When you moved in with your partner, is there anything about them that you found to be irritating?

How much stuff women need. Do you really need 5 different blue shoes? 50 different perfumes?

I get really irritated when my hubby leaves his shoes or t-shirts in the living room, then complains that I didn’t clean the living room. WTF? Mainly just little things like that.

Just needed to vent a little. lol Vent away, everyone! :)

Nothing very irritating actually. He doesn’t clean up stains. Like if he spills something on the carpet, he might sop it up, but does not work on really preventing or getting out the stain. Especially now, now that he knows I will do it. He also was a little weird about me taking over some “space” (at first I moved into where he was living) but nothing extreme, it was not much of an adjustment at all.

I think I am a little messier than he would like. Messy not dirty. I rarely have every single thing put away, always a pile of papers or a little clutter, but I overall keep things clean. He does get annoyed if I have something sitting in the fridge for two-three weeks that should be thrown out, but he deals with it in a very passive aggressive way, which annoys me. In fact, he deals with my messy passive aggressively in general, but luckily it is not a huge problem. It would all go away if he would be willing to clean with me for 45 minutes once a week. He doesn’t even need to lift a finger, just sit with me while I go through papers in my office or talk to me while I clean up some other area of the house. I know I should be able to do just get it done on my own, but it wouldn’t be work to me if someone were there hanging out with me.

Similarly, my wife was not nearly as neat and organized as I had thought – despite the fact that we dated for nine years prior to getting married and moving in. See she lived with her mom who was an insane neat freak and very organized. So there was this appearance of neatness with my wife. Turns out, on her own, she’s like a college kid in a frat house.

I will tell you from experience though, if you move in, do not expect this to change. If anything it may get worse because now you’re around to play maid. No amount of nagging or coaching or planning will change it.

They is who they is.

True story:

After we were engaged my husband came to help me pack up my house (that had just sold) so that I could move cross-country to live in his city (14 hours away). I had cleaned and cleaned—first because the house was on the market & needed to be perfect for showings, and then later because it sold in less than 24 hours, because I was preparing it for the new owners.
I’d packed up 90% of the house when my future-husband and his parents descended on it and got to work. Instead of just loading up the moving van as I’d expected.. I was surprised to see them re-cleaning things I’d cleaned and my husband climbed up a step-ladder and DUSTED the tops of the valances in the living room.
I was a bit surprised and put-off, but hey—they were helping in their own way so I said nothing..and meanwhile me and a group of my friends loaded my stuff in the moving van.

Years later (after we were married) during a conversation about house-cleaning some mention of my old house (pre-marriage) came up and I overheard my husband remarking how “filthy dirty” it had been. (!!!!) I walked over and said: “WHAT?!” and he said: “You probably barely ever dusted the tops of your window fixtures or the crown molding. It was SO dusty!!” I nearly fell over laughing.. Luckily, our friend felt the same and said: “Who dusts the top of window frames, really??!”

So, my husband’s idea of what’s clean or not differs greatly from mine.
He can have crap (old mail, magazines, unread newspaper, his pajama bottoms) laying all around the house in plain sight (which I walk through the house picking up and putting away—because it drives me absolutely crazy)..but that’s “clean” in his mind..because the floor underneath is clean enough to eat off of and there is no visible dust.

So, clean to him = vacuumed 3X per week or more, dusted incessantly and kitchen floors scrubbed on hands and knees.

Clean for me is everything else—scrubbing out the sinks and toilets and stove top and oven and fridge and ensuring the cleaning with disinfectant of every other surface where food is served/touches/is prepared. Clean laundry, clean dishes…and EVERYTHING put away where it belongs when not being used.

So-just goes to show, one woman’s clean is another (wo)man’s “filthy dirty”... (and vice versa).

@cookieman Gotcha. I’m thinking with me around, though things won’t get that bad.

My husband is under the impression that if he stacks everything as far away from the center of the floor as possible, the room is clean.

Don’t actually put anything away, don’t vacuum or wipe up messes… just pile all the crap against the walls. That’ll make everything easier to find later, and looks so attractive.

And he complains I don’t clean as well as he does, to boot. Dope.

@geeky_mama haha.

My partner agrees that she’s messy. She even laughs about. =/

@Mama_Cakes I’m with @cookieman that it stays the same or gets worse. I have a friend dating a neat freak and she is pretty messy. She said to me when she announced she is going to move in with him, “it’s good he is so neat, because it forces me to be neater.” My thought was…that is going to become a huge problem between them, I hope I am wrong. I think what tends to happen is the messy one will force themselves to clean up so the neat one does not bitch about it. It can becomes something that makes the messy one feel rather insecure if the neat one really dwells on it. The messy person is kind of on egg shells in a way.

If it becomes a problem I highly recommend finding out what can help the messy person be neater and support the idea, be willing to give up a little of your time if it is something like what I mentioned above. I don’t mean clean up for the other person. Although, dividing up jobs can be a really good idea so you aren’t waiting for each other to do something. You keep the fridge clean, she does the laundry, you clean the bathrooms, she empties the dishwasher, etc.

@JLeslie I like the idea of dividing jobs. :)

Just finished seven loads of her laundry. I got here last night. The reason why I’m giving it a good cleaning is because we have someone coming to check on the animals for 10 days while we’re in N. Carolina.

Oh, and she left a huge pile of clothes in the middle of the floor for two weeks, before, and the cat decided to pee on them. Okay, venting done.

Oh and to @Adirondackwannabe : YES

Well, I only need one perfume, but I need about 5 ~ 10 purses/hand bags and at least 25 pairs of shoes.

Male confession: I don’t mind clutter. Last night’s newspapers are still on the living room floor. Plus I read a lot, usually from a lot of different books. So there are about 10 books in the living room right now. As long as it isn’t food, dirt, or other nasty stuff I don’t mind putting up with it for a bit. I’ll clean it all up at once. I don’t need to put everything away the second I’m done with it. Guess who disagrees?

My ex husband and I were well matched in terms of cleanliness habits, he was more OCD than I though. My ex boyfriend of 2 years was a strange mix, messy housekeeper, but anal about HIS cars. The real test was a 2 week road trip we took together. Oh man….he was like a freaking 4 year old, spilled everything he ate in my car, tossed snack wrappers around, drove me nuts.

I almost dropped him at the airport in in Arizona, I was SO ready to be done traveling with him. We managed to work it out long enough to get home after 12 days on the road.
We remain friends but no way could I live with the guy.

@Mama_Cakes With animals you have to be better at putting things away, which is another reason I don’t have animals.

The dividing jobs has worked very well in my house. When we were engaged I said I don’t want Either one of us to work more hours than the other, work was our job away from the house and housework all combined. So, when I worked full time we kind of split the house chores. He did the laundry and unloaded the dishwasher (I hate unloading the dishwasher, which is another tip I would give you, if there is something one of you really dreads doing, the other one should do it. It is a nice thing to do for the other person and it is more likely to get done). When I went to part time, I took back over the laundry and usually unloaded the dishwasher, but he did it every so often, which was sweet. Since I have not been working for a few years, now I also make lunch for him and do all the errands, but that is just in the last few years.

Another thing, if you can afford it, get a maid. Even if it is just once a month. Get the place spic and span every so often.

”Just finished seven loads of her laundry.”

Story of my (married) life.

As @JLeslie mentioned, my wife tried to be neater for years, but it just caused problems. She made many promises she didn’t keep or would do a half-assed job. She felt insecure. I felt put upon. Finally (few years ago) she admitted, “I don’t really give a shit how the house looks. If you care, you clean it.”

Doesn’t help me with the workload, but at least she was finally honest with me.

So she sticks to what she actually enjoys – cooking and shopping.

Clutter.
I hate clutter. My husband… I think he loves clutter. I don’t even think he tolerates it or doesn’t notice it, he seems to enjoy it. I’ve lived with him for 8 years and we still argue about the clutter.
As you know, I like my house to be clean. My husband is not a dirty or particularly messy person, but he feels that a space can be crammed with stuff and still be clean – where I don’t share that idea. Clutter, to me, is part of the mess.

I think the messy person/clean person is probably the biggest issue I’ve ever heard about when people move in together. There are lots of things to butt heads about, but cleanliness is a lifestyle thing. I would venture a guess that there has to be a lot of compromise in that position, because I don’t think it’s likely that either person is going to completely overhaul their habits. You may just have to build some tolerance to a messy space, and she may have to pick up some easy tidying habits. Don’t let yourself become resentful if you are always picking up after a person that doesn’t have the same housekeeping habits as you. There’s really nothing wrong with having a messy house, if you’re comfortable with that, but I think it’s a good habit to keep things “clean.” Mess is one thing, encouraging bacteria and risking infection is another. Rotting food, feces, things like that should really be kept up with.
However, I will say that my eldest cat likes to poop on the floor outside of his box, so, maybe the cat litter thing isn’t an issue of cleanliness. I pick poop up off of my basement floor by the litter box almost every day. (In case anyone is going to address this, he’s been to the vet and is perfectly healthy, the litter box thing seems to be behavioral.)

It was my (ex) wife’s compulsive untidiness. I like things to be neat and fairly well organised while she was a hoarder who never threw anything out and stacked things up in the house to an unbelievable extent. The third bedroom was filled from floor to three quarters of the way to the ceiling with junk and was impenetrable. All other rooms were merely filled with crap and it was difficult making your way through them. She wanted me to help her tidy but in reality she didn’t and she liked it this way. It got on my nerves.

I should have read the replies before answering. Oops.
@JLeslie I love what you said about having someone hang out with you. The overwhelming majority of the time I feel like my obligations go so much faster if I have someone to talk to or just be around me while I’m working. I don’t actually need or want help with what I’m doing, sometimes I just want someone to spend time with me while I do it.

I forgot about the laundry. I probably complain excessively about how much laundry I do, but I did bring it on myself. I refuse to let my husband help me with the laundry. I hate the way he does laundry even more than I hate doing laundry, so after years of arguing about it – I made him promise not to touch it.

@Mama_Cakes it helped for us to designate areas as “his” to clutter up. The garage and the basement are an absolute mess, and his stuff still migrates into the living area of the house, but I get cranky and make a fuss about it. However, as much as I can’t stand looking at the wreck of a garage, I let him have his messy space. That might be part of the compromise, really. I’m assuming your partner doesn’t want to be put out in the garage (my husband essentially chose the garage, not that we discussed it, I just stopped bothering him about the mess out there), but maybe a space that is not visible to company or not in the main living area of the house where you simply accept that it may not always be clean to your standards. For example, if she has a huge pile of laundry in the bedroom, so be it.

@DigitalBlue: Sounds like your husband has trained you well. It’s an age old trick. Do the laundry so badly that your wife forbids you from ever doing it again. I watched my dad do this when I was growing up.

For me it was TV. I have not sat down to watch a TV set in about 10 years now, I just find it an insulting experience.

As much as I love my girlfriend, she sure does watch some of the worst garbage I have ever seen in my life. It would really annoy me to hear the TV on, with some moron spouting a load of ignorant and stupid things.

She watches things such as: Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of Orange Country, as well as shows that are so bad, that I fail to recall their names, probably out of some kind of traumatic suppression.

@bookish1 maybe. It worked.

Oh, I just thought of something that many hetero couple complain about, I bet is less problem for gay couples. The thermostat! It didn’t happen when we first moved in, because we lived in FL and he was ok with a warm house. But, now that we live where there is winter…I just want it warmer in the house. I don’t complain much about it being 30F/0C outside, but I am in a really bad mood when I am freezing inside of my own home. I am uncomfortable and my husband gets sick and tired of listening to me say it. When we first moved to a cold climate I brought a blanket into the famiy room to watch TV, and he wasn’t going to have it. He likes everything in its place, and blankets belong in bedrooms. He has since changed his tune about that and snuggles under the blanket with me sometimes. There was a comedian who once did a routine about divorce and one of the pluses she named was finally having control of the thermostat. I wish I could remember her name.

@poisonedantidote Your girl friend has good taste!! I even wrote to one of the HOC and she replied, even invited me to her face book. :)

@JLeslie : What does the thermostat have to do with whether one is gay or straight?

@bookish1 Raises hand, I know, I know. The temperature issue seems to be related to male vs female, so if both couples are same sex, the issue would be less likely.

@YARNLADY : What do chromosomes and secondary sex characteristics have to do with one’s perception of the temperature? Really, I have never heard of such a correlation.

@bookish1 I think @YARNLADY is saying that men do not feel the cold as much as females. That is a fact.

Whatever, je m’en fous.

The jellies above are correct. Men tend to run warmer than women. It’s a generalization, it isn’t always the case. My parents are the opposite.

@bookish1 I just asked a Q about it. Let’s see what we get.

She was pretty messy I thought, but I didn’t want to judge. She had a high paying managerial job and was busy so I got it.

and she screwed my brains out all the time so I was too tired to care.

I hate housework. I am the anti-Martha. In previous relationships, I was mismatched with guys who cared about it much more than I did, and there was a lot of bickering and resentment as a result.

My fiancé is much more like me, and agrees that there are far more interesting things to do than housework. So prior to moving in, we decided that he does the dishes since he makes the mess, and I do the laundry, since I have clothes that need to be handled differently. The rest of the stuff we kind of deal with as it comes up. We try to stay on top of it, and after 2 years, the place is reasonably neat and clean – but compared to each of our places before here, we’ve improved a lot.

I’m the annoying one in our family. He is really very easy to be with. His major fault is not getting things done around here – renovation/repair tasks. Other than that, he is tidier than me.

@poisonedantidote Oh man, that would annoy me to no end. I have zero tolerance for trashy fake television shows that people buy into and spend so much time watching.

My husband is a little messy, but not dirty. He leaves clothes and coke cans sitting around, which is irritating, but I’ve learned to live with it. He also hasn’t washed a single dish in months, so I suppose that’s my job.

There’s always going to be things about your partner that you’ll find irritating. You just have to decide if you can accept the way they are, because they probably won’t change.

I liked @DigitalBlue s answer best. I was married, I kept that house as clean as a hospital. I don’t like clutter : stupid little statue things that you have to dust, etc. It’s all about your tolerance level. And don’t even talk to me about animals!! I have cleaned up so much poop, vomit, and random boxes I will never go there again. Call me a grump already.

I may have said this before, but…
I figure all good relationships are 80% great, 20% crap (or, at least annoying). @cookieman‘s 80/20 Relationship Rule, if you will.

The question is, can you live with the 20%?

She’s a cleaning machine right now. lol