I’ve been married for one year now and together for three with my husband. When we first married we bought a beautiful home with two car garage for his work vehicle and my PT Cruiser. I even have my own garage door opener. Now I can’t even step into the garage because it is literally packed from floor to ceiling with a car project, equipment, auction “finds” related to his vehicle, tools, etc. It is so embarrasing that my husband had told me not to look inside, but I had to in order to get to the air compressor to air up my low tire. Ugh! It’s horrible in there! We have a built in pool which is currently green in color because he refuses to hire a pool cleaner; says “he’ll” do it himself. Ha! Our dishwasher has a water leak so I have to wash all dishes daily by hand cause he won’t let me call in a repairman because “he’ll” fix it. Ha! I’ve been handwashing dishes now for 4 months. I can barely step my way into the home office to get to the computer because he has it filled will 3 bags of papers that he needs to sort through (they’ve been sitting there for 3 months and haven’t been touched, along with samples from his company that are in every corner. He brought his two dogs (large sized) to our new home and guess who feeds and cares for them? Their **** is everywhere and he can never get the time to clean up after them so who has to get it done? You guessed it. I’m disgusted by it all and embarrased when company comes over. I have brought everything to his attention over time but he doesn’t want to be “nagged” about it so I’ve given up on it all. The problem for me is that I deal with depression and all of this compounds the problem. How do I get him to take care of these repairs and clean up? He’ll sit for hours in front of the computer and play games because he hates to “deal” with it all. Is there any hope?
Any suggestions other than “leave him”, “divorce him”, etc. I’m not interested in divorcing the man, just how to get him off his ***.
Thank you, Piggly50! I enjoyed your answer the best although several others were good as well. For the rest of you, I’m already mowing front lawn and back lawn including edging and picking up the dog poo. I keep the inside home clean, laundry done, cooking, ironing, grocery shopping, bill paying, errand running, etc. etc. Please don’t expect me to clean the pool, pick up dog poo, etc. etc.
Originally posted 2009-08-30 04:09:24.
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Just give him time, he’ll come around!:)
hmm tricky, maybe schedule a ’spring cleaning’ day with him on the weekend. maybe if he see’s that you are doing some work too it will motivate him to get some stuff done. thats what i do with my bf, get up early, chug a pot of coffee and promise eachother that we will be done by noon:-)
Hire help. He’s not going to change, and it’s disgusting to live as he does. He doesn’t have the right to object. He earns that by working.
Call a pool cleaner, a dishwasher repairman, and a cleaning service….and then show him the bill at the end of the month. When he has a sh*t fit about it, tell him it could have been avoided if he had done it in a timely fashion. He sounds immature and lazy to me….
It’s not “nagging” to want your partner to do their fair share.
Seduce him, tie him to the bed and promise to give him a night he won’t forget…………just as soon as he finishes his chores. If you live alone and have no kids, make him do them **** or scanitly clad…….. Have fun with it, life’s too short to freak out over every little detail. God knows I’ve got a list of chores to do too!!
“I have called the pool service and here is their estimate. The start next week.”
“I have called a repairman for the dishwasher. He will be out to give us an estimate”.
“I have hired the kid down the street to come and scoop up the dog crap for $XX a month. He starts Friday”.
“I moved all of the clutter from the home office into the garage. The garage is now where I will put all of your pending projects.”
I would hire someone to fix the washer…hire someone to clean up and organize his things and someone to walk the dogs, hire someone to clean the pool…and then give him the bills…four months and a green pool is long enough…
If it is not getting better, and is getting worse (from what you have said)
Then he needs help getting diciplined.
Tell him no computer access till x project is done, then repeat.
Also set some deadlines (reasonable) – one project at a time
eg clean up dog poop
clean pool
repair DW
etc
and set a penalty if they are not done – eg you move out to a hotel or parents until they are done
Good Luck
Stop cleaning the house and serve him dinner on a dirtly place. When he complains< simply say we both have responsibilities in this household. When you start taking care of your end I will start on mine. And be gracious that I took the time to fix you dinner. Be prepared for an argument. Me? I could not live like that. Get out of that pig pen and leave the pig in it.
Well here goes, my wife and I have had a similar problem but not to that extent. What we have done is she has made a list of things that need to get done, and next to the items she has put a date that they need to be done by. She has agreed not to mention them anymore unless I miss a deadline. That way there is no nagging, and I can pick when i do each job without feeling like I am working on someone elses time table.
So do the same thing. Tell him if these jobs don’t get done by the agreed upon dates that you will either call someone in to do the jobs, or you will just throw everything out.
Give him ONE month to clear and clean all. Tell him whatever projects aren’t done, your taking out the yellow book and will get them done. Enough is enough. He is not going to change so you have to spring into action. To save money perhaps you can call on family members and pay them something to help, if not pull out the yellow pages and do what must be done.
Take charge of things. YOU call the pool man; YOU call the repairman. I’m sorry, but if your husband is acting like a child, he will need to be treated like a child, and have “mommy” (i.e., you) take care of all the things for him. If you can’t live with the way things are, can’t talk about it and explain it to him, and if you don’t consider his behavior a deal-breaker, the only recourse you have left is to take care of things yourself. There is no magic wand that can change your husband.
Don’t nag – just tell him if the pool isn’t clean, you are going to hire someone to do it. As with the dishwasher. By Monday. Don’t argue, don’t nag. Smile sweetly.
And do it.
Paperwork – tell him you would like to use the office. Could he sort it out by the weekend? If he doesn’t, take the paperwork to the garage and leave it there.
Tell him you are concerned about the hygeine re the dog poo. Agree to feed them if he will pick up after them. And ask him to do it before he switches the computer on. Every day.
Well I go on strike about 3 times a year and let me tell ya,it’s not pretty. With me on strike it means:
No house cleaning
No grocery shopping
No cooked meals
No clean laundry
No feeding the dog
No Sex
NO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And they can only take it for so long.
Why do you have to wait for him to do anything?
I grew up with a pool and cleaned it myself. Never had a pool man. Why can’t you get out there and do it? Or when he is at work hire the darn pool man yourself. Hire a dishwasher repair man and get it done.
My husband can procrastinate too. We had piles and piles of leaves in the driveway. I used to rake myself but now with our 3 year old it is not that easy. I finally just paid a guy $15 and he took care of it. My husband came home and I told him I paid Pedro to do it and he said “Awesome, glad I didn’t have to do it.” We had 2 old refridgerators in the garage for over a year. Finally I called the junk king and paid $70 to have them removed.
Sometimes things get overwhelming. He has good intentions but things are piling up.
Calmly talk to him and show him the list of things that need to be done and agree on a date. If your husband can’t get them done by a certain date then you both agree to alternative ways such as hiring someone.
My friend, some men just don’t get it, I am sorry to say! I would first call and get my dishwasher fix! then the Dogs would go out side where dogs go when men have them and don’t take care of them. I would then get my home in order,and tell him its my way now! some one got to grow up and it is not me!
find a teenager to hire to be his helper.sell it that your husband is a teacher/mentor.he could help with the dogs at least.
Either fix these things yourself, call a professional without asking him or stop complaining. When he complains that you hired a plumber to fix the dishwasher or bought a brand new one, tell him that you wanted him to fix yours but when he wouldn’t, you did the best thing you could to resolve the problem. If he wants to fix things the next time they go wrong, he can, but the dishwaasher is fixed. He will step up the next time.
It’s not easy but usually if my husband is doing something that’s driving me crazy I try to get involved in a positive way. For example, my husband leaves things all over the house and then loses them, it was a total mess. Dental floss on the couch, keys tucked among books in the living room, important papers all over the floor on his side of the bed and other much grosser things that I won’t mention. Fussing at him didn’t help at all, in fact he just got angry and it got worse. So area by area I found ways of making things more organized. A little cubby by the door for his keys and wallet etc… A small box for under his bedside table. You get the picture. I just stopped complaining (since it didn’t do any good) and would put his things in the exact same organized place everytime I picked up the house. He would ask where things were and always got the same answer/could always find them. Now he uses these spots automatically and he’s actually said of his own volition that he likes the new set up. He’s happy and I’m happy.
Your case sounds a little tougher since it’s already gone so far. I’m assuming that you two communicate well. If you don’t that is a much bigger problem and will obviously have to be worked on before any of the rest of this can sort itself out. Assuming that there are no other problems, here’s my advice:
I **** to say it but you may have to do some of it for him. This sounds like a very deeply ingrained behavior. He’s probably feeling really overwhelmed by it even though it’s all totally his mess!
I would call and get a few things that are most bothering you fixed/cleaned. Having a few problems resolved for yourself may help you to feel less resentful and might help you to deal with his behavior more objectively (hard to do I know). It may also help to jump start him, or it may not, try not to get discouraged. If he gets offended just explain to him that it’s really bothering you and that you want to get it done but don’t want to overwhelm him with it. Clean up a few things while he is actually there (and probably playing computer games) and can see you doing it. CAUTION: Don’t act like a martyr though, my own husband would just get stubborn when I did that.
Being so sloppy is a habit for him that’s going to be REALLY hard to break, it will take a while and honestly, it might not ever go completely away. Try to help him work on it in a positive way. I’m sure he doesn’t want to make you feel so unhappy. Try to keep your sanity and remember that this will be a long term project.
Good Luck.
You sound like youre married to my Husband and I think its pure lazieness and he is taking you for granteed.I cant change my husband and if he wont change somewhat to help out around here.I might just have to make a change myself!!!