Sweeping Beauty
My new boyfriend is messy. He drops his socks, underwear, and clothing on the floor by the bed. He's not lazy or entitled, just a spacehead. It's no big deal for me to pick this stuff up, as I feel like I'm showing him love by caretaking. However, he says his ex said she didn't mind, either, and then was screaming about his socks eight months later. Is that my future?
--Worried
It was so much easier when we only wore fig leaves and you could just rake next to the bed.
To be human is to be annoying to some other human. Like by doing that weird clicking thing with your tongue or always leaving the kitchen cabinets ajar (very helpful for any dishes prone to claustrophobia).
At first, such behaviors can seem oddly endearing -- as does a new boyfriend's abandoning his socks instead of making that harrowing 62.5-inch trek to the hamper. In time, however, a woman can start having some less-than-constructive ideas. You know, little things, like nailing his socks and underwear to the floor or perhaps lying in wait for him to drop something and then spraying him with a water bottle like a cat on the counter.
But as your boyfriend's letting his socks fall to the bedroom rug like snow, do you think he's all "Ha, I'll show her!" -- or more "Pillow, here I come!"? The air bag against resenting him is love -- not love as a mere feeling but love as an activity, an action you choose to take. Assuming your guy's basically a good person who loves you, try to behave as if you haven't forgotten that you love him. Even when you hate him a little.
Unfortunately, change is hard. Behaviors become habits, and the personality traits that contribute to them are biologically driven. However, psychologist Art Markman explains that we can structure our environment to help us reshape our behavior. In "Smart Change," he advises building a reminder to do a desired behavior into your environment in a way that it can't be avoided. Upon repeating a new behavior about 20 times, you create the beginnings of a new habit.
In your situation, this could even be fun. Each night for a few weeks, leave a sheet of paper with a different message on his pillow, maybe starting with a Magic Markered smiling cartoon hamper saying, "Feed meeee!" (One night, you could even tuck the hamper in under the covers.) Should you fail to amuse him out of his laundry-leaving ways, try to maintain perspective. Consider the idiocy of some people who say they'll do "anything" for love: move, quit, give up the British throne (sadly, a moot point for most of us). Their stance only changes once they have love -- at which point "anything" involves stopping just short of picking up a small fabric item from the rug.
My husband passed away almost a year ago. For the last five or so years of his life, he was in pretty bad shape. Picture wheelchair, diapers I had to change, body I had to wash. Running home from work at lunch to take care of him. The whole nine yards.
People would marvel at me that I did so much and still had a happy disposition. I explained two things. 1- I did it because it had to be done. And 2- It's not hard to be happy when you smile.
Really, if you act happy, turns out you feel happy. If you act loving, you feel loving.
I have a new beau now and recently moved in with him. Sorry Amy, both of us are almost 60, we don't have that many years to figure out if its right or not.
The thing that drew him to me is the same attitude. He's the most thoughtful man I have ever met and truly espouses the "act loving, feel loving" thing.
When you get that, the socks on the floor, the missing pasta fork, the dog vomit ... none of it touches your feelings for each other.
Would I change his diapers if needed? Hell yes, that's what love is all about. Picking up dirty clothes or changing diapers are just degrees.
Oh, and why doesn't milk come from pirates?
Annie at December 30, 2015 6:51 AM
Annie, I think you just won the internetz for all eternity. If things don't work out with the new guy, will you marry me?
bkmale at December 30, 2015 8:51 AM
Thanks bk, but nah, I'll win the interwebz when I figure out how to get milk from pirates.
Until then, I'm not much different from a lot of people. We're out there in droves, but it's usually the whiners and complainers that get attention.
Annie at December 30, 2015 9:57 AM
Forget the hamper. Use a laundry basket, and put it where he undresses. I do this myself, and used this method with my kids when they were little.
With my kids, I even had them sort their clothes as they threw them into different colored baskets. They though it was fun! It made laundry day easier for me.
For an adult, he should be able to at least get all his clothes into a conveniently placed basket.
FetchinGretchen at December 30, 2015 9:58 AM
My husband leaves his clothes on my mirror. So every day I do a sweep of the area and dump everything into the laundry basket. It's not a huge deal. We all are kinda messy in the family, I bake and sew and that makes a mess, but I go through periodically and straighten up and declutter.
NicoleK at December 30, 2015 11:30 AM
Don't do what the ex did, which is lie to him or herself about how much it affects her, and expect him to read minds and change something he is happy with.
"It's no big deal for me to pick this stuff up, as I feel like I'm showing him love by caretaking." I'm not a big fan of this statement. It's basically saying I'm doing things my way or the way I feel they should be done, and that shows I love him.
Joe J at December 30, 2015 6:33 PM
OK socks and underwear yeah, but I was going to wear the T shirt and sweats again. You keep putting my stuff in the hamper and washing it, like EVERYTIME I wear it.
I just hope she doesn't resent the volume of laundry on top of it.
smurfy at December 31, 2015 4:00 PM
Snicker.
He's behaving the way he was raised/is comfortable with/does not care how you feel/creates extra work for you.
Are you raising your kids different (room clean, homework done, limiting device/TV time)?
Doubt it, and you (parents of both genders) resent/dislike comments ("They are old enough to ...").
My niece just spent almost over 100 days in Seton Medical Center at her daughters side (on ECMO machines and yes I meant plural) and came home to house that was so messy she is still upset about it. (At least 4 'adults' living there (teenager, 22 year old w/spouse, plus others in/out yet no one cleaned?).
No surprise as that behavior was the norm. Mommy did the cleaning. So treat like it's normal and it becomes normal. Not uncaring just normal.
Bob in Texas at January 1, 2016 6:40 AM
There comes a time when hints, and nudges become a serious irritating nagging problem that will ruin a relationship.
Before you cross the line into a sock Shrew, it is good to determine if the socks on the floor is a deal breaker. If it is, and gentle persuasion, and hints don't work, drop it or find yourself a small condo where you can live alone.
Isab at January 1, 2016 9:02 PM
Or, how's about just don't pick them up for him? One assumes he'll get around to it eventually, maybe when he runs out of clean ones.
Or are you doing his laundry too? If you are, he better be paying all your bills, or something significantly similar. Too many couples quickly and easily fall into the "women do everything around the house AND work too, nowadays" trap. And sorry, but if he mows the yard, well, that's once a week or so, a couple months a year. Oil changes? 4 times a year. Not quite like the daily grind of household chores.
momof4 at January 2, 2016 6:11 PM
What makes it a dealbreaker for me and pirate wench is that there's a lot more than just socks and undies... boxes, tools, catalogs, dog toys, and gawdknows what else. I'm afraid to climb over all the cr@p to my assigned side of her bed... which is a disaster of its own.
jefe at January 3, 2016 5:54 PM
M4, around here, the only time of year when there isn't lawn maintenance to be done is between December and February. And I'm the primary kitchen cleaner, floor vacuumer and mopper, and we split the bathrooms -- generally she does the master bath and I do the others. And there isn't a weekend that goes by that there isn't something in the house that needs maintaining, whether it's cleaning the filters in the dishwasher or fixing a leaking garden hose or glueing back together some knickknack of hers that has broken or changing light bulbs in some hard-to-reach fixture. I also do my fair share of the cooking.
And she isn't the one who will be getting out of bed and going up into the attic at 2 AM to put a bucket underneath a roof leak. She's particular about laundry and I'm generally not allowed to touch it, but if a hose bursts in the washing machine and it floods, I know who will be fixing it and cleaning it up.
Cousin Dave at January 4, 2016 9:05 AM
@"Until then, I'm not much different from a lot of people. We're out there in droves"
I think it may be partly a generational thing; today's generation of women have been brainwashed with destructive feminist notions like 'never do anything for a man', let alone domestic work like picking up socks.
Lobster at January 7, 2016 4:06 PM
today's generation of women have been brainwashed with destructive feminist notions like 'never do anything for a man'
Recall this column wherein a woman was thinking it would be fun to dye her hair, right up until her boyfriend suggested it.
All of a sudden an idea she liked became "unfeminist" because someone with a penis liked it as well.
lujlp at January 8, 2016 11:12 PM
http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2015/01/i-would-dye-for.html
lujlp at January 8, 2016 11:18 PM
Thanks lujlp! I missed that column. It was a blast.
I loved Fredericks of Hollywood stuff for my partners so I missed the pitfall of asking for hair color to be changed (straight to wigs and 'costumes').
Really cool was the'adult' store run by a really nice older Jewish lady.
She was a hoot w/her 'no holds barred' comments ("Honey, you would drive him crazy in this!" "Honey, have you tried a 'rabbit'?").
It was fun going in that store. (As you can tell from the "Honey" it was in the South.)
Bob in Texas at January 12, 2016 6:23 AM
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