I like small projects, my wife likes large ones

[Anonymous]

Last year I took a class about personality types, and one of the things I learned about myself, which I now know is a symptom of my ADD, is that I can only deal with small, manageable projects where I can see the end result. I also found out that my wife enjoys large complex projects. Ok, fine, we’re different in that way.

But where it came up for us was the kitchen. When I cook I use as few pots and pans as possible, wash dishes as I go, and by the time dinner is served there’s very little in the way of cleaning up to be done. My wife, on the other hand, uses lots of pots and pans, dishes, utensils, etc. and tends to just toss them into the sink as she goes. By the time she’s done there’s a huge pile of dirty pots and pans in the sink. I look at it, and just turn away. I can’t deal with it, it’s just too much. This happens regularly – she just refuses to put dishes in the dishwasher as she uses them, so that they build up in the sink. If the pile is small I can deal with it and will clean the dishes. But there is a tipping point where I just give up and walk away because the project is too big. She’ll complain that I’m not helping with the dishes, but does acknowledge that she prefers larger projects, and this could be why she fills the sink before starting to clean…

I found this interesting, and it’s been helpful for us to understand how each of us thinks. We haven’t figured out yet how to resolve the issue using that information, but at least we understand that we just think differently. It’s a first step towards being less judgmental, and rather just accepting each other for who we are and working within those constraints.

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[Anonymous]

This could be my house, except I’m you and my husband is your wife.

When I cook, I clean up as I go. It’s rare that I cook, though, as I never learned how, and find it very challenging to read and follow a recipe. When the meal is ready to eat (only 1 dish), the kitchen is clean, and I insist that we clean up after the meal.

My husband, on the other hand, uses every pot & pan in the house (he’s the regular cook), never cleans up, leaves a Jackson Pollock splatter masterpiece on the stovetop and walls, and doesn’t see what the problem is.

I also go nuts when he puts dishes in the sink rather than the dishwasher because I really hate handling wet mucky dishes! Can’t get him to change that either.

My kitchen rule is that we need to clean up before we start cooking (or it gets major worse if he’s doing the cooking), and we clean up after cooking. I can’t do much about the mess he makes after cooking and before we eat, but it works. We do it together (including the emptying and filling of the dishwasher) because neither one of us likes to do it alone.

Try reading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are” – there’s a good tale in there about his wife’s habit of leaving the cat’s dishes (dirty) in the sink along with the “people” dishes. She never stopped doing it but he grew more comfortable with it.

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[Anonymous]

I love the idea of cleaning up before starting to cook! That might help a bit, and definitely cleaning before eating is a good one. I think I read that book years ago, but I don’t remember that story. I’ll have to check it out, thanks!

I don’t cook very often, but when I do it’s usually because I saw someone on some TV show (I love America’s Test Kitchen) cook something and I want to try it myself. Once I see it done I’m pretty good at reproducing it, and most of my meals come out great. My wife just wishes I would do it more often…

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[Anonymous]

I just find that doing something like cleanup before and after, since it’s related to what we are about to do (cook or eat) is easier done than later when we start diving into our other myriad distractions! We both hate to be tied down doing it, but at least we share the misery 😥

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