How To Be The Less-Organized Spouse

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be married to a professional organizer? Or how to successfully cohabitate when your spouse’s level of organization feels like overkill? My husband Eric has graciously offered to reveal all by guest writing this article. You’ll find practical tips for negotiating a level of order that suits both spouses and allows them to flourish without driving each other crazy.

My beautiful and talented wife has been writing an organizing column for over 6 years. In my imagination, I often picture the readers of her column. It’s a Sunday afternoon, and the more-organized spouse reads the column with interest. They think  “Boy, I wish my spouse would read this.” So maybe they cut out the column and lay it on the desk of the less-organized spouse. Maybe the less-organized spouse reads it, or maybe they conveniently misplace it.

Notice I said “more-organized” and “less-organized” spouses, because that’s how these things tend to go. Usually one spouse has a knack or talent for organizing, and the other less so. The size of that gap is what varies among couples. The bigger the gap, the more likely that organization (or lack thereof) is a source of conflict.

So for all you less-organized spouses, this column is for you. I, too, am the less-organized spouse. So in the words of our 42nd President, “I feel your pain.”

Benefits & Challenges

Most of the time, being the less-organized spouse is a good thing. You receive the benefits of being organized without having to expend effort. I don’t have to waste time searching for stamps because my more-organized spouse has given them a home. I know where the peanut butter is because my more-organized spouse always returns the jar to its rightful place. So most of the time, being married to a more-organized spouse is like winning the lottery.

But it’s not without its challenges. Recently, I pulled a shirt off a hanger to wear for the day. Less than five minutes later, I changed my mind and went back to my closet to put the shirt back on the hanger and to choose another shirt. But the hanger was gone. In that five minute gap, Angie had moved the empty hanger from the “shirts section” to the “empty hangers” section. How did she even find that empty hanger in five minutes?

Another example. Before I go out for a run, I usually pour a glass of water and drink it. Then I leave the glass on the counter so that I can re-use the same glass when I finish my run. But when I get back from my run, my glass is gone. Angie has already placed the glass in the dishwasher. How does that happen? Does she have an alarm in her head that automatically goes off when there are dirty dishes on the counter?

So based on nearly 36 years of being the less-organized spouse, I have developed some strategies for thriving in this role. I’d like to share them with you, in hopes that they help you, too. These strategies go from easier to harder.

Claim Your Kingdom

Let’s start off with the easy one. First, you need your own space where you are the sole decision-maker about what stays, what goes, and how it is organized. Before we moved downtown, I had an office in a bonus room. There was no other purpose for that room except for being my office. So Angie and I agreed that inside the four walls of that office, I was the undisputed dictator—the Kim Jong Un of the Bonus Room. If I wanted it organized, I could straighten it up. If I wanted to allow it to be messy, so be it. Angie could cast a disapproving eye on my office, but that was the limit of what she could do. It’s good to be the king, even if my kingdom was just a little over 150 square feet.

However, your kingdom comes with some caveats. If you have shared items in your space that the more-organized spouse needs access to, then clearly, you’re going to have to come to an agreement about how and where those are placed. If your space is visible to visitors, then you’ll need to share decision-making responsibility. But the biggest caveat is that if you have your own kingdom, then you must be willing to compromise about the realms outside your kingdom.

Help Establish Systems

Second, take an active role in deciding on organizing systems. In our house, we share responsibility for putting up clean clothes after they have been laundered. So I need to know where Angie’s clothes go, and she needs to understand where mine go. Left to her own devices, Angie would come up with a system for organizing clothes so complicated that Marie Kondo would probably throw up her tiny hands trying to understand it. Here’s an example from an early system: exercise pants go in the bottom drawer, unless they are yoga pants, in which case they go beside yoga shirts in the next-to-bottom drawer. That may be a great system as long as she is the only one putting up clothes, but that was too complicated for me. I couldn’t tell the difference between yoga pants and those other pants that kinda look like yoga pants but are actually not.

So I told Angie if I was going to help with putting up clothes, we needed a simpler system. So now all exercise clothes go in the bottom drawer. The lesson from this is that your more-organized spouse needs a sounding board to simplify their overly-complicated systems. Less-organized spouses actually have a better idea of what can be maintained, and what can’t. So when your more-organized spouse is trying to decide how to organize the spices for the 15th time in the past year, involve yourself in the process. This leads us to our last and most difficult strategy.

Commit to the Plan

Once you’ve had input into the organizing system, then you’ve got to commit and be part of the solution. This might mean always putting the cinnamon back in its home in the 2nd rack, 3rd slot. This might mean always putting dirty clothes in the clothes hamper. This might mean helping your more-organized spouse declutter the junk drawer.

And if you forget sometimes, don’t worry—your more-organized spouse will remind you. When they do, just take a deep breath, smile, and do your part. Then beat a hasty retreat to your kingdom.

Eric Hyche is a native of Kingsport and a graduate of Tennessee Tech (B.S. Electrical Engineering) and Georgia Tech (M.S. Electrical Engineering). He works remotely as a Lead iOS Engineer at Noom.