She's definitely got to "come clean" to him about this.

"If you don't see other signs suggesting he's depressed or troubled, he's probably just mess-blind. "

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on this one, Amy. The LW's description just screams Depressionville. Been there.

"It seems too early in the relationship to say anything."

Other than "goodbye," you mean.

"The LW's description just screams Depressionville. Been there."

If so then 95% of the males I knew in college were severely depressed.

The guys I knew in college knew how to keep their bedrooms clean. They were lost when it came to housecleaning anywhere else.

I dunno about the ex-wife remnants, that's a question mark, but I otherwise have to agree with Amy. When I was a bachelor, and not in a relationship, I washed my sheets when they needed it, which was every X months. General messiness would build up, and I would occasionally attack it.

Granted, when I had a girlfriend coming over, the place got cleaned and the sheets got washed. Eventually, these cleaning attacks were just too irritating, so I hired a cleaning service.

This guy hasn't been hit with the cluebat yet - it's time for her to do so...

Cousin Dave: "If you don't see other signs suggesting he's depressed or troubled, he's probably just mess-blind."

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on this one, Amy. The LW's description just screams Depressionville. Been there.

You seem to think that Amy ruled out that possibility. She didn't. She merely said that a messy apartment is not the sole criteria.

Also, depression is a specific diagnosis. Like many other words in the vernacular, it's misused and overused.

A friend of mine was fond of calling her headaches "migraines." I accept the fact that she has a headache and it's probably excruciating, but migraines aren't just painful; they're debilitating. A person in the throes of a migraine typically locks themselves in dark rooms, not being able to bear either light or sound. They are so painful, they're sickeningly painful.

As a veteran who volunteers time at the V.A., I see a lot of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). One veteran who was living at the shelter said to me, "I'm having a flashback."

A person experiencing a flashback doesn't have the awareness to say so. They are reliving the moment, and all sensory input comes from this memory. They would have no cognizance that they are experiencing a flashback, and no awareness of anyone else around them to communicate this to. I accept that he has vivid, horrifying memories, but those are not flashbacks.

Depression, like "migraine" and "flashback," are just vogue terms. And, depending on the circle you're in, it's absolutely fashionable to have them.

Changing the subject, I launder my sheets once a week. Also, I shower in the evening before bed. I don't understand people who don't. You're going to get in bed after a day's accumulation of dust and dirt. So, if you wash your sheets once a month, there's a month's accumulation of dirt and dead skin waiting for you. Ugh.

"You're going to get in bed after a day's accumulation of dust and dirt. So, if you wash your sheets once a month, there's a month's accumulation of dirt and dead skin waiting for you. Ugh."

Interesting. I just dont ever think about all the accumulation-or if I do it doesnt bother me in the least. I only clean when it really really begins to irk me and it tends to be late late at night.

Sorry I'm a messy person and the mess does not bother me! I dont see it at all. And no I'm not depressed I just have a really hard time organizing. My mom is an excellent organizer and she just can't understand why I can't do it-and I'm so smart at other things.

I dont like doing regular things, food shopping, depositing checks (I have three pay checks I've been to lazy to deposit).

But other things I'm super motivated about. By the way if i ever get married I"m just getting a maid.

Sorry I can't organize. I just can't.

Hmmmm. I'm not a neat freak, and BF is not particularly messy, but I have to remind him to shut cabinet doors and drawers all the time. I vacuum the house once a week (or right before company comes over, if it's mid-week), but I can't remember the last time I ran a dust rag around the house (maybe a couple, three weeks ago?) I take care of the inside of the house, BF takes care of the outside, and we both take care of the garden (which is growing like crazy - zucchini, anyone? Please? Come relieve me of this stuff!!). So maybe LW is on to something when she says her beau takes care of the outside, but not the inside, of the house. Some boys are just brought up that way, I guess.

But I agree LW shouldn't be the one cleaning up. Guy needs to get a cleaning service or something. Does he have a sister who the LW can talk to? Sometimes that works, talking to a sibling. Then the sib can talk to the person and suggest that maybe he start to get rid of wifey-things. I did that for one of my bros when it became clear to the woman that he was seeing that he hadn't cleaned out his ex's stuff from their apartment. She said something to me along the lines of "how long ago did they break up anyway? Some of her stuff is still in there." So I told him, "hey. _____ says some of _____'s stuff is still laying around your place. You gonna get rid of it?" And he was all, "oh man, I didn't even realize. What should I do with it?" I told him he could throw most of it out, and maybe put some of the good stuff in a box, let the ex know she could have it, or maybe give it to Goodwill or something. I offered to help him, and we were done in one afternoon. Since he still wasn't talking to the ex, I called her and told her we put some of her things in a box, did she want them? And she was all, oh, thanks, but I don't need any of it. Just get rid of it. So we did.

I call bullshit. On what planet does a couple split up and the guy gets the house?

To be serious for a moment, when I was single, I washed the sheets and cleaned the bathroom once a week. The kitchen was spotless, but my desk and coffee table would often be cluttered. If I didn't have a pen by the phone, no problem, there was dust to write in with my finger.

Parents, do your future son or daughter in law a favour and teach your children basic cleaning and cooking.

On what planet does a couple split up and the guy gets the house?

Well in my brother's case, she left him. And a friend of his wife left him, and his house was already bought and paid for, no help from her, so he got to keep it. Sometimes it does happen.

When I left my husband, I let him have the house (and the equity was mostly mine) because I couldn't afford to maintain it on my own - it just made sense. He owes me a lot of money, and I may not ever see most of it, but at least I don't have the financial burden of caring for a home I cannot afford.

And part of the reason that he *can* afford it is his maintenance standards are much lower than mine.

I think jefe is on to something--a lot of guys I know were raised with the responsibility of keeping their own rooms clean, but they were never really taught/made to do other household chores. They often had "yard duty" with their dads, though, so they could mow and hedge, etc. But laundry/cooking/cleaning the bathroom eluded them for quite a while.

On the flip side, I have the inside stuff down pat, but I've never mowed a yard or changed my own engine oil.

I'm not saying that's true for everyone, but I've observed it often enough to say it's not a surprise.

My husband's folks bought a house ten years go. His mom died about three years later, and his dad couldn't afford the house, so we moved in and took over the mortgage payments. It took two years before my husband and I really got moved in.

The place was full of stuff and we had a hell of a time getting everything out, and that was with me pushing to get rid of all this stuff sitting around.
You get used to things and you don't even see them anymore, it's part of how your brain works. Imagine if you DID really notice everything around you all the time?

I don't see this as a symptom of depression, but rather a symptom of being a messy human.

I know quite a few adult men who don't know /how/ to clean a bathroom. There are quite a few steps and products, as well as guidelines that I would think are commonsense but apparently aren't.

The last time I visited my ex, he still had some things of mine around, like stuff I'd pinned to the bulletin board and hung on the walls. He also retained some of my household habits like the "launch pad" with key rings and a coin bucket, kitchen organization, etc.

I think he's a guy's guy and either he doesn't "see" the stuff and/or he sees no reason to change anything.

Have to agree that mess doesn't have to equate with depression. I am pathologically disorderly; it's just a part of having ADD. (I can remember being sent up to clean my disaster-area bedroom as a child, looking at the stuff all over the floor, and thinking, "But... where does it all go?" The overwhelm was paralyzing.

My mess does wax and wane some with my mental state, but there is no such thing as being so happy and contented that I'm a tidy person.

However -- as Amy wisely suggests for this fellow -- twenty years ago I started getting my home professionally cleaned once a week. They can't tidy much, but they do keep me from being subsumed in my own filth.

I can't be the only person thinking she needs to say to him, simply and honestly, "Honey, those sheets just plain squick me out. If you want me in your bed, you need to wash them."

There's a difference between cleaning and organizing. Cleaning is a skill set that anyone can learn and master ("These are the products that you use to scrub a toilet, this is how you do laundry" etc). It includes things like vacuuming, scrubbing, sweeping, mopping, washing windows, dusting, windexing, etc. Men are just less likely to be taught these skills growing up, but there's no reason they can't do it if they learn.

Organization isn't really something you can teach; it's a mindset that has to do with how your brain functions, and I believe it's highly highly correlated with ADHD. For some people, it's second nature; for others it's so daunting to be nearly impossible. I saw this with my sister and dad growing up, and now my boyfriend. My sister could spent all day cleaning her room, but it would be trashed within 24 hours because she didn't know how to organize in a way that was conducive to keeping it clean. My dad adopts an "out of sight, out of mind" approach and his idea of cleaning is to throw everything in a box and hide it. Of course ADHD can affect both sexes, but it's more common with men.

Recently I moved in with my boyfriend and he's worse than either of them. I do 99.9% of the organization/clutter type cleaning because I'm much better and faster at it and if I want things cleaned to my standard I figure I might as well do it myself. And now that I've gotten things organized, it's much easier to keep tidy as long as I keep on top of it, which only takes about 15 minutes a day. This might not work for everyone, but it does for me. I wouldn't clean up after roommates like this, but with in a relationship it's different--I see us as both contributing in different ways to our mutual well-being.

And ironically, I'm not very good with the first type of cleaning. Dirty windows, floors, etc don't really bother me as long as the clutter is taken care of, so I'm less likely to deal with them until they get really bad. I used to get in arguments with my parents and college roommates about this, because we had different definitions of clean. (Might have had something to do with my bad eyesight too) But if you pair up an organizer like me with someone who's willing to clean-clean, then you're golden. And if neither can do either, then you hire a cleaning service. I just cannot see this being a dealbreaker in a relationship--aren't there more important things to think about?

My dad adopts an "out of sight, out of mind" approach and his idea of cleaning is to throw everything in a box and hide it.

My husband is occasionally exasperated by what he calls "Monica bags": plastic grocery bags full of things I collected from around the apartment so it wouldn't look messy, but that I had no interest in organizing. There's no order to any of it.

On the bright side, I'm always finding bags full of interesting things.

I've been reading a great book on ADD-friendly organizing. From it I have learned the term "Oosoom" - Out Of Sight Out Of Mind. We (ADDers) leave stuff out because if we put it away we'll forget about it entirely. Leaving it - whatever "it" may be - gives us a fighting chance of remembering to do whatever we meant to do with it.

Dana what is that book? That's exactly my problem.

Greetings all! I am the LW.

Two months is now four months and I am happy, to report that we have had a couple of fireside chats about all of this and we are going to start going room by room, as time permits. He readily acknowledges it's a nightmare and says he just feels paralyzed and overwhelmed by it all. I can relate. I have had bouts of these feelings when I let my crap and clutter get away on me. I always manage to go on a binge and get it all under control. Eventually. I fully understand that we are not all like this. So, no, I don't think it's depression because there are no other signs or symptoms of that. Great comment from Patrick, btw, on the over-pathologizing of different behaviors.

All of these comments have been great. Just so helpful. So thank you all.

I am an "organizer". And I don't mind the hard core cleaning either. I just didn't want it to be expected. Shortly after I wrote Amy, I just brought a clean set of sheets over and changed the bed myself. (Now I just throw them in the machine when the need arises. Me = happy.) Of course he noticed, and said something to the effect of how great it was that I never made him feel "judged" about his mess. Manipulation radar on high alert, I said, that was lovely but I wasn't really trying to guard his self-esteem, I just didn't know how to broach the subject and well, we still needed to deal with it as it was a problem for me. That being said, it opened up a great dialogue. It was just as Amy called it, mess blind. He says he just didn't realize all that ex-crap was even there. Doesn't give it a second thought. Said when she left she came in one day and took what she wanted and left the rest. Weird, but whatever. Me? I would have cleaned all my crap out. But then I am a purger.

The key is to now just go slow. I get the feeling that too much change all at once is just overwhelming to him. Plus we both work full-time (his job is super-physical) and we both have a teenage son and we always seem too busy doing "fun" stuff on weekends etc. So I suggested that we just take one small area a week, a couple of hours and just poke away at it 'till it's up to snuff. If I had my druthers, I have a dumpster there for a week and send him to Disney World and then go all Ty Pennington on the place. That being said, it's not really something I can do on my own, nor do I think I should, simply because of the expectation factor but also, I don't know what to keep or what to pitch. One never knows when one might be in need of a gingham rooster tea cozy and old newspapers from 2001. ;)

....oh, and LMAO at "Monica Bags!"

I don't think there's any evidence here of 'Depressionville' ... many people (men and women) are just 'mess-blind' like this.

This is why language was invented. Just use your words.

"This is really great and I'm having a lot of fun. But I have a hard time staying at your house; it's not comfortable for me. It feels like it's not clean. I'd feel better if your sheets were fresh and the bathroom were clean." If that's too blunt, you can make it polite in your own style, but a hint won't cut it.

If someone had taken my pillow cases off the bed and dropped them on the floor as a hint that was supposed to mean "It's time to wash your sheets, but I don't speak English so good," I'd have been just as bewildered as that guy.

Heh. I drop "hints" to my husband all the time, and he's usually really good about picking up on them. Fr'instance, just the other day we were in a little shop and I saw something I really liked. I picked it up, and showed it to him, and stared at him intently while I said "Look at this! I love this! This would make an excellent birthday present for me, so if *someone* wants to get me something for my birthday, you should tell them about this. Here...." as I hand it to him "....would you put that back on the shelf for me? I have to find a restroom. I'll meet you over in the coffee place in a little while. Come find me when you're done looking."

It's a little clumsy, and a little silly, but it works for us. Most of the time. My birthday is in two weeks, so I guess I'll have to wait to see if it worked this time.

@Jen .. lol .. I sometimes find myself realizing some days/weeks after the birthday that my SO might have been dropping hints while in the store about what she wanted.

"If someone had taken my pillow cases off the bed and dropped them on the floor as a hint that was supposed to mean "It's time to wash your sheets, but I don't speak English so good," I'd have been just as bewildered as that guy. "

Likewise, I don't think I would have even the remotest clue that this hint meant 'please clean up your entire house and try to generally improve your slovenly ways, it's eating me up so badly on the inside that I'm writing to advice columnists, but for some reason can't talk to you directly about this'.

Sheets don't need washing every couple months. Gross. I actually have something in common with Patrick-people who go to bed all filthy from the day disgust me. What is the point of showering in the am? You don't get dirty at night sleeping. If you don't care about sleeping clean, why care about getting dressed clean?

I said it in the blog, and I'll repeat it here. Helping him with his clean-up is setting a dangerous precedent. You aren't his mom, and even moms sholdn't be cleaning up after others once they're slightly capable on their own. At 4 months, every man I've ever dated that long was still on his best, super-clean house and self, long forplay impress me behavior. What does it say that he couldn't be bothered to do that even at the beginning? I doubt it bodes well for the future. And he's already failed at a marriage-why? Would be interesting to know.

"you don't judge me for messiness" is a REAL red flag to me. He was fine with you cleaning up after him. After 4 months. If other women have judged, have they ended it because he expected them to clean it?

> What is the point of showering in the am? You
> don't get dirty at night sleeping.

Unless it's summer and you don't have air conditioning.

What is the point of showering in the am? You don't get dirty at night sleeping.

I wash my hair when I shower, but I hate blow-drying. If I go to bed with a wet head, I look like Medusa and Cousin Itt's love child.