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Motivation

LuckiLee

MyPTSD Pro
How can I keep J motivated?

The house is a mess. I have a list of things we need to get done before we can enjoy the summer months. And nothing is getting done.

He will sit in his chair all day while I work around him. I'm losing my patience and becoming unmotivated myself.

He says he would do anything for me.

Anything but chores apparently.

How can I get him involved in making our home, livable. I have never lived like this. It's gross and making me mad.

When he's feeling good he just wants to get out of the house so everything just gets put off, again. Tired of arguing.

Any tips?
 
there's nothing quite like living with an entitled slob. . . my own hubby still hates admitting that his mama actually worked for a living, despite the lack of pay stub to prove it. i often wonder if the biggest problem in **the first world** is what we call, "not working." ^it^ certainly isn't working.

i didn't dump the chump, but i did find other places to live until my chump learned the benefits of basic housekeeping. he's been doing more chores than he is leaving for the domestic hobbyist in recent years.
 
I'm sorry he's being an idiot. sigh.

So I may have already mentioned this but hubby and I went thru a really rough patch a few decades ago, and I kept telling him I was going to bail if he didn't get his shit together. I agreed to go to counseling with him, and told the t what I was thinking and why

She looked at him and said "Hubby, do you understand Freida is going to leave you?"
He looked at me and said "wait - what?!"
Seriously.
Because men are idiots! LOL

But it took someone else talking to him before he could hear what I'd been saying for months.

Maybe it would help bitch slap J upside the head too?
 
My 2 Best Options

1. MAID. I always thought hiring a maid was a Richie Rich extravagance, until I learned how much they actually cost. Average across different places I’ve lived? $50 for an individual once a week, $250 for a team to come in once and deep clean. WTFO? That’s less than a daily latte, a visit to my mechanic, or calling up the plumber or electrician. Well I can make my own damn coffee, fix 90% of my mechanical/plumbing, I can sure as hell add a maid-budget for when I’m living with other people who are driving me effing craaaaaazy on the cleaning front, or having a bad go of it.

2. FUN ROUTINES. IE FIELD DAY. Thursday nights at Casa de la Friday = pizza & beer are ordered in, music is cranked up, and we bust out a deep clean for 2-3 hours. Plus a 15minute BLITZ clean either first thing in the morning or near the last thing at night, depending on how our lives are working. (Clear off flat surfaces; counters, floors, all of it. Gone. Poof. Bye bye!) They’re USMC holdovers. As is doing weekly laundry on Sundays (sheets & towels on Sundays, clothes we wore yesterday done daily), wacky laundry done on Field days (shower curtains, pillows, etc.).

^^^ Everyone has their own patterns where they start, work out to, finish & what “feels” right. My mom has learned the hard way, during Covid when we had 3.5 families in the same house that attempting to micromanage HOW people clean? (I don’t want this room done first, I don’t want this put off until the end, I don’t want the floors done before everything above it, we’re not going to order a pizza on a Thursday, if we’re going to have Pizza it’s on the weekend and WILL be followed by movies not cleaning, I don’t care if you’re not asking me to clean I don’t want you baaaaanging aroooound while we’re trying to enjoy our dinner, Not this way, not that way, do it like this, start here, breathe in, breathe out)… Just makes people stop. They’ll do a little bit here and there, when people aren’t watching/commenting, but it stops being a daily/weekly pattern creating a clean living space, and just becomes an ongoing resentment betwixt EVERYONE. <<< I figured this might just be a me&my family thang, but one thing Covid did was put a whoooooole lotta us in multi family homes driving and being driven crazy by everyone else in them. Chores & how/when people do them? Seem to top everyone I personally know list of “I will not throttle people I love” vexations. Followed closely by “things people who have never had roommates/housemates seem unable to learn” (like personal space, fridge & food etiquette, don’t touch/take other peoples things without asking, etc,).

***

So, FOR ME, if the other person is an unmovable object, they’re about to meet my unstoppable force; as I implement my own routines -or- hire a damn maid. BUT I am not going to fight about it. Full stop. The moment it becomes emotionally charged? I just quit cleaning. I can live in bombed out rubble, and goddamn thrice cursed decaying filthy nasty ass swamps and mud, and not bathe for weeks. I won’t be happy living in a clusterf*ck, or ever feel like I’ve come “home” (ahhhhh! sanctuary!), but it’s better than fighting over it. They wanna micromanage? Or get angry? Or nix the fun? They can do it themselves.
 
There's no motivating him.
Most likely he has to motivate himself. Or figure out what's stopping the motivation and do something about that. Is this his usual way of being? If it is, yeah, probably you need a maid or something. I find, myself, that I DO go through phases where I let the "stuff that needs to be done" pile up and the bigger the pile gets the more I avoid it. If I had anyone living here to bug me about it, I'd probably avoid it even more because it would seem like an even bigger problem. I'm not totally sure why that happens. Sometimes it's as simple as I really haven't been sleeping well and I AM exhausted. Right now, I really need to call someone about a project I need done and I'm avoiding it because.....IDK, I suppose because some part of my brain is sure it will go wrong in some horrible and unanticipated way. If I make the call (ok WHEN I make the call...) things will probably get better. (Or worse. Depends on what part of my brain is doing the talking.)

One thing about motivation, positive reinforcement usually works best. A really good horse trainer I knew used to talk about "recognizing the least change and the slightest try." When you really work at finding the least and the slightest, it can be amazing how the horse comes across from their side and tries more and more, looking for that reward. On the other extreme, my mother apparently had a rule that forbade her from saying anything was done in an acceptable manner...... Nothing kills motivation like being "rewarded" with criticism. (I'm not saying that's what you're doing. You seem like you'd be pretty much the opposite of my mother!) But, you might try thanking him for the least little bit of effort & see what happens. If this isn't his normal behavior, is there a way to explore what's actually going on? It probably has very little to do with the actual chores.
 
She looked at him and said "Hubby, do you understand Freida is going to leave you?"
He looked at me and said "wait - what?!"
Seriously.
Because men are idiots! LOL
Hell yeah we are.......like the joke about the mule........sometimes we need a 2x4 upside the head to get our attention.....

For me its a matter of not feeling overwhelmed so a couple tasks a day. Start small to break the suction between butt and chair. Make a schedule once you start and just give him today and tomorrow.

I know for me - a long list is too much, where a couple tasks a day - I will get done.
 
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