Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / October 2007

<snipped>

Something you might want to watch, though - what you wrote above,
about "giving" her one of the rooms... sounds a bit paternal, doesn't
it?  Like you're the parent and you're "allowing" her a particular
space in her own home, the home that was hers before it was both of
yours.

Might want to look at how you're approaching this issue with her.  If
you're coming across as patronizing or parental, you're setting
yourself up for more grief.

Kitten

My DH is the pack-rat, and I'm the neat-freak who likes to keep things
decluttered. We negotiated, and he gets the guest bedroom and the
basement as his personal dumping ground.

The way it works around here - our deal - is that if he leaves his
stuff lying about the other rooms, I pick it up and relocate it to the
guest bedroom. (i.e., if you do this with your DW, don't expect her to
put her own stuff away in the middle bedroom - you will probably have
to move it for her). We keep the door closed at all times.

Since this is our only guest bedroom, we also have a deal that when
guests come to stay, he has to tidy up and clean the guest bedroom and
make it presentable. As part of this deal, I am not to nag, remind, or
spaz out in anxiety ... even if he waits until the very last minute
(which he usually does). But a few times a year, he'll get in there
and clean it out completely - by that, I mean he will bag up most of
the stuff and relocate it temporarily to the basement until the guests
leave.  Then it slowly makes it's way back into the house, bit-by-bit,
where it gets promptly dumped back in the guest bedroom by me. :-)

The basement is another story entirely. I give up going down there,
because it's a disaster. There's a small corner for my stuff, and
things like xmas decorations. If I need something, I send him down
there to dig it out.

As for the magazine pile, we negotiated a solution to that, and he's
kept up with it: anytime a new issue arrives, we throw out the old one
(we, meaning, whomever happened to get the mail that day - we *both*
do this as a habit). So at any given time, there's only maybe 5
magazines stacked on the coffee table.

My DH had a rough childhood, growing up with a mother who is
schizophrenic. While his father was away serving in the army, things
unraveled. He was barely 5 years old, the oldest of 4 siblings, and he
has memories of rummaging in the garbage to find food. This is where
his pack-rat mentality comes from, and it's deep-rooted. But, he is
getting better, he does recognize it's an emotional issue. He saw one
of those shows on t.v., with some woman who'd collected so much stuff,
it filled her apartment, and she got evicted. After seeing that show,
he's been trying to slowly declutter stuff. Every few days, he'll
throw something out. It's progress (even if he brings in three new
trash-picked things for every one he throws away!!).

So while I do think that this can and should be negotiated - so that
your need for a clean environment in the main areas is addressed - you
also need to be loving, accepting,  understanding and patient. It
could be that her need for clutter is just as strong as your need for
clean.

Good luck!

jen

In a previous article, Lauri <laurinospam@nwidespam.netunspam> said:

Exactly.  Exactly.  It just makes no *sense*. I can often throw out all the
crap that needs throwing out, but then I'm left with a pile of stuff that
seems to have no logical home.  I usually put away things that have homes; my
clothing, tools, books.  But paper defeats me big time, as do things like the
box you refer to.  Where is the "box place?"

So, Phil, understand that it might be more than just a refusal to change pack
rat ways.  It could be an inability to do so.

Vicki (not Vickie)

In our house they are often part of the junk!

I suspect we have a milder version of this problem than you and Mr
Anne have.

But there are several things that help us some that may or may not be
applicable in another household.  It isn't like I clear up her stuff
and dump it all the time.  For example, I do the kitchen table once or
twice a day, but often just move things to another kitchen surface,
until the kitchen overall is too cluttered.

And less busy parts of the house often accumulate clutter for weeks
before I start to feel impinged upon enough to do a sweep through
those rooms, so she can't make a very plausible case that this is
urgent, and that is why she left it in sight.

Also, her designated clutter storage areas _aren't_ out of sight
(though it is hard to pick out individual important items by sight).

And then, unlike the OP, I'm the magazine subscriber.  (I'm down to
two right now, sadly.  I had to let my subscription to The Economist
lapse since I haven't really had time to read it since last spring.
I'm very sad about that, but I'm trying to be realistic.)  But I do
let magazines pile up.  But then I really do go through them (although
there are some that hang around for 6 months or longer because they
contain a long article I _want_ to read, but haven't yet been in the
mood for).

[...]

I've been thinking about the on display vs tidied away aspects of hoarding
(or saving!) I think of my husband and I as moderate hoarders because
there's no denying we have far too much stuff. It's easier to put something
out of sight than to think about whether we should keep it, sell or give it
away or junk it and we've never been good at going through that process.
Anyway, if the object is not broken it seems wasteful not to keep it!

But, emotionally, I have to have relatively clean and tidy surroundings to
be comfortable and as soon as I feel there's too much stuff on display I
start to itch and I have put the clutter out of sight. It's still there,
though, it's just hidden! This becomes a problem for me when there is simply
no more room to squirrel away more stuff and I'm faced with an enormous and
hugely tedious job to clear it all out. Which I have at the moment with our
bedroom closet and our youngest son's bedroom and the laundry cupboards...
and the kitchen cupboards and... well, it's all starting to feel oppressive.

So it seems to me that people like your husband and possibly the OP's wife
often differ from a lot of us only by a small degree but it's just that it's
a very visible difference!

One of my friends loves decluttering other people's houses and I'm sure she
could make a living at creating serene, pure spaces for us all!

Doug's idea is a good one.  And workable.  Workable in that both people win
something.  The unorganized person isn't pressed; the person who needs a more
uncluttered environment gets at least some of that.

Beware of falling into the trap of thinking a clutter-person is less caring or
less hardworking or any of that.  (By the same token, messy people need to
beware of falling into the trap of thinking they're more easygoing and laid
back, and have their priorities more aligned with immediate human needs.)

Personally, I'm kinda inpbetween.  But I find it easier to clean up for a person
who wants neater than I would if I were living alone, then to live with a person
who leaves more messes than I do.  (Even as many messes as I do!).  So I tend to
your side of things.

I don't leave messes, but I'm what someone I know described as a "pile person".
I put things in piles so that they're somewhat organized, but I never really get
back to them.  I do have corners of my house with piles in them.  Sometimes
because they're in that "misc" category I'm not sure what to do with that
someone else in this thread described, sometimes simply because I dont' get back
to the piles.

But, in living with someone, I find myself making more piles, and I've figured
out why.  I'm not saying this is true for your situation, just something to
consider:

Say we both get home from work, and I start going through some mail for me.  He
says "um, when is dinner", and I feel rushed and a bit guilty, yes it's my night
to fix dinner.  So, instead of taking the fifteen minutes right there and then
to really dispose of all the mail, I put it down (you guessed it; in a pile..)
and go to making dinner.  After dinner, you would think that I should up and go
right back to the mail pile and finish it, but there's usually something *else*
going on "hon, isn't John Stewart hilarious tonight - what are you doing over
there by the table?", and also I have a little trouble getting back into any
task once I leave it. Maybe it's a touch of ADD  :)   I'm much better off
finishing it after I start it.  But often there's someone who is anxious for me
to leave it temporarily to move on to another task or activity.  *They* might
find it easy to then go back later in the evening to finish something, but I
have a bit of a hard time with it.

Think if maybe you unintentionally derail small efforts at organization (and
organization *is* a matter of many small efforts).

Cheers,
Banty