Stay Or Go: The Messy Partner

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Bread Show is on. It's stay or go. Hi, Eric,
Good morning, Eric. How you doing welcome?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, how's it going y'all?

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey man? Yeah, what's going on? Oh he's ready to go,
He's getting right to it. What's going on with your girlfriend? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
So basically, I'm just I'm calling for some advice. So
I've been dating my girlfriend for a little over a
year now, and we recently just moved in together, and
I love having her around all the time. But the
real problem is that she's super messy, like messier than

(00:38):
I ever thought possible.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
She like she leaves dirty.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Dishes everywhere she finds. I like, find food in her
bed because she eats it it, And then she forgets
and then she starts her laundry and leaves the clothes
in the washir to the point where they are stinky.
And then you know, she leaves clothes that are dry
in the machine that.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Need to be fooled it out for weeks. It's just ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
And like every time I try to talk to her
about it, she says she's going to get better, but
then she does it for like a day, then goes
back to being messy.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So this is not something that you knew in the
year that you've dated her, Like you never noticed these
things when she would stay your house or when you'd
go to hers. You never noticed that she'd Because I
don't know if this this is not something that people
just pick up, like she didn't move into your house
or you moving together and then she just decided to
be dirty or messy or whatever else, you know. I mean,
I feel like this is something that people have done
their whole lives.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, but I think it wasn't like as obvious to me.
Usually she would she wouldn't cook that much, and she
would get takeout and stuff like that when I would
go over to her place and she came over to
mind more often, so I didn't see her in her
in all men as well.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Plus it's easier to conceal when people, you know, when
people are on top of it, you're trying to make
an impression.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
So I think she was better and now that we're
in it together cumpability.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
So you've gone to her and been like, hey, look,
I need you to at the very least change your clothes,
you know, from the washer to the dryer so it
doesn't get whatever that moldies. Yeah, right, whenever they'll do
whatever that is, I need you to like it at
the very least, you know, can you fold the clothes
or get them out of there? Can you kind of

(02:22):
pick up after you like you've expressed, because I mean,
if you're a perfectionist or you're like, you know, extremely
tidy or clean, you may not get another person to
come to that level. Like me, I tend to like
things the way I like them, and I've had to
accept the fact that people are not as particular about

(02:42):
things as I am, and I would have to sort
of come to the middle on that a little bit.
That doesn't mean that I have to necessarily settle for
people who are inconsiderate or who don't respect the fact
that we're sharing space. Right, So I assume you've said
something and what it's her response?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, I mean I compromise. I went to the middle.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Like initially, I did take a step back and say, like,
things don't need to be perfect, and I know that
you're you and on me, but even on the stuff
that I mean basics like just my pet peeves, dirty
dishes in the sank, moldy laundry, or just like and
food in the bed is really gross to me, especially because.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
It's sharing the bed, you know, with her. I don't
think this is too much you ask.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
It's not like he's saying everything has to be ironed
and hung, color coded and crazy people stuff like you
know he's asking for.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
I don't want you to eat in the bed.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I want you to pick up your stuff, and I
want you to you know, spaces that we have to share,
like I need you to sort of handle your business
in those area. I don't think these guys asking for
too much. But the thing is she may not She
may never do those things. She may be very comfortable
the way she likes to live and eating in bed
and things like that. So I feel like you either
compromise to a certain extent or maybe this is a

(03:58):
way in which you're incompatible.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Right, Yeah, it's Ruthie. I have a question for you, Eric.

Speaker 5 (04:03):
Are you cleaning up after her?

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Like?

Speaker 6 (04:05):
Are you enabling it by like, oh, the dishes are
all in there, and then you emptied the sink and
you take her clothes out. Are you are you enabling
her behavior by cleaning up after her?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Well, at the beginning, yeah, I was doing it just
to be nice and forgiving and accepting, but then I
like to make the point at some point when I
after the couple times of asking her, I left it
and didn't.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Do anything, and then went.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Back to her and was like, look at this, like
can we just take a look at this right now?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
And yeah, yeah, no, continue, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
No, I'm just thinking that it's like it's not fair
and I needed to have an example to show her.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
But for the most part, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Was enabling a little bit, but I'm just tired of it.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Okay, we're gonna talk about you behind your back now, Eric,
except you can have the radio on the iHeart app
as well.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Thank you for calling.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Good luck, Yeah, thank you. Eight five. This is my
hot take. This is very controversially ready, this is a
deal breaker. This is a deal breaker. Really, this is
going to be an issue for the rest of their
lives together. This is a person who doesn't who who
feels comfort, doesn't emphasize, it's not as concerned with organization

(05:16):
and kindliness and and I've dealt with people like this
before and we I mean, I think there's compromise to
be had, but you're not going to change a person
like this fundamentally, You're not going to They're not just
going to turn into the organized clean.

Speaker 7 (05:35):
What I have changed, I've made changes because I've made changes.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yes, so you and my husband Hobby are very similar.

Speaker 7 (05:43):
Like it's like clean this and that, and I had
to respect that this is also his space and his home.
So like I've had to make those changes because I
can be miss messy little thing.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
I could miss messy little thing. Oh yeah, miss messy
thing that's like a cabbage patch.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Do character?

Speaker 1 (05:59):
I mean, I think you can get people to say
I think. I think like taking your clothes out of
the washer and dryer and folding them is a reasonable
thing to ask. I think not eating in bad might
be a reasonable thing to ask. I think I don't
think leaving dishes in the thing for someone else to
clean is It's an unreasonable thing to ask for that
not to happen. But now we're asking for three or

(06:19):
four things, and I don't know. I don't know if
that's sustainable. Nundary is hard, though it is. I mean,
it's really hard. It's okay, but see here, I'm a
guy in all honesty. The clothes that I wash and
don't dry clean or whatever and don't hang they sit
in my dryer for a long time. I live alone,
though no one else is using this equipment, so I
think it would be unfair for me to wash my

(06:40):
clothes and they need to leave them there. So now
when my partner, you know who lives with me, And
that's a wild hypothetical, but that person would then go
to wash their clothes and then realize not only can
they not wash their clothes, now they have to re
wash mine, dry them, and fold them in order for
them to handle their business.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
I don't think that's fair.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
It's all the part of love, though, you know.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
No folding the clothes to the other person. You So
now we're just throwing them somewhere.

Speaker 6 (07:03):
They're gonna go, They're gonna go into the basket, and
I'm gonna use the washing machine.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
Oh I fooled my boyfriend's clothes.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
Oh no, hold your white launch in my back.

Speaker 5 (07:15):
I scratch yours.

Speaker 8 (07:16):
You know I leave my stuff in the dry air,
you need to use it, Just take it out. You know,
I leave dishes in this thing. Just go ahead and
put them in an old dishwasher or something.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
So you want to made no, no.

Speaker 8 (07:26):
No, no no, because it's like you would do the
same I would do the same for you.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
You know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
How you scratching? Yeah? Where's his batch? Getting back in
the track?

Speaker 5 (07:35):
I thought, if you cleaned up everything before I can
get you.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
See, now here we go, here a little bit, Here
we go, Here we go.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
And I know it sounds crazy, and I'm I'm as
somebody who's like, if the cup is here, I need
it here, like I need to let that go. But
it also doesn't mean that you don't have to respect
shared space. And it doesn't mean that you know that
our living room becomes your storage room.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
It doesn't.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
It doesn't mean that I have to now, as your partner,
I'm expected to do your laundry for you every single time.
It's just kind of inconsiderate.

Speaker 7 (08:11):
Yeah, I agree, And I don't think that it's like
weird or anything. I think there's just certain types of people, right,
there's the friends and there's the Paulinas. Now, the reason
I say that too is because the resentment will grow.
So like if you and I were married or dating
Fred and I was doing that constantly at home, resentment
would start to grow.

Speaker 5 (08:26):
You'd be really you'd be really sick. With me at
one point you'd be a girl.

Speaker 7 (08:30):
I know you're my girlfriend, but like get it together,
and then what we're gonna fight, We're gonna fight, and
then we're probably gonna break up. So I don't see
it being crazy. I think it could really, you know,
destroy a relationship. Unfortunately, and I've said this before. This
is why I don't have a problem with people living together.
I mean, not the problem. That's not the right way
to phrase it.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Why I can understand why people live together ahead of time,
and I can understand how people can ultimately break up
over things like this because this this has learned behavior.
This is its deeper psychological behavior. I'm not a physician currently,
but I'm just saying these are not things that after
twenty thirty forty years you're going to change in people.
And it also, in my opinion, indicates a level of

(09:07):
insensitivity and a level of inconsiderateness, if that's a word,
because I don't think that's too much to ask. If
I expect you to fold the toilet paper like a
hotel every time I reason, or like you know, I
need you to color code your closet or the refrigerator
has to be perfectly in order. I mean, these are
things that that's my own OCD. These are things that

(09:28):
I would need to compromise on. But basic cleanliness, I
don't think that's too much to ask. And I'm not
certain that you're going to change that in somebody. And
I think you're exactly right, fu Lina. I feel like
the fights they start there, they do and then they
become like you know, your ratchet as ex girlfriend still
text and it before long, you know, here we are
on more.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Hey, Ashley, good morning, good morning. Hey, what do you
want to say? There?

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Go?

Speaker 5 (09:52):
I think he should go.

Speaker 9 (09:53):
I agree with you, Fred, basic cleanliness.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
And once she starts.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Having kids, she's just going to make more excuses why
she can't do something thing and it's just going.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
To be worse now And like how many times do
you have to do the basic thing for the other
person and they don't do it before Now you realize
not only are they not going to do it, they
expect you to do it now and they're okay with it.
Like it's almost like sometimes I wonder when you ask
someone to do the same thing over and over again
and they don't do it like they're they're doing it
on purpose at.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
A certain point.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Oh yeah, exactly, and there's a line, Yeah, yeah, I agree. Actually,
thank you, have a good day, you too, And again
like there's a I think there's a line we would
all agree, there's a place that's like considerate and and
minimum expectation, and then there's you.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
Know, a laden disrespect.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Right then on the other end of it, I think
there's a standard that's just ridiculous, Like I don't you
know what I mean some of the references I made,
like there's a there's an organization in cleanliness, and then
there's excessive on both sides. So I think they both
got to come to the middle. But he's not talking
about stuff that's unreasonable to me. The examples he gave, Hey, Jake.

Speaker 9 (10:59):
Hey, what's going on? Rufie O, Jason Brown, Klin I'll
let you know, Kiky.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
You look at this guy, Jay? Yeah, you know, everybody's there.
Go all right.

Speaker 9 (11:10):
So here's what I think. I think this is a
deeper conversation. There's no immediate red flags. I think you
need to stay. However, if this behavior is consistent and
after time at the time again it's being brought up,
then it's then I mean action speaks to themselves. I
think you would have to go if after such brutal

(11:33):
honesty conversations, if it's if it's disregarded, if it's ignored,
if no actions have been taken, if it's just words,
then unfortunately, that's where you got to draw the line,
because it does come down to respect, it does come
down to those little actions, because it is his space.
Although in the adage, this adage just reminds me you

(11:56):
never truly know someone until you move in with them.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, that's biblical.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
That's in classic classic key elastic keys. What is it, Ecclesiastes.
It's in that one, Ecclesiastes. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing, right,
It's in the Bible. Jake is over here preaching biblically.
Hey Jake, thank you man, have a good day.

Speaker 9 (12:17):
Hey, love all the Tan and keep them coming.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
That's Ecclesiastes ten sixty four. Yeah, both, Hey, Jesse, how
you doing? It's it's either old or new.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
I don't know. Hey, Jesse, what do you want to say?
Is there go? Oh, he's got to go.

Speaker 10 (12:36):
It's uh. I'm dealing with that same thing at home.
No boy, I'm not I'm not going anywhere, but it
leads the bigger things. And next thing, you know, you
have a four bedroom house with four bedrooms full of
things and stuff that is just overwhelming.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
And people are talking Jesse about kids. This is not
going to get any better with If you can't clean
up after yourself, you're not going to clean after further,
you know, additional humans.

Speaker 10 (13:03):
Well, and that's kind of where I'm at too, because
you know, me and my wife just got.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Married and congratulations.

Speaker 10 (13:09):
She keeps saying, don't worry, I'm going to change. But
what happened, Well, you know, she took a year off
to plan the wedding and nothing changed in that whole
year because you know she works too, But now she
didn't work that year and there wasn't a change in anything.
Nothing's changed. And then so now it leads to, like
you just said, kids and what's going to change. You're

(13:30):
going to be a stay at home mom, which is
what she wants or whatever. So and then you go
to there like I'm in that same boat right now.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah I don't. I don't know that it's going to change, man,
but I hope it does for you. And yeah, I'm sorry.
I mean, that's the overwhelming thing that we're getting text
like overwhelming is people saying this is a this is
kind of a personality. I don't want to call it
a flaw, but it's this is in your DNA. I
feel like, yeah, Jesse, thank you man, have a good
day and good luck you guys have a good day. Well.

(14:00):
I had a roommate and we didn't get along in college.
The only room I ever had, and this two was
it wasn't messy per se, but he was sort of
his half of the room is somewhat disheveled, and I
used to organize it, not organize it, but I clean
it basically, like make it not disheveled, because my side
of the room wasn't. And I realized over time he
hated me for that because that's how he wanted his

(14:21):
space to be, and he had every right to have that.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
It was his side of the room.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
But like and I guess I learned that that there
are people who find this is the way they want
to live, like for whatever reason it's I don't know,
they find comfort in it or something, and I had
to respect that. But what I did know is that
he and I would not be good roommates. Moving forward,
couldn't marry the guy because you know, I'm not going
to clean up after him all the time. And I
guess the thing is, would you agree you have to

(14:46):
find someone to be with who has at least similar sensibilities.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
In that way?

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, then again, if two people are messy, then you
know you're gonna live in a pig stye.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
So I don't know, you.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Just need to have like respect, you know, definitely changed
some things, like when I moved in with my boyfriend.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
I think you just have to be willing to meet
them where they.

Speaker 6 (15:05):
Are, to listen to what they're No, yeah, they're asking
for Betsy.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay, so you're saying, And just if you're just tuning in,
by the way, stay or go. This dude is married
to a woman who leaves her her clothes in the
in the not only the dryer, but in the washer
and lets them get all milty. We get nasty eats
in the bed, leaves dishes in the sink. He said like, hey, look,
can you help out with this? Can we not do
all that? And she doesn't stop. It continues to happen,

(15:32):
it persists. So what do you think, stare go?

Speaker 4 (15:36):
I think he should go, and I love you guys.

Speaker 9 (15:38):
And everything like that, he should or.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
He should he should go, Yeah, he should go.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Oh, they both should.

Speaker 9 (15:43):
Go their separate ways. And it definitely says that in
Ecclesiastes the Old Testament leave. It's the Old Testament.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
And I am about fifteen years into a relationship that's
very similar. I'm not going anywhere, but as an older
person looking at a younger person, you need to go
because if you've met somewhere in the middle, then okay,
then we're listening to each other, we're understanding. But like

(16:13):
my partner is very tidy, very cleanly. I can be
like Paulina miss messy Lilfain and but I also do
all the laundry in the house. I do all the
cooking in the house. His version of cooking is takeout
so and so the dishes, and he works two jobs seasonally.

(16:35):
So I am to put everything in the dishwasher, you know,
clean it. Like right now, there's dirty dishes in the sink.
Probably you know, when he wakes up, he's probably gonna
be like roll his eyes. But being that fifteen years in,
if it's already like that right now, I've made changes
I've met in the middle.

Speaker 9 (16:54):
But if I put out.

Speaker 4 (16:55):
Too many little decorations on the table for a holiday,
he will go around and change them because there'll be
too many things on that table clutter bets.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
What you're saying, basically is you're fifteen years in, you're invested,
so you deal with it. But if you had it
to do over again, this is this is enough of
an issue that it might not lead to a fifteen
year relationship again.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, like I'd be like, three years in, I'd be like,
thank you for what you've taught me, but I think
we should go away our separate ways.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Okay, fair enough. So this is like you're what you're
saying is fundamentally this is an issue.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, okay, I mean away. I've heard that song before.
It's too late, apologized. That's I gotta go have a
good day. I appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
I'm like, I have four more years than you know.

Speaker 10 (17:46):
Our kid is eighteen, so.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Oh yeah, she's got a calendar in about three years
and oh my goodness, yeah three point seven years you
but I was and she's out of it. Look, Betsy,
I gotta.

Speaker 9 (18:03):
Go have a good day, all right, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Bye.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Okay, there it is. She a lot to say.

Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yeah, do you want to let the streets know in
a couple.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Of years, right, everybody, make sure you're around in about
three point seventy five to four years. That's right, I'm
going to be on the market. The Entertainment Report is
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