I have been thinking about this because a girlfriend of mine spent the weekend at her boyfriend's house and said she spent most of her time cleaning. I go to thinking about it and I think that cleaning his house, unless you live together or you are working together at his request, it is a bad idea.

It’s infantilizing. He’s a grown up, and he can decide how he wants his space. You’re not his mom, so you shouldn’t pick up his toys for him.

It’s a criticism. Changing his space by cleaning it tells him that you find it unacceptable as it is. Maybe it is unacceptable, which is fine. You are allowed preferences, but if clean spaces are a priority don’t date a messy guy and clean up after him.

It’s disrespectful. His space is his space. If he wants it messy, then he has every right to have it messy. Cleaning his space other than just tidying behind yourself crosses a boundary. It also might look like a cover for snooping, which you do not want. You don’t want to look like you’re poking around in his private papers or whathaveyou.

It’s counter-productive. If he really can’t manage to keep his space clean (and I don’t mean spotless, Martha Stewart clean, just reasonably tidy) then is he really a good partner for the long term? Adults either need to clean their space or pay someone to do it for them. It’s adulthood 101 and if he can’t manage that then it speaks to his fitness for a long term relationship. And again, I don’t mean clean enough to eat off the bathroom floor, just reasonable. Use tidiness as an indicator for conscientiousness, which is a wonderful quality in a partner.

All in all, I think that it’s very nice to be helpful to your partner, but cleaning his space any more than just tidying up behind yourself is a bad idea. What do you think? Am I off base?

I edited this to try to break up the text.