Q:
Hey team, writing in as very tired and very sad. I’m about to turn thirty and from the outset it looks like my life is together. House, job, friends, hobbies, fiancé. The last one is an issue. She’s extremely messy and I am extremely clean – before we went away for our first overseas trip I was working up the courage to talk to her about it but… didn’t. I just got back from a three week solo trip and got back to flowers and house that isn’t just messy… it’s dirty. I honestly want to cry, I am so tired. Every time I bring it up she cries. Is differences in cleaning standards allowed to be a deal breaker? Because I’d rather walk away than sit through that conversation for the up-teenth time. But we own a house together, so I feel trapped. We’re also just… enmeshed in a small town. My mom loves her, my friends adore her. Ahh! Pre Europe I felt forever, now I feel strictly sayonara.Please help,Cleanly Capricorn.
A:
Before cohabitation, cleaning standards are one of the most important things to sort out. It’s not as immediately obvious as overall routines or location, but it can add up to a lot of stress over time. Fair and sustainable division of housework is a necessity for mitigating household stress in shared spaces.
That means what you’re going through with your fianceé is a legitimate issue and a serious roadblock to having a happy and healthy relationship. This needs to be addressed for the relationship to move forward because it might be a loss of cleanliness today, but it’ll add up to many small disruptions tomorrow and next week. I’ll try to talk through all the issues at play in your situation.
Compromise and communication
Moving in together always involves growing pains. It’s often the first time you see how they live rather than how they prep their home for guests. You won’t know what their actual lifestyle is until you spend a few months in their space. By the time you’ve figured it out (and have complaints), you may have settled into a routine and it’s hard to pull yourself out of the funk.
For starters, I’d ask basic questions about your logistical situation:
How many hours per week do each of us work?
You need to assess who has more work and more stressful work to see where there’s time for extra household responsibilities. It may not just be about hours worked but also unpaid labor and proximity to the household.
How do we split other kinds of domestic labor?
I’ll boldly assume there is some kind of division of labor already. The next question is whether people feel that the division is fair and fits each other’s skillsets. I’m not a reliable cook, so I make sure my partner always has a clean kitchen and no dirty dishes when it’s time to cook. I die at the thought of taking out the trash so I clean the bathroom instead. I love doing the laundry, so that’s mostly my task. Your split needs to be fair to everyone in hours worked, enjoyment (or tolerance), and skillset.
These questions are important because they’ll help you figure out how unequal or satisfactory your current division of housework is. It’s also relevant to have a shared conversation answering these questions for each other to prevent getting into your head about something and turning it into resentment. There have been times in my relationship when I started to seethe at my burden of chores but after talking it out with my partner, I came to learn that it’s not that awful. Or she was doing unseen work in the background that I wasn’t accounting for. Some relationships benefit from a round-robin: Everyone does everything some of the time. Others (mine) usually benefit from specialization where one person oversees everything in a given area. Reflect on your workloads together to suss out a fair division because every relationship is different.
It sounds like you’ve done a lot of the questioning, but need to get your partner to do her ‘fair share.’ You’ve tried to approach the topic several times. Good. But if she cries every time and nothing changes — that’s bad. Crying can be an involuntary response to conflict and doesn’t always mean the communication needs to stop. But it could also be a response to the cleaning conversation specifically. I’m afraid that if she cries regularly at the topic, the only way to address it is to have the conversation while she’s actively upset. You’ll also need to assess whether this is a general pattern of hers, or is it only about the cleaning topic? Does she tend to cry during difficult conversations, or does she feel something specific about how messy she is in this situation? Either way, you’re not going to be able to move forward on this issue without communicating. That communication may only reveal more challenges and interpersonal differences within your relationship. Relationship problems are rarely about the issue at hand. The issue at hand usually reveals something deeper.
I know that ‘go to therapy’ thing isn’t the most satisfying advice, but I can’t imagine bashing your head against the brick wall of non-communication is better. Individual therapy could help your partner identify what’s preventing her from making changes (mental health issues, neurodivergence, burnout) and take steps to address it. Couple’s therapy could help you communicate on this issue with a calm, mediating presence. Those who can afford it might hire a cleaner to remove the current issue.
What about trying?
Having said all that, it doesn’t sound like you want to try in this relationship anymore. I’m not scolding you, either. A couple things you’ve said jump out to me:
- “Is differences in cleaning standards allowed to be a deal breaker?”
- “I’d rather walk away than sit through that conversation for the up-teenth time”
- “I feel trapped”
You are frustrated and exhausted. You’ve tried to address the issue and are tired. You feel stuck in the relationship (never good). That’s all okay to feel. You’re not a worse person because you feel that way, and you shouldn’t feel like your only options are nagging your fianceé or to suck it up and burn yourself out with cleaning. You are allowed to opt out of a relationship.
When people bring up reasons like this for breaking up, there’s a voice that says their feelings are ‘petty’ or unnecessary. I don’t see it that way. I believe that high standards are needed if you plan to build a life with someone. If you’re going to intertwine your lives and lifestyles, you need to have the details in order. It’s not a ‘small’ or ‘petty’ issue if it’s affecting your well-being and the problem isn’t getting better.
Just because you’ve been together for a long time and the relationship has escalated to an engagement doesn’t mean it’s too late to leave. Only you can decide to end things on this note, but that would give a lot of credence to what I said about the issue-at-hand revealing something much deeper. You’re going through a sunk-cost fallacy – a downward spiral where people who have invested heavily are hesitant to pull out because of how much they’ve already invested. That’s as-true for engineering projects as it is for relationships.
But you’re a person, not a calculation. The time and energy you’ve put into this relationship is not wasted even if you end it. You deserve to be in a relationship that makes you excited for the future instead of dreading it. If you see a way to turn this relationship around into excitement again, that’s great. You might not feel ready to take the plunge on a separation or are having second thoughts about the importance of the whole argument. That’s also fine. Caution is good when it comes to big life decisions.
My bottom line? Differences in cleaning standards can be a dealbreaker, especially when they reveal an underlying disconnect in lifestyles or communication. If splitting up is scary, it’d at least suggest not moving forward into marriage before you two figure this out. A wedding won’t clean the house.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
Comments
LW, imagine being with this person for the next five years, the next ten, twenty, forty years. Imagine if nothing changed. If it’s unbearable now, imagine how worse it’ll be in the future when your anger and resentment and frustration have been brewing for decades.
You absolutely can and should try to talk to her once more about this issue, but only she can change her behavior. If she genuinely is okay living in a dirty house and has no interest in changing her habits, then you can either take on the cross of cleaning forever, hire a cleaning service, or break up with her.
I personally think alignment on cleanliness and tidiness is one of the most impoetant aspects of living together sucessfully. If you can’t align on this somehow, you’re better off single and clean and tidy rather than coupled, dirty, and messy.
Can you afford a housekeeper? Even once a month, it can make a huge difference and save you time, frustration, and energy. My ex made more money than me, so our compromise was they paid for the housekeeper monthly. It was a small apartment but we had 3 pets, so the monthly deep clean really helped save our sanity. If I could afford it I would have done every other week. Of course this doesn’t solve the every day messiness— dishes, vacuuming, simply putting stuff away where it belongs, but it did help. Good luck!
I’m sympathetic to this response because I’m a little suspicious of the cleaning alone being a thing worthy of separating over. If outside help is possible, then this could be a practical issue that could be fixable. I’ve stayed in a relationship with some really frustrating problems because they were ultimately practical issues, not an issue with the person (see: very different sleep patterns – we finally got separate bedrooms).
But I’m struck by the LW saying that there were totally happy in love before coming back from the trip – I feel like the underlying problems around the partner’s inability to handle conflict, and the LW feeling like they’re trapped in this relationship are the more challenging issues here, because those can only be fixed through emotional work on both partners’ parts.
This is exactly what my partner and I do! I have severe ADHD and I frequently just don’t notice things that drive her completely bonkers so we have someone come twice a month and it’s pretty critical to our relationship’s stability and sanity.
yeah when i was in my twenties and scatterbrained and was living with someone who was obsessive about cleanliness (e.g., every couch throw pillow needed to be positioned precisely before bed; he wanted me to treat the bath mat as decorative rather than as a location for wet showered feet) — hiring outside cleaners from craiglist every now and then helped a LOT to keep things somewhat chill between us, even though honestly it was a financial strain for me to do that, it was still worth it.
I agree that this is a serious issue and very reasonable grounds for separation. If the cleaning conversation results in crying every time it seems like it might not be different cleaning standards but different cleaning ~abilities~. That doesn’t mean the fiance is off the hook for being proactive and taking responsibility for her current limitations! And of course this might actually be a symptom of a totally different individual or relationship problem (in which case the responsibility to be honest with yourself and your partner remains!). And yes, LW, you gotta talk to her! It’s up to you if you want to frame it in a “we need to figure out how to get through this together, which means first getting to the bottom of what’s going on.” Or if you are feeling “I’m at the end of my rope and it’s breaking my heart.” Couples counseling does sound like a good option for discussing this now fraught topic in a caring and revealing way.
I have a lot of questions after reading the letter. My default question is whether there is a neurodivergence/mental health challenge that is part of the partner’s messiness. That wouldn’t mean it’s impossible to change, but it definitely affects what kinda of changes are likely to actually be doable/stick. If, for example (which I acknowledge is potentially projection) the partner is depressed and the messiness is a sign of a depressive episode then she may be continually beating herself up about the mess or may have given up, but either way treating the depression is a necessary first step.
A related question I have is what the partner’s family’s cleaning standards are/were when she was growing up. Is it a situation where what the letter writer sees as awfully dirty was normal growing up? On the flip side, does the partner have stress/embarrassment/trauma from family responses to not meeting standards?
I guess, given the crying (and assuming it doesn’t happen for all conversations) I wonder if splitting up the conversation into first talking about the partner’s feeling/experiences related to cleaning and having a later, separate talk about practical next steps might help.
I won’t repeat any of the good advice that has already been given, but one other resource I would recommend to you and your partner is the book How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis. It’s very short and written in a neurodivergent friendly way. The author gets in to a lot of stuff about how to shift thinking around cleaning, how to explore different levels/standards of cleaning, and how to do the bare minimum when you’re really struggling. I found it to be super non-judgmental and it may be a helpful starting point for shared language in having what is clearly a difficult conversation. Best of luck!
I don’t want to repeat any of the awesome advice given, but could living separately be an option? I know that this is assuming that that’s financially viable (and in this sess pit of an economy I know it’s not for many people) but it could help if you had your own space and then could just have her over? That way you can keep your space clean and she can live messily in her own space. Again I know this might not be feasible financially but if it is, it could maybe help? Or maybe even having your own space(s) in the house you already share? So for example, rooms x y z are your sacred spaces and need to stay clean, and she can have her own spaces that can be messy. She’s not allowed to dirty up your space and you’d have to be okay w her space being messy in that case. Again not sure of the feasibility or logistics of this, but just an option that hasn’t been shared yet. Also, if you haven’t talked to her about it, maybe you could try having a conversation of what “clean” actually means? I know this seems weird but hear me out — maybe y’all just have different definitions of clean and she thinks she is being clean? For example when I still lived with my mom, I considered clean dishes in the sink (she didn’t use a dishwasher) and things put out of sight (ie even if the refrigerator or cabinets were a nightmare since those were behind closed doors that people didn’t see unless they went into the cabinet, I considered that clean or at least clean enough) to be clean. Maybe just generally getting on the same page and being explicit about what “clean” means to you could help. But otherwise yea I agree with the above advice and also seeing if there’s a deeply underlying issue here that isn’t being addressed.
My partner and I went to couples therapy to deal with this exact same issue (I’m super clean and they aren’t). It worked. The un-involved third party was exactly what was needed to break the cycle of a fight I thought we’d never stop having unless we broke up.
Part of what helps in couples therapy is just the presence of a third party, which makes a couple slow down and give more thorough and measured responses. Therapist Patti doesn’t know about the towel stacking problem (to use an example from my own home). Explaining the towel stacking problem in a way that Patti can understand helps the couple understand it better, too, because they aren’t relying on their familiarity with the situation to fill in information gaps. OP’s partner may cry, but explaining to Patti WHY they’re having that reaction may yield new information for all three of you.
Is my house now clean? No, in fact it got a little messier, but we don’t fight about it anymore and we sincerely believe that the other person is doing their best with the tools that they have. That belief carries me through way more than a clean house ever wood.
First of all, if this is a dealbreaker for you it’s totally valid. Regardless of what anyone else says, if it’s important to you then it matters.
Second of all, is your partner neurodivergent or have they explored the potential they are? My partner and I are going through something very similar with me being the not as clean one. For whatever reason, my brain short circuits whenever I’m trying to clean or organize. We’ve tried different charts, cleaning “menus”, doing it together, breaking into smaller chunks. I’m getting better with it incrementally. I don’t know how to verbalize it, but it’s mentally painful for me. Is your partner making any effort at all? If they’re not, do you feel it’s worth trying to strategize together if you haven’t already?
I obviously can’t speak to if the crying is a common thing with your partner so I’m going to treat it as an isolated reaction. I really struggle getting through these conversations with my partner because there’s so much shame wrapped up in it for me. It makes me feel stupid and incompetent. There’s absolutely something deeper tied to cleaning for your partner. Possibly approaching the conversation with “how can I help you feel like you can contribute to this?”
All that being said, this is quite a bit of emotional labor on your part. And if you don’t have it in you, that’s completely okay and understandable. Really tried my best not to project too much in this response, was really just hoping to at least tell you you’re not alone in going through this obstacle. Maybe your partner *is* trying but it’s eating away at you quicker than they can make progress. I’m sorry that you and your partner are going through this and I hope there’s something happier for both of you on the other side of however this resolves.