How a Messy Can Ruin Your Marriage & Steps to Reclaim Harmony

Some of us, like myself, faced shock when we moved in together after the wedding and discovered how slovenly our bride or groom had seemingly become overnight. We hear from just as many husbands as wives about the messiness of their homes.

Unfortunately, the clutter and chaos of a disorderly home impact both husbands and wives negatively. Many couples feel defeated by the state of their homes, but there are both practical and biblical responses to this trigger that can make a big difference.

At the risk of being stereotypical, women can’t seem to figure out why men dump their clothes on the floor instead of the laundry hamper, and men can’t figure out why the house looks like a tornado hit it the day after being cleaned. It may seem like a small matter, but the tensions that build when a home is no longer a haven can chip away at our happiness.

And worse, if we give in to our angry impulses, the defeated feelings of failure to keep a house clean and the lack of understanding for one another’s responsibilities construct walls around our hearts. Guy and I recognize that plenty of couples reading this book have not started families or are empty nesters, and the insights we will offer in this chapter will be fitting for you too, but one of the top triggers we deal with is among couples with children in the home.

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When kids come into the picture, keeping the house orderly and clean is a massive challenge.

If this weren’t so true, it’d be funny. When I was single, everything in my house had its place. The moment our oldest daughter was born, I was as bewildered as my husband when the house went from clean to cluttered in no time. Adding “all the things” necessary for a baby crowds space in the house and the car. Laundry loads multiply faster than we can keep up.

At Roya’s three-month well-baby checkup, the pediatrician gave me a sympathetic smile after talking about while she was have so many blowouts.

She said, “I’m betting her blowouts creates a lot of extra laundry for you, doesn’t it?”

I burst into tears. Finally, someone understood how overwhelmed I felt!

Of course, babies themselves require attention 24/7. But, all the time we spent cleaning our homes or doing other necessary household maintenance before kids entered the picture immediately shifts to the demands of parenting. We weren’t prepared for it. Infants seem small, but they require big amounts of our time and energy.

As families grow, so do all the needs, clothing to launder, washing dishes, and cleaning messes. The older kids get, the more room they take up and the more “stuff” we acquire.

Family management is often a learned skill that takes some tweaking to implement once kids get old enough to help. It’s also not everyone’s strength, so attempting to keep everyone and everything orderly may be even more challenging for certain personalities.

Meanwhile, our longing for a clean space is frustrating. As soon as we clear a room, debris returns in no time. I often feel like I never get ahead of the housework and know I’m not alone.

Empathy

Last year Joshua quit his job; he was tired of spending so much time away from the kids. Now that he is almost a year into being at home, his “why isn’t the house clean and food on the table toon” has changed.

Until he got a taste for what it was like being home with two young children, he couldn’t appreciate how hard it was to keep up with cleaning our home and looking after the kids.

Once he saw the challenge, he quickly got on board, partnering with me in significant ways to divide the labor. It has made all the difference!

I rarely clean our bathrooms!

We both do the laundry!

BIGGEST SECRET: Neither of us ever leaves something for someone else.

In our marriage, if we see a need, we fill a need. Instead of “huffing and puffing” as you walk into a room and see the cluttered countertops, jump in with an attitude willing to serve.

I must admit, Joshua is better about jumping in on tasks than I am. MY LOVE AND RESPECT FOR HIM GROWS TREMENDOUSLY when I see him stepping up to help me despite his long day.

Biblical Application

Jesus showed His love through serving others. If we say we love our spouses but don’t serve them, our definition of love is not biblical. This also means that if you are not willingly serving your spouse, they may not be feeling loved.

Your actions may very well hinder your ability to both give and receive affection.

NBut if we can learn to examine our hearts and how we relate to our spouses, we may also discover how much we love one another.

For Joshua and me, becoming a team that valued one another was/is a gradual process that requires we lay down the preconceived notions of our roles, trading them for a servant’s heart that simply tries to do what is best at the moment to help one another.

Even though we both work and have demands outside the home, we now view our marriage as a team effort, working toward a common goal of keeping our house clean and organized together.

Your specific situation may look different from ours but don’t settle for the same old way of doing things. If it’s not working, do something different! Think of something different.

Invite the Holy Spirit to help you problem-solve. But more than anything, exchange your exasperation for empathy and humility so that when you see a need, your first response is to fill that need.

Besides the practical side of becoming a team regarding housework, cleaning up the house has as much to do with cleaning up our attitudes as it does with a mop or broom. Wives, guard your heart against resentment for how little your husband may help you.

Communicate outside of conflict when you can kindly paint a picture of your need for him to be more involved with the kids and around the house. Be specific and reasonable about what you ask from him. But do ask.

Women, we tend to do everything and then harbor resentment—which isn’t fair if we aren’t communicating our needs. If we will feel like martyrs, let it be for something that really merits martyrdom, not because we feel alone in our household tasks.

Husbands, be open to considering that your wife is doing her best and that the job is 24/7. Consider that there may be more than meets the eye that she is up against to keep the house clean and organized. Be willing to look for opportunities to show her you are her partner in every way, stepping in to do things you may not have considered before. Take the time to acknowledge everything that goes unacknowledged daily.

It means the world to me when my husband stops to say, “Honey, thanks for always doing the grocery shopping for our family.”

I’d be fine without hearing him say that to me, but the fact that he does creates a positive environment and communicates to me that he pays attention to me and appreciates me.

How often are you in the habit of doing the same?

Looking for ways to breathe life into our spouses is preventive medicine for conflict triggers. When we seek out ways to serve and bless our spouses, we grow in humility and godly character, but we also combat triggers before they become triggers in the first place.

Being proactive in our marriages prevents us from being reactive in our marriages.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45, NIV

This verse is a good litmus test for our attitudes regarding housework. Imagine if your spouse embodied this attitude. How might your perspective change if you meditated on Jesus’ example as you picked up dirty socks for the hundredth time in a day?

God will probably never ask us to give up our lives on the cross.

• Are we willing to give them up to make smaller sacrifices to serve our spouses?

• Are we ready to lay aside the judgment of our husband or wife if the china hutch doesn’t pass the white-glove test for dust?

• Might we be willing to trade a Saturday of golfing to rearrange the garage for our wife?

• Could we stop procrastinating about cleaning the rugs when we know our husband has asked us to do so?

Remember, conflict triggers are opportunities for growth. If you tend to be messy, this trigger is an opportunity to improve.

Suppose you have had a poor or critical attitude about your spouse’s approach or lack thereof to housekeeping. In that case, this is your opportunity to check your perspective, “bearing with one another” (Colossians 3) and speaking lovingly about this issue with your spouse.

Your wife may not win the award for best housekeeper.

It may be true that your husband is clueless when it comes to helping around the house.

And yet, the Bible never encourages us to point fingers arrogantly or angrily. Instead, God asks us to have compassionate hearts. To be kind. God urges us to be humble, meek, and patient.

He wouldn’t tell us to “bear with one another” if we wouldn’t often find ourselves in circumstances where that was necessary. Whatever we do, we are to “work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Being more concerned with pleasing an audience of One, both in our work ethic and our attitudes toward our spouses when they fall short, is foundational in helping us overcome this conflict.

Some of us may have allowed our need for a tidy home to become more important than our spouse’s need to be treated lovingly. A clean house brings with it a sense of harmony that is temporary. Tomorrow will come, and so will its messes.

Serving from a place of humility and choosing to love our spouses and honor God brings peace and tranquility that lasts.

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