Hi, I'm Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Welcome to our YouTube channel and our letter from Ginny:
"My husband likes a neat, clean, organized home [There's a big 'uh oh' that I feel already], and when our teenagers have friends over, there are cups, candy wrappers, clothes and towels left around. My kids know that they are responsible for cleaning up after their friends go home, but they don't always do the best job of it. [Ok, let me understand something. I have a feeling when I'm going to read on, you're going to make your husband sound like a neurotic, crazy person...very compulsive. But if your kids know that they're supposed to clean up and don't do a good job of it, you should tell them, 'Go back and clean up. I want the house, the kitchen, the living room and wherever you guys play to look like the way it did before they came over.' But I have a feeling we're going to make your husband the nut case, right?]
My husband is rigid [Yeah, I knew that] on this issue and gets annoyed when he sees even small 'messes' around the house. I tell him to relax, but I'm then in a 'no-win' triangle where I'm defending the kids to him. I don't like that he's so inflexible, but I have no control over him. ['Control, control...']
How can I prevent this situation from being a perpetual stand-off?"
Have the kids put the house back together like the way it was. I don't know why...this is a no-brainer. Yeah, he might be a little overly fussy but when you dated him, you knew it. I knew it when I was dating a guy... I'm going to tell you about this. This is a million and a half years ago but nonetheless I thought he was so cute, he was so nice and he was so wonderful. I thought, "Oh my gosh. Wouldn't it be cool to marry him some day?" Right? So I go over to his condo one day to play tennis and I was starving so I said, "Before I can play tennis, I need to eat something." So we went into his condo and he said, "Make yourself a sandwich." [Says sarcastically] Ok, that was gracious. So I went to the refrigerator, pulled out stuff to make the sandwich and got the cutting board. I'm cutting up the tomato, I have the turkey, I have the lettuce, I toasted the bread a little bit and made it all, put it on a plate, and sat down with a glass of water to eat my sandwich. He walks into the room [turns head, opens eyes widely and points with finger] and says, "There are crumbs on the cutting board." I said, "Yeah, I know. I made a sandwich there and after I'm done, I'll clean it up." He practically lost it. You know what we call that? The last date.
So since you married someone this constipated, you need to respect it. So the kids need to clean up. That's it! That's it. Don't tell him to lighten up; you picked him. I could've married that guy. Oh my gosh. I couldn't ever have eaten until every crumb in the house had a place to go. I would've starved to death.
I'm Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Thank you for being here, at our YouTube channel. Until next time, remember - go do the right thing.
