Mumsnet Talk

I cook dinner, I clean up as I go. When dinner is finished I do all dishes and leave the kitchen tidy.

When DP cooks dinner every dish, utensil and pot is used. All the packets are just left thrown all over the benches. He puts the dirty plates in the sink with food still on them and that is the one and only reason that I refuse to do the cleaning after he has cooked.

To be fair, when he cleans he does it well, but it takes him days to get round to it (I know this because I left it to see) and he was doing all the cooking while I was pregnant. But you think by now he would have learned to tidy as he goes.

Hes not here today, so I am left with a bombsite of a kitchen and a baby who wont settle. So I cant even make a quick bite because to do that will involve a deep clean of the bloody kitchen.

YANBU. I wish DP would stop doing this. He can cook reasonably well and it would be lovely if he could cook once a week, but the amount of mess he makes fills me with rage. He would tidy eventually, but not until at least mid morning the next day and I can't cope with it. So I cook everything instead, easier that way.

As I always say on threads like this- it's easily solved. Only form adult relationships with grown ups.

Very helpful seeker. Thanks for that.

Any time.

Alternatively, say "please could you clear up tonight, it upsets me to come down to a messy kitchen in the morning, and it gets my day off to a really bad start. Thank you"

I do. But then I get an eye roll.

He means well. He just doesnt see the destruction the way I do. It just doesnt bother him.

We have a 'whoever cooks doesn't clean' rule in our house...it works well because revenge would be easy if the system was abused and we both know it. Being adults it hasn't been an issue for a long time, not since the first month we lived together and were still getting used to shared duties (that month was the hardest of our relationship!)

Hi wannabedomesticgoddess.

Argh, my ex DP used to do this (this is not why he is my ex!).

Why cook everything with a minimum of pots and pans and utensils when you can dirty them ALL? Especially as you won't be washing up, because you cooked?

When you cook, you clean. He should do the same IMO. Or you set up another cook-clean rule that suits you. He needs to know it's a problem in any case.

I think some people (men?) like to make the biggest deal possible about cooking.
Just wanted to commiserate more than anything, and let you know you're not alone!

Hes back for an hour and has cleaned it. He will prob make me lunch too.

Hes not all bad

Its just the level of mess for something so simple.

My dh does this too bless him. Although he will clean everything afterwards, but he takes forever. Say he cooked for 13:00 he would still be clearing up at 16:00! This is why he doesnt cook often!

My husband is the same. The other week he made a dinner of Chicken breasts, packet rice and salad leaves. You should have seen the state of the kitchen! He had used so many pots and utensils that you'd have thought he's cooked a roast for 30 people.

I thought it was just my dh who uses eveyr utensil going and leaves spices and peelings everywhere and makes more mess trying to swipe everything off onto a cloth because then everything lands on the floor. even if he washes up there will be water everywhere! the effort in cleaning up after him amounts to the effort I would need to cook so I'd rather he didn't cook at all sometimes.

Clearing up after yourself is part and parcel of cooking. If DP cooks for me she does the same. TBH it's less work just to cook myself rather than clear up the devastation left behind when she's done it!

DH does this too, bit of a standing joke that he must use every pot. He does try to clean it up though, but leaves things like cleaning down the surfaces, which I moan about. Then I feel guilty as he is a great cook and a lovely kind guy. He never moans about me - but then I clean as I go.

If I cook, he does the dishes. If he cooks, I do the dishes. I thought that was the normal/polite way?

Oh Angel. If there is one thing I have learnt from Mumsnet, it's that there is no such thing as 'normal'.

I do 99% of the cooking and clear as I go. When DH cooks he clears afterwards. All of us happy here.

Sometimes we do them together! Oh dear, now I don't know what we are!

It's certainly not just men. I think it is also South Africans.

When DW cooks she also leaves things in a heap.

She also uses lots of pots and will then leave them days (I know this because instead of doing them myself I asked her to do them, and then I left them).

She will do all manner of little things that make unnecessary mess, such as cutting bread without using a breadboard, and then drop crumbs everywhere while eating the sandwich.

She criticises me when I spend time at the weekend cleaning up. She says I should be spending time with the family instead.

I've just come in from work - to find breakfast and various other bits of detritus - clearly breakfast - so they've been there all day. It is the third time this has happened this week <heaves sigh, picks up broom>.

Her family are pretty similar.

I think it is a cultural thing. In South Africa one can hire a domestic help for the equivalent of five pounds a day. What's the point of being assiduous about housework in those circumstances?

It drives me round the twist, but I've reluctantly come to accept that the only solution is to move to South Africa and hire a maid.

Just to add that just about every night I cook AND wash the dishes.

Toad I used to work with SAs. Definitely a cultural thing with the maid so I feel your pain. I used to put their dirty dishes on their beds (worked on yachts) to get the point across. Thankfully it worked. But I don't think that would work for you!

Just read your second post. Now that is BS. If she doesn't go out to work, she needs to start pulling her weight. You sound lovely though!

Never knew that about South Africans. Interesting.

And ofcourse its women too. I just dont get it. Im quite methodical so the chaos is alien to me!

Leave the bastards

She just hates doing housework and particularly hates doing dishes. She's not a lazy person - she genuinely hates it. Fine - I do them, figuring that in every relationship one person pulls more weight overall, and in this relationship it happens to be me.

It does interest me though that she doesn't see doing such things as a necessary evil of living.

For what it's worth, there are advantages to her South-Africanness. She can turn herself into a human wrecking ball when confronted by an obstacle - human or otherwise.

This really annoys me too about my DP, the mess he makes when cooking is UNBELIEVABLE. I often dont want to set foot in the kitchen if he's been cooking, its beyond a joke!

And if i mention it i usually get "i didnt have time to clean, i was busy cooking tea"

Funny that because when im cooking i still manage to clean as i go and keep the kitchen tidy

My OH is incredibly messy too. He does try to clear up & wipe work surfaces etc but seems to have blind spots. One time I went into kitchen after he'd finished clearing up and there was a huge splash of gravy all over base unit door (a good 3 feet long), a) He just didn't see it and b) had no idea how he'd got it there!

Another time I found mint sauce on the dining room wall - I suspect done by his over vigourous stirring on way to dining room table.....

He's very good a breadcrumbing things too, but FFS the mess after.........

Same problem with my dh plus he cannot get dinner on the table on schedule. I do most of the cooking now But he does have to get dinner served 3 times a week. I leave him to make rice/potatoes/whatever and instruct him on what to do with the meal I have prepared (ie put in in the oven at 5pm at 400F). Been coming home to inedible mashed potatoes and dinner running 30 min behind. Why???? I did most of the work (and tidied up). All he had to do was boil some tatties! And lord, the MESS!

I find that DP cannot get the whole meal on the plate at the same time either.

No I dont want my pie before my chips. I want them at the same time!

My DP is the same. Food in the sink, sink piled so high with dishes so you can't use the tap, plus there is grease EVERYWHERE, the tea towels will be completely covered in stains...i just don't get it. He thinks in weird and obsessed with cleanliness...

Oh the tea towels. And the grease.

All our tea towels are disgusting with stains except three that hes not allowed to touch.

The tops of cupboard doors, or the tops of drawers. How can they get dirty?

DH is exactly the same. And he will clear up, just, some time the next day . . . And if I do as Seeker suggests, I too get the eye roll, and if I'm really unlucky it'll develop into an argument about my OCD, which I don't have, I just have higher standards than him. And he thinks that it's unfair that I make him adhere to my high standards. (He doesn't understand why bedsheets ever need changing, for instance, or towels, either, unless they're mildewy.)

If you cook and clean up than why doesn't he cook and clean up? I avoid dh cooking for this very reason. (he does my washing up but I am not prepared to do the same when half the cookery is out.)

My DP is the same. He actually loves cooking, is very good at it, and does more than half, some weeks he cooks all the meals. Other weeks I will cook during the day (am a SAHM) and clear as I go along and then just do the dishes afterwards. When he cooks, he sometimes clears up as he goes along but 70% of the time doesn't. If we eat early I do the dishes afterwards. Otherwise I do them in the morning.
Doesn't really bother me though, I can do them the next day. He goes out to work all day whereas I can do what I want which sometimes involves spending a fair amount of time on my bum! Am generally happy with the deal.
At least your DH came home and cleaned up in the end!!

Train the bastard

My DP used to do this until I made his life so unbearable that it's just not worth it anymore he wants a quiet life

he now cleans as he goes.

Clipped.

Its a slooooow process.

Yanbu, (which my phone changes to Tabby).

My dh cooks almost every meal, leaves the kitchen in chaos, but has to clean up and load dish washer before he goes to bed.

Took me three years

Im only 18 months in.

Gonna have to step it up a gear

He made yummy jalfrezi tonight. But cooked pasta to have with it

Thankfully he realised in time to make rice.

He sounds like a real good one there, just a bit rough round the edges

Yes. A diamond in the rough.

My mother trained my father. If thats possible anything is. The first time she went to his own house for dinner he was eating cornflakes out of a frying pan because all the other dishes were piked in the sink

Piled rather.

We do joke about "training" maybe OP but a good man learns how to make you happy and if cleaning the kitchen as he goes does that over time he will, same as some things you do aren't to his way, then you adapt. It's a wonderful thing that you can look back in a few years time and see how you have both accommodated each others foybles.

Its true. I have relaxed a lot over the time with him. As long as its both ways its a good thing

When my DP and I first met we locked horns like you wouldn't believe and if I had have posted in relationships then we would have both been up for abusive behaviour, being such strong characters. Over time we have adapted and I'm now beginning to truly love him and him I.

*Another time I found mint sauce on the dining room wall - I suspect done by his over vigourous stirring on way to dining room table.....

He's very good a breadcrumbing things too, but FFS the mess after.........*

Hahahahaha!

Well, all I can say is that these men must have enormous willies for thm to get in the way sooooooooo much they can't reach the sink. So difficult for them, poor darlings. Intelligent Design really got it wrong there, didn't it?

seeker

Not unreasonable at all. My husband uses two pans when cooking bacon and eggs. Drives me nuts. Also doesn't wipe down work tops when doing the dishes. Grrrrrr.