Cleaning & Organizing
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Keeping clean with messy men
My husband before he met me was not allowed to do anything at his dads. By anything I mean, his laundry, dishes, cook, vacuum, etc. So when we started living together I had already done all that on my own so I just kept doing it, but as we kept living together it started getting overwhelming. Now don't get me wrong if I ask he does stuff, but like he does dishes and I have to rewash half of them, or he vacuums and misses a whole side of a room. I don't want to treat him like he's two because he's not but I don't know how to deal with this. We are moving into a house adn I want it to stay clean and livable. How do you teach him to do things the right way. We have no dishwasher not and wont when we move, so that's not an option. UGH! Also he has a ton of clothes that don't fit or are torn and if I go to toss them he has a fit and wont let me. Would you just do it when he's not home, I mean it's not like he's going to notice since he can't wear them.
Re: Keeping clean with messy men
You write about a common battle
I toss DH's torn or items with holes when he isn't around. He never misses them. It's a little sneaky, but I see it as one of my "jobs" as his wife. A word to the wise...if an item is a favorite and is worn frequently, under no circumstances should it get tossed no matter its condition.
Also, at times, I have had to develop a choosing game for him. "Okay Honey. I have room for 15 neckties for you. Pick which 15 you want to keep. The rest we are donating." I have done the same with tee-shirts, jeans, and sweat shirts. Nasty socks and underwear just get tossed at my descretion and I don't ask him for approval on those items.
With your other household chores, start small. Can you write him directions next to the laundry area for what to do for various types of loads?
Pretty much all couples have someone who is generally the neater, more organized of the two. It's obviously you here. As part of the relationship, you will have to decide if all this cleaning work is something you are willing to live with. If it bugs you now, and it doesn't get better, you will only build resentment toward him in the future. Is this a deal breaker for you? If it is, move on. If it isn't then it's your choice to stay with him and then you have to deal with the choice you made.
It took me a few years to slowly and properly train H in the art of laundry. He always did it since going off to University but I took over when he shrunk a very nice sweater I got him for Christmas. I just have him help me lug things to the laundry mat, help sort and load, etc. He caught on by watching, helping and ocasionally asking questions.
For the dishes he still isn't comfortable with loading the dishwasher. He will scrub the spots off of any dish just fine and let it air dry. He didn't start washing dishes until I kept asking him for help.
As for old shirts, pants and so forth I will tell H I am going to donate a couple of things to goodwill. I will ask him to go through his stuff and find what he can part with. If he can't find something I know needs to go I ask him if he really wants it and when was the last time he wore it. Or point out holes, rips and so on. I will toss if it's messed up.
If there are shirts that are very special to him and he absolutely won't part with store them in a small container. We have a container like this with both of our stuff.
I have had trouble with asking him what he wants to keep. As soon as I pose the question, every ratty T-shirt with ragged collars and pit stains seem to be important. I can just see him asking himself "But what if I NEED that someday?!"
So, when I'm doing laundry I'll pull out the shirts that are admittedly from high school (over 10 years old) or the boxer shorts with the elastic showing. I'll hide them away in a bottom drawer for a few weeks. If he can go that long without even noticing they're gone, then they're probably not actually important and I will toss them. Nothing has been missed yet. (I don't do this with socks that have holes, because he ain't getting those back.)
However, I agree with PP that if something is an obvious favorite, it should never be tossed unceremoniously.. He should definitely be involved in that decision. A friend of mine recently won a year long battle over her husband's favorite ratty shirt. He finally agreed to give it a proper burial.
As far as him sucking at chores.. I'm not sure. I might try thanking him for doing the dishes/vacuuming and then going back to clean up the mess he left. Maybe he'll ask why you're redoing it, and you can gently explain. If he never notices, maybe try bringing it up in a way that makes it a shared problem and doesn't sound accusatory. "It's SO hard to get marinara off of these plates, isn't it?" Maybe your comment will soak in and he'll start paying attention.
When I first met my husband he was still wearing clothes from high school and the only new things he got were things his mom bought him. He did not want to get rid of anything. So instead of trying to get him to get rid of stuff, I took him shopping and encouraged him to find his own style (he was resistant at first, but he slowly came around). When he saw that the things he picked out looked nice and made him feel good, and especially when he started getting compliments from people who noticed his style change, he was a lot more willing to get rid of stuff. When he bought something new, I would suggest he get rid of something old to 'make room'. I would also point out that the old items did not flatter him.
As far as the messes go, I have to tell you I'm the messy one and he's the neat one. One thing that drives me crazy is when I don't do something the way he thinks it should be done and goes behind me. Why should I bother doing it? It took awhile to get him to understand that even though we may do things differently, the end result is the same. He also had to realize that his standards for things were impossibly high and made me feel like crap when I couldn't meet them. If your husband is in the same boat, then the more important thing is to make him feel valuable first, before you try to get him to do things differently.
Sometimes my husband will do some things that I feel are not 'clean', such as not sanitizing the sponge before he cleans the counters, or wiping the counters without using any cleaner, I will thank him for helping but then explain to him why it could be dangerous if he keeps doing it that way.
There are some things I hate doing and feel like I can never do them correctly, such as wash dishes by hand or making the bed, so those are things he takes charge of because he knows how frustrated I get. I try to make up for that by taking charge of other areas for him.
It's all about letting the little things go, lifting him up, and being patient. Best of luck!
Many of us have this issue! (Whether or not EVERYTHING was taken care of for them previously...) First of all, ask him to do things with you at the beginning... hopefully he'll catch on to how you do things. Even do things like ask him to cut the tomatoes while you're washing the lettuce or put the washer to certain settings and add detergent because your hands are full with the load. Hopefully he'll ask questions about anything he doesn't know how to do since you're right there! Then, start him off easily on his own - say whites only in the laundry all go in on warm/hot water... or have him group laundry by color and tell him to read the tags and if he's ever confused about the settings, tell him delicate and cold work on anything that can go in the washer!
Lastly, it seems like you need to let some of your perfectionist tendencies go. (I am one too and am working on it myself!) Figure out what has to be perfect but also what you can let be less-than-perfect. For example, I can't stand dirty dishes so I do all the hand-washing (because that's my problem) but my husband unloads the dishwasher. Can you take turns vacuuming or cleaning the bathrooms so that you can do it to your standards every other time, but it's still getting cleaner even if it's not perfect in between? From what you've said, it seems like he's willing to help out which is at least a great start.
About the clothes - do his clothes fit in any storage he has? If so, you fell in love with him knowing he liked to wear old clothes, so I don't think it's worth the fight. If it doesn't fit, then maybe you just have to have a talk about him needing to figure out how to fit his clothes in his dresser/closet area and give him ideas of what he might purge. Maybe allow him to bring it to the new place but talk about the ground rules that it all has to comfortably fit beforehand. Especially if he hasn't worn clothes in over a year, that's a good place to start when it comes to getting rid of things.
I know exactly how you feel - my husband and I just moved into a house from a small apt and there are still boxes all over! I really want things to be clean and my husband couldn't care less. I was getting so frustrated in our apt, I just began to give up. Then I came across FlyLady (FlyLady.net or google it) and it has helped me change my approach and thought behind how I clean and encourage him to help out. I was skeptical at first because she focuses first on you having to do the stuff you want done, but somehow it actually does encourage the ones around you to help out too. I think it really is all about the attitude change that she encourages which seems to be where you need help since you seem to have all the housework in line already!
Good luck and stay patient! Remember that encouraging any work that was done, even if it's not perfect, will help it get done again... and since practice makes perfect, hopefully it'll get better over time!