messy. I'm ADD and cannot stand messes. My house is spotless. Sounds like a lame ass excuse for being a pig. I could never live with someone like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you willing to see your kids half the time and every other Christmas or thanksgiving because your DH is a slob?

Are you willing to have less money, and to tell your kids they can’t do certain activities, or take certain trips, or have certain things because your DH is a slob?

Are you willing to limit yourself personally and professionally because your DH is a slob?

Are you willing to tell your kids their family broke up because daddy is a slob?

Just think really hard about what divorce actually looks like before making any decisions.

I haven’t decided what to do yet, but but if I do, it will be because I think divorce is better, despite those trade-offs. I would hate to only see my kids half time, but at least their home environment would be more functional and stable during that half time than it is 100% of the time now. I don’t care about money, I can support myself and the kids in what I earn, and I think fewer toys and trips is worth the trade-off for better day-to-day life as kids and as adults. The kids are young, but they’re not blind to who their father is, they get frustrated with him too. If we divorced, I could provide them a more secure home base than they have right now, even they were only here half the time.

[Anonymous]

My stepdad was like this, and he used to get so mad at my mom when she yelled at him to clean up his crap everyday. He said it was his house as much as hers and that's how he likes to live. She didn't divorce him over it (and they had other problems as well). He never changed. I think she learned to let it go and live with it/pick up after him. She's retired and happy now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why people should live together at least a year before marriage. You learn what the person is like on a day-to-day basis and how amenable they are to change.

The thing is, most people don’t have kids or big houses before they get married.

So if one partner is naturally beater and picks up after the other one, it’s not as much of a burden, and there isn’t as much resentment.

It’s hard to project how bad the situation will turn out to be when there is more space to make a mess, plus maintenance/home improvement requirements, plus limited time (and perhaps money) due to kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why people should live together at least a year before marriage. You learn what the person is like on a day-to-day basis and how amenable they are to change.

The thing is, most people don’t have kids or big houses before they get married.

So if one partner is naturally beater and picks up after the other one, it’s not as much of a burden, and there isn’t as much resentment.

It’s hard to project how bad the situation will turn out to be when there is more space to make a mess, plus maintenance/home improvement requirements, plus limited time (and perhaps money) due to kids.

*naturally neater!!

[Anonymous]

This would annoying me to the extreme too- but this alone I don’t think it is worth a divorce, especially if he is a great father.

I would just accept it is how he is and try to make a point to be a minimalist-easier to clean and put things in their place that way.

[Anonymous]

I feel your pain. Mine home situation is similar. I feel like a disgruntled harpie half the time. My cleanliness standard is super low, but his chaos mess factor is high. The months he travels our home is organized and fairly tidy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate being in my home. Every time my DH comes through a space, he leaves it a totally disaster and takes no responsibility for cleaning up after himself. Food spills on the counter, dirty socks all over the living room, torn open envelopes from the mail just left on the table, he got our kids fish tanks that now he never bothers to clean, got out the ladder and some tools to clear an object from the satellite tv dish and then just left them in the backyard, video game shit all over the living room table, etc. There is not one room in the house I can go to that he hasn’t absolutely trashed. Right now he’s in the basement looking for something, I can hear him overturning boxes Andy I know he won’t repack the, so I’ll have to do it later.

Yes, he has ADHD, but he refuses to treat it even though we have talked extensively about it affects the rest of the family (I and our two kids also have it, which means that when the house starts getting cluttered, things get lost and everything quickly spin so into chaos). Life is just so much easier and calmer when he travels for work, and I’m tired of spending every waking moment trying to maintain some sense of calm and order in the house. I’m just so tired every moment I am in this tornado-wake of a house.

Torn envelopes on a table doesn’t equal a room that is absolutely trashed. It sounds like you’re incredibly frustrated but it also seems like not that big a deal in the scheme of things.

[Anonymous]

Read this article and show your husband it as well...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_n_9055288

"She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink"

"...She will never agree with him, because for her, it’s not ACTUALLY about the glass. The glass situation could be ANY situation in which she feels unappreciated and disrespected by her husband.

The wife doesn’t want to divorce her husband because he leaves used drinking glasses by the sink.

She wants to divorce him because she feels like he doesn’t respect or appreciate her, which suggests he doesn’t love her, and she can’t count on him to be her lifelong partner. She can’t trust him. She can’t be safe with him. Thus, she must leave and find a new situation in which she can feel content and secure.

In theory, the man wants to fight this fight, because he thinks he’s right (and I tend to agree with him): The dirty glass is not more important than marital peace.

If his wife thought and felt like him, he’d be right to defend himself. Unfortunately, most guys don’t know that she’s NOT fighting about the glass. She’s fighting for acknowledgment, respect, validation, and his love."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would annoying me to the extreme too- but this alone I don’t think it is worth a divorce, especially if he is a great father.

I would just accept it is how he is and try to make a point to be a minimalist-easier to clean and put things in their place that way.

Given the stuff about how it affects the kids and their own ADHD, I question whether he’s a “great father.” Great parents usually have some regard for how they may be negatively affecting their children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate being in my home. Every time my DH comes through a space, he leaves it a totally disaster and takes no responsibility for cleaning up after himself. Food spills on the counter, dirty socks all over the living room, torn open envelopes from the mail just left on the table, he got our kids fish tanks that now he never bothers to clean, got out the ladder and some tools to clear an object from the satellite tv dish and then just left them in the backyard, video game shit all over the living room table, etc. There is not one room in the house I can go to that he hasn’t absolutely trashed. Right now he’s in the basement looking for something, I can hear him overturning boxes Andy I know he won’t repack the, so I’ll have to do it later.

Yes, he has ADHD, but he refuses to treat it even though we have talked extensively about it affects the rest of the family (I and our two kids also have it, which means that when the house starts getting cluttered, things get lost and everything quickly spin so into chaos). Life is just so much easier and calmer when he travels for work, and I’m tired of spending every waking moment trying to maintain some sense of calm and order in the house. I’m just so tired every moment I am in this tornado-wake of a house.

Torn envelopes on a table doesn’t equal a room that is absolutely trashed. It sounds like you’re incredibly frustrated but it also seems like not that big a deal in the scheme of things.

There’s some cherry picking for you.