Zachary James5 said:I mentioned her that way so she could see what I was doing. I tossed everything of mine that was useless or unnecessary. I made sure to separate my stuff, setting aside things that belonged to others so the rest of the household could decide if they were worth keeping.
I did take initiative. I started organizing all the junk that had been piling up in my room for four years. When I wasn't home, things just got tossed in there because they weren't being used or were just clutter.
And my parents matter to me. I never said I wanted them gone. It's just... living under the same roof is tough.
My father walked out on my mother a few times, even if it was just for a day. I remember from when I was a kid, he’d leave the house and wouldn't check in until midnight. He'd come back drunk.
Which, I have to admit, feels strange. He graduated from a really demanding university—only about ten people in his class actually finished—and he had this impressive career as a professor and academic.
He was supposed to be one of the youngest masters in the entire country at the time, but then life happened—something that might happen to me too. During his senior year of college, my parents split up.
Are men messy? I think they're taught to be. In my family, at least, there's this unwritten rule that I handle the heavy lifting—chopping wood, assembling furniture—while the women are expected to keep the house tidy.
I realized this because I finally saw that achieving any kind of success requires at least a baseline level of order.
I personally believe that men can be extremely tidy and clean, and I don't think it's necessarily a matter of how they were raised—it's more about who they are as individuals. Perhaps, though, it could be a way of showing respect for the effort their parents put into maintaining the home. And really, there shouldn't be such things as "men's chores" or "women's chores." It's perfectly reasonable that a woman might not want to go out and chop wood if there are men in the house, or handle concrete work or moving heavy furniture—those are traditionally masculine tasks—but that doesn't mean a man should live in a pigsty or neglect his responsibilities entirely. On the other hand, I struggle to understand women who allow that to happen either. It feels like it should be part of our nature, somehow. Why wouldn't anyone want to help their mother by tidying up their room or the basement? Or, eventually, their spouse?
Anyway, credit to you for your hard work, but just a word of caution... once you show someone exactly how much you're capable of and how much you know... they will always try to take advantage of you.