The general detritus of living with a man (lighthearted)

[SecondUsername4me]

Our home is by no means show home. It's well lived in, always needs a bit of a tidy etc. However, the additional bits of crap that come with living with a man frustrate the fuck out of me.

Obligatory NAMALT here. And it's meant to be lighthearted.

Dh got into the habit of dropping keys and change on a specific point on the sideboard. I bought a dish for it all to sit in, and put it on that spot. I don't mind he drops his stuff there, but it's easier for us to wipe surfaces down if it sits in a dish.

Of course, now the dish is basically full. And because he cba to sort it out / root through it for his keys, he now puts his crap beside the dish.

He has a hobby (don't they fucking all), and we don't have a garage, so the shit that goes along with the hobby ended up sat in the corner of our bedroom. I dug out an old (giant) hamper from the loft that we hadn't found a home for yet, put it in the spot he dumped his hobby shit and told him to use it for that.

Of course, now it's either too full or too awkward to root through, so all the hobby shit sits on top of the hamper and defeats the purpose.

He makes notes on bits of paper which are "important" then leaves the sheets of paper lying round the living room for three weeks.

If and when I'm Tidying, anything that I can see of this ilk, I gather up and put it on his bedside table. If and when he invariably asks for it, I just tell him anything I find of his I put there and he should look there.

He is fine at all the big jobs. Laundry, cooking, bins, child stuff, cleaning, hosting, arranging stuff, DIY, bins, car stuff etc etc. Literally we both do a "get it done" approach. We both work ft and have 2 kids around 10yo.

But the little bitty bits of shit. Argh!

He buys chopped logs in these bin bag sized bags for the log burner. We have both a log store in the garden and a big basket to the right of the log burner to keep logs in. What does he do? Dumps the big (multiple) plastic bags in the corner of the living room so it looks like a bloody lumber yard. Just put them away some place!

Maybe I'm finding it more annoying as there's less space in the lounge due to the Christmas tree but the little bits of shit just honestly make me fantasise about living alone

I threw DH stuff in the bin much to his chagrin when he started to annoy me leaving stuff out I also put it all under the quilt on his side of the bed. I told him if he leaves any money out I will take it, take no prisoners woman!

I hear ya

Yup I hear you, they just have so much 'stuff' don't they?

My ex of 15 years had a massive bin bag full of wires, mostly comprising of old mobile phone chargers, we moved around a lot and he took the bag of wires to every place we moved, never ever used any of them, just left them taking up valuable storage space. It was lost I binned it during our last move, he never even noticed.

Our house is 90% dh's stuff. But it is the fluff that bothers me! His feet pick up all the bits from the carpet and then that gets deposited in the bed or washed off in the shower and collects in the plug. When he wears socks - just normal, cotton socks - he takes them off and he is covered in sock fluff. I have no idea why he is so fluffy!

Box it all up and put it in his car boot...

We share a car

And a bank account so all money is mine and his regardless!

I've no doubt there are mundane things I do that infuriate him too but I doubt he does that chuntering under his breathe as he navigates my pitfalls.

General Detritus (salute).

This post made me smile as it reminded me of our house. No matter what I do to declutter and bring order to our lives, this exact thing happens. I'm just as bad for it. I think it comes from thinking "this is the storage solution" but the storage solution isn't big enough for the whole problem (certainly in the case of the hobby) coupled with some people being incapable of challenging every item in the tidy place so all the stuff at the bottom that probably lives elsewhere gets left there and can't be seen under all the stuff that actually does live there. And having no time to just sit down and sort through it all in one big lot so it builds up.

I have a theory that they purposely make men's socks out of finely-woven tumble dryer lint so it can slowly decompose all over the house and make beige carpets look awful. Especially the black socks.

Reminds me of my ex husband. He used to get home (from anywhere, work or otherwise) and kick off his shoes under the living room coffee table. There they would stay, until he discovered he had no shoes in the wardrobe and pick them all up. Then start all over again. Used to drive me nuts!

His other habit was to do everything half-arsed. He'd put the washing on, but then just leave in the machine to go mouldy. Or, I'd ask him to put the stuff from the machine into the dryer and fold and put away. Nope. He'd leave the dry clothes in a pile on the washing machine. He'd make toast, then leave the butter and spread out on the bench. Put the milk back in the fridge with only the tiniest little bit of milk in the bottle, rather than go buy some more. Leaving one sheet on the toilet roll, rather than change it.

I could go on (and on and on!). I have been living on my own for the last 25 years!

Mine is good with clutter, he has an office now and everything goes in there. I only despair at the clumsiness! A sharpie in the pocket means there's now marks on our sofa, a hot pan means there's a mark in the kitchen worktop. It's been 15 years so I've mostly made my peace with the fact nothing will ever be perfect in our house though!

I am a woman and live alone. I have all this shit too. I have keys and hobbies. I don’t leave paper notes though, I use phone reminders like a normal person.
Pretty sure none of this is sex related though.

Yeah but if you live alone, you are in complete control of it. It's not the having stuff, it's the having to share the space with the bits that aren't my doing.

It's not a man thing it's a human thing.

My point is, it’s not a man thing, it’s a different levels of comfort with crap thing.

God, that sounds infuriating. My DH is borderline OCD and really enjoys cleaning, tidying and minimalism. Our garage is full of his hobby stuff which is fine as I don't go there.

My DH does all of the above but also absolutely none of the latter (housework) so I see your detritus and I raise you detritus plus weaponised incompetence! Yes my fault for marrying him, I did know, I was stupid and naive because I love the fucker (poor taste).

We have this in our house but it's all because of me. DP is a neat freak who likes everything put away, I like things where I can see them.

I also have hobbies, as do all the women I know, so that's an even weirder thing to be "men, what are they like" about.

I could write a very long list re my ex, but he also did the thing of putting dirty clothes next to the clothes hamper and dirty plates on the counter next to the dishwasher.

Michael McIntyre does a lovely joke where he does this and his wife points out that when she takes their two toddlers out, she doesn’t just put them on the pavement next to the car!

She puts them in the car.

Oh god yes. We have a big trug under the bench in the utility for recycling. He puts the recycling on the bench on top.

Honestly all of the mum friends I have with primary aged children and full time jobs don't have hobbies. I assume space frees up once all the kids are in secondary / socialising more with friends than family.

I have time off from the kids, eg nights out with friends, weekends away once in a while - but none of us have regular weekly hobbies.

The only mums I know who do anregulsr gym class / weekly hobby of some sort are part time/retired/child free.

Just having a chuckle about this, I remember it well!

Happily divorced and live alone - I recommend it!