<p>Great little article on the trials and tribulations of married couples with differing expectations about cleanliness: [When</a> your spouse is a slob - CNN.com](<a href=“When your spouse is a slob - CNN.com”>When your spouse is a slob - CNN.com)</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing that article, WashDad. I can relate, since in my marriage, one of us is on the messy side and the other one is a neat freak (I won’t say who’s who 
)</p>
<p>Same here: one messy, one pathologically - um, I mean wonderfully! - neat. ;)</p>
<p>Here, it’s all about incoming papers and my vague new Feng Shui sensibility that paperwork drains energy if left on kitchen counter near entrance door/transition area, but Much Better if moved, pile by pile, to a different horizontal surface elsewhere in the same room. Makes no sense.</p>
<p>Going through the piles? Well, I invite people over and that’s our only incentive to go through the bloomin’ papers.</p>
<p>I have mentioned that I probably am dyspraxic- which means I am pretty clumsy- unorganized & pay attention to things that are engaging, not “boring”.
I keep trying to actually have glassware, but it is pretty depressing when I keep breaking them. :(</p>
<p>One of the things that attracted me to my H, was that he was supercompulsive about his tools- he also was clean to the point that ( when we had * sex* at his parent’s house, before we were married, he squeeged the shower afterwards- how was I to know- that was because he was paranoid of his mother finding out, not that he was excessively neat?)</p>
<p>I had, had a previous live in boyfriend, who was organized ( he was a chef) and we would work together- that worked well, because he had realistic expectations of my organizing abilities.</p>
<p>My starter H , by contrast, expects by virtue of my sex apparently :rolleyes: ( the first time I met his mother she was ironing jockey shorts), that I am interested and capable of running herd on the misc crap that comes into this house everyday.
Needless to say- it has caused no end of conflicts. ( especially when H is the one that brings in half the crap cause someday he thinks he is going to find a use for it!)
It probably says something that the cleanest room in the house is my 17 year old daughters- she has recognized that life is much easier if you can see surfaces ;)- I am visual or something- so I need to see it to find it- if it is in a drawer or closet, it might as well be invisible.</p>
<p>H thinks the counter is the place all discarded paper bags belong and their tenure should be forever. </p>
<p>He goes through the garbage because he thinks I throw too many things out. Imagine! The nerve!</p>
<p>When she was about 12 and I was making an effort to instill some neatness in D (both kids take after H in this dept., of course,) D very seriously said, “The problem, mommy, is that you grew up in a neat house. This is a messy house. I think you should adjust.”</p>
<p>Me: But honey, then we’d all have to move out after a few months.</p>
<p>D: The one and only time she has ever been speechless.</p>
<p>Funny how fate plays littler tricks on us - I am now paying pennance, I think, for being such a neat freak earlier in life. </p>
<p>I readily admit that folding dirty clothes is a bit much (you can fit more in the basket that way!), but now I’m a full-time manager of a household of four absent-minded professors (all male), plus me. </p>
<p>Try as I may, I haven’t been able to rid them of the mindset that I wouldn’t have anything to do if they didn’t leave their dirty socks lying around.</p>
<p>It’s okay, I’m sure I’ll miss the care-taking when all the DSs are out of the house.</p>
<p>I can always tell when DH is home. I open the door, and I see a trail, a la Jeffy from Family Circle:</p>
<p>shoe
shoe
sock
sock
keys
whatever else he was carrying that doesn’t require refrigeration
briefcase
belt
sweatshirt
etc.</p>
<p>The upside to this is that I can always find him.</p>
<p>Ah yes, that sounds like my house, but what’s worse is when they can’t find something after they have dropped it somewhere.</p>
<p>My latest anger with Bullet is he is now trying to take over my dresser with his crap! </p>
<p>I think Bullets problem is he is a military man, so when he comes home he becomes a “normal” person, unfortunately, I kind of wish he would reverse it, be more orderly at home and a slob at work</p>
<p>Ah yes, pima. Went thru that for twenty years - cast off the uniform and put on the most ragged, stained & comfy clothes dh could find (along with a relaxation of the rules for orderliness!). </p>
<p>Now that he’s retired, that has carried over to 24/7!</p>
<p>I’m still working on him tho’ - and haven’t given up hope - yet.</p>
<p>My H is the neat freak and I am his opposite. I did exactly as suggested in that article, early in our relationship; I told him I would never feel my wifely status was being usurped if he felt the need to tidy or clean up and so he was happy getting the house as he liked it and I was happy not to feel deficient! Fast forward 20 something years, he is not as driven about the neatness and I am not as untidy.</p>