They say opposites attract. What we wish we had in ourselves we seek out in others. Maybe this is our hope that those qualities will rub off on us a little. Or maybe it is the universe’s way of showing us to be careful what you wish for, because you were just fine the way you were.
Sometimes these differences pull us out of our comfort zone and result in expanding our life experiences, if we are open to it. This could be the introvert/extrovert couple who travel together. It could be the active/sedentary couple who exercise together.
Sometimes these differences put you face to face with the ongoing challenge of remembering what qualities you love about your partner. Without these important reminders, one could become focused on that one little pebble in the shoe of life that becomes all you can think about during every step.
In our house we are the odd coupling of neat spouse/messy spouse.
There is a difference between neat and clean. Even as the neat spouse I can confess I’m not the best at cleaning. I am a clean person in that I shower every day and put on fresh clothes. Well, almost every day. Sundays don’t really count, do they? Even God took one day to rest.
Cleaning the house, on the other hand, is an admittedly arduous process. I’ll level with you. I picked out flooring and wall colors based on which would hide dirt and smudges from my dogs’ feet the most, and therefore require the least actual cleaning to still appear clean-ish. The only thing that got me to start vacuuming once a week was adopting a dog with allergies, and being willing to declare war on every possible allergen in our attempts to decrease her itching.
I have a harder time seeing the difference between messy and dirty. Maybe this is hypocritical. But in my defense, I think it’s far too easy for germs and insect-magnet gook to build up in areas you can’t monitor because they are hidden by so much stuff. At least when you can see an area every day it gives you some motivation to actually cleanse it when it appears grimy. Out of sight, out of mind is a bit scarier when it’s associated with creepy crawly things.
I also think there is a fine line between unorganized and messy. What starts out as unorganized can easily snowball into messy, and we’ve already talked about the impending avalanche from messy to dirty. It’s all a slippery slope.
My husband is the messy spouse, though he will try to spin it as being a free-spirit. Free spirit’s live outside the lines. They can’t be confined to a labeled box, he would say. Maybe that’s why he thinks their clothes can’t be confined to a drawer or closet.
I would ask that a free spirit at least not drop it’s clothing on the floor as it walks and undresses, because since a free spirit usually never looks back, it never notices that path of dirty clothes ever again. I would assert that one’s spirit could still remain free even if they circled back once a day to pick up dirty socks.
I never had biological children, and my husband’s sons live in another state, so I’ve never had the every day privilege of being a mom to human children. I completely consider myself a mom to my dogs, but that’s another blog.
Maybe cleaning up sticky peanut butter and jelly off the counter, because free spirits don’t like to be bound by plates, is his way of gifting me with that daily parent/child experience. Or maybe, it is his clever way of allowing me the chance to work on the virtue of patience and acceptance.
Ironically, when I do break down and clear his dirty dishes from the sink, he usually says he was just about to do it. Maybe he is helping me uncover an unrealized talent for telepathy. I have done experiments to see if I really do just have consistently coincidental timing. Most of the time I don’t get longer than a week before I can’t take it anymore and just wash them myself. So I don’t think it’s my timing.
As I look around my kitchen I realize one could easily detective together our household events of the last month. On the counter lays a cordless phone with it’s base – waiting for a fresh battery so answering it won’t hang up before we have the chance to say “hello”. On the table is the package of our new bathroom faucets, still waiting to be installed. Since water still pours out of the old ones when we turn the knobs, that job has fallen to the bottom of the “to-do” list. On the floor is a box with a new treadmill belt, a Christmas present to me from my husband, waiting for there to be some free time to figure out how to put it on.
Do you see the trend? I could keep going but my husband will read this, and if I list too many things I’m looking at, he might think this article is just a creative way for me to nag him. I’m a nice person who avoids conflict, so I wouldn’t want that. But if the pile of wood from last autumn’s shed repair, or the copper pipes from this past winter’s plumbing job, in our back yard happened to disappear after he read this, that would be ok.
I’ve thought that maybe I am just making it too easy for him not to clean up after himself because he never ends up having to. But how messy and for how long does it have to go on before, if it doesn’t just get done, you’ve turned into “that house”? My own feeling of enhanced mental peace when things are in their place can only hold out for so long before it’s less stressful for me to just do it myself and restore that sense of minimalistic zen.
I have always thought it’s easier to maintain neatness, than to let it get out of control and have to re-achieve neat once it’s gotten too far out of control. “Clean as you go” has always been a good motto. I’m good at keeping things in structured piles, giving the illusion of a clean house, when actually it is just a neat house. You can get away with a thin layer of dust on everything if it all at least looks orderly.
My husband would probably debate the fine line between neat and OCD. I will admit, I do like a nice straight line, a crisp right angle, and the sigh of relief I get when things align in a nice organized pattern. But if neat equals obsessive and messy equals adult living in a frat house, I’m comfortable in my compulsion.
I guess in the big picture, opposites do help soften each other’s rough edges. Thanks to him, I’ve gotten more comfortable enjoying the end of a movie before I clean away the pizza box. And thanks to me, he doesn’t have to walk on a floor paved in tee-shirts.
……..And they lived Happily Ever After.