Marriage advice
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89th, I'm the same as you, tidy with wife who's not bothered, who wants to keep stuff in case it could be reused.
Any surface becomes covered, be it shelf, table, kitchen units, bedroom floor her side. Large garage accumulates things that may be used.
You can't really change people, certainly not quickly; and upbringing is not a factor in this human nature as there are people in our family who had everything done for them and some are tidy, others not.
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Carve out for yourself a "man cave" where you can be as tidy as you want. Bring your kids to see your man cave every now and then so they see there is another way of living. Leave her be.
Who knows what pregnancies have done to her hormones to push her hoarder's subconscious to the surface? Pregnancies are very big deals that leave long lasting effects on the body and mind. Give it time, maybe lots of time, for the hormonal levels to revert. After the kids grow up to the point where the kids spend more time away from home, she may want to go back to work and that may again change her domestic behaviors and tendencies.
Oh, after you get this off your chest and collected the advice, delete this thread before she sees it. In the old days these would be things you tell a few of your confidants who would exercise discretion rather than posting on the open Internet where it's readily searchable by your wife and her confidants.
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I disagree. Living with the intolerable silently will foster resentment which will inevitably erode your relationship. It is possible that the reason it becomes a big fight is because she knows something is wrong, feels overwhelmed and is scared or unable for whatever reason to confront it. It's your duty as her husband to help her work through this. Just don't expect instant results.
It's often difficult to see a path forward when you are up to your neck in a situation. Some counseling for you on how to start working through this might help. The first place you might go is AI. You need fresh input.
When our daughter was born Janet became a stay at home mom. After a highly successful sales career she found it stifling and was conflicted about that, as if she should not feel that way. Your bride may be feeling some form of that and using the dopamine hit from purchasing wonderful new things to cope, while still feeling unfulfilled. She's spent family money on all these things and would feel guilty discarding them. I know a lot of people who employ retail therapy.
The key words here are gentle and loving. She needs to know her feelings will land in a safe place with you, just as you would do with your kids. I'm a pretty direct person by and large and I found that the way I responded to things did not always make her feel safe. Took me a long time to learn when my natural response to something was not going to be helpful.
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Good feedback everyone, I read each response and appreciate it, and that I'm not going crazy.
@mik you are spot-on, I think. Yes my natural urge is to say something along the lines of "if you weren't on your phone you'd have so much more time to do bare minimum tidying up" (think of moms pre-smartphone.... what distractions were there, soap operas?) so it's hard to learn how to communicate on their level instead of my urge for a more direct summary of the problem.
Before kids? She worked for the Dept of Veterans Affairs helping vets get education or work. She doesn't have a strong desire to go back into the workplace, she says. I think your point is 100% accurate that if I bring it up she knows it's wrong, she's overwhelmed, and for whatever reason is usually in paralysis mode instead of just fixing it. She has hinted before that sometimes she doesn't know where to start (so she just doesn't), whereas I'm more of a rip-the-bandaid, so when I tidy up, I go room by room and it takes me about 2 hours but... just effing do it!
Ok rant over... appreciate the feedback. Maybe I'll get that dragon book, @klaus
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I’m not sure when she’ll be ready to hear this but ‘baby steps’ is the answer when faced with an overwhelming task.
My friend was a pack rat and moved from a house he owned to a small rental after a divorce. He had a garage and basement filled with old junk much of he would never use again unless he owned a house which will forever be out of his reach.
I had some success with two different strategies. Firstly, yes cleaning everything is overwhelming. So try just doing a single box every day or even every week. What he found was that if he did start, he didn’t stop at a single box. He wouldn’t do 20, but he might clear an entire shelf once he got going. That was success.
The second was ‘store it on Craig’s list’. That shop vac? Sell it used and pocket the cash. Think you might need it again some day? You could always buy another one in similar condition in a few years time for about the same price. Meanwhile you had a hundred bucks to play with.
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I remember our living room/ family room (same space) being a little crazy like that with toys when the kids were really little. I remember Steve’s mom buying us these three bins that had wheels and looked like train cars so there was a place to put stuff to get it off the floor, so it must’ve driven her crazy when she visited. She also bought us a big wicker basket to put the newspapers in. I look back at some of the pictures from then and wonder why I didn’t throw the newspapers out right away or have things a little neater, things I can easily do now. It’s awfully hard with little kids when you are trying to keep them entertained, along with taking care of everything else (groceries, laundry, cooking, cleaning). I remember feeling pretty overwhelmed sometimes as a stay at home mom, when a trip to the grocery store by myself felt like a vacation. Steve was good about entertaining the kids so I could go ride my horse twice a week (my therapy). I remember the relief of finally having them in preschool and school so I could have a few hours to myself every day. I don’t know what to suggest, we had lots of big storage closets where I could shove the art supplies that kind of take over, so I was able to hide some of the mess. Once the kids were in school it was much easier to keep things neater.
I have a couple of questions for you. Does she have help during the day? Is the house clean otherwise, does the laundry get done, and the dishes? Do you take the kids off her hands for a little while when you get home so she has some time to do a few things by herself? (Like I said, even going to the grocery store by myself felt like such a relief). I used to say that being a full time mom to small kids was the hardest job I ever did - and I was a 60+ hour a week horse vet before when I got pregnant with our first. She may be overwhelmed, she may be doing “retail therapy” (more kids clothes, more art supplies) to make herself feel better (we lived paycheck to paycheck when my kids were small, so buying extra stuff was out of the question). Having to be “on” 24/7 - even at night when the smallest noise makes you wonder if your kids are ok is freaking exhausting.
It does get better, when they get older and are in school and you have a moment to think about yourself without the constant worry of keeping the kids safe and entertained. So you may need to cut her a break, or figure out some storage solutions to help with the clutter - or organize some cabinets/ or clutter yourself, if that is possible.
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Jodi - your story reminds me of a good friend who confessed to a brief abandonment of parental responsibility. She asked a refrigerator repairman if he could watch her two boys while she went to the bathroom. She took a glass of wine into the bathroom for a brief 4 minute vacation.
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@jon-nyc yeah baby steps. Maybe I'll even just say "hey this weekend let's try and clear up the dining room" just to plant the idea instead of coming in and saying "Ok it's time to clear up the dining table."
@jodi Good questions, it's hard to answer without sounding a certain way, but I provide I think more than even my fair share of support. I'm fortunate to work from home, so for the first hour of the day, I normally have 2 of the kids in the basement with me (my wife is getting our oldest ready for the school bus), then I make their breakfast, then I go to work, then after work I come up, and I make their snack, I clean up, and I usually make half the dinners, I usually do the dishes, and the trash. I take care of all outside work, all the bills, probably 80% of the baths, and am the one to get up when a kid gets up at night, mainly because I can fall back asleep so fast (she can't). On the weekend I usually take all 3 kids out for Saturday morning just so she gets a break. She takes care of laundry (not mine), groceries, and of course watching the 2 year old (and 5 year old when he's not in preschool) during the day. I know on paper I do more than my fair share, especially for a working husband, but that is fine, honestly. It's just the inability to bring up the clutter conversation without it being a triggering event. The advice/stories in this thread have helped me a bit, appreciate it.
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Ok, I did not remember that you had 3 kids. (For me, two was so much harder than one, and 3 would have sent me over the edge, lol). I did not know you worked from home, And it does sound like you do your share of the work. So you have a clutter problem (or a problem where clutter is the end result) that needs to be fixed for your own sanity. Not sure she’s going to be able to fix the clutter - the inability to throw anything out was an issue for mom, though she kept hers hidden - she had serious anxiety issues and I didn’t realize how bad they were until I had to go through her things in the basement when she moved into memory care - omg, she saved EVERYTHING, will little notes and lists on stuff, it was like she was afraid to throw it away because it might be important, or she might miss it, or maybe she just needed something she felt that she was in control of. So you are likely going to need help with that - counseling, maybe, if you can convince your wife. We (both Steve and I) have multiple hobbies that require lots of stuff - and his idea of organized is way different than mine, so I’m constantly buying storage bins and rolling carts etc and sorting through the stuff that gets left out to “help” - but mostly it’s to keep myself sane, as I can’t focus when things get too cluttered. If you can’t get her to agree to some sort of counseling (the clutter is probably the end result of other issues?) then can you quietly carve out a space for yourself that isn’t cluttered? I’m sorry - this kind of thing is really hard to deal with, and everything is amplified when the kids are small and are so much work.
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Yeah going from 2 to 3 kids was substantially harder (although 2 was hard, as can be just 1!). There's zero chance she'd ever do counseling, if anything she might admit she knows it's clutter (she says she hates clutter too) but just doesn't think she has the time to clean it up. Of course, the scrolling on the phone and reading her kindle would be evidence otherwise. I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, just venting I suppose.
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Will she let you deal with the clutter without it triggering anger - as in go through the toys and the extra clothes and donate the ones that no longer fit, or were stained or whatever, purchase some cute bins or storage shelves with those pull out baskets to store the extra stuff (they really do help). And would you consider going to some sort of marriage/family counseling by yourself to get some help on how to deal with this issue - both the clutter issue and your unhappiness with it? That might help also. My mom could have used some counseling/therapy. But I’m pretty sure she thought she was too smart to need it. My daughter is a child and family therapist - it’s amazingly to talk to her these days (compared to how she was as a teenager!) - especially as we are going through our parents dementias and deaths. Having someone with that training to listen and counsel has been really helpful.
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TNCR is my therapist! We have plenty of storage bins and places, it's just they aren't used or things aren't put back where they belong afterwards. I do tidy-up spaces solo. It's funny to watch the kids say "wow look at all this space!" or discover an old toy like it's the first time, but unfortunately my wife won't ever say thanks, and I get the feeling she resents when I clean up their mess. Meh.
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You do what you have to do to stay sane. I look at it this way - there are things that make me crazy, but the things that I love outweigh those things, so I figure out how to manage the crazy things myself, even if it requires a little more time and effort on my part to feel at peace. The tiny kid stage felt like it lasted forever, but once it’s gone, I wonder where the time went!
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You might start by asking what you might do to help her. You're not going to get through this by thinking you're doing enough already. I understand the feeling, but it's not helpful. It's never 50-50. Whatever you do, avoid making it confrontational. If she does talk, just listen and firmly resist the urge to provide a solution. It is difficult because as guys, that's what we do - we fix stuff. It will feel a bit like patronizing her, but trust me, it's not. It's something I cannot grasp emotionally, but I acknowledge it on an intellectual level.
You seem to be picking up on being indirect.
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You might start by asking what you might do to help her. You're not going to get through this by thinking you're doing enough already. I understand the feeling, but it's not helpful. It's never 50-50. Whatever you do, avoid making it confrontational. If she does talk, just listen and firmly resist the urge to provide a solution. It is difficult because as guys, that's what we do - we fix stuff. It will feel a bit like patronizing her, but trust me, it's not. It's something I cannot grasp emotionally, but I acknowledge it on an intellectual level.
You seem to be picking up on being indirect.
@Mik said in Marriage advice:
If she does talk, just listen and firmly resist the urge to provide a solution. It is difficult because as guys, that's what we do - we fix stuff.
Haha yes isn't that the truth. It's very hard for someone to present a problem and even ask for advice and, well, not give them the solution.
The funny part is she is identical to her mom. They talk every day, same general food preferences, shopping habits, opinions about life, except her mom has become a minimalist lately. Maybe as @jodi says this will smooth out in a few years when all kids are in school...
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Not much to add to what's being said - I agree very much that small steps are much less painful, and also that trying to 'fix' what you see as somebody else's problem like an engineer is not a good way to approach it - that's something that I've been guilty of, and still struggle with.
It's very easy to build up resentment, particularly if it feels as though you're doing more than 50% of the work, and both Mrs. Phibes and I have been guilty of that on a number of occasions. Counselling can be quite a bit more helpful than you might imagine, but you both have to want to go.
In terms of reducing mess and clutter, we've found the Facebook Free Marketplace to be a great place for getting rid of things you don't really think you can sell, but that feel too good to just throw away - old toys, gadgets you don't need. I got rid of an old stereo which was in full working order - they guy was made up that he was getting it for free, and I was made up to free up the space. Full disclosure - our house is a lot messier than we'd like it to be.
