....and Everything in it's Place

My poor sweet husband.  He has to put up with me nagging bugging him about all kinds of things. Please don't leave your shoes in the walk way so I don't have to step or trip over them.  Why won't you put anything back where you found it?  Can you please put your stuff away?  Why are your clothes on the floor?  Can you put your dirty clothes in the hamper not on it?  Is there a reason those dishes still sitting there?  You get the point.  I must admit I am not without fault.  My main indiscretions are misplacing the lotion bottle, leaving the pantry door open, not matching the knives into the right slots on the butcher block, squeezing the toothpaste from the middle and .....well that's about it.  Oh, and all that nagging reminding.  So sorry baby (I know he's reading this).   

In his pre wifey days his routine was to throw clothes on the floor, let messes and dishes pile up throughout the week, clean it all up Saturday then start it up all over again.  So, you mean to tell me that your house was a mess about 5 out of 7 days?  That's about 20 days out of a 28 day month.  Totally not acceptable to this lady.  You see, I have an illness.  I'm a neat freak, I have OCD, call it whatever you like but I believe there is a place for everything and everything in it's place.  I didn't have that luxury for a very long time.  I used to have no place for anything and nothing in it's place because I simply didn't have the space.  Now we do.  Why spend thousands of dollars on a closet and not put your stuff in it?  My home is my sanctuary and when my home is mired in the chaos of clutter I cannot be at peace. 

I could blame it on my childhood.  I grew up in a messy house and there was nothing I could do about it.  The minute you straightened anything up it was messy again.  My dad was a walking tornado who wouldn't lift a finger around the house and expected everyone else to clean up after him.  He wouldn't even put his plate in the sink.  I hated it, so excuse me if I'm a little sensitive about this subject.  I just don't want that for my home.  My mom may have been willing to double as a servant but even as a child I vowed I never would.  Thankfully, MJ is not even close to that.  In fact, I'm pretty lucky to have a modern man such as himself who cooks and makes an effort to consider my feelings.  If I make the effort to clean the house I just don't think it's too much to ask to pick up after yourself.  I know it can be a pain in the butt and sometimes life gets busy.  It doesn't even bother me if it's not done right away as long I know you will...someday...in the near future...soon...please.  Believe me, I wish I were not like this and I certainly don't wanna be the house police.  I WANT to happily toss my belongings willy nilly without regard to where they land, ignore crusty dishes stinking in the sink and care not about the ring of dirt accumulating in the toilet.  Sounds kinda nice actually.  We could enjoy a content often dirty clutter filled life together-no nagging involved.  But the laws of nature have ensured that a messy person always marries a neat freak so that is not to be. 

We've been living together for about two years now and he really has made some major improvements.  He no longer stores his jammies on the floor, shoes are getting put away and dishes aren't getting left for days.  It means a lot to know that he is listening and trying.  I've got to give him props for that...and for putting up with me.  Messiness makes me irritable and eventually I must speak up.  If I don't say anything how will he know it bothers me?  It's called communication.  He's sure to let me know if I do something that bugs him too; it just doesn't seem to happen as often.  I can't help it that I need order and that messes put me on edge.  And I suppose he can't help it either.  He literally doesn't see things that are sitting there all messy in plain sight and/or it simply doesn't bother him too much.  I do bite my tongue and I have loosened up some.  It's his house too and there are way more important things to worry about right?  I try to ask nicely and I make sure that I show my appreciation of his efforts to neaten up.  I mean, I don't want him to hate me...or divorce me for that matter.  This is just one of those things that we have to accept about each other and try to compromise on so that we can both be happy together and in our home.  Give and take.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  This part of him tries my patience but does not diminish the many things I love about him in any way.  
Fruit, Meat, Vegetables, Cheese.  Not too complicated.   
We spend all this money on a beautiful refrigerator with a lovely LED light and plenty of space and roomy drawers to organize our food.  Mj never puts anything back in those drawers where he got them from.  I've explained to him where everything goes many times but just as recently as last week he says "Well, I didn't know that the meat goes in that drawer."  So, I labeled them right quick before I left for work in the morning and left it for him to find when he got home.  Now, I'll pose this question to you.  Am I a B-I-T-C-H or just a wife who wants the meat to go in the meat drawer?  Lucky for me my husband has a sense of humor.  He had a good laugh, took this picture and posted it on Facebook.

13 comments

  1. My husband doesn't put anything back where it belongs either! Drives me nuts!!! The fridge thing is awful! He could take something out for one second and put it back in a totally different spot. I don't get it!?!

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  2. ok i dont think you're a B@#***, however you do know your shortcomings.
    do you seriously label the fridge? for me that's a bit much.

    So what happens if you ever have children, as they surely dont start out orderly?

    Glad your husband has a sense of humor about this and is trying...that's marriage - give n take!!!

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  3. @Nylse: I don't make a habit of labeling the fridge. It was just a joke...and a plea to put the stuff back in the drawers already. I would certainly understand if a kid doesn't put stuff back where it came from. The bar is set just a bit higher for my grown adult hubby though!

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  4. You aren't a bitch at all! I am the exact same way. Everything has it's place and it needs to be in that place...but nobody else around here agrees with me so I end up driving myself mad trying to organize everything.

    I labeled my husband's closet once. He ignored the labels. I LOVE your fridge labels!

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  5. @Frugalista

    aww I know that feeling but you taking it too far, silence is the cure to this untidy habit of his, if you keep commenting about everything being out of place to him, men hate women that nag, you would chase him away.

    My sweet tip for you is to correct with LOVE and sometimes the silence treatment works better, men have difficult time knowing where to place things, and fixing with love is key.

    Just the other day I told my hubby, when the kids come, I am not even going to worry about them keeping their rooms clean all the time, as long as the kitchen, living room for guest and bathrooms is all clean, chic and smell good including my master's room.

    Don't stress the small things, enjoy it now, trust me it's going to get harder when kids come.lol

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  6. ...don't do the label thingy for the fridge, it's so uncool...:=( Correct with love, trust me men listen when it's done nicely...hugs!

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  7. I get like that with Big Man sometimes too.
    He doesn't fold his clothes or keep his side of the closet straightened and it drives me batty

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  8. my fiance is that same - but the second you say anything to him he gets huffy and says I'm 'telling him off'.
    I've tried phrasing it all sorts of ways but no dice. Even saying it nice, please do xyz is met with a huff...praising him for getting it right is patronising apparently, yelling or nagging is bad...

    Kinda at my wits end right now. Could cheerfully choke him in his sleep!

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  9. I feel ya. My husband was always the neat freak in our relationship, until he started nursing school recently. Now I have turned into the nagging neat freak. Even with being busy at school, he is home way more than I am - how hard is it to take an extra two seconds to put away the cereal after you use it? Our house is tiny so anything out of place makes the whole place look messy!

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  10. @Ladies-obviously I'm not alone here!! It's so funny how all of these little things are really little and no big deal...until they are.

    @Destiny-as I said, the labels were just a joke. If I were seriously labeling my fridge I'd do a much better job then that! I have to speak up on what bothers me at some point or else I'd explode at some point-not good. I don't comment on everything and I have loosened up. Working on finding that balance. Work in progress!!

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  11. My hubby had his ways too, he even purchased an extra laundry basket because I was complaining about his clothes missing the laundry hamper. He still continues to do it sometimes! You have to pick your battles! Glad he has a good sense of humor. Hopefully his buddy gets on him about this and he changes! I can hope for you right!

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  12. i think anything with a smiley face is not bitchy at all, hehe.

    unfortunately i am or was the messy one in the relationship ... it is amazing how almost 2 years of marriage changes a lot of things. all of a sudden i am this different person ... i think i just realized that i can't have Sean clean up after my mess ... and i have to say that i feel so much better when the house is clean ... like the chaos is not around me. i am sure you understand what i'm saying because i have a feeling you hate the chaos more than me. :)

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  13. Oh man, I felt like I could have written this post! I'd imagine my husband and yours would be BFFs. I mean, Adam kept his clothes in his kitchen cabinets when I first met him.

    What?!?! Have you ever heard of that before?

    And more importantly, WHY????

    And all those little things you mentioned- drives me bonkers. I don't think the women that say "just let it be" truly understand what people like *us* (aka neat freaks, OCD, etc) go through. How horrible it feels when things are out of order. How infuriating and disrespectly it seems when you just finish picking up and then your husband comes in and destroys it all in .2 seconds. It's.. really, really hard!!

    I wish I had some advice. I feel like I've tried it all. I'm thinking about setting up a reward system where I'll give him his favorite candy if there are no dishes left in the sink at the end of the week. Haha. Seriously though, if you find something that works PLA-LEASE let me know!!

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