I’ve been with my partner for a year and the cleanliness of his house has been a consistent issue throughout the relationship, although it’s a lot worse now.
I used to help him with the house a lot because he was struggling mentally and I wanted to take a load off his plate. I’d help hoover, do his laundry, dishes, take the bins out etc. I didn’t mind at first but I’ve started to resent him for his lack of cleaning.
Whenever he has guests over he will clean the flat himself. I brought up how he never cleans before I come over and how I felt like he didn’t respect me, and he says the reason is because he feels comfortable around me.
He lives alone and I live in a tiny room in a shared house (my bed takes up half my room), so it’s a lot harder to spend time at my house.
It’s not just dirty dishes in the sink, it’s maggots in the bin, food on the floor, stains in the toilet, toothpaste all over the sink, the bath is never cleaned and neither are any of the floors. I’m losing my mind. I love him but the state of his house is making me want to end things. I don’t feel attracted to him right now either, it’s also really hard to get in the mood when there’s stuff absolutely everywhere.
How do I address this in a way that won’t make him feel horrible? Is it hopeless? Should I just accept he’s never going to change and move on? Am I expecting too much?
tl;dr boyfriend never cleans his flat and it’s making me resent him and lose attraction to him
35 comments
Yuck. And how’s his mental health now? Does he help? He might be enabled by the fact you do everything for him
He’s a 30 yo man. If you have to nag him to clean now you should end things or you’ll be nagging him the rest of your life. Also, are you mature enough to be in a serious relationship if you can’t talk to him about this openly? “the fact that you lack basic cleaning skills and let your house become disgusting is a turn off for me” would be a good place to start.
>How do I address this in a way that won’t make him feel horrible?
It helps to use “I statements”. Stick to observations, facts, and how things make you feel (ie. “The state of cleanliness of the place when I’m over makes it difficult for me to get in an intimate mood, and I feel gross” or “I don’t feel comfortable having to remind my partner to clean up after themselves”). Minimize judgments, assumptions, and accusations.
It also helps to emphasize mutual cooperation. Pose the problem as an issue that should be important to BOTH of you – it’s existence causes issues for both of you, and resolving it would make things better for both of you. Express how you’d like to work together to find a realistic solution that you can both commit to, rather than impose something onto him.
These are ways to effectively communicate your needs and perspective in the hopes that they’ll consider your views and change their own habits. But you can’t change anyone. **The most you can do is maximize your chances of being understood, but it’s not a guarantee.** With that in mind, you know your own limits of how much you’re willing to tolerate before you go “sorry, I’m done”. We can’t decide that for you.
Best of luck, OP.
I couldn’t deal with this. You are not expecting too much by wanting him to get his grown up shit together.
Just tell him how it is: he can start cleaning up or you’ll stop coming over. Like, maggots? Really? Hell no.
He’s already stated you’re not worth cleaning up for. If he never had guests over his house would probably be filthy all the time, that’s who he is. You won’t be able to change him.
That’s exactly how it would be if you moved in with him. You’d be doing all the cleaning and he will not change. You think this is killing your attraction now? Imagine living in his filth.
“Expecting too much”. The bar for men is truly in hell. You think not having maggots is too high a bar?
He needs therapy
You don’t to be his mother for the rest of your days.
Break up, go NO CONTACT, BLOCK him everywhere.
> It’s not just dirty dishes in the sink, it’s maggots in the bin
Alright time to end it
Insist that you do it together. After dinner together say: “let’s spend 15 minutes on the kitchen together.” Or “I don’t want to stay over tonight with the smell in the house. Let’s spend 15 minutes now emptying the trash and wiping the counters together. You start with taking out the trash from all the rooms, I’ll start with the kitchen counters.”
I tend to see ADHD and overwhelm in each of these posts, since I was that guy, at times and my ex wife is still him.
For me, the idea that I didn’t have to do it Alll at once and to perfection was a lesson learned late in life. My new partner and I do these after dinner short stints and it keeps things in check and I am slowly but surely getting to be a cleaner. I am in my 50’s.
Jesus Christ – maggots and toilet stains? He needs some help. Is he in any kind of therapy?
I don’t think anyone would blame you for leaving. Mental health struggles can be really hard on partners, and you shouldn’t feel guilty if you’re not able to fix someone. If you want to leave, you probably won’t be able to avoid making him feel horrible, but you have to be kind to yourself sometimes too. If you clean up after him for years and years, neither of you will like who you have become by the end of it.
You need to figure out why your bar is so low. Normal women would have left at just the maggots
I’d have a conversation about it. People can change at the margins. He’s not likely to wholesale become a neat freak but it might get better at the margins with you making it clear that it’s a big deal for you.
I’m guessing he’s just waiting for a wifey who will do it all for him. If he’s capable of cleaning for company, then that means he has the ability to do it and understands that it should be done. The fact that you’re coming over doesn’t inspire him to clean because he ultimately doesn’t feel like it should be his job. Why should a man ever clean for a woman?
That’s just my guess at least. It’s probably not worth it to try to help him “see” your POV. He understands it because he cleans for others, he just doesn’t care.
If you can’t do the basics in life, the minimum standards, dodge
How did you not immediately run out of the place screaming? I’d throw up and never want to see them again.
Ick.
That will be the rest of your life with him. He’ll never change and suddenly start caring about you as much as he cares for his guests. Comftorbility isn’t an excuse at this point, he’s a lazy slob.
Never date a poo scribble leaver. Never.
It’s so typically woman to want to protect some man’s feelings who is being absolutely fucking vile. Girl, he SHOULD feel horrible that his house is infested with maggots omg. No, he’s NEVER going to change. He isn’t even embarrassed to live in absolute squalor. You are not expecting too much but you need to move on and establish some standards for yourself.
I help clean my boyfriend’s apt from time to time. He keeps it pretty good on his own though. Lately he’s had to travel a lot for work and has been extremely stressed with his job. So when he’s gone and I stop by I’ll clean the kitty boxes and play with the cats for a bit, I’ll vacuum their fur up, clean up around the kitchen. He doesn’t need to come home to a mess. And when we’re both there I empty the bins and change the toilet paper rolls and do dishes. The difference here is, we BOTH do that. There’s no maggots, mud, dirt, rotten food, moldy dishes, or shit stained toilets. He had this figured out before me. I’m not his mama. You’re this dudes mama, OP.
From personal experience, he is very unlikely to change.
When I lived with my ex, I did all the cleaning. It didn’t bother me much for years, but it gets old. I started resenting him. I felt that my options were to do it all myself or live in filth. And I’d tell him those options weren’t fair, and he’d insist we wouldn’t live in filth and that he’d eventually clean up. (He never would ofc)
Since we’ve broken up, I’ve been by his place a couple times and it’s sooo disgusting. I care about my ex too but I can’t deal that shit. It’s unfair and disrespectful to me and my time. Even if he’s depressed, it’s not good for *my* mental health to take everything on.
You really need to give your partner an ultimatum. Maggots, really? That’s unacceptable if you’re going to be together.
Don’t be his mom/maid. He’s taking advantage of you. He should at least get a roomba to help vacuum the floors.
If you two ever live together, you’d be the designated housekeeper. And every time you remind him to do his share, he’ll gaslight you as a nag and a harpy. Or he’ll use other excuses besides his mental health.
That’s your future.
If your partner is anything like my wife, they probably won’t change, and it will get worse. Hope everything works out for you.
Think you’re unattracted now? Wait til you live with him. If you ever move in together, amplify this issue x 100. You’re going to be cleaning after him constantly. You will become a maid and he will throw trash and be sloppy and it will become your life. This is a man that deserves to be alone and to wallow in his own shit as a single forever bachelor dog-dad. Look, you could get a UTI or sick, babe. This is low value unattractive behaviour. You’re 26, he’s 30. You have time to get over this and find a new man, but also …not too much time. Soon you’ll be 30 and still mopping up his crap and dirt. Do you really want that for yourself? Give it a few months, a bit of crying, and you’ll get over him completely. Next thing you know you’re excitedly sitting in the fresh apartment of a new guy who excites you and trashman is a distant memory. Stop doing this to yourself, bestieeee.
So when I started dating my now, ex, he was living in his parents basement. I had moved back to the city I lived in before, which is where I met him and I was currently staying at my moms, so I didn’t want to bring him there.
The first time I went there, it was so-so clean, but not really. The next time I went there, I didn’t feel comfortable, and I asked him if he minded if I cleaned up a little. He didn’t. Of course.
Then I started going there on weekends, before I felt like I could relax I would dust and vacuum and change the bed and clean the washroom (he use their kitchen because they were always gone).
And then that became the routine. Eventually, we spoke about marriage, and I did bring up the fact that he was pretty lazy. He admitted to slacking off, but said when we got married, he would absolutely be doing his fair share.
Pfft. That never happened. I did my share, and I did most of his share, for the entirety of our marriage. When the kids came along, I did my share and most of his share, and then there was the mental load on top of everything else. it was a massive turn off. But I believed that he would be doing it differently and what I did instead was ignore the red flags waving in front of me.
I find people are generally clean people, or they aren’t. And if you get into a relationship with someone where you are picking up after them, you are going to resent it and you are going to be turned off. No one wants to be a parent to a partner. There isn’t a bigger mood killer than that
So I’m going to say that him telling you he doesn’t clean before you come because he’s comfortable around you. It’s just an excuse to be lazy and have you do it. Miracles happen, but I wouldn’t count on him doing anything any differently. And maggots??? Yikes!!!
The cleaning is symptom. What is the real problem?
He’s 30. He should have this stuff under control now.
Go. Go away from him.
You lost me at maggots! Yuck!
I can totally see how that would be a cause for lost attraction. I also would question someone’s personal hygiene if he was comfortable with maggots crawling around.
Decide if this is a dealbreaker to you, and it’s totally ok if it is.
Everyone has a baseline of cleanliness that they are comfortable with in their own home. Obviously, it’s a little different for everyone, and often in different ways (ie, my husband has a higher threshold of cleanliness than me, but he also has less of an issue with clothes-on-the-floor than I do).
THIS is your boyfriend’s baseline:
>maggots in the bin
>
>food on the floor
>
>stains in the toilet
>
>toothpaste all over the sink
You could break both my legs and I would STILL never let my living space devolve to this degree. I imagine the same is true for most people. Even factoring in mental health struggles, what you’ve described is below what most people would consider habitable for humans.
It’s great (?) your partner feels comfortable around you, except for the fact that even at his BEST, his baseline of cleanliness is below what you consider tolerable. It sounds like you were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and give him a chance to improve, but instead of getting better, he’s gotten worse. And guess what? He will only get WORSE from here.
Don’t date someone who is comfortable living in filth. Just don’t. If it hurts his feelings that you don’t like living in filth, then that’s his problem. He can take it as a sign to get his shit together for the next girlfriend, or learn to live in his filth alone.
You are not expecting too much. Not being forced to endure absolute squalor is the bare minimum. I would not share my life with someone who not only cannot contribute to keeping a home sanitized and livable, but also apparently doesn’t even see what a major problem being incapable of that is
I personally think if you are at the point of losing attraction to someone, softening your words is just going to give them the wrong idea. If I were in your shoes I would not hesitate to be clear that you find lack of cleanliness unattractive and that the state of the house is a dealbreaker. The problem? Well, that might scare him into being uncomfortable enough to clean for awhile, but what happens when he gets “comfortable” again?
The fact that he’s been a slob for a year does not bode well for the ups and downs of life. What happens if he improves, but goes through a period of depression in the future because of loss of a job or parents? What happens when he is suffering from more health issues as he ages? You need to know that when life gets tough, he can do the bare minimum of keeping maggots out of his house
At this point, you’re deep enough in to know this is a huge problem, but not so deep in to not be able to break up with him. I think the writing is on the wall here
Deal breaker for me. How much filth do you want in your life?
Good lord is the bar this low for straight men?
I that’s a dealbreaker.
If it is already that bad, do you think it will get any better?
You don’t have to stay with him and the reason can be that he never cleans his house. He is thirty. If he didn’t have his shit together now, he never will. Cut your losses and move on.
You’re with him for a year and you are managing the house because he can’t even pretend to be clean to keep you. Remove yourself from this situation. If he can clean the house for others, he can do it for you or for himself. He just doesn’t want to.
>How do I address this in a way that won’t make him feel horrible?
You don’t worry about not making him feel horrible. This is disgusting and he should feel horrible.
>says the reason is because he feels comfortable around me
Well that’s a big fat admission isn’t it? He saying “I don’t mind you seeing the real me, and this is it“. You’re right, he doesn’t respect you. He doesn’t even respect himself. I feel as comfortable as one possibly could around my significant of over a decade, and I still straighten up a little extra right before he comes over… Because that’s who I am. Your boyfriend is showing you he is. You have to believe him.
First thing you do is STOP going over there. Tell him if he wants you to come over that you expect it to be decent or you’re not coming. Or you will leave if it’s not. And then do that. If you walk in and see fucking maggots, turn around, and LEAVE. Yes, that means you won’t get to spend time together. That’s the point. Romance fun time is called off. He has to feel some sort of consequence for this nasty behavior, or he has no motivation to change. He still probably won’t, but that’s really the only thing you can try.
Honestly my second sons father is the same. His house is falling apart. Floor boards are coming up no ac in 115 degree weather. The bathtub fell through the ground he stuck another one in place. No food, toilet paper. No curtains on the windows. There’s roaches. Windows are broken out from his dog. And we fight and broke up because he wanted me to move into that home and he refuses to fix it up. I would always straighten up his house for him and clean up. You deserve a clean environment. This would always lead to me leaving him because he seen no issue then would guilt trip me to abandoning him because I refused to move into his home with my other son. You deserve better.