Marriage advice
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Ok, nothing that serious. But an honest scenario and question.
Yes I love my wife and she's loyal, trustworthy, great mom to the kids, etc. Currently she's a stay-at-home mom with our two pre-kindergarten kiddos. When we first were dating, she had a clean, almost minimalist apartment.
But over the last few years, she's borderline hoarder. Mostly with mom-related things. For example
- Kids drawers: If it were up to me, each kid would have 5-7 jammies. They have 50 pairs each, and I cannot close the drawers they are packed so tight.
- Shoes: Somehow for a family of 5, we have about 45 pairs of shoes in the entry way.
- Library: She'll take the kids there and check out 60-70 books. Growing up, we'd check out 5.
- Toys: Oh boy, the toys. My dirty little secret is every few weeks I go around and collect cheap, broken, or scattered toys and toss them. I've probably done 20 kitchen trash bags worth over the last 3 years. In my opinion, if a kid has 10 toys they will treasure them that much more than having 500 toys.
- Ornaments: It's taking over a week to hang ornaments on the tree, we have I have no idea... 200-300 ornaments, and clearly can't fit it all.
- Crafts: Our laundry room has a wide counter on the side of it, probably 10x4 feet, and it's completely covered with bags of crafts. Heck one time I went to a large marker holder and emptied it out and instead of having 9 browns and 11 reds, I reduced it to 2 markers per color. And the crayons...why do we have so many crayons.
The best part...if I ever bring even a hint of this being an issue up, it's an immediate insult to her as mom. Yet every week I'll hear "where is this toy" or "where is this library book?" or "where is my hat?"
To wrap it up... when I come home from work, she'll be reading or on her phone, and every counter is filled with clutter and I have to decide if I want to start a fight by even saying anything or not. Almost every time it's not worth the conflict.
This isn't really an insult, but my wife has never been able to have a delicate conversation without somehow it turning into a fight. For example, our DVR was almost full and shows we recorded were at risk for being deleted. This came up one night and I told her I have 11 shows recorded and she has about 130 shows, and if she thought there were any series she wasn't watching anymore.... woah nelly, DEFCON 1.
I had a friend in town this past weekend and he was asking me about some of the clutter and in explaining it to him I realized I simply don't engage her with the topic of reducing clutter, or cleaning up, or even expectations as a stay at home mom. I know she is unable to have any conversation about anything remotely uncomfortable so I just avoid the fight. And yes, I usually just clean things up once a week when folks are gone, it's easier that way.
Any words of wisdom from ya'll?
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Wow, this hits home very closely. My ex-wife also became a hoarder over time, and I also couldn't talk to her about it without it becoming a big fight. It became so difficult to find something in the mess that we sometimes ordered things new from Amazon because that was easier than locating it.
The fact that she's my ex-wife tells you something about how I solved the problem. The issues you describe were not the only but a major contributor to the end of our relationship. They are also a symptom that there's something else that is seriously wrong.
You say this isn't serious. I disagree. This is huge. You either solve it, or your relationship will end. Address it now, before it eats your soul.
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There is no such thing as a dragon. This is a kids book, but it tells you something about what happens if you can't talk about something. The problem becomes bigger and bigger and finally makes your whole life miserable.
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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.
