widdleytinks:
I think the reason you’re getting so much flak here is that it’s my guess that there is a higher than normal percentage of hoarder/stacker/ADD types on this board. This board attracts such personalities.
As a hoarder/stacker/disorganized type myself (though nowhere near what you claim your husband is like), I think it might be helpful for you to separate the situation into two different subjects. The first is your husband’s laziness in not helping out with basic houshold chores. That’s unacceptable, unless he works twice as many hours as you or something.
But the other issue is that his personality is not yours. Take it from me, I guarantee that he would love to be as organized as you are. People who are naturally organized and tidy have no idea how difficult this seemingly simple thing is for some people. You have no idea how many times I"ve tried to ‘get organized’. I’ve bought filing cabinets. I’ve bought shelves and organizers for my junk. I will occasionally, once every couple of years, go on an ‘organizing spree’. It never sticks. The piles come back. I’ve been like that my whole life. I remember in elementary school how determined I’d be at the start of each semester that THIS time I’d be organized. I had all my binders and duotangs organized, dividers for all my subjects, and it was going to be wonderful. And by the end of every semester I’d be walking around with loose papers scattered through my binder and I’d spend part of every class digging through the mess to find the material I needed.
Recognize that on this second issue you are not on the moral high ground, and neither is he. There is nothing intrinsically worse about living with a certain amount of clutter than living in a pristine home. You could start by respecting the fact that your husband’s brain doesn’t work like yours, and therefore the environment he finds most comfortable to live in is not the same as yours.
So I suggest that rather than trying to turn your husband into you, or lecturing him on how wrong he is to have his piles of stuff, you learn to compromise. Have a long talk with him in which you talk about allowing him to have his piles of stuff, at least in some parts of the house, and in return he has to recognize that it’s not fair that you have to do all the necessary housework. Maybe you need to divide the house into ‘your’ areas and ‘his’ areas, and enforce it. I don’t touch my wife’s desk. I don’t go into her sewing room. Her side of the bathroom is off limits to me. Her side of the closet is off limits to me. I like to think I’ve improved dramatically in helping with housework, cooking, etc. In response, she has learned to tolerate the untidy spaces that mirror my somewhat untidy mind. We still work at it, and there’s still tension, but we both recognize that we’re honestly trying, and that goes a long way.
If his stuff encroaches on your side of the closet, just pick it up and push it over to his side. Don’t lecture him, don’t yell at him, just take care of business. Enforce the separation of spaces (NOT by throwing his stuff out - you have no idea how maddening that is), but by simply moving it back to his space and leaving it to him to figure out what to do with it. Eventually he’ll get the message. And he’ll be a lot more willing to work harder to keep that agreement if he sees that you are being reasonable and understanding of how he needs to live.
One more piece of advice: This type of behaviour often comes with significant other benefits. Such people often have high IQs and/or are very creative. You might want to spend some time focusing on the good things your husband’s brain brings to the marriage, to make the bad stuff more tolerable. And he should do the same for you. You might even try to help break him out of his laziness not by yelling at him to clean up, but by encouraging him to do the things he might actually be good at. Enroll him in a painting class as a gift, or encourage some creative hobby he might have. Show some interest in that side of his brain, and he’ll be that much more likely to want to please you.
