I'm married and unfortunately for my poor wife I have some kind of hole in my brain that doesn't allow me to notice or care about things being tidy or organized. I'll often get asked why I didn't pick up the trash that was in my path through the apartment or if I noticed the garbage is getting piled up.
I will always do chores when asked, I have no objection to handling the necessary labor of managing a household. The problem is my wife doesn't want to have to ask and I want her to be happier.
I often will try to motivate myself to take stock of each room I'm in before i leave and try to leave it cleaner but after maybe a day or two it's out of my mind. I just don't get any dopamine from things being clean and it's hard to form a habit.
Before I lived with someone else I basically never cleaned until it was severely impacting my daily life, did a big clean that took like an entire weekend, then just let it get just as bad.
How does one break this kind of behaviour? Some kind of shock therapy? Am I a lost cause? My current plan is to write a list of chores and things to check after work before settling in for the night but I'm skeptical as it's not the first chore list I've made.
i've named my issue with this male pattern blindness, though it's probably not only dudes doing it we seem to be the main culprits. Treat it as if it's like any other self critique. We got our brains fucked and now expect someone else to deal with our shit, which is bullshit, and we need to get a hold of that part of our thinking and choke it to death
If you're living alone, it's whatever even if bad for your mental health, but when having a partner it's important not to just expect them to do it all. I suck at this as well, am working on it