Anonymous wrote:I’ve been living with my boyfriend, who is admittedly a clean freak. I’m naturally fairly messy, but do my best to keep everything clean. However, he get agitated if the house is messy for even a few hours. He’ll get mad for hours; usually these blowups occur in the mornings for some reason. I’m at my wits end. Are we just not compatible? I’ve been forcing him to get a therapist for his anxiety but don’t know if it will be enough.

Depends on how messy it is, and if the mess was created by you, him, or mutual activity by both?

And how do you differentiate messy from dirty?

I think it's sucky you are forcing him to get a therapist for "anxiety", which I wouldn't necessarily diagnose it as that.

Have you had success in other areas of your relationship with communication and problem solving? If so maybe try to apply that to this situation. He is probably fed up, not to excuse his reaction, but perhaps you can try having a sit down and creating a chore list that lays out roles and responsibilities that work for both of you. Identify who will do what and when, room by room. If you can lay it all out in an organized way, then he might feel less anxious. And perhaps agree that if one of you missed something on the sheet, that you discuss calmly and make agreed-upon adjustments as needed. It’s worth a try.

You need to protect your emotional and psychological well being. Your boyfriend’s outburst sounds like abusive behavior to me. Get out of this relationship.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should mention that I’ve repeatedly told him that the blow ups are not acceptable, and he’s made some efforts over the past month to become calmer, including meditation daily, using an anxiety workbook, and working with a therapist. He keeps telling me that change takes some time, and doesn’t want me to give up on him. I hope he can change and I’ve worked on being cleaner, but I’m thinking this could be a larger issue.

For now, the blow ups have only related to cleaning, but it could be something else down the line.

Why do you keep repeating yourself? Because it sounds like you’re not being honest—if the blowups were not acceptable you would have dumped him after the first (or second, if generous) time it happened.

You two are not compatible. I don’t mean to be cruel but all this therapy and anxiety workbook (Lol!!!) stuff is stupid and accomplishing nothing. Move out.

OP here. I should mention that I’ve repeatedly told him that the blow ups are not acceptable, and he’s made some efforts over the past month to become calmer, including meditation daily, using an anxiety workbook, and working with a therapist. He keeps telling me that change takes some time, and doesn’t want me to give up on him. I hope he can change and I’ve worked on being cleaner, but I’m thinking this could be a larger issue.

For now, the blow ups have only related to cleaning, but it could be something else down the line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define messy. Do you clean the kitchen before going to bed? Or is he waking up to last night's dinner mess each morning? Do you throw clothes on the floor? Are you eating on the couch and leaving crumbs all over?

OP here. Meaning us leaving dishes in the sink from the evening before, not wiping down the counters, maybe some clothes on the floor, makeup on the bathroom counter, etc. I do clean up frequently, its just the periods of time when things aren’t clean that are causing the issues.

Sounds like the average home of a trailer park resident. I'd be mad too

To the PP who wrote that, I hope you are willing to take a second and reflect on your comment. While not germane to the issue of whether or not OP should stay with her boyfriend, what experience do you have with people living in trailer parks? How many trailers have you been in?

I hope you're open-minded enough to be willing to consider that what you said is (a) incredibly rude, (b) not accurate, and (c) not helpful. Perpetuating a nasty correlation between people who live in trailers and people who don't clean up is harmful and hurtful. I hope you can see that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define messy. Do you clean the kitchen before going to bed? Or is he waking up to last night's dinner mess each morning? Do you throw clothes on the floor? Are you eating on the couch and leaving crumbs all over?

OP here. Meaning us leaving dishes in the sink from the evening before, not wiping down the counters, maybe some clothes on the floor, makeup on the bathroom counter, etc. I do clean up frequently, its just the periods of time when things aren’t clean that are causing the issues.

Clothes on the floor? How old are you? When you take something off, put it away. This would annoy me from anyone over the age of about 2.

Makeup on the bathroom counter is gross. I don't understand how you could make a mess with that (I wear makeup daily and rarely does any of it end up on the counter), but if you do, you should clean it up immediately.

The dishes are weird if you're both eating off them - why wouldn't you clean then up together?

As for the counters, I'm pretty Type A but even I don't wipe the counters down completely after every meal three times a day.

^^^^

I didn't mean to post before saying that REGARDLESS of how messy you are, it doesn't excuse him blowing up at you about it. That's a huge red flag.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define messy. Do you clean the kitchen before going to bed? Or is he waking up to last night's dinner mess each morning? Do you throw clothes on the floor? Are you eating on the couch and leaving crumbs all over?

OP here. Meaning us leaving dishes in the sink from the evening before, not wiping down the counters, maybe some clothes on the floor, makeup on the bathroom counter, etc. I do clean up frequently, its just the periods of time when things aren’t clean that are causing the issues.

Clothes on the floor? How old are you? When you take something off, put it away. This would annoy me from anyone over the age of about 2.

Makeup on the bathroom counter is gross. I don't understand how you could make a mess with that (I wear makeup daily and rarely does any of it end up on the counter), but if you do, you should clean it up immediately.

The dishes are weird if you're both eating off them - why wouldn't you clean then up together?

As for the counters, I'm pretty Type A but even I don't wipe the counters down completely after every meal three times a day.

I hate leaving dishes in sink, clothes on floor or dirty counters but I clean it myself. Having a sparkly clean house all the time is not important to my husband so he shouldn't have to be liable. There are lots of other household chores which are important to him so he takes care of those.

Anonymous wrote:I often leave dishes in the sink soaking over night. The reason I do this is because after a night of soaking, the dishes will be easier to wash the next morning. I don't think that this makes me a slob or a dirty person.

OP, dump this guy as you don't seem to be a match.

Ditto. Instead of spending 10 minutes scrubbing at night when I am tired, I would rather scrub 1 minute in the morning when I am energetic.

Also, I have found that going to bed early helps me keep my weight under control, since I am more likely to eat junk at night. So I often go to bed soon after putting the kids to bed.

Sounds like you’re walking on eggshells for this guy. It will never get better. And if you add kids to this situation it will become explosive. Leave.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been living with my boyfriend, who is admittedly a clean freak. I’m naturally fairly messy, but do my best to keep everything clean. However, he get agitated if the house is messy for even a few hours. He’ll get mad for hours; usually these blowups occur in the mornings for some reason. I’m at my wits end. Are we just not compatible? I’ve been forcing him to get a therapist for his anxiety but don’t know if it will be enough.

Get a housecleaning service.

This is only going to get worse, Love.

I often leave dishes in the sink soaking over night. The reason I do this is because after a night of soaking, the dishes will be easier to wash the next morning. I don't think that this makes me a slob or a dirty person.

OP, dump this guy as you don't seem to be a match.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define messy. Do you clean the kitchen before going to bed? Or is he waking up to last night's dinner mess each morning? Do you throw clothes on the floor? Are you eating on the couch and leaving crumbs all over?

OP here. Meaning us leaving dishes in the sink from the evening before, not wiping down the counters, maybe some clothes on the floor, makeup on the bathroom counter, etc. I do clean up frequently, its just the periods of time when things aren’t clean that are causing the issues.

Sounds like the average home of a trailer park resident. I'd be mad too

Hilarious. My brother, who lived for a time in a "trailer park" in a trailer immaculately kept inside and outside, would like a word....

DCUM is so unbelievably classist.