AIBU to expect my husband to learn basic household habits?

Was he always like this?

Very old fashioned I meant to say. Sorry, got a bit carried away with my rant 🤣

Not always due to upbringing. My partners parents were incredibly neat and tidy. I used to watch in amusement whenever we visited how careful he was to live by their rules. At home, everything is left at his arse, waiting for the magical cleaning fairy to clean up after him.

People are as lazy as we allow them to be.

Ahh OP, I have had this conversation many times with my friends and mother. My partner is the same. Never thinks of putting a wash on or running the hoover around. I honestly think he thinks the house does these things itself 🙈 i was never taught how to clean and organise, you just learn through observation.
My partners mum has driven me mad many times as she will say that 'men just dont see these things' and it's 'a woman's job' (yes it boils my blood! We've had many disagreements about feminism lol
she is very old gashiiomed and was shocked that DP changed tje kids nappies and got up to to bottle feeds when they were babies!).
My partner does the cooking but not good at cleaning up as he cooks so kitchen looks like it's been hit by a bomb by the time the meal is ready. Also incapable of sticking to a meal plan and likes to be 'spontaneous' then wonders why all the ingredients he wants are not in the fridge!
I blame years of social conditioning! I spend hours cleaning and my life has been taken over with the laundry since having twins, while my DP just chills out happily oblivious. I think for your own sanity you just have to roll your eyes, let it go and just get in the habit of leaving a VERY CLEAR to do list for him or it just isn't going to work out.
It's a mystery why so many men are like this isn't it 🤦‍♀️

I have two glasses and three mugs on various surfaces in my home office. They belong exactly where I put them. I also have a pile of clothes on the floor. I'll move them to the laundry basket, and take the mugs downstairs, in the fullness of time, at a moment convenient for me. They're not my number one priority.

Fussing over everything having to be put away immediately goes over untidy people's heads because fundamentally we disagree that it actually matters.

DH is the same. Drives me absolutely mental that he can't put shoes/socks/belts away and leaves them where he takes them off. Glasses put down where he finished them, mugs on every surface. I honestly don't think that it enters his head that they don't belong there and it's certainly not weaponised.

So I take the clothing/shoes and put them into a random cupboard where it takes him ages to find them. It's very rewarding hearing him crashing around opening/banging doors shut on his little mission. You'd think that after 35 years together, he'd have learned..... but nope, his training is still ongoing.

but the point is, why should they care?

Don't get me wrong, I do. But a lot of people, men and women, do not care about being tidy. Is there really a valid reason why they should?

Now if he expects someone to do his laundry for him and collect his crap from the floor, he's an arse. He could also make an effort for his wife.

But who decides really who is right who is wrong?
I am sure some people find my house "too tidy" because I like clean empty spaces.

I second this. Either he grows up and behaves like a responsible adult or you split. The frustration and resentment will build up anyway so it's just a matter of when, not if.

Thank god someone's already written this.

Do you know what me and my partner do if one of us leaves a mess and the other points it out? We apologise and make a concerted effort to do better and we actually DO BETTER sure sometimes you slip up but you can set phone reminders, put up post its... all sorts. Lots of people say they'll remember next time and then do fuck all proactively to make sure they actually remember.

Yet they can hold down a job, drive a car etc. I bet some of these blokes will have a spotless car or organised hobby/sports stuff or manage multiple small tasks in work perfectly successfully. What do you think it is about this mundane domestic tasks that is so different?

I can't comprehend why people can't make their bed. Get up, straighten sheets, open the windows for an hour while you get ready, then make the bed and close windows. That's less than 2 minutes of your day.

I don't think that people who can't be bothered are wrong. They do what they want in their own home

(my kids will do whatever they want in their home, but my house my rule for now 😂)

Who decides who's right or wrong in their own bedroom?

Wrong would be refusing to change the bedsheets, because nowhere is it netogiable.

Of course they do.

Having a penis doesn't suddenly make someone incapable of knowing that dirty socks go in the washing basket. Even my 3 year old knows that.

It’s because there’s no consequences. At work, if you keep repeatedly doing a thing you’ve been asked to not do, theres going to be issues.

At home, I guess he knows deep down that you’ll clear it up anyway. My brother is very much like this. Holds down a big job, leads a big team but somehow is unable to put a teabag in the bin or shut a drawer after he’s opened it. We used to joke it was like the scene in Sixth Sense (the movie) where Toni Collette’s character walks into the kitchen to find that a ‘ghost’ has left all the drawers and cupboard doors open.

Has he ever lived alone? Did he do this when living solo? What would happen if you grifted your teeth for a week or two and stopped clearing up after him. Leave his stuff where he drops it. Would he notice?

Who decided that the "correct" place for the salt and pepper grinders is next to the wall? Was it written in the deeds to the house?

None of the things you've described are beyond the pale. I'm an untidy person and I do most of them. None of it matters. DH is more tidy with me but he accepts a certain level of untidiness that comes with marrying me (on my part I've improved a lot since I first met him).

That last bit is the key - DH and I knew what we were both like before we even lived together, let alone got married. We compromised and adjusted accordingly and now we're married we accept that this level of mess - more than he would like but less than I'd be comfortable with - as the default.

You seem surprised to only discover after you married him that he's messy?!

https://www-huffpost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink

Send him this article. Not because you are threatening to divorce him, but because he needs to understand how this makes you feel.

He gets mildly annoyed when I put dirty cups/glasses that he was “planning on using again later” in the dishwasher…

This though would annoy me in his place. I like the work saving of refilling a glass. I get frustrated when people take mine away too early and make work because I dirty another. I think the two of you need to sit down and decide together which habits are okay and which aren't.

And then work on making them habits so you don't have to think about them. e.g. I never think about putting dirty socks in the laundry bin, because I do it on autopilot. But I've got lazy about taking dirty plates through to the kitchen. And I've only myself to do it for. I do it for the other person if I live with someone.

Actively recognising that I want to skip flossing for example, but I've decided that I'll do it and there's nothing that makes tonight special so I just need to do it is the mindset shift you need. Then it becomes less of a hump to get over

My DH is the same, he has got better since I refused to wash anything that wasn't in a basket, but shoes left all over the house are the bane of my life (especially as DCs have now picked up this habit). Part of it is I think he's happier with mess than I am but we do however strongly suspect he has ADHD.

I think that they genuinely don't understand.
Their brains only register it when something reaches a critical point.

It's about the lack of respect and consideration. I wouldn't stay married to a man like that if he didn't change either.

Though I likely wouldn't have married him in the first place if he thought my job included picking up his socks.

How was he when he was alone?

I can see some friends who would drive me utterly insane, not just men frankly. I don't care in their house, I am a guest, but if they were living in MINE, I would explode: the pile of clothes waiting to be folded and put away, the pile of post and random paper just doing nothing, drying rack and a full one next to the sink and so on. Coats on the stairs, things and things on surfaces, stuff everywhere.
They're happy in their own home, great.
We would not make a happy couple 😂

I think there need to be a compromise when you live with someone, and be a bit respectful of both sides, but you also need to be realistic.

MY own basic is what others call "frantically running around to make the house marginally visitor-ready". You can't really expect either side to change personality.

No. But because he does not see his wife as an equal.

Ffs, just after I pressed ‘send,’ to my previous post, I went into the kitchen to find an empty milk bottle (plus the fucking plastic seal for the new one) on the table. “Finished with this, have you?” was met with a raised eyebrow and, “Finished that coffee I just made you?”