Helping a disorganized and messy spouse

FrICTION Married to a clutter bug: messy house and unpaid pills

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"Our life is a mess.... literally"

We talk to Greg, 49, who lives with a clutterbug. His wife doesn't help clean their house; she leaves clothes and paperwork over the floor of every room, doesn't pay bills on time, hasn't filed her taxes for years, misses appointments and loses important items. Greg is on the verge of walking out of the marriage.

Question: Greg, are you a neat freak?

Greg: Not at all. I'm normal, I think. I can leave unwashed dishes overnight. I've been known to drop my running clothes on the family room floor and forget about them. But basically I'm tidy because tidiness works best for me. I can't work in clutter. I get confused and overwhelmed if there is too much clutter around me.

Question: Tell us, what does your house look like? How untidy is it?

Greg: It looks like the municipal garbage dump. There are books, papers, clothes, and junk on the floor of every room except the kitchen. My wife's bedroom -- I've moved out of the bedroom -- is the untidiest in the house. There are suitcases, dirty clothes, books, unpaid bills and letters all over the floor. I don't go in there anymore, but if I did it would be impossible to enter without stepping on a whole load of crap.

Question: Is there any room in the house that is tidy?

Greg: Yes, my office. I keep it spotless. I'm trying to make a point to my wife that tidiness is not difficult. I let her work in there but she has to tidy up when she's finished. If she doesn't, I put her stuff in boxes on the floor. So far I've filled four boxes with her stuff. I don't throw her stuff away.

Question: Do you try to tidy the house?

Greg: I used to but it felt hopeless after a while. No matter how much I tidied there'd be junk all over the floor by the end of the day. I then focused on a few rooms: the family room in case anyone called by, the kitchen, and my office. But that didn't work. It became a fulltime job tidying up after her, and she got annoyed I was doing it. She said I was policing her behavior.

Question: Would you be embarrassed if a friend or colleague visited and saw how you lived?

Greg: I will not let that happen! A few weeks ago our next door neighbor had a medical condition which meant an ambulance was at her house, the police were there too and they called at our house to ask if I could look after the woman's dog for a couple of hours. You could see the shock and surprise on the officer's face when he saw the floor of the family room. It looked like someone had just tossed papers, books, clothes, bags all over the floor. I was ashamed. I tidied it up. Next day, it looked pretty much the same.

Question: And you are sure your wife is responsible for all this untidiness?

Greg: Yes, it's her stuff. She'll do things like empty her purse on the floor when she's looking for something, then she'll leave the mess there. When she comes home, she'll toss her coat and other clothes on the floor and leave them there. The stuff just builds up.

Question: Are there any other problems in your household other than the clutter?

Greg: The first sign of trouble was shortly after we got married. The phone got disconnected. That was odd to me because we had plenty of money, I assumed we paid our bills on time. My wife had taken on the job of paying that particular bill. I figured there was a mistake, called the phone company and they told me they'd sent out a bunch of reminders. They had no choice but to cut off the phone.

Question: Did you talk to your wife about this?

Greg: Yes, she said she was so busy she hadn't gotten round to it, which seemed plausible. She said it wouldn't happen again, but it kept happening so I started to pay all the bills.

Question: You say you weren't short of money?

Greg: No, we both had, and still have, good jobs. She's a manager of a department in a business. Her desk at work is very untidy.

Question: You've described clutter, unpaid bills, anything else?

Greg: A complete lack of organization, an inability to plan ahead, missed appointments. We might agree to meet in a restaurant at a certain time and she'll turn up 30 minutes or even an hour late. At first, I excused it, then it bugged me, then I couldn't take it anymore so I avoided those situations

Question: Did you explain your frustration to her?

Greg: Yes I did, and I lost my temper a few times. When you are hanging around waiting for someone to turn up, half an hour can seem a very long time. She always had an excuse, rarely apologized, which made matters worse for me.

Question: This sounds inconvenient but not impossible to live with.

Greg: It's difficult, but the deal breaker for me was when we started getting letters from the IRS saying there was a lien on our house, then they started taking money out of her bank account. She refused to talk about it but I found out she hadn't filed her taxes for the past five years. We file separately. I assumed her taxes were in order like mine are. At one point the IRS was coming after her for $30,000. It scared the hell out of me. We got an accountant, the amount was reduced, but it still didn't wake her up enough to file after that. I don't think she has filed since that brush with the IRS in 2006.

Question: That must place a big strain on your relationship.

Greg: It almost ended the marriage for me. Well, it did end it in many ways because I don't trust her anymore. It turned me against her. That's when my love for her disappeared.

Question: The IRS stopped you loving your wife?

Greg: Sounds silly when you put it that way. It was her willingness to jeopardize our family's finances that ended my love for her. Plus that she kept all this secret from me.

Question: She must have been embarrassed and ashamed?

Greg: I suppose so. I think she ignores these problems, hoping they'll go away. She doesn't open letters. That's how the phone got cut off.

Question: Do you think the untidiness and disorganization have gotten worse in recent years?

Greg: Absolutely, no doubt about it. Recently, she's been losing her keys, her purse. Once she called from work to say that her car keys had been stolen. I didn't believe it but I played along. Sure enough, the keys were in her office. She lost the family's passports so I had to go through the headache of applying for a new passport. It's one mess after the other. I started to worry that Alzheimer's might be kicking in.

Question: Has she ever sought help? Counseling?

Greg: She won't admit she has a problem, or she'll say I'm the one who needs therapy. I really wish she would seek help because I am at the end of my tether. I have never been this unhappy. I am sure my wife is miserable. Our sex life is non-existent. We don't sleep in the same room, don't do anything together. We don't fight, it's more that we ignore each other.

Question: Does your wife have periods when she is happy?

Greg: Not that I am aware of. Perhaps she is happy at work. At home she seems constantly sad. There are one or two occasions when she hasn't been able to find something important and she'll start to tidy a room, then she'll get distracted and abandon the job. It's happened that she will want to branch off in a new direction, get a new job, which she'll talk about for a while, but that's all it is, talk. I am no expert but she seems very depressed to me, and she has this fuzzy, unfocused anxiety about things, a constant worrying. Sad and anxious is how I would describe her.

Question: How do you think you can help her?

Greg: I am out of ideas. I try to have constructive talks with her, "Let's get a plan together, let's work on these problems". She'll listen a while, then she'll say I'm beating her up. She's also told me if I don't like the situation I can leave.

Question: Are you thinking of leaving?

Greg: Yes, I am. It's not the easiest decision to make at 49, the upheaval of separation and divorce, starting over again. Sometimes it seems easier to put up with life's crap. At least I have a roof over my my head.

Question: But you're not happy?

Greg: No, I am not happy at all. Happiness is a luxury right now. I'm afraid, too, that she's going to get worse.

Question: If your wife improved, if you both could get your house in shape, if she somehow got organized, would you want to keep trying?

Greg: I'm not sure I would anymore. To me, when love dies it's very hard, perhaps impossible, to revive it. Too much harm has been done. How many times can you forgive? How many times can you lose a fight and still be willing to face the future with enthusiasm. There's a limit to everything.

Question: What are your hopes?

Greg: I'd love to find an organized woman, not a neat freak, fall in love, be happy, work hard, make some money, build a good home, have some kids.

Question: Good luck with that, Greg.

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