Dear Fiona,
I’ve just moved in with my fiancé, and I don’t know if I can do it. He’s incredibly messy. I knew this, naturally – it’s not like I’d never been to his flat before, and obviously he’d stayed at mine, but I hadn’t actually lived with him, and I’m struggling with it.
He leaves shoes lying around by the front door (they should be in the cupboard in our bedroom) there are piles of clothes on the floor, and he empties his pockets into little piles of coins and receipts and sweet papers that get left on whichever random surface he’s decided to reward with this detritus. On his side of the bed are piles of books and magazines that may or may not have been read, as well as stray charging cables and batteries and who knows what else (he has so much stuff.) His desk is in the open plan sitting room/dining room/kitchen because he works from home three days a week, and the immediate surrounds have become an assault course of paperwork accessorised with random rulers, empty coke cans that haven’t made the bin (literally four strides away), or bits of wire that he’s found that he’s decided to keep “in case” (he’s quite creative). Then stuff from his desk peregrinates to the dining table, and to the kitchen work surfaces.
I love him, I really do, but this lack of order makes me feel incredibly anxious. I’ve just sold my flat and most of my things are in storage (and to be fair quite a lot of his, though he has a lot more than me.) His flat, which we’re living in (it’s a one-bedroom, so not huge) is on the market, for we’re meant to be buying a house together. We’ve spoken about the mess multiple times, and every time he says that he’ll try harder and it improves, but it doesn’t last. It transpires that, until he got together with me, he hadn’t realised that he was particularly untidy. He says he “doesn’t really see it.” We did have one serious argument when he asked why he had to adhere to my ideas of what tidiness is, but he apologised afterwards. Several of my friends think I’m being ridiculous, but I’m genuinely considering putting everything on hold over this (which my mother especially thinks would be very wrong.) Am I being ridiculous? Either way, we need solutions! Please tell me that you can help? Can it be fixed? And if not, what should I do? Is a future together possible?
With love
Fastidious XX
Dear Fastidious,
Thank you for your letter, with which I empathise hugely – and, to an extent, identify with. It perhaps won’t surprise you to know that your problem is not unique; very few people live with somebody whose idea of ‘tidy’ perfectly aligns with their own. There are a surprising number of people out there who don’t seem to put much stock by the “tidy desk, tidy mind” mentality. Generally, we muddle along, but when there is extreme disparity, “it becomes more serious,” acknowledges Susanna Hammond of Sorted Living, who specialises in home organisation. I hear you when you say that this might be a deal-breaker in your relationship, and you might find it validating to know that medical research has proven that living with clutter or mess can cause the stress that you are experiencing. Virgil might have reckoned that “love conquers all,” but he didn’t, in 37BC, have a partner who amassed 21st-century flotsam and jetsam.
Firstly, I would like to address the matter of said ‘tidiness misalignment’, and how it is that people can have such different ideas of what constitutes ‘tidy.’ The consensus among psychologists is that tidiness is a learned trait, and the importance that we afford it often has its genesis in our childhoods, and the type of interior in which we felt safe and comfortable. If we grew up very happily with less emphasis placed on tidiness, and more on, say, creativity and making things, chances are that we carry that on. Equally, if we grew up in an interior that wasn’t tidy (and that wasn’t altogether joy-filled, or maybe lacked routine and left us feeling insecure) then living in a way that reminds us of that can be uncomfortable.The reverse is true too, and there are people who are better qualified than me to explore it with you, if you would like to go deeper.
I mention this because living with somebody is always going to involve some sort of understanding of the other’s position, and if you can have open and unheated conversations explaining why you feel a certain way, it might help. That said, there is general concurrence that, when one party is naturally tidier than the other, the line of compromise runs through functionality. In other words, you’ve got to be able to walk across a room without tripping over, and make and eat breakfast without having to shift piles of stuff (a baseline which will perhaps pre-empt a second major argument on the subject.)
So let’s dive in to the mechanics of bettering the situation. Happily, having consulted Susanna, and spoken to people both in your situation and your boyfriend’s (so those who are the untidier half of a couple), there are ways in which I think that I might be able to help. Mainly because it sounds like you are good at communicating with each other, and it seems that your boyfriend wants to improve his sense of order, which is positive – and it may be that you decide to read this answer together.
Often, one of the biggest challenges for anyone who struggles with maintaining structural tidiness, explains Susanna, is “lack of systems.” By this she means storage, and places to put things away that are, ideally, immediately there, example being a shoe rack right by the front door, and a wastepaper bin for coke-cans under the desk. Additionally, there would be a place for excess charging leads and batteries, while for the mass of paperwork, she recommends Paperless Pixie who create personalised online filing systems.
Other issues can at least be aesthetically improved: “placing a chair where the floordrobe goes,” proffers Susanna, and putting out pretty trinkety dishes or trays ready for pocket contents. They still need to be emptied, but in the interim they afford an air of consideration. Alongside, Susanna advocates for the untidier person to be afforded areas which are not communal space, where what you or I might deem ‘chaos’ can be unleashed (and contained). In your current abode, this might be a drawer in the kitchen, or a closable bedside cabinet that can be stuffed full. “Can you, for now, draw an imaginary line around his desk, and then mentally close it off?” wonders Susanna, who has done the same with her husband’s designated areas in their house. “He’s not untidy, but he likes to live with more clutter than I do,” she says, which is an example of personal preference rather than an essential need for change.
In many ways, you are at an advantage in knowing that the current situation is both temporary and untenable. Assuming you don’t decide to press pause over this, it puts you in a position to know what you need from the house that you are going to buy. It sounds like you would both benefit from your partner having his own separate study – which is just a beginning: Francis Sultana and David Gill have separate bedrooms, bathrooms, and dressing rooms because “David likes to live with more stuff out than me, and I want everything put away,” explains Francis. Of course, that may be further than you wish to go (or can afford to go) but identifying the crisis points and “establishing how to pre-empt bottlenecks,” as Susanna puts it, is an exercise that will pay dividends. It could be an idea, once you have moved, to work with somebody to set up systems, whether that’s Susanna or someone like her, which takes the onus off you, Fastidious, in terms of management. And perhaps it could be an annual appointment?
For what I’d also like to do is underline the fact that this still might not prove easy for your partner. “I hate feeling constantly in the wrong, it makes me feel ashamed,” says one of the less tidy people I spoke to, and Susanna adds that keeping your standards and goals achievable is crucial. Especially because, although we have established that tidiness is a learned trait, within this there are people for whom tidiness is harder to learn, including those who struggle with what’s referred to as executive function.
And that is where my personal experience comes into this, for among this group are my husband and teenage son. I’ve had to learn to let certain things go, including shoes not being put away even though I have had capacious shoe cupboards built on either side of the front door. I’ve also accepted that we’ll deploy more of the household income on a cleaner (or tidier) which stops me resenting it as much as I might. And then, I occasionally focus very intently on my husband’s and son’s other qualities and refer to the list I maintain in my head of brilliant people who were also very untidy: Pablo Picasso, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sylvia Plath, Albert Einstein, the latter of whom apparently said: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" (Gulp.) With that, I remember that my husband might consistently leave car keys, sunglasses, random bits of paper, boxes of opened cereal (opened upside down), tools and more on the kitchen work surface, but it’s a work surface that he cast himself, in pale pink-tinted concrete. I certainly can’t do that, just as I can’t tell you what to do with regards to your relationship I’m afraid.
But if I may, I’d like to make one last point and draw your attention to ‘stress transference,’ which is something else I practise, though not intentionally. It’s when, instead of accepting something we can’t control (like other people’s paperwork relating to a house move – and selling and buying houses is known to be one of the most stressful events there is) we find ourselves trying to control everything else around us (where all the shoes are in the house.) This might not be you. But also, it might be.
Otherwise, I hope that something here has been helpful. You’ve got enough people telling you that you’re wrong in your hesitation over the next steps for me to want to add to their number – but I do like to think that there’s some lasting truth in Virgil’s observation. Either way, I wish you the very best with it all.
With love,
Fiona XX
