11 Ways to Merge Two Households into One: A Must for Newlyweds!
It is really hard to combine two households into one. I feel your pain and want you to know, you are not alone in your feelings of frustration.
First let us understand what makes it so hard? Think about it, when you are single, you do not even have so much stuff! So why is integrating your stuff with his stuff is so difficult and painful?
Like everything else in life, the understanding of the above situation comes from a deeper place. It really is not about your clutter, how much you have, and why you may be bringing your teddy bear along. It has nothing to do with your actual stuff.
Understanding why combining two households into one is so difficult begins with your Clutter Personality Assessment. You and your chosson/kallah actually have different Clutter Personality types and those characteristics affect the way you deal with clutter. And if those personality types are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, weeding through each other’s things is not easy.
What are the various personality types? According to organizedhome.com, they are:
The Rebel-“I don’t want to and you can’t make me!”
The Deferrer- “I’ll think about that tomorrow!”
The Procrastinator/Perfectionist- “Next week, I’ll organize everything …perfectly!”
The Sentimentalist-“Oh, the little darling!”
The Hoarder- “This might come in hand someday!”
On the opposite end of the spectrum are these clutter personality types:
The Tosser- has no problem throwing things out
The Dropper- drops items wherever he/she is standing
The Concealer-organizes the clutter without tossing anything (from Cut the Clutter, Stow the Stuff)
Here is an example. I am a Tosser and my husband is a perfectionist/sentimentalist. When we got married, we went through each other’s belongings together. I brought minimal amounts of possessions from my parent’s home and my husband came with boxes and boxes of stuff.I wanted to go through our things and purge immediately. It took my husband a long time to finally agree on when we would begin.Nevertheless, we began. We made a lot of progress but it was slow due to the fact that every item I pulled out of my husband’s box had some sentimental value for him, down the mementos from a bar mitzvah or a key chain given to him by his grandfather.
After a while, he became more selective and learned how to toss. One day, I saw there was an old pile of magazines from a conference we had gone to. Nothing too important, I thought, just industry news. My husband, who rarely gets angry, almost blew a fuse when he saw I had thrown out the magazines without asking him.
What tends to happen with a Tosser/Sentimentalist relationship is that the tosser participates in “stealth organizing”, so when the Sentimentalist is not around, objects are purged. And this is what happened with us. I thought, “It will take so much less time for me to go through these boxes and boxes without my husband around.”
We agreed to stockpile the things that were a source of contention for a year until we cooled down. I put those magazines in a box in the basement, and sure enough after a year or so, my husband was unattached to them and purged them on his own.
Let’s move on to other Clutter Relationship Matches. What is your Clutter Relationship?
Is your husband a dropper and you a tosser? Most likely you are picking things up for him wherever he leaves them. Tossing whatever he is leaving around is actually enabling him. Why should he pick it up if someone is doing it for him? Learn a way to stop enabling and teach better habits. (One wife picked up all of the dirty socks and left them on his pillow, he learned quickly!)
Is your wife a concealer? Where appearances are misleading and it seems she is organized because she loves to sort and organize with of her bins and labels, yet cannot get rid of anything? If you are a tosser and touch her stuff, she will resent it. If you are a hoarder or sentimentalist, your wife will get to do exactly what she loves- organize it by height, size, year. Just don’t bring things into the house faster than your wife can manage them.
Do you see how there could be inherent difficulties in opposing clutter types put together in a relationship? Let’s talk about ways to mitigate the hardships and see what you can do before and after you move in together.
1. We talked earlier about objects that you are really fighting over. It is best to box them up and put them aside for a year or so until everyone cools down. It works and by then, you will have adjusted to each other and learned better strategies for handling the disagreements.
2. Purge before you merge. I knew that my stuff needed to be purged and organized before I even moved in with my husband because his belongings were going to take A LOT of time to go through and I did not want to have to deal with my things in addition. Go through your things before you bring them into your new home. You will save a lot of time and aggravation.
3. Plan the layout of your home before you move in. Decide which room and closets are reserved for “storage” so when you do have to keep things in boxes, no one will be upset by the sight of them.
4. Identify duplicates; it is easy to see what you have two of. Weed those items out first because it is easy to make decisions on duplicates, if you have two of something, purge the duplicate.
The hoarder will still find this difficult. The hoarder loves to have duplicates and thinks they will come in handy someday. Reassure your hoarder partner that stuff will be around us always, the internet has all the information we need, thrift stores and yard sales have just about every small appliance known to man. Think of these resources as “extensions” of the household storage area and they can be accessed whenever needed. Be compassionate towards your hoarder and know that hoarding is rooted in insecurity along with the fear of not having any resources.
5. Designate a separate closet or dresser for each partner. Husbands and wives really need separate clothing storage areas. Find a way to provide this if possible.6. Relieve yourselves somewhat and know that you do not have to combine files. Both of you are coming from different homes with much paperwork. Paper is just about the hardest to sort so keep it separate. Don’t venture into tricky territory.7. When you are determining what to keep and bring into the home, extricate your sense of “I want to use this/keep it because it’s mine”. Select items to bring into your home only when they blend best into your space. Not because it is yours and you are attached to it. This will be tricky for sentimentalists. Encourage your sentimentalist to take a picture of his/herself with the object before letting it go or scrapbook the memory of it.
8. Agree on your personal and shared space. This is sometimes hard for newlyweds to accept. “But we want to be together every second!” I do not doubt the strength and intensity of your connection and your love. However, you still need your own space and one of you will need it more than the other. When we moved into our home, there was a sequestered room lined with bookshelves and paneled in wood. I thought, “This will be the perfect room for my husband. His office.” The truth is, my husband likes to be close most of the time and I need to go into my cave. So I took over the office and my husband works on a laptop in the living room, the center of everything. I need my space.
9. I’ve seen couples that are both rebels. Meaning, when one person makes a decision about something, the other has to disagree. And vice versa. I know of one couple that cannot even agree on where to hang artwork. If one suggests one layout, the other has to disagree simply because the feelings of “you can’t make me!” Defenses are up, no doubt. My suggestion would be to give each partner, who are good intentioned and really want to get their house set up and decorated and cannot seem to do so in a timely fashion, a room to decorate of their own. Let the husband decorate the family room and the wife decorates the kitchen. Instead of undergoing constant bickering, give each a room to setup. Decide on it and then let it go, even if you do not like their style. Chances are you will get used to it.
10. After a while, you will learn more about your spouse and his/her cleaning style. Divvy up the chores according to individual likes, not dislikes. If you husband loves to do dishes and laundry, why not? You can go grocery shopping and clean the bathrooms. 11. Discuss the house rules. Overnight guests, where will they sleep? The keys, where will they be stored? Each of you comes with a set of expectations, and often these are not even voiced before marriage. Perhaps in your home, guests never slept on the same floor as your parents and when it comes time for you to host guests, you feel very uncomfortable with your setup. Do you see how it is important to discuss these house rules? Your partner could think your feelings are absurd and does not understand your discomfort. Talk about what you are used to and come up with a set of your own house rules. Clearly, some of the above tips are encouraged prior to your marriage. Perhaps you are reading this, already married, and experiencing these frustrations. Follow these tips and adapt them to your situation, without worrying that it is “too late”. It is never too late.
