If you, or someone you know, has a very dirty or messy house, doesn't your spouse

[Carrie12345]

Our messy house bothers me more than it does dh... or anyone else in this house for that matter.

It just doesn't make it to the top of my list of priorities.

 

Take care of little kids' needs

Homeschool/activities

Cook

Sleep

Clean

 

I focus on the top 3 and squeeze in as much #4 in order to focus on the top 3. THEN I worry about 5.

[beaners]

I grew up in three houses, thanks to divorce. I remember parents and teachers being appalled when I told them my schedule. Monday and Tuesday with my mom, Wednesday and Thursday with my dad, Friday at my grandparents, and alternating weekends. We stayed at my grandparents' house after school most days until after dinner.

 

My mother's house ranged from extremely clean to average clean with children. Our rooms would get pretty messy, but she shut the doors and ignored it. I'm uncomfortable bringing my children to her house now because they might touch a wall in passing or sit on the furniture.

 

My father's house was never anything except meticulously clean, because my step-mother was incredibly focused on housekeeping. (Oh, and also a director at a large corporation, working 70 hour weeks.) I am positive that they only needed to take our family pictures from the mantle when they put that house on the market. Every single room in a 2300 sq ft house was vacuumed once a day. I never recall seeing dishes in the sink, ever. Every single toy was put away the second we finished playing with it. Honestly, it never felt like home. You just couldn't get comfortable. In contrast, you couldn't sit in my father's car without piling papers on a different seat.

 

My grandparent's house was only rarely company clean. My grandfather ran at least 2 businesses and about half of his church's programs out of the house at any time. It was all my grandmother could do to keep up. One morning she went to plug in her coffee, and the sander on the counter turned on instead. I have tried to eliminate power tools from our kitchen for this reason, but my husband doesn't always comply. :tongue_smilie: I am certain that my ADD-type disorganization is the same as my father's and grandfather's, but I don't know if it's hereditary or environmental.

 

I just don't "see" messes. I step over things. I pile on top of other things. I have 3 small children. I am pregnant and tired. Our house is 1100 sq ft, and we have 2 medium dogs and 4 cats. We have 1700 books. My husband brought along 20 large storage bins of collectibles, plus dozens of large items that take up storage space, when we married. We just have a lot here and not enough space, and cleaning isn't a priority for me. My husband is generally on the same page. Sometimes he wants it to be cleaner, but he isn't trying to put things into bins or on shelves while a 1 year old pulls them out. He isn't trying to do dishes while a million fires need to put out.

 

Our home isn't dangerous. It's very cluttered. You shouldn't drop by without a couple days notice. It's not depression. We're just too busy with other parts of our life, and it isn't a priority.

[teeniebeenie6]

I think messiness has a lot to do with how a person was raised too. I have always been disorganized. It like I have a mental block. My Mom was/is a clean freak and she would clean my room as a little girl. She liked to do things her way and not have help. She ended up leaving when I was 7. Suddenly I had to clean my room myself and I had no idea where to start. I spent a huge chunk of my childhood grounded in my room because my room was a mess. But the kicker was if I cleaned that entire thing from top to bottom but missed a sock that I didn't notice, I would be regrounded. I ended up giving up. Interesting enough my MIL had a very similar upbringing as me. Her Mom left when she was about 7. Her Dad remarried a woman who didn't like her. And interestingly she is very disorganized too. She has gotten a little better with age. My husband minds. He is a clean freak but I think he understands too. I have gotten better then when we first got married. Our first house was a health hazard. Now I vacuum daily, do dishes daily. But I have a long ways to go to being clean!

[lionfamily1999]

Beaners, I think priority has a lot to do with it (as well as what you "see").

 

Dh's grandfather grew up in the Cumberland Gap (no electricity/plumbing/floors). Dh's grandmother was a nurse... They stayed married until her death, but she ended up getting an apartment and living there during the week. She would come home and clean on the weekends. Her version of clean meant you could do surgery in the living room if need be.

 

When dh and I married (and I moved in to take care of his grandfather) Grampa couldn't believe I cleaned "so much." He was irate if I vaccummed more than once a week (aren't floors good enough?!?) and he swore I would wear out the tile in the bathroom if I cleaned it "too much." Dh was ambivalent about dirt, but he hates hates hates antiseptic cleanliness. He gets uncomfortable if I start cleaning infront of him... :p So, I oblige :D

[Soror]

My aunt is the hoarder nasty house type it ended up largely contributing to a divorce to #2.

 

I have a dear friend that has a messy house, she says just cluttered but not dirty but it is really dirty. Her dh does mind but doesn't help much, in his defense he gets up at 3 and to bed at 9-10 or later. She has little space and doesn't like to clean pretty much. She'd rather spend time on other things, although she likes it clean.

[FO4UR]

I grew up in messy. I hate messy.

 

 

My dh is the one who doesn't see it or doesn't care. In a previous house, he had a "man cave" (with his own bathroom) and it was a nightmare. The rest of the house was fairly clean (kid clutter about, but every room gets a good cleaning weekly). There is no question who the "messy one" is.:lol:

 

I don't particularly like cleaning, and I was never taught how to keep up a cleaning routine (I grew up in messy.;))...but it's important enough to me that I work on it, make a new habit, make rules and boundaries for food and toys, etc. It does get frustrating when dh is not on the same page. I did not sign up for "cleaner upper of all his messes" when I got married.:tongue_smilie:

[Ibbygirl]

We did NOTHING on Saturdays besides clean. I'm not kidding. My stepmom did NOT clean OR cook. Cooking was part of my job from the age of 12 on. I cooked dinner every night. The house stayed clean.

 

Cinderella?? Is that you?? :p :D

 

Just kidding Bethany! :) But seriously, that's what came to my mind when I was reading your story. Ugh, I can't even imagine it. And what of your baby sister? Does she still live there? I just can't imagine being content to live like that. Well... if they have depression then I guess they're not content are they? Why don't they just hire a maid if they both work? Seriously, that's going to lead to some health/breathing problems I think.

[Ibbygirl]

I think messiness has a lot to do with how a person was raised too. I have always been disorganized. It like I have a mental block. My Mom was/is a clean freak and she would clean my room as a little girl. She liked to do things her way and not have help. She ended up leaving when I was 7. Suddenly I had to clean my room myself and I had no idea where to start. I spent a huge chunk of my childhood grounded in my room because my room was a mess. But the kicker was if I cleaned that entire thing from top to bottom but missed a sock that I didn't notice, I would be regrounded. I ended up giving up. Interesting enough my MIL had a very similar upbringing as me. Her Mom left when she was about 7. Her Dad remarried a woman who didn't like her. And interestingly she is very disorganized too. She has gotten a little better with age. My husband minds. He is a clean freak but I think he understands too. I have gotten better then when we first got married. Our first house was a health hazard. Now I vacuum daily, do dishes daily. But I have a long ways to go to being clean!

 

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: I'm so sorry for what you went through. Your story brought tears to my eyes. :crying:

[Joanne]

As a result, I can't stand having a dirty house. I mean, we get messy sometimes as a result of life with kids. But not dirty.

 

I have anxiety related to levels of clutter or mess in my adult house due to how things were when I grew up. I get irritable, anxious, unable to breath if the house gets to a certain level of mess.

 

It's physical, I can feel it.

 

I remember not being able (willing) to bring people over during years when peer relationships were very important. It was awful.

[mommaduck]

I have anxiety related to levels of clutter or mess in my adult house due to how things were when I grew up. I get irritable, anxious, unable to breath if the house gets to a certain level of mess.

 

It's physical, I can feel it.

 

I remember not being able (willing) to bring people over during years when peer relationships were very important. It was awful.

Same here. It makes me feel frozen. Mine isn't due to how I grew up though.

[DaffodilDreams]

I really don't think my dh would ever notice if our house got really horrible - at least as long as he could still see the tv. : (

 

My dad lives with a hoarder, a non-house keeper, and a non-cook (my mom). It does bother him. He tries to make a difference in the home's appearance, but it's really like swimming upstream. The bad thing is, my mom knows it's horrible but won't do anything about it. We could never have friends over growing up because she didn't want them to see the house, and she even turned down her own sister's request to spend the night when her family was passing through town because she didn't even want to try to clean. She hadn't seen her sister in years - - and still hasn't.

[sunflowerlady]

Here is one possibility. A stay at home homeschool mom struggles with keeping the house clean. She finds a great program like Flylady and jumps right in with great results. :) The house is looking a lot better, is cleaner than it has been in a long time.

 

But-other people in the home leave stuff lying around, don't put things away, etc etc. The exhausted homeschool mom then spends more time picking up after others in addition to all her other duties. Yes, the others should pick up after themselves, but it's also exhausting to always remind them.

 

So, she hops off the Flylady bandwagon and just does the best she can.:D

[QueenCat]

our house is cluttered. If my husband has a problem with it, he needs to be part of the solution. While I am here all day, we are making messes all day and he makes messes too in the short amount of time he is home (i.e. never acting on/filing his mail, leaving stuff around the house, never decluttering his stuff unless I threaten something drastic, hiding things from the "goodwill" pile, etc. ) When he does "declutter" he seems to put the "used most often" stuff behind or underneath the "rarely needed" stuff, so it gets messy the first time we need the "used most often" stuff.

 

I would hit the roof if my husband felt he could complain about the state of the house like he was my overseer or something.

 

 

:iagree:I don't have all day to clean and take care of the house. There are other things going on in my world besides cleaning... yes, some gets done during the day but by no means everything that needs to happen. Some of that is joint, in the evening or on the weekend. Homeschooling is a job, and not all housework can be done while "school" is in session. I'd be stunned if dh acted like he had the right to complain if things weren't up to his standards.Thankfully, he wouldn't :)

[Runningmom80]

Our house is a disaster. It bothers both of us. We have three young kids, two of which are 18 month olds. It is what it is right now. We'll get our act together eventually. I hope.

[Dayle in Guatemala]

I have friend who is a sahm with one baby and her house is a mess. I think it bothers her husband but it doesn't bother her at all. Kinda weird to me because I've tried to keep my house as clean as I could and tried to make it a relaxing place for dh to come to at the end of a long day.

[dirty ethel rackham]

I think messiness has a lot to do with how a person was raised too. I have always been disorganized. It like I have a mental block. My Mom was/is a clean freak and she would clean my room as a little girl. She liked to do things her way and not have help. She ended up leaving when I was 7. Suddenly I had to clean my room myself and I had no idea where to start. I spent a huge chunk of my childhood grounded in my room because my room was a mess. But the kicker was if I cleaned that entire thing from top to bottom but missed a sock that I didn't notice, I would be regrounded. I ended up giving up. Interesting enough my MIL had a very similar upbringing as me. Her Mom left when she was about 7. Her Dad remarried a woman who didn't like her. And interestingly she is very disorganized too. She has gotten a little better with age. My husband minds. He is a clean freak but I think he understands too. I have gotten better then when we first got married. Our first house was a health hazard. Now I vacuum daily, do dishes daily. But I have a long ways to go to being clean!

 

:grouphug:I can so relate. My mom would scream and yell whenever we had to clean and it was NEVER up to her standards. All the neightbors knew that when I went out to play, it might only be a matter of minutes before I was called back in to reclean something. Once I came home to see that my entire closet had been emptied because I didn't straighten it to her satisfaction. She never taught - she just yelled and punished. (She later rmellowed - her place was immaculate still, but she stopped the veiled comments when she came to visit.) It took a long time for me not to feel tense and be a total grump. I still avoid big projects because of the paralyzing anxiety. I need big doses of adrenaline to make that stuff happen.

[LeslieAnneLevine]

I have friend who is a sahm with one baby and her house is a mess. I think it bothers her husband but it doesn't bother her at all. Kinda weird to me because I've tried to keep my house as clean as I could and tried to make it a relaxing place for dh to come to at the end of a long day.

 

When my son was a baby/young toddler my house was a mess too. I wasn't depressed and I wasn't lazy, but there was always a lot to do. I would split his nap time into doing tasks and having some well-deserved time to relax.

 

Being home with a little one all day was hard. It's not that the mess didn't bother me at all, it's just how things were. I was very annoyed when my husband complained rather than helped. Complaining is very unproductive.

[Harriet Vane]

:grouphug:I can so relate. My mom would scream and yell whenever we had to clean and it was NEVER up to her standards. All the neightbors knew that when I went out to play, it might only be a matter of minutes before I was called back in to reclean something. Once I came home to see that my entire closet had been emptied because I didn't straighten it to her satisfaction. She never taught - she just yelled and punished. (She later rmellowed - her place was immaculate still, but she stopped the veiled comments when she came to visit.) It took a long time for me not to feel tense and be a total grump. I still avoid big projects because of the paralyzing anxiety. I need big doses of adrenaline to make that stuff happen.

 

Similar experience here. We didn't clean much throughout the week. Things were generally picked up but there would be a gradual accumulation of clutter. Then on Saturday all h*ll would break loose. My mother would be yelling at us before she was even down the stairs. We spent hours every Saturday cleaning under the lash of her bitter tongue.

 

It was horrible, and I would much rather my house be untidy than ever inflict that behavior on my children.

 

I can relate to the need for adrenaline to get big projects done. The tasks always seem much larger and scarier than they are.

[creekland]

What you all have said makes a lot of sense. I wasn't talking about hoarders, just people too lazy (there own words!) to clean.

 

I'm not reading all the responses, but I can say that long ago hubby and I thought about it and decided we'd rather spend our time doing other things besides cleaning. We haven't regretted it even once. We've enjoyed the great outdoors (and our house IS cleaner when the weather is bad). We've enjoyed board games and card games with the boys. We've enjoyed each other time. A clean house? It means nothing to either of us except wasted time. Dust bunnies don't bother me (until they get to a certain level). Cobwebs don't either. Dust? So what? Toys/games left out? If they were in the middle of playing with them, that's ok, and sometimes they play for days with the same things. If they were done, they do get picked up.

 

We do keep dishes and laundry clean and we're not hoarders. If we know someone is coming, we'll do a clean up, but if you come unannounced, tough luck!

 

Whenever we think that perhaps our house is too dirty we simply remember the hoarders we know (we know two personally) and then our house feels very, very clean!

[Greenmama2]

Why didn't the friend get a cleaning lady over while living with his wife? I'd think the marriage had other issues beyond this one thing.

:iagree:

And with these PP's as well.

Our messy house bothers me more than it does dh... or anyone else in this house for that matter.

It just doesn't make it to the top of my list of priorities.

 

Take care of little kids' needs

Homeschool/activities

Cook

Sleep

Clean

 

I focus on the top 3 and squeeze in as much #4 in order to focus on the top 3. THEN I worry about 5.

 

Here is one possibility. A stay at home homeschool mom struggles with keeping the house clean. She finds a great program like Flylady and jumps right in with great results. :) The house is looking a lot better, is cleaner than it has been in a long time.

 

But-other people in the home leave stuff lying around, don't put things away, etc etc. The exhausted homeschool mom then spends more time picking up after others in addition to all her other duties. Yes, the others should pick up after themselves, but it's also exhausting to always remind them.

 

So, she hops off the Flylady bandwagon and just does the best she can.:D

 

When my son was a baby/young toddler my house was a mess too. I wasn't depressed and I wasn't lazy, but there was always a lot to do. I would split his nap time into doing tasks and having some well-deserved time to relax.

 

Being home with a little one all day was hard. It's not that the mess didn't bother me at all, it's just how things were. I was very annoyed when my husband complained rather than helped. Complaining is very unproductive.

[Greenmama2]

2010 was the year of Flylady for me. I started the baby steps on Jan 1st and stuck with it for an entire year. Every single freaking day. I did not fall of the bandwagon once. My house was no cleaner that year than it is now. Now, I try to relax about it. I clean in the moments when no-one needs anything, I ask my husband to pick up things he's left around that are bothering me and I get on with my first three priorities (AP, hs & providing healthy food).

[Annie]

I'm fairly sure clutter wouldn't bother my husband unless he couldn't walk between rooms or get into bed at night. As far as actual dirtiness goes, I'm not sure where the breaking point where he would actually clean would be because there is no way I could stand to let it get that dirty.

 

I try to keep the house pretty neat and clean. Sometimes I'm less successful than I would like to be, but I usually do pretty well. I have a hard time with our bedroom for some reason.

 

Until a few months ago my problem was my husband nagging me to stop cleaning. Every evening I like to spend a half hour tidying things up so that I can start the day on a good foot. Nearly every night he would ask me why I had to straighten up and why it mattered to me, why couldn't I just sit down and relax, etc. It really bothered me, so we sat down and talked about it, and I realized that he wanted me to stop because the thought I was going to be irritated every day when he didn't help. I explained to him that I didn't mind him not helping, but I did mind him trying to get me to stop when I needed to get things done. I think I've finally gotten through to him that I can't relax when the sink has dirty dishes that I know I'm just going to have to deal with in the morning. Now he only complains about my half hour cleaning blitz every other week or so, and I can live with that. :001_smile:

 

He just doesn't care about the mess, and that's very nice when I'm having a bad week.