My Partner Is Messy. Help | Hacker News Reader

My Partner Is Messy. Help

nytimes.com

15 pointsmooreds12 comments

> Antonia Colins, who runs the website Balance Through Simplicity, has two adolescent daughters, one of whom struggles with neatness

Another possibility: the daughter is at ease in both neat and messy environments, but the mother is only at ease in neat ones. In this case, the conflict is being driven by the mother's struggles - not the daughter's.

Taking the unmarried marriage therapists advice and escalating your nagging to email is a disaster idea. You can't performance manage a relationship. Nagging and trying to change people doesn't work. Communicating your needs and reaching compromise does.

One of the biggest warning signs in a new(ish) relationship. If she is trying to change you to her likings, run away as fast as possible.

BTW, thanks for mentioning the obvious. There are so many cases where parents claim problems with their children, which instantly go away when the children are allowed/able to leave the parental household. Control freaks are unhealth, to themselves and others.

This is where Marie Kondo had it right: You don't try to clean up other people's stuff. You clean your own crap and let theirs be.

> He said that it is important to note any sudden or drastic changes in a person’s household cleanliness (or if they seem to be accumulating an unhealthy amount of stuff) and flag them to a primary care physician, as they can indicate an underlying health issue.

i try to keep things clean out of practicality: a cluttered desk means that when you drag a cable across it, it will cause everything to tumble off the side

but sometimes i need to make a big mess to unblock something or see a bigger picture than i can when everything is pristine

the things in my closet tend to ebb and flow on to my floor

A lot of comments about it being taste & not being able to change other people, but I also think the home is filled with what often ends up being a lot of invisible labor & that some people end up carrying a lot more load than they care to.

Who unloads the dishwasher, who cleans the sink, who scrubs the tub? Feeling on the short end of this situation sucks.

I don't think the two PoVs are incompatible. Lower tolerance for mess drives people to clean earlier and more proactively. The labor equity issue is a direct consequence of differences in taste. There are lots of group dynamics that work this way - not just domestic labor.

The real question is: what can you do about it? My claim is that "I have a problem with your mess" is a better starting point than "you have a problem with mess." Some parts of the article get this, and others don't.

https://archive.is/Q1nRU

There isn't much that I dislike more then obnoxious control freaks like her. Reminds me of my mother, and a few other women I can't stand for longer then 2 hours.

It seems to me that the article is more focused on trying to help people than trying to control them to achieve your own goals. I think there's nothing wrong with seeing your partner struggling with something, talking to them about it and coming up with ideas to help them. The tone and attitude is important, but the article even touches on that as well.

I often have the same reaction as you to people trying to modulate me in any way. But I am learning to view their intentions more positively and I often find that it ultimately helps me to let go of my stubbornness and actually self-reflect on the things about me that they're pointing out - even though it's always difficult to do.

While there are of course always situations in life where one can benefit from external insight into your own behaviour, I feel like the second paragraph you wrote reads a lot like stockholm syndrome to me... Yes, there are those people you don't want to disappoint. But at least in my experience, that doesn't make their intervention attempts less obnoxious. Control freaks are all around, but hidden behind social norms.

> I think there's nothing wrong with seeing your partner struggling with something, talking to them about it and coming up with ideas to help them.

There is something wrong here: and that's assuming your partner is the one struggling. In clinical cases of hoarding and ADHD, that can definitely be the case - but all hints, nags and nudges are useless in these clinical cases anyway.

Fact is that in your day-to-day neat freak vs messy partner situation, the person struggling with mess is actually the neat partner and not the messy one. Most messy people I know, and have worked with, are quite content with mess.

The article assumes that neatness is a virtue.

An end in itself.

It isn't any more a virtue than clutter.

Sure there are OCD horders at the extreme. And OCD cleaners at the other.

That's not to say that understanding why you behave the way you behave is not a good thing. It is indeed. Self awareness is good for everyone...including neatfreaks. And it only comes with time as we keep learning and growing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com