Feeling like I'm the spouse who is always "on" and keeping things in order

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have advice for a chronic pile-er? It’s not just the piles but they symbolize the mentally that I struggle with so much. Kids put a ton of stuff on the kitchen counter? Pile it into a tall stack and you’re done! If you are doing this in preparation for company shove the whole thing in a random cabinet. I only recently realized that he thinks this is actually cleaning. I thought he was doing it when he panicked. But I have been asking him to stop because it’s literally more work for me to find the pile and go through it to find the homework worksheet our kid needs. Meanwhile there are random pots and pans still sitting out. But he just keeps doing it anyway. Like another PP we moved recently and despite me doing 90 percent of the packing up there were boxes of crap that got transported and were largely trash but with like one of the kids favorite toys randomly shoved in. We still have boxes in our room that need to be dealt with. I definitely feel like there are horder tendencies at play because he’s so adverse to throwing anything out and it really scares me.

I'm attic closet PP. I think there's a mental health component to the piling. Whatever strategies a person with a typically developed brain might use to overcome mess and develop systems for daily living and organization aren't going to be effective in overcoming different brain wiring that occurred during childhood and adolescence and possible chemical imbalances. I don't have the answer; I think it's a version of hoarding controlled within a smaller footprint but is at its root no different from the kind of hoarding you see in those shows where stuff is avalanching down on people.

My admittedly limited understanding is that this can be a version of OCD. When doing a task perfectly seems difficult, if not impossible, the inclination is to procrastinate because then perfection is still a future possibility. In my experience, you can't teach, fix, argue or threaten these folks into different behavior. You can control your own behavior but not theirs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP someone wrote a book for this. It's called Fair Play. The book has lots of flaws, but it could give you some ideas.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44071899-fair-play?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=VmjafEz0oW&rank=1

I'm one of the people on this thread and I promise you that if your spouse is not able to be on and keep things in order, they are not going to participate effectively in Fair Play. It was very illuminating to get the book out, propose doing it with my spouse, hear him enthusiastically say he would read it, then weeks later hear him say "could you just summarize it for me", then hear him say "could you just divide up the tasks for me". So basically he wanted me to do Fair Play for him.

Fair Play to me was more of a litmus test and a paradox than anything else. If you have a spouse who is willing to do the work of Fair Play, you don't need it and can put that energy into just...doing the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for all the feedback on this. I do understand the need to communicate better, but why oh why can't he notice the obvious, like the rotting food in the fridge or the dishes left on the kitchen table all night. I mean, this is his home, too. I have to remind our kid to pick up stuff or clean up his mess because he's, well, a child. But why does a 45 year old man need to be told to initiate a simple action like throwing out the old take-out HE left in the fridge two weeks ago? It's HIS. Are his eyes literally unable to detect the container of festering food on the second shelf?

Let me help you out - he doesn't care. He doesn't care about moldy food in the fridge. YOU care, so you see it, and you do something about it. He. Does. Not. Care.

I'm not saying he's right about not caring, it's just a fact, it's who he is. You can spend the rest of your life banging your head against the wall and being upset that he doesn't care, but it isn't going to make him care.

I don't envy your situation at all and I have immense sympathy for you, but I just think you need to change your mindset. You think you both see the food and realize it needs to be thrown away but in reality, the food just isn't there to him. He doesn't see it. He doesn't care about it.

I couldn't tell you if I tried whether our landscaping is doing well. If there's a dead tree, I have no idea. If there is a hole where a bush was pulled up and something needs to be planted there, I couldn't tell you that. I simply do not care, so I am completely blind when it comes to looking at the landscaping. If my husband were to be upset with me for not caring that we have a missing bush, he's be barking up the wrong tree. Pun intended.

Maybe this will help you, I hope it does. I don't think your situation is hopeless, I just think you need to acknowledge who he is, consider what things you may be able to change, and then decide if you can live with it or not. But trying to make him care is something you need to reserve for the really important items (ones related to your child and your marriage). Let the takeout food go.

I doubt your examples of how ignorant you are and how ignorant your spouse is helps anything here. Sounds like a culture of mediocrity and passiveness. Enjoy. Ignorance is bliss!

I don't really care if you find my post helpful or not. I'm not ignorant and neither is my spouse. Not caring about landscaping doesn't make me a loser. I'm actually quite Type A and our house is in excellent shape, we eat well, our laundry is done regularly, etc. Neither my husband nor I have ever been accused of being mediocre or passive.

You dont care about many things because you are mind blind.

You dont care if your dead tree branch over the road falls over.

Your husband doesn’t care if moldy or infected food in your fridge gets someone ill.

And you clearly take pride in not caring about societal norms or what people or the law think.

That’s called mind blindness and lack of empathy, ie the ability to see two different views on the same topic. Many would indeed also call basic stuff like that ignorance, deliberate and/or involuntary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, welcome to being a woman? Didn't you realize that this is how it goes when you were like 16?

Some of us were raised with good male role models and sought out men like that. At age 16 I absolutely thought both parents did everything (or at least both parents did half). So I found a husband who wanted to live the same way.

+1

I found a spouse who said he wanted kids and wanted to own a house, but later we both realized he didn’t want to put further the effort at either parenting or home ownership.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At your wits end ~ does he make more money than you? You accept the imbalance. In some things, only the things that are actually important to you. He forget/doesn't pay attention to: his clothes, what he has available to eat, his things -- that's on him.

For one year, I was spent. Had zero energy for any more holiday prep. Gave the family notice, plenty of notice -- there won't be a Christmas tree this year unless you do it. Without me. For some reason the tree was a major stressor (for me). They believed me. And did it all.

I remember doing this one. End result was there was no tree and no holiday prep at all. Helped me to realize that no one cared about this stuff enough to do it, so we no longer do any of it. It’s much easier.

We didn’t have Thanksgiving last year because mine insisted I should relax and he could handle it and I was being ridiculous by insisting we needed to make a list by the Saturday before, then the Sunday before, then Tuesday night…you see where this is going And then it evolved into him deciding there would be some kind of alternative anti-Thanksgiving meal and he’d order a pizza. And then the day of he realized no pizza place by us was open, so he reheated chili from the freezer and a small frozen pizza and the kids all went to their rooms to read because it was so sad they didn’t even want to watch a movie.

My god. What did he say about it all? What did you say to him?

I didn't say anything. It was the beginning of a major mental health break/midlife crisis for him that culminated him in leaving us. My life is really difficult now but my mental load is now minimal. I feel like I went from having 5-6 kids to the 3 I actually have, so at least the parenting part of my life is easier.

We've already decorated for Thanksgiving and are going to friends' next week and the kids are planning crafts to do with the little kids who will be there. It turns out that half the fun is anticipating and planning for a holiday.

Start strong PP, sorry he mentally snapped and left. He was clearly at his cap of adulting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have advice for a chronic pile-er? It’s not just the piles but they symbolize the mentally that I struggle with so much. Kids put a ton of stuff on the kitchen counter? Pile it into a tall stack and you’re done! If you are doing this in preparation for company shove the whole thing in a random cabinet. I only recently realized that he thinks this is actually cleaning. I thought he was doing it when he panicked. But I have been asking him to stop because it’s literally more work for me to find the pile and go through it to find the homework worksheet our kid needs. Meanwhile there are random pots and pans still sitting out. But he just keeps doing it anyway. Like another PP we moved recently and despite me doing 90 percent of the packing up there were boxes of crap that got transported and were largely trash but with like one of the kids favorite toys randomly shoved in. We still have boxes in our room that need to be dealt with. I definitely feel like there are horder tendencies at play because he’s so adverse to throwing anything out and it really scares me.

I'm attic closet PP. I think there's a mental health component to the piling. Whatever strategies a person with a typically developed brain might use to overcome mess and develop systems for daily living and organization aren't going to be effective in overcoming different brain wiring that occurred during childhood and adolescence and possible chemical imbalances. I don't have the answer; I think it's a version of hoarding controlled within a smaller footprint but is at its root no different from the kind of hoarding you see in those shows where stuff is avalanching down on people.

My admittedly limited understanding is that this can be a version of OCD. When doing a task perfectly seems difficult, if not impossible, the inclination is to procrastinate because then perfection is still a future possibility. In my experience, you can't teach, fix, argue or threaten these folks into different behavior. You can control your own behavior but not theirs.

It’s usually autism or adhd, which is a differently developed brain and wiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At your wits end ~ does he make more money than you? You accept the imbalance. In some things, only the things that are actually important to you. He forget/doesn't pay attention to: his clothes, what he has available to eat, his things -- that's on him.

For one year, I was spent. Had zero energy for any more holiday prep. Gave the family notice, plenty of notice -- there won't be a Christmas tree this year unless you do it. Without me. For some reason the tree was a major stressor (for me). They believed me. And did it all.

I remember doing this one. End result was there was no tree and no holiday prep at all. Helped me to realize that no one cared about this stuff enough to do it, so we no longer do any of it. It’s much easier.

My MIL took the same approach: Do Nothing.

No vacations, no decorations, no holidays, no traditions, no real gifts ever, no sports, no bday cake, no anything. They sat home, took piano lessons, ate 50% off pies each day, houseguested at relatives on summer vacation.

They still sit around all their days but now it appears semi-normal since one retired at age 50 w a lay off and she quit teaching once having kids.

They do somehow have a cleaning lady come for $50 for a house.

Divorced after 20 years. We might still be together if we had a regular cleaning service wink:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At your wits end ~ does he make more money than you? You accept the imbalance. In some things, only the things that are actually important to you. He forget/doesn't pay attention to: his clothes, what he has available to eat, his things -- that's on him.

For one year, I was spent. Had zero energy for any more holiday prep. Gave the family notice, plenty of notice -- there won't be a Christmas tree this year unless you do it. Without me. For some reason the tree was a major stressor (for me). They believed me. And did it all.

I remember doing this one. End result was there was no tree and no holiday prep at all. Helped me to realize that no one cared about this stuff enough to do it, so we no longer do any of it. It’s much easier.

We didn’t have Thanksgiving last year because mine insisted I should relax and he could handle it and I was being ridiculous by insisting we needed to make a list by the Saturday before, then the Sunday before, then Tuesday night…you see where this is going And then it evolved into him deciding there would be some kind of alternative anti-Thanksgiving meal and he’d order a pizza. And then the day of he realized no pizza place by us was open, so he reheated chili from the freezer and a small frozen pizza and the kids all went to their rooms to read because it was so sad they didn’t even want to watch a movie.

I could see my husband doing a lesser version of this. And the most infuriating part is that he will never admit he messed up and apologize. The lack of accountability is the most frustrating thing about it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's me, or maybe DH is really just self-involved and willfully ignorant, but for whatever reason, I'm the only one who notices things that need to be fixed, cleaned, signed, paid for, dumped out, you name it, I'm always the first one to find the mess or realize the kids need something addressed before a situation gets ugly.

If there's moldly food in fridge, I'm the one who has to discover it and throw it out. If there's spilled juice on the floor, I'm the one who notices it and wipes it up. If the bathroom sink is clogged, I'm the one who notices it and has to ask him to fix it. If our kid needs new shoes because they have holes or they're too small and he's complaining, I'm the one who notices and takes him shopping unless I tell DH to take him shopping for new shoes. If there's trash on our front lawn, I'm the one who notices it and picks it up and throws it out (I experimented once and did not remove a large, very obvious piece of trash in one of our shrubs for a week; DH walked by it every day and didn't pull it out, shocker). I could go on and on. But if there is something that only he cares about that specifically involves him? Then he notices and does something about it because it bothers HIM.

It's exhausting. I feel like we'd have ants and roaches and social services at our door half the time if I weren't constantly coming up from behind. I've tried to nicely urge him to notice the living situation around him and help out. He insists he'll "get to it" but never does. I'm at my wit's end.

This is ME and I am the breadwinner of our family whole DW works part time. He ignores or half asses almost everything

[Anonymous]

^ while

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At your wits end ~ does he make more money than you? You accept the imbalance. In some things, only the things that are actually important to you. He forget/doesn't pay attention to: his clothes, what he has available to eat, his things -- that's on him.

For one year, I was spent. Had zero energy for any more holiday prep. Gave the family notice, plenty of notice -- there won't be a Christmas tree this year unless you do it. Without me. For some reason the tree was a major stressor (for me). They believed me. And did it all.

I remember doing this one. End result was there was no tree and no holiday prep at all. Helped me to realize that no one cared about this stuff enough to do it, so we no longer do any of it. It’s much easier.

We didn’t have Thanksgiving last year because mine insisted I should relax and he could handle it and I was being ridiculous by insisting we needed to make a list by the Saturday before, then the Sunday before, then Tuesday night…you see where this is going And then it evolved into him deciding there would be some kind of alternative anti-Thanksgiving meal and he’d order a pizza. And then the day of he realized no pizza place by us was open, so he reheated chili from the freezer and a small frozen pizza and the kids all went to their rooms to read because it was so sad they didn’t even want to watch a movie.

I could see my husband doing a lesser version of this. And the most infuriating part is that he will never admit he messed up and apologize. The lack of accountability is the most frustrating thing about it all.

+3. My dh will somehow either twist it so it’s my fault as well, or will find some half ass way to ‘accomplish’ the task (with my help) and then brag about what a good job he did, and why am I always so ‘stressed’.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At your wits end ~ does he make more money than you? You accept the imbalance. In some things, only the things that are actually important to you. He forget/doesn't pay attention to: his clothes, what he has available to eat, his things -- that's on him.

For one year, I was spent. Had zero energy for any more holiday prep. Gave the family notice, plenty of notice -- there won't be a Christmas tree this year unless you do it. Without me. For some reason the tree was a major stressor (for me). They believed me. And did it all.

I remember doing this one. End result was there was no tree and no holiday prep at all. Helped me to realize that no one cared about this stuff enough to do it, so we no longer do any of it. It’s much easier.

We didn’t have Thanksgiving last year because mine insisted I should relax and he could handle it and I was being ridiculous by insisting we needed to make a list by the Saturday before, then the Sunday before, then Tuesday night…you see where this is going And then it evolved into him deciding there would be some kind of alternative anti-Thanksgiving meal and he’d order a pizza. And then the day of he realized no pizza place by us was open, so he reheated chili from the freezer and a small frozen pizza and the kids all went to their rooms to read because it was so sad they didn’t even want to watch a movie.

I could see my husband doing a lesser version of this. And the most infuriating part is that he will never admit he messed up and apologize. The lack of accountability is the most frustrating thing about it all.

I'm no-Thanksgiving PP and this is exactly what happened. When it came up at different points later this year, he ignored the conversation or even at one point said "that was how you wanted to celebrate." He truly didn't see it as his responsibility or his mistake. No reasoning with someone like that.