Cleanliness and respect

youllknowwhenitstime · 2025-01-02T00:52:29+00:00

Ok, full stop. No more condescending, mothering, contemptuous "tricks" to make him do what you want. And certainly don't steal his stuff just because you're mad - I don't know what is wrong with that other commenter. What's the likelihood your current approach is going to endear you to him? How could this cause anything but more conflict? Do you want to win the battle at the cost of building up more resentment in him?

You two have different cleanliness standards. I rather doubt he used to keep his place Spartan before marrying you. So don't take it like a personal affront, because it isn't. There are two most likely explanations:

Option #1: He's a "function over form" guy and having stuff out feels more efficient to his routine. This results in the classic dirty clothes left beside the shower because the hamper is in the other room problem. When he was a bachelor he just scooped up his piles when he wanted to run a load... or put the hamper where he wanted it to be.
Option #2: This is how his parents functioned. His Dad saved random 30 seconds to 2 minutes here and there, reducing his mental load in small ways, while his Mom picked up that set of household maintenance, and this worked well for them. Maybe one or both of them were even Acts of Service people and this was more than just a lifestyle choice, but a way of giving or receiving affection.
Option #3: He's ADHD, or otherwise has similar nuerological wiring that priorities current stimulus to the exclusion of things other people find obvious. This has its evolutionary place in history but is widely regarded as downright disabling in our current society with a historically unprecedented number of details. One type of brain may spin out when given 4,000 square foot house instead of a single room stucco dwelling amongst his tribe. The egg thing made me wonder about this. It could also all be a sign of burnout or a much bigger health concern, it's impossible to say.

...and it could be all the above together.

The biggest problem right now is that you've made this nasty, insulting, "We are enemies and I will get you" play during this ongoing argument. So the usual warm, resolution-finding approaches are going to appear ingenuine... if you're even capable of summoning a genuinely refreshed mindset about this, which I doubt you can muster at this time anyway. It really sounds like you're convinced this is personal.

Your previous approaches and mindsets haven't worked, so it's time for radical change.

Step 1:

Back off.

Completely.

Don't say a WORD about it for a month. If it genuinely causes a problem (like the eggs) by all means clean it up yourself, but do consider some things are merely unsightly and you don't have to pile that labor onto yourself - you can let it be unsightly, at least for a month.

Apply all the duct tape, and duct tape your facial expressions while you are at it. Most human communication is nonverbal and that counts!

(Side note, your eggs are not bad after being left out for a day. If you are uncertain you can do a float test, or even crack one into a bowl separate from the recipe, and check. Believe me, you'll recognize a rotten egg immediately. They smell awful.)

Continued...

Wife_and_Mama · 2025-01-02T17:20:08+00:00

The issue I see is that you're exhausted by the constant effort to pick up after him in the way you'd like. Ideally, he'd hang up his own clothes where they go, the house would be clean, and you wouldn't have to look after him. Compromise. Buy a large storage tub, put it in his giant closet, and throw everything he leaves around the house in said tub. Don't do it passive aggressively or angrily. Just confine all his junk to one place, so it's out of your way and he can still access it. You're turning this into a battle it doesn't have to be.

Luscious-Grass · 2025-01-02T03:56:29+00:00

My husband used to be like this. I had to share vulnerably how much it stressed me out to walk into our living room to relax for a precious 45 mins after putting our kids down to bed only to see his clothing draped all over the place.

It took time, but he has dramatically improved.

HappySpinningSeal · 2025-01-01T23:07:27+00:00

[permanently deleted]

ActuallyASwordfish · 2025-01-02T02:32:36+00:00

I haven’t ever expected my husband to pick up laundry, he’s very tidy but leaves socks everywhere.

I’m the worst about leaving clothes around. He ignores it or lets me get to them at my own pace. Passively he bought me a new laundry hamper for our bathroom a few weeks ago. I’ve still got clothes everywhere but I’m doing better.

Today he comes to me and says, “I just realized today that I haven’t had to wash or fold my own clothes in years, like four or more years. Thank you.” Which is true, I’ve always done all the laundry for our entire household. We don’t have loads and loads a week but maybe two? It’s gotten more as we’ve had kids. I felt so appreciated in that moment, it was like I hadn’t even actually noticed that till he brought attention to it randomly after 5 years or more haha.

Anyways I think doing these things and cleaning up the mess would just make your life easier and make your husband appreciate you. I know that many people won’t agree with that but he works all day and maybe his mind is jumbled, I don’t mean to leave my stuff everywhere but it somehow just ends up places that I don’t even think of. I’m grateful that my husband tolerates it AND notices the things I do for him even though they’re not my strong suit..

It sounds like you’re actually stressed about something else and the laundry is a catalyst for that. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by the size of your new house, you mentioned it’s too big but is it actually?

The extra rooms can be closed off from use maybe or perhaps you can save up for some cleaning tools that help make things easier? I got a tineco I floor and I’ll never go back to mopping the old fashioned way!

AutoModerator · 2025-01-01T21:57:09+00:00

Title: Cleanliness and respect

Author Dionne005

Full text: New wife, new mom of a fairly sized house and stay at home mom. At first it started with him being upset with me not being clean enough. Then it turns into him doing as he please without being helpful. With him always working all the time I didn’t mind cleaning and doing ask the chores. The problem is him not cleaning up after himself. He cooked and left eggs out on the counter for hours and we all know eggs cost a million dollars a dozen these days. I’ve been very consistent in my cleaning and taking care of our child but after all that he still manages to leave the master bathroom with his side not kept together. Then he hangs his clothes on the couch, guard rails, doors, the office, and when I saw his clothes in our child’s room that’s when I lost it. I told him I clean his room and fold our clothes and his clothes and hang up the babies clothes and he just toss his clothes anywhere. He has an Extra large closet and it’s a disaster. I told him I care less about his space but he can’t mess up his child’s space too. Our house is too big to keep up with. Even if we hired cleaners we still have to pick up after ourselves. I bought a clothes rack for us for when he wants to hang his clothes. It’s in the laundry room but he’d rather hang them all over the house. Soooo….i told him he was never going to hang his clothes everywhere after I’m done. So I took my bras and underwear (clean) and wrapped them around ever clothe he has around the house. I weaved them tight within each other so it would be a situation when he wants to put his clothes back on. I don’t feel wrong for this but to me Laura Doyle left this problem out in her book. Does anyone else have this problem. I just don’t know how to red pill this one.

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ajcfknowsnothing · 2025-01-02T13:34:26+00:00

New around here, and other folks have covered the actual gameplan moving forward, so take this with a grain of salt, but I feel like this is firmly covered by Laura Doyle's statement about what is on "Our Paper".

His closet is his closet. That's his paper. What he does with his clothes is his paper. How he leaves clothes about is his paper.

I think Doyle's most engaged approach would be to say "I want have a clean and visually tidy house." Maybe he will figure out a hamper, or a suggestion for you, or whatever solution he comes up with. But past that, this is firmly in trying to control.

Werevulvi · 2025-02-08T10:09:06+00:00

I'm single, but I've always had issues with my clothes ending up everywhere in piles. I've been doing a lot of self-improvement in recent years teaching myself how to keep my home clean and tidy, but the clothing piles keep happening. It helps me to first understand why this keeps happening: I wear many layers of underwear to protect my visible clothes so they don't get dirty as quickly. This is good for the longevity of the clothes and good for the environment, and great for my energy levels too, but problem is I still want to switch up my outfits. So I end up with several ongoing outfits that I rotare between and I have nowhere to put them.

I have tried several solutions for this, and lately I've come to sort of a compromise: keep my still not quite dirty selection of outfits in a large box in the bedroom (it's currently a drawer on the floor, but will upgrade to a lower box that can fit under my bed at some point.) This helps keep clothes organized for a few days at least, until they eventually start travelling to other parts of my apartment. So then every week I will go through it and all the misplaced clothes around the apartment, ie sort out what needs to go to laundry, and what can stay or be put into the box.

Fyi I have adhd and autism, which probably adds to why organization is a bit of a struggle for me, and like I can kinda relate to your husband's issue with clothes.

That said I think first of all you should have a conversation with him about how he wants his clothes. Does he want you to organize them for him, does he prefer them being out in whatever order he puts them, does he not care, etc? This is going to be important info going forward.

If I'm going to assume he wants a tidy home as well, but also wants his clothes easily accessible but don't have the energy to put them away properly... my thinking is that your system simply isn't working for him and he needs another solution. Part of me learning how to clean and organize is constantly thinking of solutions that work for me personally. And there are a million different ways to keep tidy! So I'd suggest you brainstorm together with him (or by yourself and then bring up the suggestions with him) for different ways of organizing clothes. One example is having a box for him to put all sorts of used clothes in that either he or you go through at the end of the week like I do. Another suggestion is for him to have several boxes or a chest of drawers where he can put the clothes in a more organized system, for ex work clothes goes into one drawer/box, home clothes into another, etc, and then only keep his fully clean clothes in his closet. Another suggestion could be offer him a chair or table that's dedicated for his clothing, so at least it'll only be loaded onto that one piece of furniture.

Either way I'd suggest you both work together to find a solution, and it'll likely greatly help him find a system that works if you try to keep it positive. Like for example if you'd be willing to help him sort through his clothes at the end of the week (or however often you'd be willing to) if he agrees to keep them to only one pile or one piece of furniture, etc. Because it's gonna be difficult at first to get used to a new system. He's going to forget and likely need reminders. But if he's always forgetting, that to me is a sign of the current system simply not working.

Also, I'd strongly suggest you don't treat him as a failure or like he doesn't care or doing this out of spite. There's probably a fully logical reason for why he is this way. So try to be compassionate and work together with him as a team, instead of treating this as a fight you have to win. This is a home and a life you both share, not just "his side" and "your side." So you need to work together to find solutions that work for both of you. And that might mean you have to put in some extra effort while you're both figuring this out together. And then by the time you've found what works for him, it'll get much easier. New habits take time and effort to build, and you have to accept that.

Also fyi although I've never been married (yet) I have helped previous LTR partners build healthier habits, as well as received help from them to build healthier habits for myself. And from that experience I've learned that this is and should be a normal part of life and bonding with a partner, because we will all always have some kinda issue that we may need some help improving on, no matter where we're at in life. And if you have a problem with a partner then it's as much your responsibility to help them improve, you can't just put it entirely on them. Basically what I sense here is your partner needs your support in finding a functional solution and not just you telling him what to do. I hope that is helpful even though I haven't been in the exact same situation as you.

glambammer77 · 2025-01-01T22:03:14+00:00

That was the dumbest self-own ever. You just made more work for yourself by wrapping your own bras and panties around his clothing? Wtf? Clean up the damn house and stop being lazy. Your husband makes enough money to provide you with a large home and you only have one child. That's your job as a SAHM. Stop complaining and be grateful that you don't have to worry about paying all the bills and leaving your child with a stranger while you're at work.

legacyBuilder · 2025-01-03T19:08:34+00:00

You should apologize, have sex and then kindly ask him if you can discuss your frustrations. Appeal to him like you would a king

Title	Cleanliness and respect
Author	Dionne005
Upvotes	16
Comments	31
Date	January 1, 2025 9:57 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWomen
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/comments/1hrdo6h/cleanliness_and_respect/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWomen/cleanliness-and-respect.1540098 https://theredarchive.com/post/1540098

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