Rain in the House's Profile

I WISH I'd paid heed to the warning signs that popped up while decorating our apartment after we married: Decades of clutter (including toys, textbooks, sports and equipment that had not been touched since childhood), more clutter occupying every available horizontal surface (but purposefully arranged), shelves buckling under books (which was a turn-on at the time but not now that I know he never lets any go), and the art on the walls was Ansel Adams (safe, boring) and random scifi images (which I thought would be confined to his office). There was too much I overlooked, thinking I wasn't going to be shallow (but I am, I'm an artist), and what took me years to realise is that these are the signs of a person who hangs onto his past obsessively and builds his ego/identity very much on physical objects and displays (again, the irony is that I'm the visual expert). There is no compromise--he hates alternatives I propose, does and suggests nothing for the apartment--aside from keeping things the cluttered way he has them. I can only constantly declutter my own tiny spaces and work on things that do not touch his possessions. There are of course other issues, and I envision being out of this marriage within a year. But it's not STYLE per se that's the dealbreaker, it's the self-honesty, flexibility (and/or imagination) and understanding the other party has--or not.