How Cluttering Affects Our Relationships With Others
Cluttering affects our relationships with others, especially our partners. Married couples are more likely to have one spouse who is a clutterer and one partner who doesn't clutter. This combination of cluttering and not-cluttering can be very damaging to a healthy relationship. But it can be solved.
Our survey of clutterers has indicated that more of us are in a relationship than not. Personal anecdotes have suggested that those relationships are less than harmonious due to our cluttering. And, some of us are holding onto relationships that don't serve us because of our feelings of helplessness and inferiority. Gads! What a tangled web.
Stress is part of life and living with someone else. We and our partners do not exist in vacuums. (I'm not talking about Hoovers). We have job stress. Kid stress. "Those people" who cut us off on the freeway stress. So, the minute we walk in the door, we bring some stress into our homes.
If we are walking into a jungle, where there are ill-defined paths from the front door to the rest of the house, we get a whole new set of stress. After we have navigated the piles of things that litter our houses, perhaps stepping on something that escaped from the top of a stack of boxes, we find our loving partner. The stress we walked in with has already been magnified many times.
It's easy for the non-clutterer to blame the clutterer for the mess. And, frankly, we probably are at fault. We don't clutter because we love our partner any less, but the end result, in his/her eyes, is that we are sabotaging the relationship.
The non-clutterer would like to take a steam shovel to our beloved piles of stuff and turn our hovel back into a home. This may have already happened once, and the anxiety it caused us was overwhelming. We want to do something, but we don't know where to start. We would like some help, but we don't want to be criticized when we can't make a decision on what to get rid of.
So What Can We Do About It?
Success Stories
The most gratifying feedback I have gotten has been from couples who've told me that before they started applying the principles in our book, or attending meetings, that they were on the verge of breaking up. Imagine that -- marriages saved because of Clutterless! It boggles the mind.
We make no pretense to being counselors of any kind, particularly marriage counselors, but when clutterers help clutterers, it is inevitable that some understanding occurs on many subjects.
"My husband was ready to leave me because of the clutter, until we started coming to meetings," one woman reported. "Now, we are able to work together without fighting. It is like a new lease on our lives."
"I just didn't understand why she kept all that junk," a husband said one night. "Lord knows I have tried to be understanding, but really, I just didn't understand." He smiled and continued, "I can't say that I truly understand why she holds onto so much stuff, but I do understand that she has complicated reasons. She doesn't even know what all they are. But that's okay. We are now able to talk about what's going on when we reach a stumbling block and work through it -- together."
"We used to fight all the time. We think the clutter was at the root of it," one couple spoke in tandem.
Clutterer -- "He would nag me. I would get my feelings hurt. We'd each fume in silence after a shouting match. Now, we work together on our piles. Because they really are our piles. We make a pact that he can wade in where I fear to tread, and make some sense of order, but that nothing gets discarded without my agreeing. Just knowing that he respects me makes it okay.
Non-clutterer -- "I have agreed to respect her because I love her. I used to nag and throw stuff away while she was gone. That never worked. Now, we can talk about it and work through it. We still don't get rid of enough things, in my opinion, but I can see progress. I have hope."
Meetings where both partners attend
A really rewarding happening at Clutterless meetings has been the change in couples' lives. Sometimes both partners will come to meetings. This is fine, as long as the non-clutterer listens to the part of our introduction where we say, "If you are here because of someone else's cluttering, please talk about how that affects you." So far, everyone has been respectful and no name-calling or blaming goes on. The non-clutterer is there because he/she cares and wants to help. The non-clutterer often had no idea of the emotional attachments we have for our clutter and learns a lot of insight.
Results when only the clutterer comes to a meeting
This is really more common. When we are free to talk about our partners, and get feedback from others on the issue, we begin to understand where they are coming from. When we make a certain part of the communal living area (the dining room table, the coffee table etc.) a "sacred space" and keep it clear, our partners are supportive. All it takes is a little progress to start the cycle of hope running.
Practical applications
As stated above, begin a decluttering project in the areas you share. Sometimes, the dining room table is covered with papers, mail and projects we're "gonna" do. "Gonna" don't cut it. Let's make a concerted effort on one area, maybe where our partner would like to put his dinner plate down wthout having to balance it. How big an area can that be? Six inches. Anyone can declutter six inches! Even if we have to resort to stuffing all those decision-making items into plastic bags, let's make the effort to clear a small space for our loved ones.
The important thing is to KEEP the space clear. Come hell or high water, do not put anything on that space. Do that for a couple of weeks and it will start to become a habit. Cluttering is a habit. NOT cluttering is a habit. Let's replace the old habits with new ones.
The bedroom should be a place of married bliss, not an archeological dig. First, let's put the books back where they live -- a bookcase? We probably have piles of clothes on the bed. If we can't deal with sorting them, let's at least put them in piles of "winter" and "summer." If we are not up to sorting and hanging and folding yet, it is probably a good time to bag the "summer" clothing and stash it.
Maybe decluttering for someone we love isn't a bad thing.
Those of us who are in 12-Step programs will cringe when we read this. 12-Step principles firmly state that we can't get better for someone else. We have to want to do it for ourselves, or our recovery won't happen. We don't dispute that. But, Clutterless is not a 12-Step program, and most of us are not in one. We believe that whatever can motivate us in the short-term and get us over our overwhelm, can help us on the road to living the way we want. Love is the most powerful motivator in the Universe, so let's use it.
The while issue here is to make a start. When our partner sees we are doing something, he/she will cut us some slack. Eventually, we have to make more progress, but let's do a little for love now. Maybe we couldn't declutter for ourselves, but there is nothing wrong with doing it for someone else. At least at first. Eventually, we have to want to be uncluttered for ourselves, but whatever works, works.