Episode 7: When to Leave Your Partner’s Things Alone
Producer: Jill Cox-Cordova
Music: Gifford Ivan Cordova III
Podcast Art: Nick Zinkie
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In All Seriousness
Respect the Other’s Things
In this podcast, Tony and Jill agreed on their relationship advice: Respect the other’s stuff and boundaries. Don’t just automatically throw things away.
Whew! Now that we got that straight, let’s review Jill’s advice on how to gain or maintain a healthy relationship:
- Keep your identity. Often when people get into relationships, they stop being who they are. Don’t do that. It’s fine, of course, to act as one and do things as a couple , but if you don’t have all the same interests, that’s acceptable, too.
- Allow yourself some space from each other every now and then. For example, Tony has the basement to go to without Jill following him there. As you heard in the podcast, Jill’s working on getting her own creative space, too.
- Make it a priority each day to spend time together in the same room. That’s what we do each evening before bedtime.
Tony has some suggestions as well:
- Remember that you and your partner are both individuals. Respect them, their space, and their belongings.
- Do not get angry just because they placed their things some place that you wouldn’t. Instead, calmly talk about it. You’ll likely compromise, which means a win-win situation.
- If it looks like your partner is becoming a hoarder, seek professional help.
Does your partner have a problem with respecting boundaries and/or your things? What do you do about it? Leave us your comments.
I grew up in a house where if I left anything out for more than two days, it was thrown out. I never complained because I knew I could never defend the action of leaving something out of place. Fast forward to my 25th year when I married Denis whose mother had given up on cleaning and never moved anything from where it landed. Once Denis was looking for an important paper he left on a table in the living room of his mother’s house. It was about a year later that he called her and described where he thought he had left it. She went right to it and mailed it to him.
Of course my mother-in-law saved everything and hence so did Denis. We had been married for maybe five years when I got sick of seeing every sports coat he ever owned hanging in the small closets of our first house. He said that when the second Great Depression came, he would wear them. By the way his collection included a bright green Nauru jacket that made a former girlfriend cry when he picked he up for an important date.
One day it occurred to me that he could wear his newer sport coats when the inevitable depression happened. I wondered if he would ever miss them, so I summoned courage and took them to the Good Will. He didn’t miss them and it must have been two or three years later that I had to prove my point and confessed to Denis and his mother. I’ll never forget the look of betrayal in Denis’s eyes and his mother’s indignation. However I do believe they both saw my logic, especially Denis. There were no cross words, and it never comes up unless I bring it up.
So now, as you can imagine, I’m Marie KonMari-ing the house. Every time I empty a drawer I’m soooo happy. But I’m not touching Denis’s stuff and I’ll always own more than 30 books at a time and lots and lots of read and unread magazines. When I think about how neat and almost minimalist my childhood home was, well . . . I know it’s impossible for us. While it had its good points, there was little creativity.
I grew up in a house where if I left anything out for more than two days, it was thrown out. I never complained because I knew I could never defend the action of leaving something out of place. Fast forward to my 25th year when I married Denis whose mother had given up on cleaning and never moved anything from where it landed. Once Denis was looking for an important paper he left on a table in the living room of his mother’s house. It was about a year later that he called her and described where he thought he had left it. She went right to it and mailed it to him.
Of course my mother-in-law saved everything and hence so did Denis. We had been married for maybe five years when I got sick of seeing every sports coat he ever owned hanging in the small closets of our first house. He said that when the second Great Depression came, he would wear them. By the way his collection included a bright green Nauru jacket that made a former girlfriend cry when he picked he up for an important date.
One day it occurred to me that he could wear his newer sport coats when the inevitable depression happened. I wondered if he would ever miss them, so I summoned courage and took them to the Good Will. He didn’t miss them and it must have been two or three years later that I had to prove my point and confessed to Denis and his mother. I’ll never forget the look of betrayal in Denis’s eyes and his mother’s indignation. However I do believe they both saw my logic, especially Denis. There were no cross words, and it never comes up unless I bring it up.
So now, as you can imagine, I’m Marie KonMari-ing the house. Every time I empty a drawer I’m soooo happy. But I’m not touching Denis’s stuff and I’ll always own more than 30 books at a time and lots and lots of read and unread magazines. When I think about how neat and almost minimalist my childhood home was, well . . . I know it’s impossible for us. While it had its good points, no real creativity came out of it.
I grew up in a house where if I left anything out for more than two days, it was thrown out. I never complained because I knew I could never defend the action of leaving something out of place. Fast forward to my 25th year when I married Denis whose mother had given up on cleaning and never moved anything from where it landed. Once Denis was looking for an important paper he left on a table in the living room of his mother’s house. It was about a year later that he called her and described where he thought he had left it. She went right to it and mailed it to him.
Of course my mother-in-law saved everything and hence so did Denis. We had been married for maybe five years when I got sick of seeing every sports coat he ever owned hanging in the small closets of our first house. He said that when the second Great Depression came, he would wear them. By the way his collection included a bright green Nauru jacket that made a former girlfriend cry when he picked he up for an important date.
One day it occurred to me that he could wear his newer sport coats when the inevitable depression happened. I wondered if he would ever miss them, so I summoned courage and took them to the Good Will. He didn’t miss them and it must have been two or three years later that I had to prove my point and confessed to Denis and his mother. I’ll never forget the look of betrayal in Denis’s eyes and his mother’s indignation. However I do believe they both saw my logic, especially Denis. There were no cross words, and it never comes up unless I bring it up.
So now, as you can imagine, I’m Marie KonMari-ing the house. Every time I empty a drawer I’m soooo happy. But I’m not touching Denis’s stuff and I’ll always own more than 30 books at a time and lots and lots of read and unread magazines. When I think about how neat and almost minimalist my childhood home was, well . . . I know it’s impossible for us. While it had its good points, the atmosphere didn’t foster much creativity.
Mary, we love your storytelling. We can indeed imagine your Marie Kondo-ing your house, but we also took note that you’re not touching Denis’ stuff. Tony applauded your taking Denis’ sports coats to Goodwill, without his missing them. We both can understand why it no longer comes up in conversation. Lol! Keep collecting those books and read and unread magazines, as I do.