What To Do When Your Significant Other is Reluctant to Declutter

What do you do when you’re ready to embrace a simpler lifestyle, but your partner isn’t on board?

Join me as I share the importance of communication, and tips on finding a compromise that respects both parties, including some steps on how to move forward.

Whether you’re looking to declutter physically, mentally, or emotionally, this episode will inspire you to move forward, even if you’re walking the journey solo for now. 

USEFUL LINKS:

How to Get Started Decluttering When Overwhelmed PDF: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/overwhelmed

30 Day Decluttering Challenge: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/challenge

Facebook Group: The Simple Living Society: www.facebook.com/groups/thesimplelivingsociety

Instagram: www.instagram.com/hellosimplejoy

Shop: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/shop

Transcript

Hayley Forster [00:00:00]:

I constantly get asked, “What if your spouse or partner doesn’t share the enthusiasm for a simpler life?” I completely understand. I get it, and it can be really frustrating. When you have found this solution that gives you some form of peace of mind, some calm, and some happiness, you obviously want your partner to join in. You want them to get on board with it.

Hayley Forster [00:01:23]:

It’s not just about decluttering, it’s about experiencing that mental shift that comes along with it as well. The elevation in mood, the decrease in anxiety. You want to share that joy. You want to share that ease with them, particularly with the person that you’re sharing your life with. And when they push back, it can feel really, really challenging. But this is where I want to stress to you that you do not have to wait for them to get it. Just as you’ve had your journey to get there, they’ve got their journey to go on as well. So they might be at a bit of a crossroads at the moment, not sure in which direction to go, and that’s okay.

Hayley Forster [00:02:04]:

That’s part of growth. That’s part of life. And both of you have a say in how things flow in your home. But I just want to go back a little bit. Let’s rewind. And I just want to say that it’s essential first to communicate. You want to be able to have that calm, grounded conversation with your partner. You want to be able to express why it’s so important to you, and how it benefits you, how it perhaps benefits your children.

Hayley Forster [00:02:33]:

But most importantly, you want to be able to listen to their side as well. So you could say something like, “this is really crucial for my mental health, my well-being. I want our home to be a sanctuary. I don’t want it to be a source of stress for us. How can we make it work together? We want to be able to respect each other’s needs and wants and viewpoints” and have that discussion. It’s not about forcing your perspective on them, but it’s about finding a middle ground that works for both of you. And I just wanna share a little story from one of my clients.

Hayley Forster [00:03:11]:

When they first started decluttering, her husband really wasn’t on board. He got really nervous about it. He would hold on to things from the past, and he had a lot of sentimental items as well. And when she began to declutter, he got really anxious about it. And he would panic even though she hadn’t touched his stuff and she was focusing on her own at first. So they managed to find a compromise and they managed to create some spaces in the home that remained his domain. That was his space and he could do whatever with it, and it would be untouched by my client’s decluttering efforts. And over time, actually

Hayley Forster [00:03:55]:

what he saw was the benefits it was giving his wife, and how how much better their home felt, and how much better she felt. And he started to feel those effects as well. And actually what we ended up seeing was that he started to join in with some of the decluttering as well. And it wasn’t this big flamboyant, “oh, I’m coming to join you on your journey”. It was just that she noticed that he started to eliminate things on his own, and he perhaps would get rid of things that he wouldn’t normally get rid of. And your situation might be slightly different, but there’s always a compromise that you can find. But what’s important is just setting those boundaries, respecting each other, and understanding that while, yes decluttering is transformative,

Hayley Forster [00:04:43]:

ultimately, you need to put your relationship first, and that needs nurturing and understanding to do that. So I just want to give you 4 simple ways that you can try to get your partner on board. So even if your partner is reluctant to get rid of things right now, you can try 1 or more of these suggestions and just see what happens and see where it takes you. The first one is to just have patience with your partner. Converting someone from their current lifestyle to a declutterer who wants to get rid of items from their home and their life. It is a process. If you think about the process that you’ve been on yourself, then you know it can be quite a difficult journey and quite a long one as well.

Hayley Forster [00:05:27]:

And we don’t all have that light bulb moment at the same time. So just have patience with them. And if you’re a naturally neat and tidy person and you just cannot get your head around how your partner can keep so much stuff, then this patience is even more necessary. Number 2 is be a good example. Start decluttering your own stuff and keep it that way. And this is where I always start with my clients. When you start decluttering, focus on your items only.

Hayley Forster [00:05:57]:

Park your partner’s things. Don’t look at them. Come to those at a different time. And what will happen is that by watching your positive attitude towards decluttering, over time, it’s gonna make them see the possibilities of a clutter free lifestyle, especially if you’ve both been clutter keepers in the past and you’ve both struggled with that. If they can see that you’re reaping benefits from this, they’re more likely to want to do it themselves. And actually what I have recommended to some of my clients, that’s worth a try – on an evening, if you’re enjoying spending time with your partner and you want to watch some shows together, you could try and watch some sorting your home and life out programs, like “Sort Your Life Out” with Stacey Solomon,

Hayley Forster [00:06:45]:

there’s the Marie Kondo documentaries, there’s “Get Organized” on Netflix. There’s lots of hoarder type shows. But if you can watch those together and enjoy those together, actually, they can be really big motivators because you can see the benefits and the changes in other people, and that can sometimes inspire them as well. Number 3 is offer to declutter with your partner. So never declutter your partner’s belongings without their permission, even if you know it’s mostly rubbish or things that could be donated or things that they don’t really use. Just ask yourself how would you feel if someone went through your things and they made decisions and got rid of things without consulting you.

Hayley Forster [00:07:28]:

You’d probably be quite hurt and quite upset about it, and you might then retreat and you might be very unlikely to cooperate in the future with other decluttering projects. Your spouse is likely to feel the same. So just don’t really go there. What you can do is make the offer to work with them, and make sure that they know that they’re gonna have the final say about every item and reassure them that taking everything away is not the goal. You’re not trying to throw everything out. It’s just you’re really trying to focus on what matters to you, what you need, what you use, and all of the excess can go. Then stick to your promise. This is something that I do with my family as well.

Hayley Forster [00:08:10]:

If there’s an area that we need to declutter, but it’s not actually the majority of my stuff. I’ll sit with them and we’ll go, right. “do you want this? No. Yes. Keep it.” If not, it goes in the rubbish bin, and we sort things out together and we do it as a little partnership. And that works really well. And the last suggestion, number 4, is to start small and with common areas.

Hayley Forster [00:08:34]:

Just remember that your partner might be overwhelmed with the sheer volume of stuff that they’ve got in their lives just like you were when you started decluttering. So again, offer to work together, but work together on easy areas. Maybe start the habit of doing nightly 10 minute tidy/decluttering sessions on an evening. That’s a great way for you to get into the habit of stopping those clutter piles piling up. Once you’ve established that habit, you might try moving on to some bigger projects. That’s much lower pressure than targeting an entire room or an entire wardrobe and being confronted with a massive pile of clutter to get through. Now not each of these steps are gonna work for everybody. They’re not always gonna be successful, and that’s because as humans, we’re all different.

Hayley Forster [00:09:25]:

And there’s just gonna be times or situations where it’s just not gonna work. But for most people, these tips do work. Not always immediately and not always perhaps to the extent that we want them to work, but often well enough that actually decluttering can become a unifying family project rather than a source of division in your household. And life is so much easier when you can work together towards the goal of clutter free living. But just remember that even if you are walking the decluttering journey by yourself for now and and you are just trying to do the best you can, you can still make significant changes. You can make a positive difference. And ultimately, you want to prioritize your relationship, the communication, the love, and the mutual respect between each other.

Hayley Forster [00:10:13]:

Okay. Thank you. That’s it for today’s episode. Remember, this journey, like all journeys that we take, it is better when it is shared. But until next time, keep striving for that simplicity.