You're very organized, your SO is not, how do you deal with it?

[Lowdown]

Ugh. I was trying to edit in an example. Too slow.

Example, TELL vs ASK:

Tuesday, my wife had to work and I didn’t, so I was home and watched our one year old kid (who was quite the man of action, so I chased him around all day long). In addition, I walked the dog, ran and emptied the dishwasher, washed the sheets and remade the bed, cleaned the refrigerator, the kitchen, the dining room, and did the budget. When she called in the afternoon to see how things were going, I gave her the update and said we’re all good, but she was in charge of dinner and bedtime, because I want some time off the clock to practice guitar. She said ok.

[MandaJo]

@Lowdown

Ugh. I was trying to edit in an example. Too slow.

Example, TELL vs ASK:

Tuesday, my wife had to work and I didn’t, so I was home and watched our one year old kid (who was quite the man of action, so I chased him around all day long). In addition, I walked the dog, ran and emptied the dishwasher, washed the sheets and remade the bed, cleaned the refrigerator, the kitchen, the dining room, and did the budget. When she called in the afternoon to see how things were going, I gave her the update and said we’re all good, but she was in charge of dinner and bedtime, because I want some time off the clock to practice guitar. She said ok.

See, that would not go well in my marriage. Neither my husband or I like to be told what to do. In that exact scenario, I would have said “So I think it would be a very good idea if you were to take the lead on dinner and bedtime.” I would give him space to come back with "I’m exhausted because [XYZ] and we could have negotiated around to maybe this was a takeout and Dora special occasion night.

I agree that you don’t “ask” in the sense that asking implies that it’s all the asker’s job, really, and others have the option to help, if they want to be nice, but that’s going above and beyond. But the problem with just telling is that it makes one person the “mommy” in the marriage: they tell everyone else what to do. That seems awful for everyone: awful for the teller because they have to be the bad guy and the buzzkill all the time, awful for the being told because they are treated like a child, and awful for the marriage because when people don’t get what they want they blame each other instead of accepting the simple fact that life is a tough game and a couple is a team.

We don’t ask, and we don’t tell, we talk about things with a solid faith that both people share the same basic priorities and that both people earnestly want to find the solution that gets everyone as much of what they want as is possible.

[Lowdown]

@MandaJo

See, that would not go well in my marriage. Neither my husband or I like to be told what to do. In that exact scenario, I would have said “So I think it would be a very good idea if you were to take the lead on dinner and bedtime.” I would give him space to come back with "I’m exhausted because [XYZ] and we could have negotiated around to maybe this was a takeout and Dora special occasion night.

That might also work for us, but the phrasing has to be just right. I react poorly to anything I view as passive-aggressive (thanks mom!) and my passive-aggressive indicator sometimes triggers on innocuous and completely normal. We’re also not fans of being told what to do, but these types of tasks, for us it’s different. Like you said, team effort. I won’t think twice about her saying “I need you to do the laundry. I don’t have time/want to and I’m out of socks.”

So, today I learned that explaining relationships is hard.

[Sauron]

My lovely and talented wife, Aries28, occasionally gets frustrated that I ask her to make a list of the chores she wants accomplished in a given day. “Who makes MY list?” she’ll say.

Here’s the thing, though: I do a fair amount of stuff around the house. I’m not nearly as good a cook as she is, but most everything else we can do equally well. So we tend to split chores fairly evenly.

I have been burned several times in the past because I spent my time doing things that I thought she wanted done, but later turned out not to be on her radar. The things needed to be done, mind, but they weren’t priorities to her. Then she’ll get frustrated that although I’ve done work around the house, the things she thought were must-dos are still undone.

So yep … I’ll ask what she wants done. Doesn’t mean that’s all I’ll do, but at least that way I know what’s most important to accomplish in her eyes.

[even_sven]

One thing my spouse and I do is have a quick rundown on weekend mornings or days off of what we’d like to accomplish- just two or three of our top priorities. This helps us coordinate our work/rest times, and ensure that we know where the other could use help. This kind of communication is crucial.

Other than that, work around. My house is stocked with scissors and the like in every room. I keep my phone in a bright obnoxious case, so that I can find it easier. I’ve got trash and everywhere. I lay out my work clothes, keys, lunch, etc. so that I don’t forget anything in the morning rush.

And if you gather piles, you need more, easier storage. Think big, open, easy containers everywhere, to the point that it’s easier to put something in them than leave it laying around. Trim closets, neat files and tidy drawers are nice, but useless if they don’t get used. You need bins, inboxes, valets and bowls. Make them distinctive and give them funny names, do you can easily visualize “The checkbook is in the red basket,” or " The corkscrew is in the happy box." That tables needs an inbox and a key catcher. It’s not as nice as a clean table, but it beats piles. I can’t emphasize this enough. You will always have clutter until you adapt you containers to your reality.

[scootergirl]

@even_sven

The corkscrew is in the happy box."

I like this.

[BrotherCadfael]

My wife can walk into a room, and instantly be aware that a book was mis-shelved.

I can walk into a room, sit in the chair, turn on the TV, pick up a book and read, never noticing that the entire room alignment was rearranged until the telephone rings and the phone isn’t where it was.

The latter is not hyperbole; it has happened in exactly that way at least twice during the course of our marriage.

We kind of drive each other nuts, but we get along.

[Chilliwack]

@Incubus

I feel that this isn’t so much a guy thing as its a lazy thing. Demanding your SO give specific instructions gives you an excuse for being lazy “you never told me to do it”. This is a lame excuse that puts the burden of work on the one spouse that is observant enough to know a certain task needs to get done. It’s the equivalent of playing dumb hoping someone else will take care of it.

In my case it’s more that my threshold of when something requires doing or the standard to which it must be done is lower than my wife’s. She lives on a “cleaning as maintenance” plane, where I exist on a “clean for effect” level. If she wants it done, I’ll do it, but it won’t occur to me that it needs doing for quite a while longer than it will for her. Tell me to do it, and it’s done, I just didn’t know that it needed doing.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@Chilliwack

In my case it’s more that my threshold of when something requires doing or the standard to which it must be done is lower than my wife’s. She lives on a “cleaning as maintenance” plane, where I exist on a “clean for effect” level. If she wants it done, I’ll do it, but it won’t occur to me that it needs doing for quite a while longer than it will for her. Tell me to do it, and it’s done, I just didn’t know that it needed doing.

I know exaclty what you are talking about. I often just don’t see a need to do something where she does. We have different standards.

[DCnDC]

I simply put things back where they belong as I encounter them around the house during the course of doing my own business.

My fiance is constantly leaving things about, often important things, and rather than have to help her madly scramble to find something she needs RIGHT NOW, I just tell her where it is, because I know where it is, because I put it there. This is a system we have worked out gradually over the years; I recognized this behavior in her, and rather than attempt to alter her, I made the (considerably lesser, and more agreeable for everyone) effort to designate a place for everything and return things there as needed.

[McDeath_the_Mad]

Wow can I relate to this thread! I love my wife, but I just don’t understand her logic sometimes!

I am by no means the cleanist guy in the world, but I hate clutter. I like to have a place for everything.

As soon as I come home, I put my wallet, keys and ID badge from work in the exact same spot everytime. Before going to bed, I charge my Blackberry on the same charger in the same spot.

My wife drops her purse at the top of the stairs. If she buys anything most times it gets left in the bag and dropped where ever. If she brings the mail in, it gets put where ever. She is famous for making “piles” of stuff.

Every morning she’s looking for her keys, and finds out her phone is almost dead because it hasn’t been charged in a couple of days.

Then within a week or so the house is a disaster area. Every where you look there is clutter and stuff to be put away. When you look at the kitchen table that nobody uses and you can’t see the top of it because of all the crap on it, it gets very overwhelming.

I keep telling her the same phrase “30 seconds”. If she only takes that extra “30 seconds” to put stuff away, our house would be in much better shape.

We have cleaners come in very two weeks to do clean our kitchen, ensuite bathroom and main bathroom. They do a quick vacuum and dusting as well. So we’re not living in filth or anything!

I do 98% of all the cooking, and 98% of all the shopping. I clean-up after most meals and almost always loads/unloads the dishwasher (after almost 5 years in our house my wife still doesn’t know where some bowls live in our kitchen).

My wife does the laundry, but again instead of doing a load after work every couple of days it becomes a giant pile of dirty laundry and she does laundry for a solid day on the weekend.

Once it is clean, it gets brought upstairs and sits in baskets. I usually put my laundry (as well as the common items: towels, sheets etc.) away fairly quick, and as this laundry is usually mixed-in with my wifes and daughters clothes I sort their laundry into seperate baskets.

The laundry will stay in the baskets until the next laundry day when it will be fratically put away becuase she needs the baskets. Meanwhile every morning she is digging through baskets of clothes looking for an outfit to wear.

I just don’t understand, house clutter and laundry cause so much anxiety for my wife and by just doing little bits here and there it would be so much less of an issue.

I’m a pretty happy go lucky guy and not much stuff bothers me, and she knows this bothers me. We’ve talked about it many times. The bad thing is, our 8 year old daughter is starting to take after her mom. When you go into her room she has piles of stuff everywhere. My wife see’s this she’s not happy about it either.

We are continually trying to work on these habbits, so hopefully one day everything will just click!

There is a laundry basket beside our bed that is full of crap that my wife has put there, for example in the bottom are unused Christmas cards from 3 years ago. When that basket disappears I know we’ll be in a better place!

MtM

[Icarus]

@MandaJo

We don’t ask, and we don’t tell, we talk about things with a solid faith that both people share the same basic priorities and that both people earnestly want to find the solution that gets everyone as much of what they want as is possible.

There is as much chance of this happening in my house as there is of me living on Mars with a harem of Jennifer Lawrences. I know, I know, it sucks to be me…

[Hershele_Ostropoler]

My parents have lived in the same largish house since four years before I was born. My girlfriend moved a couple of times growing up, mostly smaller places. As a result, while we both have a propensity to save things we might need, I have no countervailing inclination to recognize that we probably won’t need something and get rid of it. So the arguments are “we need to get rid of it” “but it might come in handy.”

Also, I think “cluttered” means “risk of tripping, having to walk carefully, things get lost” and she thinks “cluttered” means “anything at all is visible,” which at best means her idea of decluttering is much more than mine (at worst, well, what johnpost said).