Anonymous wrote:

I'm the one who posed the original question in this sequence, and I've tried directly asking her many times over several years not to leave her shoes in the middle of the floor. She usually responds by either saying "Sure, no problem" or else by finding something around the house I should put away if she's going to pick up her shoes. But then a couple days later, she'll just go back to leaving her shoes out again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DW likes to take her shoes off when she gets home. The problem is that she leaves them in the middle of the kitchen floor, where I have to step over them all night long, until she puts them on the next morning. We have a shoe rack right by the door into the house, but she does not use it for some reason. Can I just tell her I'll start throwing her shoes in the garbage when she leaves them in the middle of the floor?

Would you all agree that's an appropriate approach?

You could put them somewhere, anywhere, but preferably somewhere she won't easily find them. Then when she says "Honey, did you see my shoes?" You can say "What shoes?" Then when she said "the ones in the kitchen" you can say "Who would leave their shoes in the kitchen? There's a shoe rack for shoes. I bet nobody who puts their shoes in the shoe rack loses their shoes."

After a few times she might catch on. Do I sound like I speak from experience? Because I speak from experience.

That doesn't sound effective, because she'll say, "Why are you being a passive aggressive dickhead?".

And the guy says, "Because you don't respond when I use the adult approach of direct communication."

And then she says, "Because you didn't use the adult approach of direct communication." Neither throwing her shoes out, or putting them on the kitchen table, is direct. How about the guy just says, "Honey, I love you dearly, but I'm getting tired of moving your shoes from the floor to the shoe rack."