Dear Annie: I am at my wits’ end when it comes to my wife doing things around the house. For instance, I asked her to hang up the clothes for our bedroom that just came out of the dryer. Two hours later, I go in the bedroom, the clothes are half hung up and the entire contents of our closet shelves are spread all over our bed. My wife’s response was, “It needed to be done.” She starts to do one thing, never finishes and starts two more things.
Here’s another example: I asked her to put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Two hours later the dishwasher is still half-full and three cabinets are completely emptied out and all over the kitchen counters and table. My wife’s response was that “they didn’t fit back in properly so I needed to rearrange everything.”
My wife does this with all simple house tasks. I’m afraid to ask her to do anything, knowing that a simple task turns into hours of work and clutter all over the place. What do I do? She won’t really discuss or acknowledge it, and it prevents us from doing other things, like getting out of the house and enjoying things in life.
-- Wife Problem
Dear Problem: I can understand that this is frustrating. Your wife sounds like a perfectionist with lack of follow-through. A messy house can lead to a messy state of mind. It’s important to keep the dialogue open. Don’t attack her; just tell her how you feel when you walk into a cluttered, messy room. It clearly upsets you. She might say that it doesn’t bother her at all. Thus the compromise of marriage begins.
Make sure you have your clean spaces, and she can have her own messy places if she wants. Where you both share space, hopefully when you tell her how the mess makes you feel, she will listen more to your concerns. You could outsource the cleaning or create a schedule for the two of you to have cleanup time together.
Dear Annie: Over the years, I have read numerous letters to advice columnists from women complaining their man doesn’t show the amount of affection they want. Most advice has usually been for them to tell him what they want.
But my question is, what’s the problem with showing him? I can’t remember reading letters from women who say their man pushes them away when they hug, kiss or take his hand or arm while walking? Affection usually breeds affection, unless there really is little love there to begin with.
-- Give Affection to Get Affection
Dear Affection: Thank you for your letter and sound suggestion. I’m sure you are correct that giving affection leads to getting more affection in most cases. It reminds me of a happiness study conducted that said if you smile at strangers in an airport, they usually smile back at you, but if you frown at people, they frown back at you. That is with complete strangers -- so your theory of giving more affection to your partner and getting more might be just the answer.