In any relationship, one partner is likely to be more neat and organized than the other.
Are you are the clean, organized partner and your significant other is a bit or largely messy? I know it can get you irritated and annoyed. However, there are some things you can do to keep your sanity.
Firstly to help your partner, erase nagging as it won’t help. I know it can be difficult not to nag, but, keep it in mind that nagging only explodes into larger arguments.
Secondly, going around the house picking up after him or her isn’t a solution either. We cannot change our partners. The only thing we can truly change is how we react.
Hopefully this list will help you and your partner put some systems into place so both of you can feel happy and calm in your home together.
Here are Some Ways to Help You Cope With Your Dirty Partner:
1. Communicate and Compromise
Like most aspects of relationships, you both will probably have to compromise in this area. Sharing a home and bedroom together means you need to find common ground that you are both happy living in.
If you like everything perfectly spotless and sparkly clean then you may have to lower your standards a little. And if your partner is okay living in complete squalor, they will have to work a bit to meet you in the middle. The important thing is that you are both making sacrifices and working to show you care for each other by keeping the peace in the relationship.
2. Distribute the Chores Fairly Rather than Equally
There are some chores that people just hate and other chores that people enjoy. Distribute the chores fairly based on what’s easiest for the individual.
For example, If someone hates dishes, they may need to take up a couple smaller chores to make up for never doing the dishes. The important thing is that no one is doing significantly more work that they loathe.
3. Try Not to Get Irritated
Rather than getting irritated when a chore isn’t done or a mess is made, treat it as a mistake and request that they fix it. Too often couples begin to treat their partner’s mistakes as intentional acts of aggression; with a messy partner, it very likely isn’t intentional at all. Instead, they simply cannot see the same mess that you do. That doesn’t mean you have to put up with it, but taking it in a more positive direction can help your mood as well.
4. Work With Them Rather than Against Them
Try to think from your partner’s point of view. Sometimes with someone who is absent-minded, it isn’t a matter of not wanting to do something; it’s a matter of forgetting altogether.
5. Try to Avoid Parenting Your Spouse
When you’re sick of tidying up after your spouse, you may end up parenting them instead of treating them as a partner.
Parenting occurs when you start feeling that they’re so irresponsible that they need to be taken through things step by step, and when you assume they are doing things incorrectly intentionally because they are lazy.
Remember: for the most part being messy isn’t some inadequacy; it’s a minor incompatibility. People live in different ways and grow up with different tolerances for mess. By approaching it with them rather than against them you can turn it into an exercise in bonding rather than a constant fight.
6. Teach your Children to Clean Up After Themselves
Agree early on deciding the types of chores that you’ll teach children (such as picking up their toys, or bringing their cups and dishes into the kitchen), and make sure that you teach them these skills consistently. That way, even if you still have a messy partner, you don’t have messy kids. And you will also be preventing them from being a messy partner.
Culled from Get Organized Wizard and HuffPost
