Mess is messing with my productivity

How do you all cope with the Mess - the unfinished 'projects' laying around the entire house - the clutter, my dear god, the clutter!!!

I've been reading through the forums a lot these past few days and I'm just trying to see how I can possibly move forward and make some sort of progress with the state of our house.

My Spouse (F) and Myself (F) have been married for just over a year - having never lived together previously - and I'm just at my wits end with the mess.  I've always been a tidy-ish person, not to the extreme but I've always kept things to a minimum - no clutter and always able to actually SEE all the surfaces in the house lol.

It's at the point now where I just do not know what to do - I'm literally overwhelmed with clutter & mess and don't even know where to begin with it - DW has made it clear that she doesn't want me to sort through anything and throw it away without her being there - but I just KNOW that if she is here when I do it then nothing will change - things will just be 'moved' to another area - only then for 'new mess' to creep in and replace the old!

Our garage, outside work shed and office are all so messy that you can barely walk anywhere in them without tripping and breaking your neck - despite promises to get them organized it just never happens!

I just want to go round the entire place with trash bags and throw everything that we don't need/use away but this caused a HUGE argument!

How the hell do you all deal with this?  My teenage kids have become like slaves too - Wife insists they don't have enough 'responsibilities' around the home (they definitely do) and this has also caused heated debates in the past - I don't think that they should have to take responsibility for the things that DW can't be bothered to do!  For example - DW wanted chickens - we got chickens - novelty has now worn off and it has somehow now become the kids' 'responsibility' to feed/water/clean them....

Same when DW cooks dinner - OMG there was a pan left in the kitchen sink for 5 days!!! Eventually I caved and had to do something about it - but if I cook dinner then I have to clean up my mess too - which is fine with me but I take issue with cleaning up after DW.  There has also been WAX melted onto our kitchen floor for 3 MONTHS - from a bout of candle making - promises to sort it out but never does - I just don't want to become an 'enabler' and run around picking up her mess - I don't think that's going to be helpful to anyone.

 

TL:DR - Wife is messy, won't do anything at all about it and I'm having a silent breakdown because I can no longer cope with it - but refuse to be an enabler and clean/tidy up after up constantly.

 

Sorry for the rant - think I just needed to get it out without there being an arguement lol.