“I thought we were the only ones…”: Clutter clashes
by Mira and Charles on January 8th, 2010This is the first of what will be an occasional series on problems that people think affect only them but are in fact surprisingly common. Today’s problem: clutter. As in: “Why can’t you get rid of those piles of magazines in the living room?” “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my magazines; this is the way I like to live. It’s homey.” “It’s not homey. It’s a f—king mess. I’m ashamed to bring people over.” “Oh, grow up. No one cares.”
And on the fights go. Most people in this situation are amazed to find that other couples fight over this. But they do. Lots and lots of couples. One woman’s clothing is always piled up all over the bedroom. One guy has bills and work stuff littered all over the dining room. One person leaves little piles of unfinished business all over the house.
Now the thing about these fights that make them so hard is that we get terribly frustrated because it always seems so easy for the other person to fix the problem. “Why can’t you just ignore it?” “Why can’t you just put your stuff away?”
What could be easier than that, right? Uh…no. This is often one of the hardest problems to solve.
So why is such an “easy” problem so hard to solve?
It’s actually surprisingly complicated. One part is the personality clash part. You know, the whole Felix/Oscar Odd Couple thing. Neat freak meets mess maker. Some of us like to put our time into putting things away. And some of like to let it all hang out. Now when a neat freak marries a neat freak, they can still find reasons to fight about stuff, but that will be one hell of a neat house. Two slobs: you wouldn’t want to visit there. But when you have one of each, the stage is set for conflict.
This is actually no different from any other couple problem where there is a difference between the people: a morning person vs. a night person; one likes sex often, the other not so often; a spender vs. a saver. Then it’s not just that you have a difference. The difference becomes polarized; the separation gets greater. It soon seems as though the two people were more different than they really are. And the next step into hell comes when they each try to convince the other that he or she is insane or evil. “What is wrong with you that you have to keep these piles of magazines? You must be crazy.” “Why can’t you just leave me alone? What are you, the neatness Nazi?” Oh yeah. That happens. All the time.
Another part of the problem is peculiar to the clutter issue. Every once in a while people go on a de-cluttering kick. It takes a lot of time and effort, neither of which people have. Then things are neat again. Then there is one little piece added. One dress neatly draped over the chair in the bedroom. But then somehow that one piece of clutter attracts more and before you know it you’re back where you were before. Except that your even angrier than before.
OK, so what then are the solutions?
There are actually a lot of solutions. And that’s the point. This is one of those problems that really responds to being tackled on every level you can think of.
And here’s what you do.
First, you talk to each other. Not the angry harangues you’ve had already. But a nice, calm conversation in which you try to understand the situation from the other person’s perspective. This is all about listening and creativity. You ask questions like:
“Why is this so important to you?”
“What is it about this that is most important to you?”
“What solutions would you be willing to try?”
Then you see what you have to work with. It might be a lot. You might find, for example, that your partner isn’t married to his or her problem. He is just as frustrated with himself for his mess as you are, or she is just as upset with herself for getting upset as you are. Very often you find that it’s been your anger with each other that’s blocked your being able to find a solution.
Next, you tackle the non-clutter person’s problem. What, you ask, would you need to just not see the mess, or not be bothered by it, or be able to tolerate it? The first response might be “Nothing” but keep working on this. Ask the question: “What would you need to just let go of this?” You might just find some interesting solutions grow out of this. Sometimes there is another underlying problem that comes out: “You know, I wouldn’t mind your clothes being strewn all over the bedroom if you didn’t bug me to do some chore the minute I got home from work.” And now you’ve got the beginning of a solution.
Next, if that doesn’t work, you tackle things from the clutterer’s side. Here the question is, first, what’s the deal here? People clutter for a lot of different reasons. Sometimes they just like to have their stuff around. Well, maybe then don’t need so much of their stuff. Sometimes they hate having it around but they just don’t know where to put it. So maybe this is a storage problem. Sometimes they are so pressed for time that they just can’t get to it. So it’s really a time problem.
Once you know the Why? of the clutter, a solution is much closer to hand. You focus on the Why? and very often the problem goes away.
But what if it feels as though you have reached a complete impasse?
Check to see if the neat person can solve the problem for the cluttering person. This is sort of on the principle of: If it bothers you so much, why don’t you do something about it? Now this usually requires a trade off. “OK, I’ll put your clothes away, if you’ll do something for me.” This is often the easiest solution. “You mean I can just drop my stuff in the hallway when I get home and you’ll put it away as long as I take you out to dinner once a week? Deal!”
There are other approaches.
You could, for example, ask an outsider to referee this. Not necessarily a therapist. Maybe just a trusted friend. You say: “You tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.”
You could check out the possibility that there is a more serious relationship problem underlying this. Maybe work with a good therapist would put the focus on more important issues, and if you tackle those, the clutter conflict will resolve itself. Lots of times people in a relationship just don’t feel loved, for example, and this reduces their motivation to tolerate or reduce clutter. When people feel loved, or respected, or desired, or whatever, a lot of other problems magically disappear.
If you’re still at an impasse, there are still a lot of solutions. In Our Love Is Too Good to Feel So Bad in the chapters on Needs Disease and on Difference Sickness we outline all kinds of solutions.
If nothing works, you face a stark choice. Live with the problem or leave the relationship. The clutter problem is either too small to end your relationship, in which case you just have to stop stressing over it, or it’s too big to live with, in which case you have to stop living with each other. For help with this decision, check out the classic Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. The one thing you must not do is continue to make each other suffer.
Unless you want something to fight about. Some people do.
January 9th, 2010 at 4:22 am
Thank you for calling attention to this serious problem, that can be life threatening. Clearly it is difficult for anyone who does not suffer from a cluttering problem to understand what it is like to be paralyzed emotionally and unable to let go of things that appear to be trash to others. Thank god there is a 12 step group for people who are desperate to help themselves through fellowship, action and provides tools to let go of things one day at a time. Clutterers Anonymous http://www.clutterersanonymous.net