To be fair, not all of us live in rural abodes…some of us live in the city/suburbs, in condos or apartments, and have to make do. I lived in a city for a long time, and my barn boots lived in my car, and I would change shoes before entering the apartment. I am lucky to now have a proper mudroom, but didn’t always have that luxury!
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He is sensitive to smells and sounds and he was not anticipating how much rural life would impact these sensitivities when we moved (I thought he would adapt). Big shocks like one dog getting sprayed by a skunk and an especially bad couple of tick seasons have tipped this all off, I think.
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IKEA has great flatware, reasonably priced. Just saying.
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And this is a measure of what exactly?
A better question may be “How many commenting on this thread have found themselves in a similar relationship, extracted themselves and lived happily ever after.”
A “successful” relationship is not necessarily a measure of what is best or healthiest for every individual.
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One-sided buyer’s remorse 
Ouch. I’m not sure you’re going to get your SO over this with a better smelling interior. OTOH, if it hasn’t been a couple of years yet, maybe there’s hope for adjustment.
On the wtf side of things, dogs can get sprayed in town too. Ticks are everywhere and seem to be increasing like crazy everywhere.
I wish you luck.
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This is a lifestyle mismatch. It falls under my deal breaker category. When I was young in my 20’s and met my ex-husband, I didn’t fully appreciate how different our lifestyle requirements were. He was a touring musician at the time and basically never liked being in one place for too long.
I was the breadwinner, and his touring didn’t last terribly long so he did music lessons making next to no money. In 2014, I completely maxed out what I could afford to get us a new house. For a few months, I alone had two house payments and two car payments. That house was bought with the intention to live there at least 8-10 years if not more. Come 2016, he’s whinging that we need to move again. I was so tapped from the stress of carrying all the financial stuff that I really put my foot down and held hard that we would be staying put since I was the bank. It wasn’t even a full year later he found a part time deal traveling, met a little girlfriend and I divorced him early 2018.
I remember thinking early on that this lifestyle thing might come up…and it sure did.
My advice is to try and get ahead of whatever his issue is, and be prepared that he may not be into the rural life thing. And whether or not thats a deal breaker for you.
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Exactly!
I am one of these who extracted myself from a similar relationship after trying for far too long to appease a controlling partner (almost 10 years). I didn’t realize until I left that everything had been about him (and I let it happen because I was young) and was so happy after the initial shock of being alone.
And I went on to have another (much healthier) long-term relationship a few years later.
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I can only speak for myself. DH and I have been together for over 10 yrs. (we met and married in our mid 30’s)
AND … We have been in couples therapy twice so we can learn how to effectively communicate and express our needs and wants out of the relationship. To help us maintain balance, (I tend to shoulder most of the housework becuase my level of cleanliness is different than his is) so we can collectively be better as a couple. It takes work to be in a successful relationship. And I am one if the posters that thinks there is something deeper going on.
Get this shampoo: https://coatdefense.com/collections/for-your-dog It was the ONLY thing that got rid of the skunk spray when my girl got sprayed this time last year. And skunk spray is horrible. I also put a shallow bowl of white vinegar on each room and changed it out every few days. It helps with the lingering stink.
Since smells trigger him, I am wondering if he is autistic in some degree? My DH jis autistic (high functioning) and smells really set him off. We have an air purifier in the kitchen when I cook. Bacon of all things is one of his triggers. 
You may want to get an air purifier: https://www.blueair.com/us/
We have the Pure Blue 121AllergenBlocker model
https://www.blueair.com/us/air-purifiers/blue-pure-121/1698.html?cgid=air-purifiers#prefn1=blair_recommendedRoomSize&prefv1=openspace&start=1
I change the filter every 6 months. When we ran it full time, I changed it every 3 months. (smaller home, with mold issues, 2 dogs and a cat and the home was 1000 sq ft)
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Interesting…
I have what I would call a farmette (under 20 acres, horses and we do hay), and we have a typical small ranch house. Nothing has a concrete floor except the garage.
I spent my child hood (back in the dark ages) visiting relatives who lived on real farms in old farm houses (makes me think about the familiar noise of their screen door slamming when someone went through it) and none of them had an area like you describe either.
Some had the door from the outside on a landing that offered up into the kitchen or down into the basement and down in the basement was a shower (normal shower) so really dirty people could go right down there. One had to be very very dirty to be banished directly to the basement. Every day farm dirt or sweat was not that frowned upon. A kid who went hunting for frogs and fell in the swamp was just hosed off outside.
It must be an area specific design.
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The horses were something I brought to the relationship nearly 25 years ago. I will NOT let my new car smell like a barn. That’s what the dually and the old Bronco are for. I require that ONE vehicle be presentable and clean. If someone else wants to grow oats in the floorboard that’s none of my business 
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It’s just ‘my idea’ of better design. We do live in an old bungalow farmhouse that had an open shower in the basement, with those old basement access double doors and an old coal chute.
Married 22 years. My husband has learned to love all the craziness that is farm life.
His favorite saying is… happy wife = happy life
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A decade of being obnoxiously obsessed and happy together. A key for us is that we don’t believe in fighting. Fighting is for children. We talk, discuss, analyze, identify the root problem, feel safe expressing disappointment or frustration, and focus on mutually beneficial solutions.
Real scenario:
DH “Love, the washing machine cost an unrewarding amount of money and it is stressing me out to see you wash saddle pads. I worry that the hair will clog up a part and cause an expensive repair”.
GLR “The barn doesn’t have a washer and in the summer I don’t like using sweaty pads more than 1-2x before washing. What if I use a reusable hair removal tool first to minimize the hair before the wash”
DH “Seems logical. If it’s still too much hair we can set up some type of blanket rinsing station on the back deck for a pre wash”
What he did not say was “Your horses are disgusting” or even the saddle pads are disgusting. He identified the root cause and we found a solution we’ve successfully implemented for many years.
A dog getting skunked is an unpleasant thing that the dog has to experience and that the people have to handle. Similarly, ticks are a stressful situation where you worry about disease. In neither instance is it rational or compassionate to conclude that the dogs themselves are “gross” because of what occurred to them.
A grown adult that lacks the awareness to differentiate and the communication skills to articulate this does not sound like a fulfilling partner. If this partner is able to differentiate and articulate in other areas of life but these suddenly disappear at home or during conflict, then I think concerns about power differential, manipulation, or malicious intent are not without foundation.
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That is a very adult way of handling it. My SO doesn’t pay attention to what I’m doing so I just wash them when he is at work 
I think I should adopt your approach!
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I think each individual needs to have their own definition of what a successful relationship looks in their head BEFORE entering into a relationship with someone else. Then you have to find someone that has a similar definition. This requires a decent amount of self reflection and being able to be introspective which, IME, seems more on the rare side these days.
I have seen so many people settle and ultimately spend a lot of years miserable because they love someone they ultimately just are not compatible with. In my 20’s interests in TV/music, books, sports, movies, politics, mutual interests etc seemed to be the basis for getting on in a lot of relationships. A big draw for my ex husband was that I was a big Star Wars fan and that I was a pretty nerd 
. My last relationship was with a narcissistic jerk that really blew my self esteem. My ex husband went above and beyond for me so that was a big step up for me. That should NOT have overshadowed the fact that he was basically a well disguised grifter. I like to think I learned a little bit going through all that.
When I met DH in my late 30’s and him in his early 40’s, we both were far more concerned about things like communication styles, how each person handles stress, what does compromise look like, how do we like to spend/save money, what are family dynamics like, how we like to spend our weekday evenings and weekend free time. I also was seeing a therapist to make sure that my vision was clear. Granted we’ve only been together since Jan of 2021 and married since Sept 2023, but we are pretty content and we both feel we fairly represented ourselves from day one.
Editing to add - DH and I did some couples counseling before we got married to make sure our heads were on straight. And by that I also mean we eloped so there was no engagement or anything like that. Our counselor shared an office building with another girl I had boarded with and when she said her horses name…I was like I KNOW HIM! My DH just laughed and said he expected no less haha. When she found out a horse was also in our equation she made sure to address the whole lifestyle thing with DH and he was already living it so we had a good laugh. He told her he knew he was second to the horse…which I never say, but we all know sometimes horses do have to come first. We took casual bets on how long it would take for Charlie to come up in counseling and it wasn’t very long
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That’s what I do. I wash all the animals feed pans and bits in the dishwasher as well.
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I’m cool with bits and most feed pans, but I find the idea of putting brushes in the dishwasher just utterly disgusting.
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@anon55755751 My thought is can you bring in a good, honest friend (with a good nose) and see what they think of the smell/mess? Then we know, is this real?
My thought on the above comments is marriage/a roommate is work and not always easy. I’ve been with my dear husband 28 years and for most of us (and 50% DO split up!) have trouble from time to time. But leaving/divorcing is tricky on so many levels. Work it out if you can. Communications. Deal with it. Talk. Right? I mean do you mostly enjoy his company?
OK, I had a little biz during college doing stuff for wealthy people and they ruined me. These women showed me dirt I had no idea could exist. I’d grown up on the back of a horse and lived with three St. Bernards and hippie parents. So, you know… Regulations were loose.
My two cents are clean floors - ideally tile and hardwood - NOT carpet, rugs that are washed, sweeping like it’s a hobby and not letting laundry or animalized fabric sit around. Gotta hit the washer. Wipe down any surface that gets saliva or other smells.
Clean with something fresh like baking soda, vinegar, some soft fragrance that really is natural and nice.
I hate the smell of smelly dogs. Love dogs but yowza can they be stinky. Haven’t owned one since my youth. DH is a cat person. Gotta love a cat. And we use pine pellets for litter so there’s no smell. And I clean it every day.
Anyways, make it work if you enjoy his company…sometimes. 
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It’s not that tricky, especially if you’re not married and there are no kids involved (which I don’t know in OPs case). Ill attest to it being a royal pain in the rear, but so is living a lifetime of unhappiness and not feeling like you’re in it together with the person you love.
In OPs case, it doesn’t sound like communication is her partners strong suit and he’s opting to use words like “gross” to piss her off to likely start a fight. If he was mature in his communication, he would have approached her in any of the many examples that have been brought up, and simply explained what all was bothering him. Communication isn’t just talking, its also listening and thats where it goes off the rails for a lot of people.
I’d actually go on a limb and say that effectively communicating for people that aren’t good at it might be harder than separating given so many people do over things like that. I am all for couples trying to work things out, but a lot of times one or both parties need to do SO much work on themselves first before being able to be in a healthy functional relationship.
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