My boys have always had a way of ignoring messes. They can live in their messy rooms for months and not be bothered by the piles of stuff that must be navigated like an obstacle course or a mine field in order to get to the other side.

If you asked them, “Do you think your room is messy?”

I think they would either change the subject or deny that it’s really that bad. It’s not that I think they are totally unaware. I just think they’ve gotten used to the messes and see the piles more like kitchy décor or abstract expressions of their lifestyle.

(BTW, the photo above is not of any of my son’s rooms. Actually their rooms are a little better than that. But that’s the problem—we tend to minimize or justify our own messes.)

I think that’s the way many of us feel about our married lives. We have messy marriages, but refuse to admit that our marriage is really that bad. Or maybe we have messes that crop up every now and then, so we rationalize that “we aren’t as bad as so and so.” And we certainly don’t want to take responsibility for the mess. After all, that’s our spouse’s fault!

So in an effort to clear up any confusion, I wanted to give a list of several different types of messy marriages. Maybe you’ll find yourself in one or more of the descriptions and realize that it’s time to come clean!

This list is not exhaustive, but it can be exhausting to a marriage. Throughout life, we all face one or more of these and can end up making messes of our marriage relationship.

So if you’ve made a mess, are recovering from a mess, or simply want to avoid making a mess in the future, I hope that you’ll stick around. I’d love to hear your thoughts, advice, or ideas for future posts. And I also hope you’ll want to hear our thoughts, advice and ideas for cleaning up the messes in marriage too!