AIBU to expect my husband to learn basic household habits?

I’m asking why he can’t learn, when he is able to learn other things at work.

people have told you the answer to this, and you have dismissed them, called them dramatic, insane and probably some other stuff but I’ve only skimmed.

because he doesn’t respect you as a human being. He’s sexist. This is not his role, it’s yours.

that’s the reality.

im off to talk to my daughters once again about having standards.

Its interesting the amount of people talking about how he might be at work.

At work I am exactly the same as I am at home. As in I will faff about getting not much done, then intensely focus and get loads done. Because the work I produce when focused is of a good quality and done in good time (even if it was a frantic rush), I am well respected at work. My reputation is very good.

So yes I do well at work but not because I am any more motivated or organised than I am around the home.

He is a lovely man at work, probably. Not at home.

Of course he’s capable of doing these things.

He just can’t be arsed.

I'm not one for setting a low bar but it's not exactly a.porn or strip club addiction is it? Twice divorced for cheating on his wife or 3 babies with 3 different mums type situation

But that is annoying though, and wasteful. Loading up the dishwasher with a cup that's only had water in or a single cup of tea. There needs to be a balance and agreed expectations.

My DH is not tidy. He genuinely wouldn't care if the house was a pigsty. The thing that annoys me most is the clothes lying about. He's taken to piling his worn but not dirty clothes ON TOP of the washing basket lid, I reckon he thinks that's better than the floor yet now I have to remove them to get the dirty clothes out. I dump them on his side of the bed. He has good qualities though 😂 depends how much you will let it bother you and whether they expect you to pick up after them.

But this is not being a bit untidy is it?
This is a complete lack of respect to his wife. If he loves her then he should make an effort. Maybe he will need reminding, fair enough, but he should then do as asked and not bellyache.

What on earth did you find attractive about a man who leaves snotty tissues and dirty clothes lying about the place in the first place?

A star chart like he's 5?!

My dh is similar to yours OP. He leaves his dirty socks on the floor (has been doing it since 21 when I shared with a flatmate who continuously told him off for it), dirty tissues, cupboards and drawers open ..... BUT He's otherwise amazing, attentive, the best dad, loving, super intelligent, looks after himself and works out, lucrative clever career and loves us. And so what? None of us are perfect.

Being able to read is not part of dyslexia testing. It is a whole series of activities looking at spatial awareness, processing capacity and speed and many other things. I was recognised as dyslexic as a child and then had to get retested when doing post grad qualifications. I seem to remember being amoung the lowest 2% of the population for some things. Successfully completed my post grad and work in a professional career though.

Edited to add: I also have a tidy home ( well as tidy as living with a toddler usually is).

I wonder if he has ADHD, which means he can literally be about to take a cup downstairs but forgets when his own thoughts distract him.

As for a fix,

• he is a competent professional at work, so you could ask him how he would solve this if it were a work problem and how would he deal with someone on his team who did this. I am reminded that many men are incredibly good at their jobs and capable of learning new, complex processes but still unable to do the same at home. So remind him that he is a capable person doing things that indicate he’s incapable.
• A star chart like he’s five. Stars for socks, mugs and tissues with a reward at the end of the week.

As divisive as the subject is, I'm sure we can agree that there's a world of difference between being a bit more relaxed about housework/having other priorities but cleaning up after yourself when convenient, and not bothering because if you leave it long enough someone else will do it.

I'm also a bit offended by the dyslexia comment, although this is based on my own family experience (DF, DB & DD are all dyslexic, but although they are perhaps disorganised, they're not dirty or lazy. DF did all the housework for at least 20 years because he was retired and DM wasn't)

I would suggest that OP's DH is perfectly capable of seeing mess and doing something about it - as she says he does do the washing up when the kitchen is unusable (so when someone else stopped doing it for long enough).

So the question is not 'why can't he learn?' but 'why doesn't he do it?'

My ex was like this, would leave dirty plates on the counter next to the dishwasher, wouldn’t put his clean clothes away and lived out of a pile.

Frustratingly he would rummage through piles of clean clothes that I would have folded and leave everything a mess to find a T-shirt he wanted.

He also had a habit of when eating takeout, he would eat straight from the container, fair enough, but he was too lazy to take the fork out of the container so would just through everything in the bin. I didn’t know he was doing it until we ran out of forks!

He was astonished when I said one of the reasons I was leaving was because he had no basic respect for me.

Sorry op it’s not dyslexia he’s lazy simple as that. I have people in my life with it and they are more house proud Than some of their wives. Also a man once told me if you keep asking for something I keep ignoring you so maybe he’s not listening but he’s very capable he just doesn’t want to. Op there is a post on here very similar to this one my advice was leave everything where it is and let him run out of stuff tell him if it’s not in the wash basket it stays there also same with all his other crap. The more you do the more you are enabling his laziness.

You definitely need a serious sit down about this. There is a difference between leaving something for you to clean up and leaving something for himself to clean up later but you swipe in a do it because you can't stand the mess while waiting. People have different standards and it might be that you are incompatible right now. Cups lying around don't bother me but leaving cupboards open gives me the rage, dh obsesses over little stains on the carpet. Socks on the floor seems ridiculous but again does he leave them for 3 days or just until he is going upstairs? I think maybe a list of chores is needed that you write together, including a general tidy up every evening for those cups and socks etc. Include a list of absolute no tolerance things. I know a couple where the woman said the man was lazy because he didn't think the whole kitchen needed mopping every day, I agreed with him on that one. I also have a friend who doesn't 'let' her DH do certain jobs because she needs to do them right. There might be two sides to it. Sorry if I'm wrong, I obviously don't know you. Maybe he is just a lazy arse but it's worth trying to work it out now

you leave snooty filled tissues by the side of the sink to love there forever?

fair enough

but then you don't start a relationship with someone who is messy. You don't have to change your ways, but neither have they.

I think I'm a little worse for short term habits (e.g. I sit away from the bin, so I put everything in when convenient whilst my husband huffs). Or I will leave the odd little thing on the side during the ay whilst doing childcare then tidy up at the end.

But what I can't stand is his failure to have habits for non-disposable things like keys and hats and sunglasses. My son is on his third sunhat in two months because my husband keeps losing them, he leaves his keys just fucking anywhere, ditto sunglasses. I just don't understand how he can get so wound up about my not jumping up and down to the bin all evening when he'll leave random detritus everywhere.

I used to date someone with ADHD. Strangely, it exhibited itself in an almost compulsive need to flit about tidying and fixing everything he could see. I used to have to tell him to sit down and relax and I am quite neat.

On a side note, my 8 year old son puts things in the bin without prompting. If he can do it a grown man definitely can. I find incompetent men deeply unattractive.

He can learn. He has learned that hitting KPIs at work results in promotion and increased status. He has learned that leaving things to be picked up at home results in them being picked up. You can look at your role in this and focus on what is within your grasp to change - i.e. stopping the picking up after him that you have been doing for years without protest. Changing this variable will empower him to learn that him not picking up after himself causes friction in the home, and he may then elect to adapt his behaviour to avoid that friction.

Everything he leaves about socks shoes tissues throw them all together in a black bun bag then when he complains tell him this is what will happen ftom now on.
My( Ex )husband ended up with two bun bags full of crap and clothes in the shed to sort through because he ran out of clothes. He had other nightmare issues hence ex (he's now on wife 5)

Current husband knows not to leave clothes on the floor and is generally tidy apart from finding screws, screwdrivers etc about.

I do this - I use a mug for a cup of tea in the morning, rinse it out and leave it by the kettle for my afternoon cup of tea. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

Hits the nail on the head, I'm afraid.

My partner of 17 years is the same. We don't live together, thank fuck - and I've decided because of this we never will (until I get too old to care, possibly).

Mine is 55 and was recently diagnosed as ADHD. So now he has a convenient excuse for not doing the basic stuff...

He does clearly leave the mess for OP to tidy up though.

That’s the problem. To me, it is a very basic thing to clean up after yourself and there isn’t a compromise.

It's super annoying when they do that. It's usually just bad habits and absent mindedness as well as having different standards for cleanliness or tidiness.

Try and approach it practically, as it's a practical problem that can be resolved. He needs to take responsibility. For example he could set reminders on his phone twice a day to go around the house tidying his socks/tissues etc. Or write himself a list of things he needs to do and set an alarm once a day and go through the list. You may need to tolerate some mess until the alarm or reminder rings!