Text by Allison Hope; illustration by Leanza Abucayan, CNN

Couples everywhere: Here’s why you (or they) can’t ever find anything. It’s not your fault.

Does your partner routinely misplace their keys, phone, or glasses (and it’s your job to find these items)? My interview with CNN explains organizational differences and how to alleviate bickering with your mate.

Allison writes,

“Where are the stamps?” I asked my wife.

“I can’t believe you are asking me. They are right where they always are,” she yelled from across the room.
This does nothing to help me in my quest. The stamps are nowhere to be found.
My wife and I engage in this dance, a common couple’s refrain, no less than three times per week.
Replace “stamp” with any number of other household items and it’s the same conversation, sometimes argument, about how I can’t find anything — because she moved it! — and how I can’t find anything — because I don’t look hard enough!
No matter which refrain of this eternal sulky spousal swan song you might be on, the good news is that it’s not your fault.
“It’s true that opposites attract,” said Susan Winter, relationship expert and bestselling author who has extensively researched relationship challenges and personal empowerment. “A messy person will oftentimes align with a neat freak. The uptight, overly stressed out individual will be drawn to the relaxed, easy going type. It’s part of our internal balancing process. We attract a mate who possesses the parts of our life that are disowned, or undiscovered.”
For the couple who perpetually feels misaligned when it comes to losing household items or the opposite — always having to help their lost partner find them — the roles we often inhabit inform which person in the pair we become.
There is that partner who ends up tending to household chores and organization more than the other. In my case, my wife is the one who cares for the home and our child, and I work and pay the bills. I try to help around the house, but I don’t have a lot of available time, and I am not particularly good at it (really). My wife, on the other hand, is a lesbian Martha Stewart. She is incredibly clean and neat and keeps our home very well organized.
The only problem is, I don’t know where she puts anything. When I go to look for a stamp or a ladle or that bottle of scotch, I don’t know where she moved it to. Of course, if I dare ask, she will cue the same line spouses for all of eternity have been spewing to their significant others. I am sure cave people did the same.