I’m organised but my husband is relaxed. It causes rows – who should change?

My husband loses his wallet once a week. It’s always somewhere in the house, he’s just never sure where. It usually appears, normally in a pair of shorts he wore three days ago, or – worst-case scenario – it’s been through the wash and cards must be reissued, yet again. No matter how many times I tell him to put it in a safe place when he walks through the door, he just… doesn’t. I, on the other hand, have never lost a wallet. I’ve got the same house keys (and key ring) I had in secondary school, my house keys added on to the ones I had for my parents’ house in 1998. Ollie is the kind of guy who doesn’t like to sweat the small stuff. This is part of the reason I fell in love with him – because he’s the polar opposite to me. He’s never anxious. He is level-headed and optimistic. He’s also not particularly organised. He is incredibly driven and focused when it comes to his work as a graphic designer. Shorts Left to his own devices, however, his life would be on no sort of schedule outside of work hours. His passport would be shoved on top of a bookcase and forgotten about until it was needed at the panicked last minute for a trip. There would certainly be no kind of schedule for clean bedsheets, nor a cupboard of cleaning products. I, on the other hand, am one of the most assertive, organised, tidy people you’ll ever meet. I put things on my to-do list people would never even dream of. Things like: “clean out cutlery tray” or “organise birthday ribbons”. Are you tidy or messy? Assertive or laid-back? Type A or Type B? In every relationship, there will mostly be one person who identifies more as one than the other. When you first move in together, you’ll certainly find out which of you is which, in a domestic sense, straight away. When Ollie and I moved in together 11 years ago, he actually had few belongings (I know now, that material possessions are not particularly important to him), and he slotted into the life I had made in a very relaxed way. I knew he wasn’t as on it with the tidying as I was but we had a cleaner, and were both at the office five days a week, and at the pub or restaurants in the evenings, so there was no real concept of who would do what. It was easy. We have since moved to Bath, into a much bigger house, and had two babies – who are four, and 18 months old. Once you have kids, the character traits which were once a bit of a quirk, that you shared an eyeroll over, turn into something which can define your entire family life. Indeed, in the years since having children our differing approaches to life have become increasingly, often painfully, apparent. Ollie is a “we’ll figure it out when we need to” sort of guy, whereas I’ll have sorted it before he even finishes his sentence. With two extra humans there is a lot more feeding, cleaning, appointments and school supplies to gather. We have at least five extra loads of washing a week. And so it is I who has taken on the role of house manager. ‘Ollie comes up with ways to play, I come behind with the dustpan’ Ollie and I both work, but I am freelance whereas he is in full-time employment, which means I work a sort of hybrid, stay-at-home-mum-freelance-writer role, bookending my writing with about three hours of housework and tasks a day. Ollie is on refuse and recycling duty, and does most of the cooking. Outside of those tasks, however, everything else pretty much falls to me. Some of these are more visible tasks, such as the endless amounts of hoovering and mopping, bathroom cleaning and laundry. Others are more subtle, but arguably just as vital: staying on top of what clothes still fit the kids, taking the old bits to charity shops, applying for nursery and school places, and liaising with teachers. I handle our mortgage and insurance. Then, there are the parts that I take on that arguably could be just not done by anyone – but I also feel the pressure to make nice memories and keep a nice home: I plan all our holidays, plant bulbs in autumn ready for spring, and print out special family photos to put into frames. Ollie is a brilliantly artistic and creative dad, always coming up with novel ways to play. Then I come along behind with the dustpan and brush. ‘In order to keep my cool, I have learned to accept that things I feel are important are not the same things Ollie sees as important,’ says Jessica (Photo: Gavin Crilly) Is one way ‘better’ for family life? For what it’s worth, I don’t think my way is necessarily “better”. If anything, I wish I didn’t feel so physically out of sorts if the house wasn’t tidy. My cortisol levels would be far more settled. I simply don’t know what it is to feel carefree. But I’m not alone in this gender divide. Research by the University of Bath showed that mothers carry the burden of seven out of 10 household tasks – 60 per cent more than fathers. While not all mothers find themselves in this position, gender roles are still heavily engrained in family dynamics despite most women also working to pay their share of the bills, causing burnout and resentment. Ollie and I have argued over this, of course. But it’s actually less of a stand-up row thing. It’s more of a quiet, long-term build-up. There’s worry, too: I get anxiety that if I die, our household will fall apart and so have started making a “just in case” list of things he needs to keep on top of like cutting the kids’ nails and putting out a clean bathmat every other day. Ollie, understandably, can often feel undermined and criticised. In his mind, he’s doing his best to keep things at the standard I want them to be and nothing is ever good enough. I, however, feel exhausted and at my wits’ end with the weight of running four people’s lives. ‘The healthiest couples are not identical’ In order to keep my cool, I have learned to accept that things I feel are important are not the same things Ollie sees as important. Psychologist Dr Jason Chan, of Zenith Psychology, agrees that there are ways to reduce your feelings of resentment, explaining first that it is incredibly useful for couples to recognise the strengths that the other possesses. “The healthiest couples are rarely those who become identical. Rather, they learn to appreciate the strengths hidden within their differences,” says Chan. “The organised partner often brings structure, reliability, and planning. The more relaxed partner often brings flexibility, perspective and an ability to tolerate imperfection.” While I have been guilty of feeling that Ollie is lazy, Chan says it’s important to take into account what he calls the “emotional narratives” of how we organise ourselves and our lives, because it’s different for every individual. He explains: “For the organised partner, a tidy home often represents calm, competence, respect, care for the other partner and a sense of control over a busy life. For the less organised partner, mess may simply not register as a priority. They may genuinely not experience the same level of discomfort when things are left undone.” ‘Healthy couples are not couples who never irritate each other. They are couples who can repair after irritation,’ says Rick Cox, a psychodynamic therapist (Photo: Gavin Crilly) The mental load, with all its remembering, planning, anticipating and managing is exhausting, agrees Chan. “The more organised partner almost always feels like they are carrying too much responsibility and receiving too little acknowledgement or appreciation,” he says. Can it be improved? Is it reasonable to ask someone to try? Chan suggests asking for help in a direct way, giving a specific request such as, “Can you be in charge of laundry on Mondays and Wednesdays?”, rather than, “Can you help with laundry?” He adds that the more assertive partner must be prepared for “levels of imperfection”. Communication and compromise are key, agrees Rick Cox, the psychodynamic therapist behind therapywithrick.com. “Avoid trying to convert your partner into having your standards. That usually becomes a war of personality. Maybe a more useful question is, ‘What shared standard can we both realistically live with?'” It’s about learning together how to be a team, says Cox, and gradual changes. “Healthy couples are not couples who never irritate each other. They are couples who can repair after irritation. That might mean being able to say, ‘I came at that too sharply,’ or, ‘I can see why that felt like criticism,’ or, ‘I understand why this makes you feel alone.’ Repair matters because in a busy family home, irritation is inevitable.” You can say that again. I have taken this advice on board, and letting go of resentment and accepting what I can’t change has certainly helped our dynamic as a family. I like things clean and tidy and I’ve decided I am willing to work harder on that than Ollie, and to nitpick less. He has taken on board my non-negotiables – and is now in charge of hanging out the washing. And, he’s started leaving his wallet in the same place each night. Domestic bliss, here we come.