What woman says this?

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This is not a post about who should do what or gender roles in anything but I just had a question.

This weekend my wife and I went grocery shopping and we purchased almost $200 work of meats and things at Sam's to stock out deep freezers. When we got home I told my wife we needed to clean out the fridge and our 2 freezers to make room for the items we bought. We go into the kitchen and I get down on my hands and knees and clean out the fridge, throwing away old things and wiping up the spills and stuff. My wife stands at the counter playing on her phone. I hold certain things up to her asking should we keep this or throw that away. After we finish the fridge I move to the one freezer and I again pull out things that have been in there for a while. The wife was still standing at the counter. After that freezer we move to our other freezer. Again, she stood there and did not touch one thing. After we were done I mentioned to her that she just stood there and these were her words to me. "Oh, I don't clean out the fridge. Never have and never will." She would just rather keep old things in there for months and not worry about it. Same thing goes for the cabinets. She's never just taken the time to go through the cabinets and pull out old stuff or half empty boxed of this or expired canned goods. She just refuses to do any of that. And forget about spring cleaning. That she's not going to do either. You don't know how back I want to give this house a good cleaning from top to bottom but I refuse to do it by myself. I'd love for us to take a Sat and clean all day long but she will never go for that. She had dressers in every room in our house full of clothes she can no longer wear but she refuses to get rid of them.

And even if I start pulling things out to get rid of or donate she gets angry saying she's gonna get back into those clothes or that outfit has sentimental value to her but she hasn't work it in 10 or more years.

Did I luck up and find the one messy woman in the world who could care less about cleaning her own house and keeping things tidy? I wish I could post a pic of the top of her dresser in our bedroom. You guys wouldn't believe it. No woman need this much stuff.

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@Barry2021,

Who cooks and does the laundry?
What housework do you share if any at all?
Get a housekeeper if you're not able to clean the entire house.
Are you retired?

1 Reply

@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Who cooks and does the laundry?
What housework do you share if any at all?
Get a housekeeper if you're not able to clean the entire house.
Are you retired?

We alternate cooking nights so one person isn't taxed with cooking everyday. Outside work belongs to me. yard work, car repairs, etc. Pest removal, the occasional wasp next or mouse that may get inside the house. Inside repairs too. Now bathroom shower head, leaking sink, light bulb replacement, etc. You know, the typical manly stuff. What does she do? She does laundry and cooks every other night. And when I say laundry we're not talking about taking the clothes down to the river and beating them on a rock. I'm talking about pushing a button on a start of the art washer and dryer combo. Yeah, I'm downplaying her role but there really isn't much else she does. I change the linen on the beds every week or so. Every now and then she'll run the vacuum in the living room maybe once every few weeks. We don't live in a mini mansion. Just an old 3 bedroom house and the granddaughters use one of the rooms but they're not here every night or even every weekend. The wife uses that as her changing room so the bed that's ion there for the year old is cluttered with a lot of my wife's clothes. Even the little table in that room is full of my wife's oils, lotions, and things she uses once she gets out of the shower. I know how women are with their shoes but my wife's closet is full of shoes in the bottom and in one corner of the room there are shoes stacked as high as the dresser. Shoes she may wear once a year if that much. The ones on the bottom she hasn't work in years but she refuses to get rid of them. Again, the dresser in our bedroom is full from one side to the next with every cream, gel, lotion, ointment, spray, nail polish, polish remover, etc on her dresser. And a number of them are almost empty but she'll buy more but won't use up what's in the original bottle first so there's half or almost empty bottles on the dresser. And forget about dusting or wiping anything down. My wife was in 2 branches of the military and I can't believe she is this messy. You would think she'd be more structured.

2 Replies

@Barry2021,

Some people just don't see or care about dirty dishes, clutter, dust, etc. I don't understand it but I think they don't see it. Or it doesn't bother them like it would others.

The thing is you are two very different people in just about every way possible. The way you parent, the way you handle your money, the way you keep house, your eating habits, your social interactions... I hope these basic differences are what you two talk about in your counselling because coming here and venting can't be much help.

I understand you're frustrated but it doesn't seem the counselling is making much headway. Why would you continue living in a frustrated state?

0 Replies

@Barry2021,

Like Mame said, some people are messy and they don't see the dirt, the mess and everything what comes with it. Since you're not going to change her, you have 2 options - 1. you leave it as is and don't bother either or
2. you do it! You can organize her shoes in boxes and stack them. You can buy 2 baskets and put her cosmetics, oils, lotions whatever in one basket and the used up stuff in another basket. After she hasn't touched the "used up stuff" basket in a week, you toss the contents and proceed to fill the basket with other used stuff items.
For all the other work you should get a housekeeper to clean and change the sheets, since she does laundry. Problem solved!

1 Reply

@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Like Mame said, some people are messy and they don't see the dirt, the mess and everything what comes with it. Since you're not going to change her, you have 2 options - 1. you leave it as is and don't bother either or
2. you do it! You can organize her shoes in boxes and stack them. You can buy 2 baskets and put her cosmetics, oils, lotions whatever in one basket and the used up stuff in another basket. After she hasn't touched the "used up stuff" basket in a week, you toss the contents and proceed to fill the basket with other used stuff items.
For all the other work you should get a housekeeper to clean and change the sheets, since she does laundry. Problem solved!

You wanna start WWIII, touch or move her stuff. I've repeatedly asked her to clean off the top of our dresser but she refuses. I 've asked her to straighten up her shoes and purses stacked up in the corner of the room and again, she refuses. And the dressers full of clothes in each of the rooms in our house . . . . forget about that. She's not going to go through those things. Again, clothes she hasn't worn in years nor could she ever get back into. She has the "I can get back into that one day" or "that's gonna come back in style in a few years" mentality. I told her that this coming weekend we were gonna go from room to room and clean up and she said she had no problem with that but here's what will happen. Come Sat she's gonna make a nail appointment or needs to run to the store and not come back for a few hours. Or, when I pull out something to throw away or donate to Goodwill or the Salvation Army she's gonna get separation anxiety and refuse to let anything go. No, I do not want to be the one who is in charge of doing the cleaning because if I was . . . . I would have thrown a ton of this stuff away a long time ago. Remember, she has a dresser in each bedroom full of clothes. A while ago we bought a new dresser for the girl's room to keep their clothes in and one day I was looking for something and opened one of the drawers in their room and she had started putting her stuff in it. I hand built a beautiful toybox of the older granddaughter and I opened it put put some toys in it and yep, the wife had started putting clothes in it. I didn't ask her to take them out, I made her take them out. I'm fed up with the clutter around the house and her refusing to part with anything. She still has underwear and bras that she had when we met some 20+ years ago when she was a size 2 or 4. She's now pushing 14 / 16 and she holds onto them like she's going to lose the weight. You can hardly get her underwear drawer open because it's so packed full. I'm sitting here right now looking at 2 or 3 bottles of half empty nail polish remover. Yes, this weekend will be a turning point because there will be some furniture moving and arguing going on around this house. I refuse to live like this any longer.

2 Replies

@Barry2021,

Curious, have you discussed this in therapy? What do you discuss in therapy?

I would think this is the type of item you can bring up, discuss why this bothers you and she also can discuss why she wants to hold onto so many things. Then you work out a compromise. You go back home and work out that compromise, next week you go in and discuss how it worked.

It seems your wife has some deep issues that makes her want to hold onto things longer than their useful life. There can be many reasons why. You could cause huge anxiety in her by pushing her depending on the situation. I think this is beyond speaking in social forum like this as it will help neither of you. You need to work through this and discuss in therapy, not hear among people who really do not know what or why your wife is holding onto these items. And why you seem to have an issue with controlling this and forcing her to give up things before she is ready.

1 Reply

@Barry2021,

Just like OCD is a disease, so is hoarding. It seems your wife cannot throw out anything and if left to her own devises she would have a hoarder's house.
If you don't want to accept this you either have a confrontation with her and accept the consequences or you just leave it. There is no other solution, whining about it doesn't help anyone.

1 Reply

@Barry2021,

A woman who does not clean is not a woman at all.

Point being is that

"Oh, I don't clean out the fridge. Never have and never will."

Is a complete joke and sounds like a person who associates with resteruant business. Food, Sex, Dance, Drink.

What ages are you guys? Where did you guys meet? What is the income situation?

Is your wife from a wealthy household with a maid/butler. This sounds like movie-stardom wanna-be bs.

..................

In my opinion I would just let the food run out and see what she does. Get your meals from outside and give her money for her own meals.

Or even just call it quits, make some nudie over sexualized movies and photos with her, and then let her go, because it sounds like insanity. I mean just give up on her.....make sure you have a pre-nup or whatever bs ready, hide your funds, in _______ or a safe place where she will never go.

It sounds like she does not value traditional roles of housework and or over-values her gender/sex.

Even with the yard work she should have some time in. It just sounds like she is their for the sex and that is about it. What will it be like when you both have children..zomgsh!?!?!!!

Under-acheive-human-dna-dumpster is what she is.

......................................................................................................................

Also everytime you and her do the yard work or whatever chore you should calculate based on servicing via outside help.

2 Replies

@PoliteMight,

You should just shut up. You never give good or appropriate advice. Ever.

0 Replies

@CalamityJane,

Yeah, I'm going to have to take this whole situation with a grain of salt. OP has a long history here of posting about his wife, how she can never do anything right, is always over the top with her actions and generally a nuisance to him at all times.

He has not said one good thing about his wife and refuses to acknowledge he's half the problem (or more) in their marriage. I don't believe she's a hoarder, I believe she's a normal person stuck with a guy who constantly whines, cajoles, won't listen, thinks he's right at everything, extremely condescending and a pain in the butt.

So, I ask, how would you feel about cleaning out the fridge?

Yeah, do it yourself, pal.

1 Reply

@RPhalange,

RPhalange wrote:

Curious, have you discussed this in therapy? What do you discuss in therapy?

I would think this is the type of item you can bring up, discuss why this bothers you and she also can discuss why she wants to hold onto so many things. Then you work out a compromise. You go back home and work out that compromise, next week you go in and discuss how it worked.

It seems your wife has some deep issues that makes her want to hold onto things longer than their useful life. There can be many reasons why. You could cause huge anxiety in her by pushing her depending on the situation. I think this is beyond speaking in social forum like this as it will help neither of you. You need to work through this and discuss in therapy, not hear among people who really do not know what or why your wife is holding onto these items. And why you seem to have an issue with controlling this and forcing her to give up things before she is ready.

We're currently not in therapy at the moment. Yes, we've gone multiple times to multiple therapists but she refuses to listen to anything they say or advise to her. Most of the times it's more of a bitch session about me as to I don't give her enough love, affection, positive affirmations, etc. I don't hold her hand enough. I don't just give her random hugs. I don't say good morning when I see her beautiful face or I don't kiss her on the forehead before she falls asleep every night. Those things are nice for rom/coms or made for TV movies but we're in the real world. She just refuses to part with anything. There's an almost empty bottle of baby oil or something like that on the dresser that has been sitting there for months. So empty that if you turn it over it would barely cover the bottom of the cap. Nope, she's holding onto it.

3 Replies

@Barry2021,

Why are you two together? Do either of you get any joy out of your relationship?

0 Replies

@Barry2021,

Have you read 'Diary of a Nobody,' by George & Weedon Grossmith?

If you collected your opening remarks at the beginning of all your threads you'd have something quite familiar.

I kid you not.

"I told Sarah not to bring up the blanc-mange again for breakfast. It seems to have been placed on our table at every meal since Wednesday....

In spite of my instructions, that blanc-mange was brought up again for supper. To make matters worse, there had been an attempt to disguise it, by placing a glass dish with jam round it...

I told Carrie, when we were alone, if that blanc-mange were placed on the table again I should walk out of the house."

0 Replies

@PoliteMight,

PoliteMight wrote:

A woman who does not clean is not a woman at all.

Point being is that

"Oh, I don't clean out the fridge. Never have and never will."

Is a complete joke and sounds like a person who associates with resteruant business. Food, Sex, Dance, Drink.

What ages are you guys? Where did you guys meet? What is the income situation?

Is your wife from a wealthy household with a maid/butler. This sounds like movie-stardom wanna-be bs.

..................

In my opinion I would just let the food run out and see what she does. Get your meals from outside and give her money for her own meals.

Or even just call it quits, make some nudie over sexualized movies and photos with her, and then let her go, because it sounds like insanity. I mean just give up on her.....make sure you have a pre-nup or whatever bs ready, hide your funds, in _______ or a safe place where she will never go.

It sounds like she does not value traditional roles of housework and or over-values her gender/sex.

Even with the yard work she should have some time in. It just sounds like she is their for the sex and that is about it. What will it be like when you both have children..zomgsh!?!?!!!

Under-acheive-human-dna-dumpster is what she is.

......................................................................................................................

Also everytime you and her do the yard work or whatever chore you should calculate based on servicing via outside help.

We've had the conversation about gender rolls before. There are "man" jobs and then there's "things she's not going to do." You feel me? I'm the one responsible for changing the linen on the beds because I'm typically the last one out of the bed on Sat morning. I'm the one responsible for purchasing and repairing things that break around the house. I'm the one responsible for yard work, washing the cars, minor repairs on them as well. She refuses to even wash her own car because, and I quote, "what do you think the neighbors will think if they see me outside washing my own car and my husband is in the house?" My reply to her is usually this. "Hmm, my car is dirty too, let me get out there and wash it." Taking out the trash and rolling the cans down to the curb once a week is my job. Yeah, she'll send me a text every Fri morning to remember it's trash day and that's her contribution.

I've just never met a woman who hated cleaning or straightening up as much as she does.

When it comes to meals and cooking her idea is to just order out or go get fast food. I love to cook so in her mind I should cook every meal. No! We had this very conversation yesterday. Again, we alternate cooking nights. So when it's my night I usually cook something descent. When it's her night we usually have pizza rolls, frozen chicken tenders, etc. My wife is not big on meal prep. When it's her night to cook I've already thought about what I'm cooking the next day. Her thing is that she doesn't like cooking anything that has more than 3 or 4 ingredients. Here in lies the problem. We recently went and purchased around $200 worth of meats and things to fill up our two deep freezers. Again, 2 people in the house that food will last us a while. My wife doesn't like pulling things out of the freezer because what she wants may be under something or at the bottom. So, she'll go buy more of what we already have. To me that's wasting money. Or, if she's cooking something and needs an ingredient she doesn't want to move a for other ingredients to see where the basil is or the coriander is. When you are constantly pulling down spices things get moved around in the cabinet. Everything can't always be on the front when you open it up and food in the freezer isn't going to automatically move itself to the top so that when my wife opens the lid it's right there. She'd rather not go through that hassle. I know where every spice is in our cabinet. What we have and what we don't have.

I know I'm rambling but this is what I go through. I'm not asking her to cook 5 star gourmet meals when it's her night to cook. I just want you to take more pride in planning a meal for your family and taking the time to cook it. We both work from home and she gets off work 2 hours before I do. From 4 to 6 until I get off she's sitting on sofa scrolling through Facebook or playing or hosting Bingo games on FB. Then when I get off work she'll ask, "what do you want for dinner?" Whatever you cook is somewhat fine with me but you've had 2 hours and you've not done a thing?

Trying to discuss this with her only leads to arguments because she's not receptive to change. She thinks everything should just stay the way it is. I've mentioned this in other posts that y wife's father worships the ground her mom walks on and I honestly think that's what she wants me to do. Mom wanted a new living room set so he went out and bought it for her. A few months later she didn't like it so he went out and bought her something else. He bought her one of those massage chairs that you typically see in the mall where you sit down and your legs go into those channels to massage your calves and things. I love my wife but I'm not going to go broke making sure she's comfortable.

And I refuse to live if clutter. Typically men have messy houses/apts and their cars are immaculate. But on the flip side, most women have dirty cars but their houses/apts are spotless. Typically but not in all case and I guess I found the one case.

1 Reply

"... but this is what I go through. "

You don't have to, though. You have choices. If you decide to stay with her, you need to accept her as she is. You don't seem to be able to do that. That's why I ask why you two are together. You sound miserable.

I just want you to take more pride in planning a meal for your family and taking the time to cook it. "

Don't you get it? She doesn't want to. Stop expecting the impossible. She is not you. She doesn't care about cooking. At. All. You can only be disappointed if you have expectations. Drop them. Accept who she is. Or leave.

1 Reply

@Barry2021,

What you don't see is - she is holding onto all these things for a reason. You might not understand the reason and it might not make sense to you, but those feelings and the fear of parting with these things are real. You are trivializing her real feelings.

I cannot and would not make assumptions about what is causing her to feel this way, but a good therapist would work through that.

Also it is great that she has let you know what she needs, what bothers her , but the next step is for the both of you to work through some sort of compromise. Again you are ignoring her pleas for what she wants so although you are saying she does not listen to them....it appears as if you do not as well.

It is really difficult to provide you both advice as you need someone committed to work with you both and a true commitment from both of you, otherwise this cycle is just going to continue.

2 Replies

@neptuneblue,

neptuneblue wrote:

Yeah, I'm going to have to take this whole situation with a grain of salt. OP has a long history here of posting about his wife, how she can never do anything right, is always over the top with her actions and generally a nuisance to him at all times.

He has not said one good thing about his wife and refuses to acknowledge he's half the problem (or more) in their marriage. I don't believe she's a hoarder, I believe she's a normal person stuck with a guy who constantly whines, cajoles, won't listen, thinks he's right at everything, extremely condescending and a pain in the butt.

So, I ask, how would you feel about cleaning out the fridge?

Yeah, do it yourself, pal.

Oh, by no means have I ever said I was a saint and I do everything right. I have my flaws too. But I don't mind cleaning up but I refuse to do all the cleaning behind a grown ass 52 almost year old woman. If I clean I'm throwing a lot away and I'm donating a lot of clothes to someone who can get better use out of them. The reason I haven't done it yet is because the first time I touch anything of hers then she goes to arguing. If you're not going to do it then don't stop someone else from doing it. If I've not worn an article of clothing in say a year or maybe two then chances are I'm not going to wear it anymore and could go to someone else. But the have a drawer full of old bras and panties that you know you can't get into anymore is ridiculous. She can't even get the drawer open it's so packed full. And when you have a dresser in every room of the house there's no way in hell you're rotating those clothes out on the regular basis. To wear all those clothes she'd have to change twice a day.

Yeah, I come here to vent because talking to her is pointless. Some have even told me here to suck it up and live with it. Why should I? Why would anyone want to just live with clutter if they didn't have to? It's called Spring Cleaning for a reason. At some point in everyone's lives you just have to part with some things. You can't hold onto everything. But again, the minute I start cleaning up will be the day she starts pulling things out of my hand saying she wants to keep that or this.

0 Replies

@RPhalange,

Barry doesn't actually want advice. He wants acknowledgement he married a shitty partner. He wants martyrdom and accolades for putting up with a shrew for the past 20 years. He doesn't want to "do" anything except bitch about her, as he has in his posting history for the past year.

He says he "loves" her but that's lie. He's so afraid of change he'll start a new thread complaining about her. Again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And then he'll find someone who will occasionally agree with him and it starts all over again.

And again.

And again.

0 Replies

@Mame,

Mame wrote:

"... but this is what I go through. "

You don't have to, though. You have choices. If you decide to stay with her, you need to accept her as she is. You don't seem to be able to do that. That's why I ask why you two are together. You sound miserable.

I just want you to take more pride in planning a meal for your family and taking the time to cook it. "

Don't you get it? She doesn't want to. Stop expecting the impossible. She is not you. She doesn't care about cooking. At. All. You can only be disappointed if you have expectations. Drop them. Accept who she is. Or leave.

So would you accept that someone is not a clean freak but when you try to clean up they fight you on getting rid of anything? Why would anyone want to just live in clutter simply because "that's just how they are." Yeah, I can clean up and if I ask her to give me permission to do so she would have no problem sitting back and letting me. But with that she also needs to understand that we're not going to save everything or just straighten it up to make it look neat. Some things need to go. You're not going to get back into clothes you wore 20 years ago. Donate them or throw them out.

0 Replies

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