How to Deal With a Girlfriend Who is Messy

bltchef

hi she is a a good mum works hard but very lazy at home i do a lot of the house work but she is just so much of a slob i love her but this is driving me mad and yes i have talked to her she try for a bit the just goes back to hell any ideas ?

TallulahTaboo_2

My partner can be lazy too. When he leaves things at his back side and after several attempts of asking him to move them and they are still there, I move everything to his side of the bed. I mean everything... I once moved his golf clubs there.

Works a treat!

bltchef

it dirty washing to washing up in the kitchen drives me round the bend lol

paulineb_2

Maybe she has a lot on her plate looking after the child or children.

How many do you have and what ages are they.

Personally, I think theres more to life than living in a showhome, some people are very neat and have a place for everything and everything in its place, my flat is clean and tidy, but a showhome it is not.

Calling someone a slob really isnt very productive I think. She could be tired, depressed and yes she might need a kick up the backside but you need to work with her on this one.

Gigglepig

I think looking for practical solutions can help.

for example, If dishes are a problem, could you

- buy a dishwasher
- split the chores a different way so it gets done? For example, you do all the dishes but she does another chore for example all the laundry?

I also think money spent on a cleaner can be money very well spent.

bltchef

that her words not mine (slob ) i love her i am not wanting a show home just not a dump i have done the family washing and iron it she just put the clean washing on the bedroom floor and left them they i would of put them away she is not depressed but needs a kick up backside but i do not know what ?

RuthnJasper

paulineb wrote: »

Maybe she has a lot on her plate looking after the child or children.

How many do you have and what ages are they.

Personally, I think theres more to life than living in a showhome, some people are very neat and have a place for everything and everything in its place, my flat is clean and tidy, but a showhome it is not.

Calling someone a slob really isnt very productive I think. She could be tired, depressed and yes she might need a kick up the backside but you need to work with her on this one.

I'm with PaulineB. OP, you say that she works really hard; she's probably exhausted. I suppose it comes down to whether you can reach a fair compromise on this issue. A house should be a home. If it's just that dishes are left until the weekend, or magazines or clothes (not underwear) are left lying around - these are not life-threatening issues. If, however, dirty knickers/bras are left lying around or kitchen/bathroom filth is verging on the unhealthy then that IS a problem.

That said, there might be things about you that annoy her. Why not get someone to watch the kids for an evening and go out for a drink, just you and her? Just being honest - and I mean TACTFULLY honest without overt criticism - can work wonders.

Best wishes. x

Lagoon

paulineb wrote: »

Maybe she has a lot on her plate looking after the child or children.

How many do you have and what ages are they.

Personally, I think theres more to life than living in a showhome, some people are very neat and have a place for everything and everything in its place, my flat is clean and tidy, but a showhome it is not.

Calling someone a slob really isnt very productive I think. She could be tired, depressed and yes she might need a kick up the backside but you need to work with her on this one.

I agree with this. It's not necessarily laziness or being a 'slob', and I think it's a shame that you call your girlfriend that.

I am useless at housework. It's not laziness. Sometimes, it's that I genuinely can't 'see' what needs doing, even if it's obvious, or that I feel so overwhelmed once I notice mess that I shut down and avoid doing anything about it. I'm not deliberately trying to avoid doing the housework, but when I get stressed I do tend to retreat to the sofa and leave it 'for later'.

Luckily, my OH has never called me 'lazy'. He talked things through, rather than assuming that I just didn't want to do the cleaning, and we got to the bottom of the issue of me feeling overwhelmed. Then, we came to a compromise.

In our case, there are two solutions. He's taken on a much bigger household cleaning workload, to minimise it for me, which is very generous and means that I handle other less 'cleaning-related' boring household tasks.

The other thing he does is when he has something that specifically needs doing, he asks me. It sounds stupid and childish, but like I say my natural instinct is to block things out and 'not notice them'. A prompt such as 'Would you mind doing the dishes?' is genuinely enough to kick my brain into gear and help me to get things done. It's valuable support, for me.

Is your girlfriend actually 'messy'? Does she create the mess through pure laziness, or does she just not clean it once it starts to mount up? Is she throwing rubbish on the floor, or is it simply that she's not doing the housework? Could it be overwhelming her, too? Especially if she has the added stress of looking after kids.

RuthnJasper

bltchef wrote: »

that her words not mine (slob ) i love her i am not wanting a show home just not a dump i have done the family washing and iron it she just put the clean washing on the bedroom floor and left them they i would of put them away she is not depressed but needs a kick up backside but i do not know what ?

Well, that is pretty annoying, I'll agree with you there! But she won't know it's irritating you unless you tell her... A nice friendly night out and a bit of honest chat, might well help.

I'm not in a relationship at the moment but, to use a work analogy, if I'm doing something irritating in the office I would rather someone told me (nicely) so that I can do something about it - instead of finding out later that people have been seething about it for months. No-one's perfect, but anyone can compromise. Best wishes. x

marisco_2

Face it together. Get one room sorted at a time. Go out and buy suitable storage, tidy away what you need and bin what you don't, then have a good clean. Unless you live in six bed, 4 bath mansion it would take the best part of a day. Once you get your home straight it should be easy to keep on top of it, even with children about.

bltchef

`we both work hard we have a dishwasher we have a cleaner 2 hrs a week she is just very messy i do not want want to nag her but even our 14 old son says she is bad but i would not b with out her i just wish she would try a little bit harder fill the dishwasher now again etc i do not expect my tea on the table i do my faire share i just like her to put a bit more effort in