Secrets to a good marriage....

So I think I may have stumbled on one of the secrets for a great marriage while I was mopping the floors the other day. And the secret is...

    Marry someone whose tolerance for dirt and messiness is less than yours.   

    This way your partner will most likely breakdown and clean before you do.

But I did not do that. My mother did though, as my father does most of the cleaning in their house, which makes my mom a very happy person.

Not that I do not have a good marriage, but I think my relationship will be even better if my husband cleaned, picked up, or tidied more often.

And I am not even a very clean/tidy person; I am one of those people who think it is silly to make the bed since it will just get messed up again later. As a child I never picked anything up until my parents threatened to throw the object (or me) out of the house. But sometimes it feels like my family takes this tolerance to clutter and stuff EVERYWHERE to a whole new level.

There are times when just walking into my daughter's room will instantly cause my blood pressure to rise. I am surprise she is able to find anything in her room. Hell, I am surprise she can even walk in there. However, at least with her, I can use threats to get her to tidy up and clean a bit (usually with my help). I find telling her that she does not ever have to clean her room, but then mommy will come with a garbage bag to clean it for her usually does the trick.

With the husband, I am not sure what will work... Sometimes I will even test our tolerances for garbage lying around, kind of like a staring contest. I will purposely not throw away something that is obviously garbage to see who can take that piece of trash sitting on the counter longer. I usually blink first.

Actually the husband is not actually that bad. He may be messy, but he is clean. He will make sure to do things like scrubbing down the counter tops if he cooks chicken, and disinfecting the toilets. However, he sometimes leaves his socks on the bedroom floors for a week (we finally got a new hamper, so no more socks on the floor!) or the recycling next to the recycling bin.

And he knows my hate for cleaning. One mother's day, or anniversary, I cannot really remember, he offered to hire me a cleaning person. Not just any cleaning person; he found a company that sends good looking cleaning people who will come to clean your house in various states of undress. My first question was do they actually clean? Because what will turn me on at this point is a guy who is using his arms to dust the top of the book cases or on his hand and knees cleaning my floor moldings.

There is a Part B to the above mention rule – you can marry someone who does not mind messes everywhere if you a) really like to clean or b) learn to like to clean.

I am finding somedays cleaning isn't so bad after all.