To not want to take ‘constructive criticism’ from clinically clean DH

Tell him to do it himself. Less work for you and he can stop pontificating.

Did you miss the part where he leaves before all of them and arrives after, meaning OP takes them to and from school/ childcare and looks after them either side when he’s not around? If she did 40 hours out of the house they’d have to pay someone else to do that work, but at least then they’d be ‘even’ in your view.

Well said. Clearly a Stepford Wife has entered the chat 🙄

Who is leaving dirty pots? The OP is rushing out with her kids in the morning and loads the dishwasher at the first available opportunity.

This man is going to wonder where the divorce came from...

Constant criticism and judgement will eat away at a marriage far worse than the 'crime' of putting cups in the dishwasher a little later.

See the Gottman's work on this- it's one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalpse and it heralds the breakdown of romantic love and one partner withdrawing from perceived criticism.

My husband used to do this and I used to say (in a tone of wonderment) 'it's just so amazing I managed to look nice, run my own home and have a great career before you came along to advise me on how to live my life better'. It didn't stop him making the odd remark, but it did stop him constantly advising me on how to be a better person.

Tell him that you have some advice for him on how to sustain romantic relationships and how to be a better husband, and if he wants to swap advice on that for his advice on how to run the home, then you are happy to sit down and discuss this with him.

Leaving things on the side to wash later is fine.

Putting things away in the wrong cupboard is not, and I don't understand why someone would do that. It just makes things harder to find when you need them.

Clearing up as you go depends on whether it makes a worse mess or not. I clean as I go, and have had issues with some people men who don't. Because they'll pull stuff out the cupboards or fridge and plonk them on a dirty worktop, later making the cupboard/fridge dirty when putting the things away. By the time they clean up, they forget they've spilt food on the floor (which has been trodden round by then), left smears on the cupboard doors, splatters up the wall, and so on. So won't actually clean up properly. If you do clean up properly (and cook without making such a mess!) then no problem leaving it to the end.

Tell him something like this...

'Thanks for the tip but I'm going to carry on as I am. I have the children to deal with. Please could you put the dishes in the dishwasher yourself in the mornings if you feel I don't do it efficiently enough.

In fact I'd rather you just did things the way you like rather than giving me tips or instructions on how you wish me to do them. You're not my employer.'

@BIossomtoes but OP does load the dishwasher and do the washing up (and everything else) but just not at the time that her DH tells her to do it. And he even isn’t in the house to see when it is or not being done. He is not impacted at all

I've yet to see a post where a woman complains about her husband leaving pots all over the kitchen while he's also doing everything else. Its usually in the context of him doing nothing. If you want to draw an equivalence then make it an actual equivalence.

@blossomtoes , OP is leaving breakfast things on the side after her DH has already left the house, then she tidies after the school run.
If you'd read OP's posts you'd see that she is clean and fairly tidy but not to his exacting standards.

I don't think so. Not if he was doing all the childcare morning and night as well as working and all the woman was doing was looking out for herself and then complaining. I think we'd be just as sympathetic to whoever is doing work and childcare and being criticised by the other.

And I don't think his 8 hours extra work justifies his position at all. We all know that 'real' work with adults is often easier than looking after kids and the tedium and aggro of those daily routines, so he's not excused just because his work means he's handily not around for any of the domestics except for cooking his and OP's dinner, which it sounds like he wants to do/likes.

I would get him to swap the morning routine with you for a few days. So you just get yourself ready and he can do all the things you would do. That would be the best way to see if things could be improved or if he’s just being a bit judgemental (which I think he is).

This thread is an absolute joke. If it had been a woman complaining about her husband not loading the dishwasher and leaving dirty pots all over the kitchen the response would be the complete opposite.

So he basically does absolutely sweet f.a. other than look after himself, clean up after an evening meal for two [not the whole family] and clean surfaces to his standards with the occasional spot of hoovering?

And criticise how you do EVERYTHING else? Have I understood that correctly.

I am struggling to see how you two "share cleaning responsibilities" at all. Let me guess - you take the kids out on a Saturday while he blitzes his chores?

Personally spectrum or no spectrum you navigate this by losing your sh*t so he thinks twice about further constructive criticism in the future.

If he wants things done a certain way then he has to do them end of story. He gets up earlier so he can clean before going to work.

Every time he complains the way you do something tell him as he can do it so much better, it is his job now.
Don’t put a single item in the dishwasher again.

Agree about getting worse with age.

for example in the mornings it’s a bit of a rush. I tend to get up, do breakfasts, hair, feed pet and get out of house. DH will get up, feed himself and leave

He needs to do what you do in the morning whilst you get up get yourself ready, eat breakfast and leave.
Great wanting the house to be clean as long as he doesn’t have to do it.

DH likes the dishwasher stacked in a certain way (and to be fair he can get more in there than I can). Guess whose job it is to load the dishwasher.

he will help clean up - if his way is so much better, he can do it and you could help him. You have a passenger seat driver not a co-driver, @Pigsinbl4nkets12345 .
Not RTFT.

From reading previous threads on this and similar topics. I am sorry to agree with many others that the tendency is for this obsessive behaviour is to get worse with age.
To continue together OP for the sake of the family, will have to manage him.

Why, oh, why are you pandering to him? 'Like or lump it' is a phrase we use up North. If it's a problem for him, let him do it himself.
Seriously, the sheer arrogance of him trying to better you takes my breath away. That's not ADHD, it's unpleasant and rude.

"It’s like this with most things, loading dishwasher, putting items in cupboard etc. to the point that I feel worried doing these things wrong when they’re happening"
It is not normal to be worried about stacking a dishwasher and I do not think you are the problem here.

I can see multiple red flags:
you are worried and modifying your behaviour to meet his demands,
you have stopped raising issues with him because they never get resolved,
when you do raise an issue it is deflected back on you as your fault or problem,
you are doing a lot of unseen work and being criticised rather than supported.

These can be signs of emotional abuse. I would suggest keeping a diary of your interactions with him so you can build up a clearer picture of how he behaves and how this affects you. Once you have that picture you might have a clearer idea of what the best course of action is for you.

I don't think you are the problem OP. I think you deserve the freedom to leave a dirty cup out for later.

OP my partner is constitutionally very much like this: also I strongly suspect on the spectrum (although no diagnosis). Also likes things done in a certain way.

He would never tell me he needed everything to be spotless or anything like that (because he knows that wouldn’t fly). But he had a tendency, for example, to suggest that I use one particular knife over another one or suggest a method for washing up for “efficiency”. None of it is intended to be controlling or patronising, it’s supposed to be helpful but that’s how it feels and it really goes against the grain for me because its not how I tick.

I am naturally quite a chaotic cook, for example, and I only loosely follow recipes, whereas he follows recipes to the letter, but I am a good cook and a much better one than he is so it really pisses me off that someone with a rotating roster of seven or eight recipes is telling me how to cook.

After about a year together I properly lost my shit at him and basically shouted at him to stop telling me what to do. I think it brought it home to him that what he perceived to be “helpful feedback” was actually controlling and highly annoying. It still slips out occasionally but he knows to check himself. I think sometimes you have to really read the riot act and make people understand what a total pain in the arse this can be.

If you were sure it is a ND issue I wouldn’t comment but as you aren’t sure

Tell him it is his methodology that is inefficient. Giving you criticism and direction for your betterment clearly hasn’t and will never work. It isn’t just not making you a better person it is doing the opposite, it’s making you an anxious resentful person. If what he is really trying to achieve is to have all housekeeping done his way, the efficient approach would be to do the whole lot himself.

If he wants things done in a particular way, he needs to do it himself. It's unfair he's putting this on you and the children to be spotlessly clean. A home should feel comfortable and even a bit lived in - not worried over a cup going in a dishwasher that will get done an hour later.